They gave you a clue when they said no abduction. That’s a big statement to make at this early in the game. It’s been 24 days since Lily and Jack Sullivan were reported missing from their home in Lansdowne Station. Family members have speculated the children were taken, but police have remained adamant they do not believe the siblings were abducted.
According to Nova Scotia’s recently updated policing standards, abduction is defined as when a person under 18 years of age or a vulnerable person is taken without the permission of their legal guardian. What I see from the outside, there’s only two options here. Criminal involvement search. They haven’t found them yet. They legitimately got lost in the woods.
I felt, okay, let’s give them a couple days to see if these kids are just wandered off because they’re only six and four. So, are they lost? They’ll find them. Maybe. If not, let’s see how far it goes. And I says, “If it goes beyond two or three days, uhoh.” That was my reaction. What’s next? Uh-oh. No one could have predicted that two children would vanish from a trailer deep in the woods of Nova Scotia, leaving behind more questions than answers.
But that’s exactly what happened on May the 2nd, 2025. 6-year-old Lily and her 4-year-old brother, Jack Sullivan, were simply gone. What followed wasn’t just another missing person case. It was a maze of contradictions, missing hours, and a family story so fractured it made investigators and the public question everything they thought they knew about how children disappear.
But the truth is, this story didn’t start on May 2nd. It started long before, buried in silence, surrounded by isolation, and overlooked by everyone who might have seen the warning signs. The children’s mother, Maleia Brooks Murray, came from the Sypnikatic First Nation, the largest Mikmach community in Nova Scotia.
Proud, rooted, and close-knit. But somewhere along the way, she left that life behind. She entered a relationship with a man named Daniel Robert Martell, a 33-year-old who lived alone on his family’s property in Landown Station, a remote speck of a town with barely a hundred residents. Dirt roads, no cell service, houses scattered like they’d been dropped from the sky.
Everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew how to keep secrets. Malea moved in with Daniel in May 2023. She brought her three children, Lily, Jack, and a newborn baby named Meadow. She left her people, her roots, and any support system she had. And just like that, they disappeared into the woods, figuratively, long before they did physically.
Daniel’s home was his childhood trailer. Nearby sat a second run-down trailer where his mother lived, overflowing with cats and a dog, a place locals said smelled like waste and sounded like constant meowing. That patch of land became the last place Lily and Jack were ever seen. Daniel worked just one day a week at a local lumber mill, yet somehow supported a family of five.
No one could explain how. No one really asked. In places like Landtown, people mind their own business. Lily and Jack started attending Salt Springs Elementary, a tiny school with just 86 students. Their bus driver, Brian Ward, remembered them clearly. Lily liked to sit at the front and let out wild screams of excitement.
Ward had to gently remind her to calm down. Jack, on the other hand, was chatty, often throwing his boots forward when he wanted attention. This surprised some people. Daniel and Malea had claimed both children were on the autism spectrum and non-verbal, but the stories didn’t match. Malea described her children as talkative, kids who would talk you to death.
Daniel’s side of the family said the kids didn’t speak at all. Teachers said they were quiet, but not silent. The contradiction hung in the air like smoke, unclear, but impossible to ignore. We’re all filled with pain and sorrow because we just want them found. We want them home. Everyone loves them. They are definitely verbal and they do have possible autism, but it’s not extreme autism.
It’s just they have um issues with um school and uh they don’t catch up with the other kids. I’m just I just want to remain hopeful. But there’s always in a mother’s mind, you’re always thinking the worst. Last night was one of the worst nights because I didn’t have them in their beds. And I don’t want to go through that another night without them.
The trailer they lived in was modest, beaten up, surrounded by kids toys and rusting car parts. Inside, children’s drawings covered the walls. One of them written by Lily read, “My mom makes cupcakes. She plays with toys. We watch movies. I love my mom.” Next to it hung a red painting of a bug. Jack.
He loved bugs, especially turning over logs to find worms. He had a favorite pair of boots, too. Blue ones with cartoon dinosaurs on the sides. Just a few steps from the trailer in the woods, toys were scattered like they’d been dropped midplay. the kind of frozen moment you see only after something has gone terribly wrong.
In the final week of April 2025, things started to unravel. The last confirmed day Lily and Jack were seen was Tuesday, April 29th. Brian Ward, their bus driver, dropped them off at the end of their long driveway. He never saw them again. Daniel initially claimed the kids only missed school on Thursday and Friday, saying Lily had been sick.
Then he changed his story, saying they hadn’t attended at all that week. But a teacher recalled seeing Lily on Monday. After that, nothing. Between April 29th and the morning of May 2nd, no one outside the home could confirm seeing Lily or Jack, not neighbors, not school staff, not even friends. That 72-hour gap became the dark void at the center of this case.
Friday, May 2nd, 2025. The day began as Maleia later described like any other. She said she woke up around 8:00 a.m. Dozing in and out of sleep. She heard the children playing in the next room. Normal familiar sounds. What happened was we woke up. I heard them playing in the next room beside us and I was drifting in and out of sleep.
And they’re not the type of kids that we tell them not to go outside on their own. We always make sure that we’re out there with them, watching them. Daniel gave a different version. According to him, he saw Lily a few times at the doorway and heard Jack in the kitchen. He said he asked them repeatedly to be quiet because Meadow, their 16-month-old baby, was sleeping in the bedroom.
But the first red flag was this. If Malleia was dozing and unaware, how was Daniel having conversations with children near her? And if Lily kept coming to the doorway, why didn’t her mother recall that? Daniel went on to describe Lily’s clothing in detail. She was wearing a pink shirt, he said. But in another statement, he contradicted himself. I didn’t see Jack that morning.
Then added, “But I know Jack was wearing his blue boots with dinosaurs. How do you know what a child was wearing if you didn’t see them?” They took their boots. That’s pink boots for Lily, blue boots for Jack with dinosaurs on them. Lily had her backpack with white and it was white with strawberries on it.
I imagine now they’re in the woods that it’ be probably brown, but I don’t see them carrying their backpack. I don’t see them keeping a pull-up on for that long after it got soaked from the very first day. Then came the moment that changed everything. Around 8:20 a.m., both parents claimed the house suddenly fell silent.
