Documents reveal new witness statements to RCMP about missing N.S. children

Staff Sgt. Rob McCamon, Acting Officer Major Crime, speaks to reporters about the search for six-year-old Lilly Sullivan and four-year-old Jack Sullivan, in Lansdowne Station, N.S., May 7, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ron Ward

The RCMP has agreed to release new information about the disappearance of two children from their home in rural Nova Scotia, including accounts from witnesses who said they heard a vehicle going back and forth nearby, a few hours before the kids were reported missing.

Malehya Brooks-Murray reported her children, six-year-old Lilly and four-year-old Jack Sullivan, were missing at 10 a.m. on May 2. They all lived in Lansdowne Station, N.S., a rural community in the province’s northeast. Brooks-Murray told police she believed the two children had wandered away from home.

The RCMP agreed to release the new information to The Canadian Press and other media outlets ahead of a scheduled court hearing to review whether the information could be made public. They shed new light on a mystery that has garnered attention across the country ever since the children disappeared, nearly six months ago.

The information appears in documents the Mounties filed in court earlier this year, to obtain search warrants for phone records, banking records and video, related to the case. Each document contains unproven statements made by police.

The documents say the last time the children were seen outside their home was on May 1, when they were captured by video surveillance at a local Dollarama store with their mother, Brooks-Murray, and Daniel Martell, their stepfather.

In August, the police force had released redacted versions of the documents that included other revelations of their investigation, including a timeline of what happened after the children disappeared and details of the early days of the police investigation. On Friday, The Canadian Press obtained new copies of the documents with fewer redactions.

Included among the newly released information are summaries of police conversations with two residents who live nearby and say they heard a vehicle shortly before the children disappeared.

The documents say one of those residents, Brad Wong, told police on May 9 that in the early hours of May 2 he heard a loud vehicle coming and going from the family’s home on Gairloch Road.

Wong told police his house is at an elevated position from Martell’s home and he could also see vehicle lights over the treetops that night, the police documents say. Wong also said the vehicle left their address three or four times after midnight and into the early morning hours, according to the documents.

The documents say Wong told police he heard the vehicle stop and return, remaining in earshot the entire time.

About a week after they spoke to Wong, police say they spoke to Justin Smith, the other nearby resident. Police say Smith told them on May 17 that he had spoken to Wong about the vehicle and that he also heard it in the early hours of the morning on May 2.

Police say Smith told them the vehicle was on Highway 289 and turned around by the railroad tracks near the area of Gairloch Road and Lansdowne Station Road.

According to the documents, Smith said he later spoke with Wong, who told him the vehicle he heard early that morning belonged to Daniel. Smith said Wong told him he had heard the loud vehicle come and go five or six times that night.

The documents do not indicate whether anyone else reported hearing the vehicle.

They indicate Brooks-Murray told police she tucked the children in for bed by 10 p.m., the night before they disappeared. Martell told police “he thought he went to bed fairly early that night and didn’t wake up until it was light the next morning,” the documents say.

In an interview on Friday, Martell said claims that he was driving back and forth late at night are “complete nonsense.”

“My vehicle never moved out of the yard that night. And it never moved out of that yard the following day,” he told The Canadian Press over the phone.

He added that at that time, the vehicle the family was using belonged to Murray-Brooks, and that it was “not a loud vehicle by any stretch of the imagination.”

Martell said it’s clear that the RCMP are working hard on the case, and he continues to hold on to hope that the children will be found.

“I pray for the best resolution possible, and that is Jack and Lilly are found safe and healthy and they get to enjoy the rest of their lives,” he said.

The RCMP said in the documents they had conducted at least a half-dozen polygraphs during their investigation -- the first two were on May 12 with the children’s parents at the detachment at Bible Hill, N.S.

Martell’s polygraph “indicated he was truthful,” as did the test for Brooks-Murray, the RCMP said.

An unidentified investigator’s comment included at the end of a section of a document on the results of both of those polygraphs says, “At this point in the investigation Jack and Lilly’s disappearance is not believed to be criminal in nature.”

“I do not have reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offence has occurred. Because Jack and Lilly are still missing, polygraph examinations were conducted with the intention of ruling out that possibility.”

An affidavit sworn by Cpl. Charlene Jordan Curl of the RCMP’s Northeast Nova Scotia major crime unit, says Brooks-Murray provided police with a video recording on a SanDisk Cruzer Glide USB of a phone conversation between her grandmother Patti Pearson and Pearson’s relative Darin Geddes.

According to the document, Geddes claimed to know information about the disappearance of Lilly and Jack and had suggested in social media postings that Brooks-Murray may have been involved in their disappearance, however it’s stressed that “this is his theory.”

The document says Geddes also suggested that he might know the location of the children, although police talked with him and say “he has not provided context as to why he has this theory.”

Police said they sought a records access order to review the video recording.

“It is unknown if Darin Geddes knew he was being recorded,” Jordan Curl said in the document. “I believe information provided in the recording could assist with locating the children by identifying further investigational avenues for police to pursue.”

The USB was given to police at the Bible Hill, N.S., RCMP detachment on June 26 and police say the video of a phone conversation was made on the evening of June 21.

Police say the video recording captured Pearson holding her home phone on speaker so her conversation with Geddes could be heard, although police do not specifically discuss details of the conversation.

RCMP also say they had previously met with Geddes on May 30 when he told them he wanted to provide information on the disappearance of the children, but he became “confrontational and evasive” when asked questions, and he wanted police to provide him with information about the investigation.

“He became upset when his questions were not answered,” police say.

Meanwhile, police say an interview was posted on a YouTube channel related to the disappearance of the children entitled “It’s a Criming Shame.” The interview is with a person identified as Derwood O’Grady, whom police believe is a “pseudonym for a male believed to be Malehya’s grandmother’s cousin and is potentially Geddes.”

During the interview, the person identified as O’Grady made it clear that what he was saying “could be wrong, could be speculation.”

Police say that Brooks-Murray later told them that Geddes uses the name Derwood O’Grady on social media.

The documents also reveal that Brooks-Murray provided a statement to police saying she used a smartphone messaging application called TextPlus to call her mother and her grandmother after Lilly and Jack went missing, and that she used this because it allowed her to make phone calls using a wireless internet service. Police say Brooks-Murray told them she later deleted the software because she didn’t need it anymore.

Police say they requested Brooks-Murray’s records from TextPlus Inc., specifically her records between May 1 and 2. The documents reveal they received results from this request, but other details were redacted.

Brooks-Murray, when reached by The Canadian Press by phone on Friday, declined to provide a comment.

A spokesperson with the Nova Scotia RCMP said the police “initially sought to seal these ITOs in full, which is standard practice in sensitive investigations where the release of information could compromise the integrity -- or future integrity -- of the investigation.”

Portions of these redactions have been removed following the legal challenges brought forward by media organizations, Allison Gerrard said in an email Friday.

“The remaining redactions reflect ongoing concerns related to privacy and continued protection of the investigative process.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2025.

— With files from Keith Doucette in Halifax.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press