HALIFAX 鈥� Nova Scotia RCMP say family members of two missing children are among those identified for formal interviews as police investigate the siblings' disappearance.
Six-year-old Lilly Sullivan and four-year-old Jack Sullivan were reported missing on May 2 from their residence in Landsdowne Station, N.S., about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax. Police scaled back a ground search last week, saying it was unlikely the children were still alive if they had wandered into the densely wooded area surrounding their rural residence.
In a release Tuesday, Staff Sgt. Curtis MacKinnon said the Pictou County district RCMP were in their 11th day investigating the case and that officers were working "day and night on this file." More than 180 tips had been received from the public, and officers had identified 35 people to formally interview, MacKinnon said, adding that those people included community members and "those closest to the children."
鈥淲e鈥檙e exploring all avenues in this missing persons investigation,鈥� MacKinnon said. 鈥淲e have officers from multiple disciplines dedicated to finding Lilly and Jack, including highly trained RCMP major crime and forensic investigators.
"Like all Nova Scotians, we want answers, and we want to know what happened to these children."
In a followup statement, the RCMP confirmed that family members were among those being interviewed for the investigation, adding that questioning relatives was standard practice for a missing children case.
Daniel Robert Martell, who has described himself as the missing children's stepfather, told The Canadian Press on May 7 that he voluntarily attended a four-hour interview with major crime investigators the day prior, and submitted his smartphone to police for examination.
"I've been 100 per cent co-operating. I gave them my phone, I offered the drug tests, I offered them lie detector tests. I offered them everything," he said in the interview.
In an earlier interview, on May 5, he said he and the children's mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, had been together for more than two years and moved into the trailer in the community about two years ago. He has said he and Brooks-Murray had a 16-month-old infant, Meadow.
Martell has said he was in the bedroom with his partner and their baby when he last saw Lilly and Jack, on the morning of May 2. He recalled that Lilly was wearing a pink top when she had poked her head in the door of their bedroom, prior to departing. Minutes later he heard the sliding door that leads onto the backyard open and close. Martell has estimated within "a few minutes" he set out to find the children, driving his vehicle on back roads and looking in culverts for them, without success.
Brooks-Murray left the home the day after the search began, ending communication with Martell, and has been staying with her mother in Wentworth, N.S.
RCMP have said that on May 2, at approximately 10 a.m., they received a report that the children were missing, and at the time said they believed the siblings had wandered away from their home on Gairloch Road. The ground search, involving up to 160 trained volunteers, was scaled back on May 7, after covering 5.5 square kilometres of heavily wooded, rural terrain.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2025.
Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press