“The kids were just gone,” Maley would say later. “I noticed the quiet and got up. Daniel said the same. It was too quiet. I jumped out of bed. The next thing we knew, the room like it was quiet. And we get up and I tell him, my partner, Daniel, I tell him, “Do you hear the kids?” And he says, “No.” And we get up instantly. We We’re looking outside.
We’re looking everywhere, yelling for them. And I instantly just call 911. As this 20-minute window would become the most dissected part of the case. In those 20 minutes, two small children, one wearing pull-ups, the other reportedly sick, allegedly got fully dressed, opened a door, walked down a dirt road, and disappeared without a sound.
No footsteps, no bark from the dog, no dragging boots on gravel, no doors creaking, nothing. Outside, the morning was calm. No recent rainfall, no tire tracks in the mud, no signs of struggle. Lily’s pink boots, Jack’s blue dinosaur boots, gone. But the contradictions didn’t stop there.
Daniel and Maley gave conflicting timelines. When exactly did they realized the children were missing, when did they call for help? How much time passed? They said they searched the woods, called out their names. But neighbors nearby said they didn’t hear anyone shouting that morning. Not until police arrived. Investigators later said the couple’s stories changed repeatedly, and that was just the beginning.
What happened to Lily and Jack Sullivan in that isolated trailer between April 29th and May 2nd, 2025? Where did they go? Did they leave on their own or were they taken? And why? Why, in a home full of adults, pets, toys, and noise did no one see them go? This is just the beginning of a story that defies explanation.
A story full of silence, secrets, and shadows. Most parents know that even the smallest child can’t leave a room quietly. The sound of a boot sliding on the floor, the rattle of a jacket zipper, the clumsy attempt to open a door. Something always gives them away. But on that cold May morning, Lily and Jack Sullivan supposedly slipped out of their trailer home in complete silence.
No footsteps, no creek, no slam of the screen door, just gone. Malahya later said it herself. You can’t hear it when it opens. She was talking about the back door. They happened to just get out that sliding door and we can’t hear it when it opens. Daniel confirmed it. It’s practically silent when you try to open it.
He said, “For a home filled with small children, a silent back door should have been a terrifying detail, but in this story, it felt more like an excuse, especially considering what happened next.” Daniel often said the kids left that door wide open. It was one of his frustrations as a stepfather. He’d always remind them to shut it.
But that morning, according to him, Lily and Jack not only managed to sneak out undetected, they also gently closed the door behind them. That act alone contradicted everything he ever said about their behavior. There was also a fence, a proper one, meant to keep the chickens in and the children safe. Two small kids, one in pull-up diapers and the other reportedly coughing from sickness, would have needed to unlatch the gate, open it, and close it again or climb it.
Somehow, they left no sign of how they got out. No drag marks, no broken twigs, no disturbed wire. And then, as if the wood swallowed them whole, they were simply gone. Daniel’s version of what happened next is as fragmented as the trail left behind. He claimed he immediately searched the trailer and backyard, places where Lily and Jack like to dig for worms or feed grass to the chickens.
When he couldn’t find them, he jumped in the car and drove up and down nearby dirt roads, peering into ditches, calling their names. Few days have been very stressful. I mean, ever since the Friday, Friday morning when we noticed that the kids children were gone, immediately jumped in the vehicle, surveyed all the area, as many dirt roads, as many culverts as it could, and waited for the police to get there.
Malea, on the other hand, said she stayed home and called 911. But here’s where things started to truly fall apart. The 911 call was logged at 10:03 a.m., but a separate RCMP dispatch record noted the disappearance happening closer to Adox. An unexplained 2-hour hole had just opened in the timeline. What was happening in that silence? What really occurred between the moment the house went quiet and the moment they decided to ask for help? By the end of that Friday, the pressure was already boiling. Tension between Malaya’s family
and Daniel erupted in a shouting match outside the trailer. Voices rose. Accusations flew. Something had broken. And by Saturday, what was left of the family fractured completely. Daniel and Maleia showed up together at the local search and rescue command post on Landown Station Road. But according to Daniel, something unexpected happened.
In the middle of the briefing, Malea stood up, walked out, sat down quietly in the back of an ambulance, and left with her mother, and with Meadow, the baby. I haven’t seen or heard from her since, Daniel told reporters later. The children’s stepfather told CBC that after the disappearance, the children’s mother left the area to be with her family in another part of the province and blocked him on social media.
My mother had to kick kick uh kick some people off the property cuz they was saying that I did it. I had something to do with it and I’m the only one here fighting for them, which is sad. Just 24 hours after the kids vanished, the people who should have been united in fear and grief were already disappearing from each other.
Then came the visit to child protective services. Daniel said he went to the CPS office in Stellarin to see his 16-month-old daughter, Meadow, but was denied. At this point, I can’t be around her, he admitted in an interview. No public explanation, no formal charge. But he was already barred from seeing his own biological child. For a man who claimed to have nothing to do with his stepchildren’s disappearance, it was a chilling development.
By May 7th, 6 days after Lily and Jack were last seen, Staff Sergeant Curtis McKinnon gave a statement that froze every reporter in the room. The probability of survival is extremely small. Today, May 7th, the active search efforts to locate Lily and Jack will be scaled back. We’re transitioning from a full-scale search to searches and more specific spaces.
Spaces have already been searched by our teams. We want to circle back to increase the probability that all clues have been found. And when transitioning from an active search to a scaleback search, the probability of survival is taken into consideration. I want to assure you that our missing person’s investigation continues.
We’re not packing up and we’re not giving up. Our investigation is broad and it won’t end till we know where Lily and Jack are and can bring them home. We’ll continue to investigate and chase leads for as long as and as hard as we have to. We have the best investigators working every aspect of the file.
We continue to appeal to anyone who have information related to our investigation and who has not yet spoken to us to contact the Picto County District RCMP at 9024854333 or Crimestoppers. Before I close, I want to reiterate that our hearts go out to Lily and Jack’s family, to the community, and the people who’ve worked so incredibly hard to date.
