Missing N.S. children: Search conducted Saturday for Sullivan siblings

A new search is taking place for two children who have been missing since May 2. Robert Parker, warden of Pictou County, N.S. on the latest search efforts.

A new search took place Saturday for two missing Nova Scotia children.

Jack and Lilly Sullivan were reported missing on May 2 from their home on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, N.S.

Now, more than six months after they were reported missing, an Ontario-based group was in the Pictou County area conducting a new search.

Nick Oldrieve is the executive director of Please Bring Me Home, the organizers of the renewed search. Approximately 30 people joined the search including local volunteers and members of the Please Bring Me Home team from Ontario.

Oldrieve said they were looking for signs of deceased persons along the waterways that connected to the Middle River of Pictou.

“We’re looking for boots, any children’s clothing, a little white backpack that Lilly would have had,” Oldrieve said. “Any evidence along those lines whatsoever and of course, them, if we can locate them.”

Oldrieve said the water level was high in May, low over the last few months and it’s come back up enough to flow again during the search.

“If they were in the Middle River of Pictou they would have washed downstream and we’ll ideally be able to locate something today.”

Saturday’s search

According to the group, the search was conducted with a focus “solely on wandering and misadventure.” Oldrieve said RCMP and search and rescue did an incredible job searching the area, which is why they are focused on the river.

“If we’re sticking with the wandering theory, the only way I could believe that something would’ve been missed would’ve been if the children were underwater at the time,” Oldrieve said.

The public attention on the case is difficult to navigate, said Oldrieve, but their goal is to find the children or help further disprove the wandering theory.

“We’re not here to make judgment claims,” he said. “We’re here to do a job based on misadventure along the waterways.”

Jack and Lilly’s family reached out to Please Bring Me Home over the last six months. Before they got involved in the search, Oldrieve said they pushed information about the case across their platforms. Given the family’s anxiety with winter approaching, Oldrieve said they thought they could offer more.

“Let’s support the family in getting out there and get active and let’s see if we can uncover something before snowfall,” he said.

Oldrieve said it’s difficult to put yourself into the mind of a four- or a six-year-old and it’s easy to get lost.

“I would get lost in these woods,” he said.

‘Provide more answers’

Please Bring Me Home has assisted in locating 50 missing people since it was founded in 2018. Oldrieve said the Sullivan case can be compared to the case of Eric Spencer in Ontario who was missing for six years. Spencer was seen walking into the woods and remained missing after extensive searching by police and search and rescue personnel.

“It wasn’t until about six years later where we got involved,” Oldrieve said. “Again, there was no evidence to suggest that he ever exited the woods that he entered. So, we just looked at the waterways and the swamp areas and the standing water.”

Please Bring Me Home eventually found Spencer’s remains next to a pond.

“The goal today, of course, is to just to provide more answers to what happened to Jack and Lilly,” Oldrieve said. “It’s not closure if we locate them but it’s at least going to allow the family to get to that next step of this trauma that they’re experiencing.”

He says it’s difficult to manage expectations but clearing even part of the river system still provides answers.

“If that answer is, they’re not along this river system, that’s okay.”

Cadaver dogs brought in

In late September, the RCMP brought in cadaver dogs to search for the siblings.

The teams, which are specially trained in detecting human remain, searched at the property where the children were reported missing, along the pipeline and intersecting trails, and where a pink blanket was previously found.

After covering an area of 40 kilometres, no remains were found.

“The dogs are highly trained to detect and indicate the scent of human remains, therefore, if the dogs did not alert their handlers, it suggests the dogs were never in the presence of human remains odour,” said S/Sgt. Stephen Pike with the RCMP Police Dog Services Training Centre in a news release on Oct. 8.

“However, this doesn’t definitively rule out the presence of remains in the areas that were searched. It means either the odour is there and couldn’t be detected or the odour isn’t there.”

Police have previously stressed there was “nothing definitive to support the children are deceased.”

Investigation so far

Last month, the RCMP said investigators have received more than 860 tips so far, reviewed 8,060 videos files, and continue forensic testing.

Police had also conducted 80 formal interviews.

“Our team remains fully committed to utilizing every available resource to move this investigation forward and determine the circumstances of Lilly and Jack’s disappearance,” an RCMP spokesperson told CTV News on Oct. 2.

Police have already conducted multiple searches covering about 8.5 square kilometres in the heavily wooded areas near the children’s home, assisted by ground search teams and local volunteers.

Court documents

Court documents released in late August show the initial impressions by police of polygraphs given to the parents of Lilly and Jack, and suggest investigators did not think the children’s disappearances involved foul play.

The information is contained in court applications filed by investigators for permission to conduct searches for phone records, banking records, and video related to the case.

The document said 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, Malehya Brooks-Murray, and their stepfather, Daniel Martell.

With files from The Canadian Press

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