What we know about the search for missing N.S. children
CBC News | Posted: May 6, 2025 6:25 PM | Last Updated: May 8
Lilly Sullivan, 6, and Jack Sullivan, 4, were reported missing on May 2.
RCMP have scaled back the search effort for a sister and brother who were reported missing from their home in Nova Scotia's Pictou County.
RCMP say they were called the morning of May 2 to find Lilly Sullivan, 6, and Jack Sullivan, 4. On Wednesday, May 7, police announced they were scaling back the active search and have not ruled out that the case is suspicious.
Police say the children are believed to have wandered away from their family home on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, N.S., about 20 kilometres southwest of New Glasgow.
When were they last seen?
The children's stepfather, Daniel Martell, told CBC News that Lilly and Jack were last seen on the morning of May 2.
The children attend pre-primary and primary at Salt Springs Elementary, but Martell said they were not at school on Friday, May 2, because Lilly had a cough, and they were also home sick from school the day before.
Martell said that while he and their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, were in the bedroom with their one-year-old daughter, Lilly came in and out several times, and Jack could be heard in the kitchen.
He thinks the children must have opened the sliding back door, which he said is nearly silent, and went outside.
"When we noticed that the children were gone, I immediately jumped in the vehicle, surveyed all the areas, [as] many dirt roads, [as] many culverts as I could and waited for the police to get there," Martell told CBC News on May 5.
Brooks-Murray told CTV News on May 3 she called police right away, and RCMP say they were called around 10 a.m.
What we know about the investigation
When the children were reported missing on May 2, the RCMP said there was no evidence they had been abducted.
Since then, there's been no indication from police that this has changed. But Martell said May 6 that he now believes the children were taken.
He said investigators with the RCMP's major crimes unit spoke with him a few days ago and with members of his family on May 5.
"[The RCMP were] taking statements from the very start. They just want to rule everything out before they switch … concerns from being, you know, search and rescue to abduction," he said in a CBC News interview May 6.
When asked on May 6 if the major crimes unit is involved, an RCMP spokesperson said a "variety of teams" are working on the investigation "in order to provide tools, skills and resources as necessary."
Why wasn't an Amber Alert issued?
In an interview with CTV News on May 3, the children's mother said she appreciated the huge search effort, but she wished an Amber Alert had also been issued.
"Not just that they could possibly be abducted — which it is a possibility that they could have been — but just an alert to let everyone know that they are missing," she said.
Police have said there was no Amber Alert because there is no evidence the children were abducted.
A vulnerable persons alert was issued for Pictou County when the children were first reported missing, and an additional alert was issued the following evening to Pictou, Antigonish and Colchester counties.
The search was initially focused on the rural area surrounding the family home, which is heavily wooded, making it difficult for search and rescue teams to comb through.
What were the children wearing?
The RCMP say Lilly has shoulder-length light brown hair and bangs, and may be wearing a pink sweater, pink pants and pink boots. Jack, meanwhile, has short, blondish hair and blue dinosaur boots.
Martell said Jack was wearing a pull-up diaper and Lilly was wearing a white backpack with red strawberries on it that should be highly visible.
Where did authorities search?
Searchers started scouring the wooded area near the family home after the children were reported missing.
The Nova Scotia Guard — a provincially organized volunteer group — has also been deployed.
The RCMP said multiple drones equipped with "forward-looking infrared technology" to spot differences in temperature were used to search the area.
According to Amy Hansen, the search manager for day shifts with Colchester Ground Search and Rescue, 100 to 140 searchers were used during the day, and 60 to 75 each night during the six-day ground search. Police dogs also assisted.
The children's stepfather, Daniel Martell, said Mounties showed him shirts, a blanket and a water bottle found during the search near Gairloch Road, but he said none of the items belongs to either child.
The searchers used pink ribbons to mark areas that have already been covered off by rescue teams. Thousands of these ribbons now dot tree branches in the area.
Police said the search is also informed by statistical data, including insights into the behaviours of people in similar situations.
How is the community coping?
The chief of Sipekne'katik First Nation, one of Nova Scotia's largest Mi'kmaw communities, issued a statement saying the children are part of their community. The children's maternal grandfather is a member of Sipekne'katik First Nation.
"Please help bring Lilly and Jack back home," Michelle Glasgow wrote in a Facebook post.
On May 6, the First Nation issued a statement saying it was united "in our strong desire to see these children return home safely. Our thoughts are with them every moment until they are found."
The chief and council also asked the community to "refrain from jumping to conclusions or sharing unverified information, as this can complicate the efforts of the multiple agencies involved in the ongoing investigation."
Robert Parker, the warden for the Municipality of Pictou County, said the mood in the rural region of roughly 43,000 people has been "tense" as the search continues.
"Nobody is giving up yet," Parker told CBC's Information Morning Nova Scotia on May 6. "These children have almost become everybody's children in this county."
He said that while it's human nature to jump to conclusions, the public should be careful about what they're posting on social media.
"There's always people who want to say something that's hurtful," he said. "We have to remember kindness."
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