Many of us have children of our own and have want nothing more than to reunite Lily and Jack with their loved ones. Over 160 searchers had been working daily. Volunteers, helicopters, drones, dive teams, thermal imaging dogs. The thick, confusing forest around Gerlock Road had been combed again and again. Still no trace of them.
No clothing, no footprints, no remains. And then came the announcement that turned the story on its head. RCMP’s major crime unit has been involved since May 3rd. Just 3 days after the kids supposedly went missing. Homicide detectives were already embedded in the case. In typical missing child cases, the major crime unit doesn’t show up that early.
Not unless something about the scene screams foul play. Not unless police already suspect that a crime, possibly murder, occurred. By May 8th, the entire command post had vanished. No press tents, no helicopters, no tactical units, just yellow tape blowing in the breeze and tire tracks pressed into the mud.
The symbolism wasn’t lost on anyone. A full-scale rescue mission had just quietly become a criminal investigation. That’s when they came for Daniel Martell. Investigators arrived at the mobile home and requested all of his electronic devices, phones, tablets, computers, anything that could help verify his timeline.
An RCMP helicopter had flown over the property earlier that day, scanning the landscape again from the air. Meanwhile, Daniel was brought to the Stellarin detachment for questioning. He later told reporters that he walked them through the morning minute by minute. They asked about my bank accounts, my phone data, my Google Maps.
I gave them everything. Police combed through it all. GPS routes, call logs, even attempted to identify any unknown phones that might have pinged nearby cell towers. Then, unexpectedly, Daniel offered to take a polygraph test. RCMP declined to confirm whether they’d accept. Further details will not be disclosed.
spokesperson Allison Gerard wrote in a statement. But the offer itself raised eyebrows. Most people fear polygraphs. Avoid them. Daniel was practically begging for one. What did he think it would prove? Reporters later reached out to Malea by phone. She declined to comment. She said police had advised her not to speak to the media.
That fact, more than any statement, suggested everything. In most missing child cases, authorities encourage parents to go public, to make pleas for their children’s return, to put their faces on TV, to beg, cry, scream, anything that might bring the kids home. But the RCMP had told Malahya to stay silent. That silence said everything.
Last time we chatted that you’d offered to do a polygraph test. That is correct. Has that already happened? That has happened. Right. And did you get results from that yet? I do have results. and I don’t know if I can share those results, but they would go good in my favor. We’ll say that. Martell says he is glad the police have put out the additional call for footage and is again asking anyone with information to come forward despite not having had contact with the children’s mother, Malaya, since May 3rd when she left the search area. He says an RCMP liaison has been
assigned to keep them both informed as the investigation progresses. trust the RCMP word word. And I mean, you don’t have to trust my word, but I’m the only one doing media for Jack and Lily, trying to keep the story alive and get them found. According to RCMP, any future searches will be determined based on the course of the investigation.
By the middle of May, the case had stopped being about missing kids. It became about how they disappeared and what hadn’t been said. Former detective Michelle Jeans, who had investigated dozens of child disappearance cases, said it best. It could just be a horrible coincidence. But something about that missing 48 hours doesn’t sit right.
Criminologist Michael Artfield from Western University was even more direct. When you put this case next to a 100 other missing children investigations, it doesn’t add up. And he was right. The timeline didn’t add up. The silence didn’t make sense, and the family, what was left of it, was nowhere near acting like one.
What really happened in the woods off Gerlock Road that morning? Were Lily and Jack victims of chance or of something much darker? Whatever the answer is, the truth was no longer just hiding. It had started rotting beneath the surface. When investigators look at a missing person’s case, they start with one question.
What’s the first verifiable fact? In the case of Lily and Jack Sullivan, the only thing anyone knows for certain is that two children vanished. Everything else, every explanation, every quote, every gesture is buried under layers of contradiction. Steve Ryan, a former homicide investigator, said it best. the story the parents gave police.
They woke up and the kids were gone. That’s it. No witnesses, no evidence, just silence. And silence is a terrible place to start. By now, the woods around Gerlock Road had become a battlefield of sorts. The effort to find Lily and Jack was one of the most intense missing child searches in Canadian history. Every day, over 160 people combed the forest floor, pushing through 5 square km of tangled wilderness.
Helicopters circled overhead. Drones scanned for heat signatures. Search and rescue teams kick into high gear, and new technology is starting to be used across the country to help in these searches. The RCMP have what’s called forward-looking infrared or flur technology. It’s a kind of thermal imaging that detects heat signatures.
In cases of missing persons, it can be used to find body heat in a forest. It’s been an incredible tool for us. We’ve had uh at least two finds um with thermal imaging of subjects and it just gives us the ability to operate in the dark. The technology is often attached to a remotely piloted aircraft or drone so it can scan specific areas and feed that information back to the operator on the ground.
The operator will then analyze the footage and identify certain colors that may or may not be the missing person. Baldwin says it works really well in the winter because a person’s body heat stands out, but he says it’s more challenging during the summer months. As we move into spring, summer here, we will be relying more on our virtual camera for searching because the treetops, rocks, things like that retain heat and they are very close in temperature to a person and it makes it very hard to uh distinguish what you’re looking at in the image. Baldwin
says the technology isn’t capable of seeing heat underground or in the water and tree cover can also hinder search efforts. Drones are excellent for searching reason regions where it’s hard to access on foot. Uh cliffy areas, deep drainages. Um but where their um obstacles come in is actually the the canopy of the trees.
So how dense the forest is. As we move into the spring here, everything’s greening up. That makes it harder to to penetrate to the fourth floor. Um, so that’s where it is possible to fly over someone and not see them. So while the technology is a helpful tool, he says nothing will replace on the ground searchers. The most success you have, it’s people on the ground falling out and getting a response.
That by far has been the most successful way we’ve found people. Um, but why not have drones in the air? Why not have helicopters? Why not use every tool um available because it just does increase your range and the number of eyes on the scene. Search dogs picked up faint scents and vanished into the trees. Crews climbed over logs and crawled under fallen branches in the thick undergrowth.
And as if the landscape itself weren’t brutal enough, it was tick season. They may tell them, “Uh, we got a chip and we just want you to go in that area and search and see if you find anything.” They’re not going to tell you exactly what is in the tip. It’s not going to do it. They don’t even tell their own people that unless you are in the know, right? Unless it’s like you’re in that investigative group.
I just I find it hard to believe that a six and four year old just disappear like that. I can guarantee you if I was still working today, that’d be the thing to be you’d be racing around your mind all the time. Like where would they have gone? Like we have done everything. I think the last thing I read the search and square kilometer area 5 kilometers that’s a big area that’s a big area and that’s meticulously Nova Scotia’s forests were teeming with insects carrying Lyme disease anoplasmosis babisiosis even Pawasan virus
icks are always a problem said search coordinator Amy Hansen yesterday we found fresh bear tracks so some of the areas we searched we do what’s called a hasty task asking, so it’s very quick. And we’ll send a more in-depth search team into the same area, but we’re also expanding out into areas that we haven’t really had boots on the ground in just to get more areas covered off.
The forest wasn’t just thick. It was alive and dangerous. On the fourth day, a flicker of hope appeared. Searchers found what looked like a small footprint, possibly from a child. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Search crews reoriented immediately, expanding coverage in the area. For a moment, everyone thought, “Maybe, maybe they made it into the woods on their own.” But that hope didn’t last.
No matching tracks followed, no broken branches, no fabric caught on bark, no toys, no trail. It was the first and last physical clue they would find. Then came the strange discoveries. A pink blanket. children’s shirts, a water bottle. None of it belonged to Lily or Jack. The items were found in a section of forest where no other families lived nearby.
No missing kids were reported, no camping groups, no birthday parties, no reason for children’s belongings to be there. And yet, there they were. It was like the forest itself was whispering. Something happened here. Just not what you think. Meanwhile, something else was bothering the search teams. Lily’s white backpack with red strawberries, the one Daniel swore was bright enough to be seen from a 100 yard, was never recovered.
Neither were Jack’s blue dinosaur boots, nor Lily’s pink boots, nor Jack’s pull-up diapers, not a shoelace, not a strap. Not a thread. Daniel gave an interview during this time. Calm, composed, his jeans were clean, shirt tucked, not a scratch on him, and yet he spoke of running through waistdeep water, screaming until his throat gave out, outrunning helicopters and drones.
His words didn’t match his body. And then his language shifted. We covered every everywhere possible. Even in the first day, we did. Even with me running through the woods, I was ahead of the helicopters and ahead of the drones and stuff like that. Screaming, screaming loud as I can just until my throat hurt, running through water that was up to my waist.
And as soon as I got back, I wasn’t allowed back in the woods until a man dressed in military outfit said I could go back into the woods. Instead of pleading for his children’s return, Daniel started describing them like case files. “They’re easy to take,” he said. He explained without emotion that if the kids had made it to the road, they would have gotten into any car that offered food or candy.
Lily wasn’t even wearing a coat. Jack had been coughing all week. But suddenly, they were agile enough to sneak through a fence, trek half a kilometer, and hitch a ride with a stranger. Daniel didn’t beg. He didn’t cry. He analyzed. Then came the language that made experts uncomfortable. Just one day after the children disappeared, Malaya began using words like sorrow and grief, terms typically reserved for mourning the dead, not missing persons.
Daniel followed suit. Jack loved bugs and dinosaurs. Lily loved girly things. Jack are awesome kids. Very kind. They’ll they’ll talk to anyone. They want to go with anyone. There’s just looking to have as much fun as they can. Jack just absolutely loves bugs, dinosaurs, and anything like that.
But Lily, Lily loves girly things, but she also love doing everything with Jack. Bugs, they’re like best friends, not just brother and sister. The use of past tense raised immediate red flags. Were they giving up or did they know something? When searches resumed on May 17th, Daniel gave another interview. I just hope they find something. Not them, not my kids, just something.
For investigators, that was chilling. Parents don’t hope for something. They scream for their children. On May 9th, the RCMP’s underwater recovery team began searching nearby lakes. Drones and divers swept the area. Boats used sonar to map underwater terrain. Police weren’t just thinking about a lost child wandering off anymore.
They were now considering bodies deliberately hidden in water. At the same time, a quiet memorial was forming. Outside the Stellarton RCMP detachment, someone left a large white teddy bear, a small bouquet of flowers, no names, no cards. The community was already mourning, even though the kids were still officially listed as missing.
Then something happened that truly disturbed professionals watching the case. On May 13th, 11 days after the children disappeared, the RCMP issued a press release correcting Lily’s name. They had been spelling the little girl’s name as Lily, but her name was actually Lily with a double L. A simple typo, maybe. But after hundreds of hours of interviews, investigations, and family contact, how had they still not confirmed how to spell the missing child’s name? It was more than an oversight.
It was a symptom. A breakdown between police and family. A disconnect that should never happen in a case this serious. By May 15th, the RCMP had identified 35 people for formal interviews. Neighbors, teachers, distant relatives. Tips were still pouring in, over 180 in total, but most were dead ends.
The investigation now involved multiple specialized units. forensics, missing persons, and major crime. On May 17th, searchers returned. Over 100 people from five different SR teams. Amy Hansen, still leading the effort, gave a statement. We wanted to come back with fresh people and cover more ground.
We haven’t resolved the situation yet. But even she sounded tired, faded. On May 18th, over 115 volunteers searched key zones near Gerlock Road. The team worked into the evening, but Hansen had already begun preparing the public. We don’t anticipate continuing tomorrow. That night, RCMP confirmed the ground search was over, at least for now. The search wasn’t suspended.
It had simply shifted from a rescue mission to something else entirely. Behind the scenes, it had already changed. The next steps were no longer logistical. They were forensic. Police weren’t just looking for missing kids. They were preparing for the possibility of a crime scene. As the case gained national and even international attention, the digital world reacted like wildfire.
Social media exploded with theories. Some blamed the mother, others the stepfather. Some speculated about human trafficking, cults, conspiracies. Rumors became accusations. Accusations turned into harassment. Canadian lawyers stepped in. Under Nova Scotia’s Cyber Protection Act, those spreading defamatory claims online could face civil lawsuits.
The RCMP quietly encouraged restraint. The message was clear. Stop turning pain into clicks. Meanwhile, life in the tiny community had to go on, even for those closest to it. 3-year-old Dylan Eer’s disappearance in 2020 instantly sparked despair and concern amongst the public, as many took to social media to speculate on what could have happened to the boy, who had seemingly vanished mere seconds of being left alone in his grandmother’s yard.
But online theories quickly spiraled into unproven information. Some users going as far as accusing his parents of killing their child. Eer’s parents have never been charged in their son’s disappearance and filed a civil case against two Facebook users that ended in a court settlement. But 5 years later, as another missing children’s case rocks the province, widespread speculation has returned.
Similar to what we dealt with on the Eer case, there are a lot of online rumors that I’m I’m noticing online. Um, and and a lot of accusations against the parents. 6-year-old Lily and 4-year-old Jack Sullivan were reported missing from their home in Landown Station on May 2nd. A police investigation into the missing children is ongoing, but that hasn’t deterred the public from launching an unofficial investigation of its own on sites like Facebook, Reddit, and X.
with respect to the spread of misinformation, inaccurate information, and speculation. Um, I just want to say that that that’s harmful. It’s harmful to the families and communities who are trying to work their way through a traumatic traumatic event. And um, so, so I really want to encourage people to be kind. There’s a lot of information and the police have to follow up on every lead.
But when a lot of it ends up being rumors, it’s just it’s taking away from uh valid calls that they’re getting and valid information that they would like to follow up on. And the average social media sleuth could be risking far more than a slap on the wrist. If it rises to the level of criminal harassment or threats, the police will certainly get involved and there can be criminal charges laid.
On a civil side, the the victims of these bullying posts do have some avenue to get justice. So they can file a an action in Supreme Court for under for a cyber protection order and a judge can order the people that are posting to stop to take down posts to remove uh groups from online uh and even to the extent that depending on the the harm that is done, damages can be awarded against the offending party.
And for anyone who is experiencing cyber bullying or is worried about information that’s circulating about themselves, they can reach out to Cyber Scan to get supports with that. Brian Ward, the school bus driver who used to greet Lily and Jack every morning, kept driving past that worn white trailer every day.
Only now the laughter was gone, and the silence meant something else entirely. Every day after the disappearance, the kids on the school bus would press their faces against the windows as they passed the old white trailer on Gerlock Road. “Did they find Jack and Lily?” they asked their driver, Brian Ward.
“Not yet,” he would gently reply. “But the police are doing everything they can.” And every afternoon, as the wheels bumped over the dirt road, the same two seats remained empty. front row, right side. Their name tags were still taped above them, untouched since April 29th. The day ward dropped them off for what would become the last time.
Inside the trailer, time had stopped. Lily’s note still hung on the kitchen wall. My mom makes cupcakes, plays with toys, and watches movies. I love my mom. Jack’s red bug painting still clung to the faded wallpaper. These weren’t just drawings. They were echoes. Tiny artifacts of a life that ended without a sound.
Outside, toys lay scattered among the trees, just steps from the house. A tricycle tilted in the dirt. A plastic shovel wedged under a log. The forest didn’t seem overgrown or dangerous. It looked paused as if the children had been called inside but never made it there. Neighbors felt the weight of it, too. Madison Spears, who lived a kilometer up the road, said her young daughter had played with Lily and Jack.
This hits really close to home, she said. And then she repeated it. Really close to home. The whole community seemed to fall under a kind of shadow. Lissa Scott’s trail cameras might contain clues about the disappearance of Lily and Jack Sullivan. RCMP asked her for days of footage as the investigation into the missing children approaches the 3-w week mark.
It’s scary, especially not knowing what happened. We definitely keep our kids a little closer to home now. The four and sixyear-olds were reported missing from this home on May 2nd, launching a massive search of the woods surrounding the home. No trace has been found, and RCMP haven’t ruled out the case is suspicious. This is some of the footage Scott gave police.
She says RCMP major crimes officers came to her home this week asking for everything on her seven cameras starting April 27th, 5 days before the kids were reported missing. Two of Scott’s neighbors were also asked to provide footage to RCMP. She says the officers also asked about her family’s vehicles to rule out local traffic in the footage.
Possibly they are wondering if they didn’t go missing earlier or uh maybe somebody who isn’t local to the area was around beforehand. I did mention to them that I was very happy to see them and glad that they were canvasing a little further and looking at trail cam footage and they did respond saying that uh they probably should have been around earlier.
The kind that doesn’t lift with sunrise. As days blurred into weeks and weeks into months, the story fractured into a dozen theories. Officially, the RCMP still held to the idea that Lily and Jack wandered into the woods and got lost. But experts pushed back. Children their age don’t go far.
And if they do, they don’t vanish completely. No clothing, no bones, no scent trails. Statistically, the odds of leaving zero trace were almost non-existent. Daniel began pushing a different theory. He spoke of kidnappers, urged authorities to expand the search, called for provincial and airport alerts, but the police never issued an Amber alert.
Why? Because they had no evidence of abduction. Others suggested the kids might have drowned, explaining the underwater recovery efforts. But that didn’t explain the complete absence of even a single item. No shoes, no backpacks, no footprints near water. And then there was the darkest theory, the one no one wanted to say out loud, that someone inside the home had harmed them.
It wasn’t just the early involvement of the major crime unit, or the broken timeline with its 48-hour hole, or the conflicting stories, or the door that didn’t make a sound, or the idea that two young kids managed to dress, slip past sleeping adults, unlock a fence, and vanish in 20 minutes without waking anyone. or the fact that the family fell apart within 24 hours.
It was all of it together, layered like something that was never meant to be solved. Even the woods gave their own strange reply. A pink blanket, a water bottle, a child’s shirt. None of them belonging to the missing children. Almost as if the forest had staged a scene, but for someone else’s story, Staff Sergeant Curtis McKinnon tried to reassure the public.
“We continue to work day and night,” he said. “Like all Nova Scotians, we want answers.” But by then, it was clear the answers weren’t going to be found in the soil or beneath the lakes. They were hiding in the silences, in the skipped minutes, in the gaps between what was said and what wasn’t. The case that began as a search for two lost kids slowly transformed into something else.
A story about time, about contradictions, about how reality can twist into something that doesn’t follow the rules. In a world of GPS, surveillance, and constant digital signals, Lily and Jack Sullivan didn’t just go missing. They vanished as if pulled into a gap in the fabric of the world itself.
To this day, pink ribbons still hang on trees along Gerlock Road. The drawings on the kitchen wall have yellowed. The name tags still hover above empty seats on the school bus. And the same question still hangs in the air. What happened to Lily and Jack Sullivan on the morning of May 2nd, 2025? No footprints, no witnesses, no goodbye.
Some mysteries end in answers, others fade away. But this one, this one burned itself into the quiet corners of a rural town and refuses to let go. I need space for notes there. So, we’re going to have to move some of the some of these guys. Yeah, some of these will have to be moved for our notes at least here. Is that okay? Is that cool? Yeah.
Thank you for doing that. Thank you very much. No problem. We didn’t know we had to like stand here. So, is that okay if you like that? Uh, yeah, that should be okay. Thank you. Good afternoon. Sorry. Good afternoon. I am Corporal Karly McCann, provincial public information officer for the Nova Scotia RCMP.
Thank you all for being here today. Carly McCanni. First, I acknowledge that we are in Migmagi, the traditional and unseated ancestral territory of the Migma people. I also recognize that African Nova Scotians are a distinct people whose histories, legacies, and contributions have enriched that part of Migmagi, known as Nova Scotia, for over 400 years.
distinct. At this time, I invite the following officers uh to the podium with me. Inspector Mike Engles, District Policing Officer for Northeast Nova District RCMP. Staff Sergeant Curtis McKinnon, Picto County District Commander. Staff Sergeant Rob McCammon, acting officer in charge of Major Crimes and Behavioral Sciences Group.
And Amy Hansen, search manager with Colchester Ground Search and Rescue. Uh, Staff Sergeant Curtis McKinnon will provide you with an overview of the efforts to find Lily and Jack. He will review the search and investigation that began on Friday morning and provide the current status and next steps.
We will take uh questions from media present following that. I invite Staff Sergeant McKinnon to the podium. Thank you all for being here today. First of all, our thoughts go out to the family and loved ones of Lily and Jack Sullivan, to their communities, and to everyone who’s worked day and night in effort to find the children and bring them home.
Since the first 911 call was received by the RCMP reporting that 6-year-old Lily and four-year-old Jack had wandered away from their home on Garlic Road in Lansdale Station, a multi- agency search has been underway. teams have been working around the clock. This search has included many agencies including volunteer ground search and rescue teams from across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The Civil Air Search and Rescue Association known as CASera, Department of Natural Resources, Air Services, Nova Scotia Public Safety and Few Field Communications, Nova Scotia Guard, Joint Rescue Coordination Center, Salvation Army, the the Canada Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 5, and several RCP units, including police, dog services, and drone operators.
Since Saturday, because we treat all missing person files as suspicious until our investigation leads us to determine otherwise, our major’s crimes unit has been engaged. It’s been an an all hands-on deck effort using every available resource and tool since the search began on May 2nd.
It has been concentrated in the Garlic Road area and has covered four square kilometers of heavy wooded rural terrain. Up to 160 trained volunteer searchers along with many others have been involved in the search each day. Tens of thousands of search hours have been dedicated to scouring the area and GSAR has confirmed that over 100 tracks has been laid using GPS and grid searches.
Efforts to locate Lily and Jack have also included two vulnerable missing person alerts, posting their children’s photos and information on Nova Scotia RCMP website and social media accounts. Our social accounts have more than 300,000 followers and releasing information to local media as well as reporters across the country.
Lily and Jack have made headlines from coast to coast. While the search has been ongoing, RCMP officers continued with the missing person investigation, speaking with family and community members to gather tips and other information that could help locate the children. We have not received any confirmed reports of sightings. Lily and Jack’s family has been provided with regular updates on the search and on the missing person investigation.
They’ve also been afforded supports. As of today, May 7th, the active search efforts to locate Lily and Jack will be scaled back. We’re transitioning from a full-scale search to searches of more specific spaces. Spaces have already been searched by our teams. We want to circle back to increase the probability that all clues have been found.
And when transitioning from an active search to a scale back search, the probability of survival is taken into consideration. I want to assure you that our missing person’s investigation continues. We’re not packing up and we’re not giving up. Our investigation is broad and it won’t end till we know where Lily and Jack are and can bring them home.
We’ll continue to investigate and chase leads for as long as and as hard as we have to. We have the best investigators working every aspect of the file. We continue to appeal to anyone who have information related to our investigation and who has not yet spoken to us to contact the Picto County District RCMP at 9024854333 or Crimestoppers.
Before I close, I want to reiterate that our hearts go out to Lily and Jack’s family, to the community, and the people who’ve worked so incredibly hard to date. Many of us have children of our own and have want nothing more than to reunite Lily and Jack with their loved ones. Thank you. Thank you, Staff Sergeant McKinnon.
I’ll now provide his remarks in French. Jack Sullivan Jackown station. service. Salvation Army
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vast Aspectto. Aquilia Jackville. We will now proceed with the question and answer period. For the benefit of all participants, please provide your name, the outlet you represent, and to whom your question is directed. We will
be limiting the question and answer period to one question and one followup. So we’ll start on my left over here if someone has question on this side. Yeah for Canada you said you’re going over areas that are easy. What’s the purpose of that when before that you were telling us you were extending the search and if you could say it in French in English.
Do you’d like to start in English? Oh, sure. What we’ll be doing is we’ll be continue on just because today the scale the search is being scaled back. We still will continue on. We will go back to areas that we feel that we may need to re relook at um and we may expand out if if there’s any type of information that leads us to believe that we need to do that.
So, if you’d like to follow up. Oh, sorry. I’ll like why like how would that help you to specifically go to places that have been searched by hundreds of people like you’re saying? Like how could that help you find? Yeah, there because of the the terrain, there could be um different types of things that we may want to try and get back in if if if we are able to locate anything um that may come up that we that the searchers uh didn’t go uh catch the first time.
But um we will do everything we can to try and find Jack and Lily. Weather changes as well. Yeah. And uh based on the weather, the season changes, we we’ll we will we don’t want to leave and we won’t we’re not leaving. Um it’s just that this part of this this search is being scaled back. So um Novo shows labia.
Yes. I guess you know you’ve done an incredibly exhaustive search in the area. Uh and major crime is also here and having not found these children having done an you know very thorough search. Uh can you tell us like the role of major crime in this and and what you can tell us about that investigation? Uh uh Rob McCammon first Robert and uh MCCA M is the last name.
Um so Major Crown became involved very early in the investigation. uh we’re able to bring in some specialized knowledge and skill sets and we help with the information management and uh decision-m um as we scale back as we’ve identified there are certain areas that uh are going to be relooked at uh that could contain a confined area perhaps and maybe need some more specialized search areas but I’ll leave that to the search crews to uh to expand on and we’re going to continue um uh pursuing any leads or information that comes in and the stuff
that we do have uh we have uh engaged all areas of the RCMP. All tools that are available to us are being considered and uh engagement appropriate. Do you have a followup? Yeah, as a followup that I guess the general population looks, you know, looks at it and says you’ve searched very thoroughly this area.
You would have found them if they were there. Which then makes people, you know, certainly on social media people are assuming uh rightly or wrongly that there’s some criminal element to this. Sure. And can you I I mean I know what what can you tell me about that your work on that potentially? Well, I I can’t really speculate on the investigation.
Obviously, that wouldn’t be fair to the process, but um we are constantly reviewing everything that’s been done, looking at all different facets of available information and we’ll make decisions on that. I can’t really comment on the details of that, but we will pursue every lead that becomes available and uh take it to where it needs to go.
Thank you. So, uh, is there a question? Yeah. Uh, sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Nicholas saying national news. Um, you you first said it wasn’t suspicious. You think the kids just wandered off. Now you’re saying every missing person’s uh investigation is considered suspicious. Is it still suspicious? Are there any suspects here? Uh again I’m not going to comment on the details of the investigation but I will comment when somebody goes missing and we become engaged as any police officer not just major crime we will look at all
the details and make considerations on the information we have right uh when it comes to a missing person we have to automatically consider uh uh those uh are there people that are have different charter implications things like that so we will automatically start to consider what evidence is pointing us towards a suspicious in nature again I can’t comment more than But every missing person case, we would approach it from the same process, a methodical uh collection and review of information with decisions based on that. And the
family has said they believe it’s an abduction or they suspect it’s an abduction. Are there now any clues or anything leading you to think that that might be possible to do this? Uh if we had any information that led that way and we felt that we could provide anything with the public, we would have done that.
Uh we would have got that information out. We’re working very closely with the family and we will pursue every avenue, but again, I’m not going to make any specific comments, but anything that would point towards that, we would immediately take steps to to address uh things that need to be addressed. Uh my roy uh I think this question is most appropriate to staff sergeant.
You talked about survivability. I was wondering if you could address that specifically given the ages of the two missing children and the weather conditions we’ve experienced these days. Yeah. So uh the incident command uh person that with the RCMP along with the search manager at some point have to make decision how when would they scale back this search and a number of factors would have to take consideration and they would uh based upon uh scientific information that they have to deem uh when is that time is has to come and
that is now and those a lot of those factors uh come into play would be the age of the mer miss missing persons the weather, how long it’s been, what area it’s been covered. So, uh, at that point, they have to make a decision on that. I hate to ask this, but given their age or the conditions, if they were still in the woods, do you think they simply I guess it goes back to all those factors have to come into play, right? So, um, we are scaling back because, um, it’s time to move to a different part of the search.
Paul Harv scale pack versus active search. I know yesterday there was a number at or around 140 searchers on the ground before SC before you said can you quantify what scale pack is like fewer searchers smaller area larger area. How does that look going forward? Yeah. So um just to go to the first point there’s a lot been a lot of searchers here and uh we can’t thank them enough for being here.
uh they’ve given up mo a lot of them have been here since day one and they have given up some have uh taken time off work some have left their families behind and we are very grateful for that saying that we will look in on them and their senior managers to give us some recommendations of what else we can do but we will take that and we will explore whatever we have and whatever we can do to check in spots that uh need to be checked or whatever.
But at this point in time, um after today, we just won’t see uh all these searchers here. Sure. Amy, if you’re comfortable with that. Thank you. Thank you. I saw a person yesterday who was dressed like the Olympic being carried out. People are hot and sweaty to the South Point. A lot of hard work.
Can you talk about how rough it was in the woods? Like it looks almost impossible. What did you see? What’s your people on your team? And you went into the woods. Well, in these woods that they are very thick. There’s a lot of the hurricane damage from Fiona a couple years ago and we’ve had teams struggling to get through areas and I can’t say anything more about the searchers.
They’re pushing through all of these areas, going through all of these dead falls, going through waterways and anything possible just to cover their search areas. So, we know that everything has been so thoroughly searched that there’s it’s time to, as they say, scale back and we are exhausting people. We’re starting to see more injuries coming back the last couple of days and uh it’s just it’s hard terrain.
Amy Hansen and and he and uh I will note as well having had the opportunity to uh participate yesterday in a a helicopter search as well. It is immensely clear uh looking from above uh based on the the orange tags on the trees how thoroughly uh and meticulously the area has been searched based on uh the indications you can see even from up in the air of how thorough the searches are.
So I I also um give a hats off to the the many many searchers who have have participated here um in support of finding Lily and Jack. Uh yeah. Would you like to go ahead? Um just with the search still continuing in the forest, is there evidence that uh the children are in the forest? Yeah. Very slowly. Are our radios able to pick up uh staff sergeant here with this train? That’s it. Okay.
Well, wait. We’ll wait. Side effect. Slow down. Is that any Is that any better at this point with the bell passed? I’ll um I’ll I’ll note as well the the reason that the train is passing by slowly uh is out of respect for the fact that Lily and Jack are are missing here. So it’s it’s passing slow in order to have their
staff be aware um and and note the the missing the ongoing missing person investigation happening in the area here. Uh so that just does again speak to the number of people involved and aware of this search and everything that’s that’s happening in this area and the awareness uh uh and the way that the information has spread so widely uh through Nova Scotia and Canada.
So uh I think we were with your your question. Yeah. So it was just about um would you guys still investigate children in the forest? Have you found any evidence that they are in the forest? Okay. Have we found any evidence that they are? Yeah. So, at one point there was a possible boat uh impression found and I can tell you that they uh search and rescuers then perform grid searches of that area and expanded out from that area in a meticulous fashion.
They’re focused and tight searches and nothing else was found. And you believe that uh that found was children. It appeared it was a possible bootprint of a a smaller bootprint. So when we have a possibility like that, that’s when we exhaust that area as well. So make make sure that that wasn’t a clue that we were missing. Lindsay Armstrong with I’m wondering I understand K9 units have been involved.
Have cadaavver dogs been involved at this point? I don’t believe cadaavver drives been involved at this point yet. Will they become involved? I’d also like to circle back to Blair’s question on survivability. If you can give a little bit more detail there about how you’re making the region bringing in cadaavvers and assessing survivability.
So, uh, cadaavver golf could be the next step in terms of part when we talked about scaling back. That could be another option that we now look at using. And getting back to that point, I mean, that decision was made based on a lot of factors. And if we thought they were alive right now, we’d still be out there. Could be.
Does that mean that no plans be ahead? Not that I’m aware I can speak to of the cadaavver dive dogs are coming or not. I can’t speak to it. Is there a question here? Do you have you two have something global? Okay. Shi I’m Lindsay Jones with the Glob and Mail. Um wondering if you can clarify. We heard a major crime has been involved since Sunday.
Is that correct? Uh Saturday morning. Since Saturday. Okay. Do can you believe the children of met foul play? Do you want to talk? Again, I’m not going to comment on specifics of the investigation. We’re going to continue on and when we get to a point that we’ve got information that we’re able to make any decisions that are able to be public, we’ll we’ll let you know at that time.
But right now, uh I’m not going to comment on specifics. So, okay. So, but it you don’t believe the children are alive any anymore? No. That based on the experts and the review of the facts, the inclement weather, the time frames, and their age, the the likelihood that they’re alive right now is very low. Okay.
And can I just ask one more question about this the scaling back of the search? Are you reducing the number of searchers out there or is it being concentrated just with RCMP now or what what’s how how is that looking differently on the ground? Yeah, absolutely. So the searchers will be finishing at their end of their operational period today and now it’ll come back to the picto district RCMP and we will make decisions and uh put in plans of how we move forward.
So, so rather than having the large uh presence here, the the the massive number of searchers on scene every day, um searches will be based on information that comes in and and specifics uh in order to make things uh pointed and specific to areas that uh that that are pinpointed or or specific to a a a search need in the area. So, um I believe we’ve gone through the the the group for for questions at this point.
So, out of respect for uh the police officers here and the the many searchers who are still there, uh I’d like to conclude our media availability today. Oh, sorry. Is there one person with Sorry, my apologies. Sorry. Alex Dere you mentioned you’re circling back to find clues. You talked about the blueprint. Are there anything you’re looking to find, expecting to find, or usually find in these situations? We’re looking for any type of clue, any information to help us out and then we’ll take that information and uh work forward from that. Second followup. Is
the blueprint still involved in the search process or was that deemed to be not relevant? I can’t say that not relevant, but it was exa the search was exhausted in that area and we were not able to um find any more clues or evidence in that that area. So, thank you very much. Sorry. Can you clarif uh you just said to the previous question that the ground search and rescue is being called like the volunteers are being called off after today? Yes.
At the end of the operational period today they will be done. Can you say that in French? uh so again um out of respect for the search and rescue teams that continue to be on scene here and uh the the police uh as well uh we conclude this media availability uh today u and our thoughts do remain with Lily and Jack loves Lily and Jack’s loved ones at this difficult time.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Everybody’s name It’s been 4 weeks since Daniel Martell has seen his stepchildren. 6-year-old Lily and four-year-old Jack Sullivan were reported missing Friday, May 2nd, after they wandered out of their Picto County home. They have not been found after weeks of extensive searching the heavily wooded area.
Every day when I wake up, it’s just feels like I’m reliving a nightmare of May 2nd. But the the main feelings is from sadness, it just turned to anger cuz there’s no evidence as all as of after 1 month. And it’s it’s really taken a toll. On Friday, RCMP say ground search and rescue crews and police will return to the area this weekend, focusing on a nearby pipeline trail where a blueprint was previously located.
I know that they’re working hard and they’re using every resource they have and it makes me hopeful because that’s all we have at this point is just hope. A vigil of flowers and stuffed animals has grown in recent weeks outside the RCMP station in nearby Stellarton. Since May 2nd when Lily and Jack went missing, people here in Picto County are still struggling to understand what happened and why there are still no answers.
every day almost I go by um the RCMT and uh it’s just it’s just so tragic. Just so tragic, you know. I I just feel so bad for their whole family. I’m I’m hoping that they find them. It just doesn’t look look good, but let’s I I hope I’m wrong. The warden of Picto County says many people are on edge and children are worried about playing outside.
Oh, I think it’s mostly a mood of of uh anxiety maybe and frustration. Uh they too can’t believe that there’s not an answer uh by this long and and this many people looking. The RCMP have confirmed Lily and Jack were seen on camera with family the day before they went missing. Police are asking anyone who was on Gerallock Road between April 28th and May 2nd to share their dash cam or other footage with RCMP.
Martell says every detail helps and could lead to finding Lily and Jack. I’m going to be keep fighting for for the rest of my life to find these kids. That’s the only only goal I have at this point. If you stayed with me through this entire story, thank you. Cases like this aren’t easy to hear, and they’re even harder to tell.
If you have thoughts, questions, or just need to say something, drop it in the comments. I read them, and I know others will, too. If you found value in this work, I’d love for you to subscribe. And to those who’ve supported the channel, thank you. Your kindness and belief make these investigations possible.
Until next time, take care of each other and remember, some stories never end. They just go quiet.
