RCMP scaling back search for missing Pictou County children

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The RCMP is scaling back its search for young siblings Jack and Lily Sullivan.

At a media briefing Wednesday afternoon at the search headquarters, Staff-Sgt. Curtis MacKinnon said hundreds of searchers and investigators have covered four square kilometres of heavily wooded terrain in Pictou County.

MacKinnon said that despite public appeals, there have been no reported sightings of four-year-old Jack or six-year-old Lily, missing since Friday. He said the search will still continue, and personnel will circle back through some previously searched areas.

The Northeast Nova Major Crime unit has also been on scene and part of the investigation since Saturday. Search and Rescue volunteers watch during an announcement that the search for missing Pictou County children, Lily and Jack Sullivan, is being scaled back. Photo by Ryan Taplin
“We’re transitioning from a full-scale search to searches in more specific spaces, spaces that have already been searched by our teams,” MacKinnon said. “We want to circle back to increase the probability that all clues have been found.”

He said that when decisions are made to transition a search from active to scaled back, “the probability of survival is taken into consideration.”

“I want to assure you that our missing persons investigation continues,” he said. “We’re not packing up, and we’re not giving up. Our investigation is broad, and it won’t end until we know where Lily and Jack are and can bring them home.”

MacKinnon said police “will continue to investigate and chase leads for as long and as hard as we have to. We have the best investigators working every aspect of the file.”

Jack and Lily were reported missing from their home on the Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, Pictou County at about 10 a.m. last Friday. A massive search has been ongoing day and night ever since, with over 100 volunteers from over a dozen search and rescue associations, helicopters, K-9 teams, drones and a variety of provincial and federal agencies working in a co-ordinated effort.

Daniel Robert Martell, the children’s stepfather, told The Chronicle Herald that he and the children’s mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, last heard Jack and Lily on Friday morning as they lay in bed with their baby.

“The sun was already up and Lily came into the (bedroom),” said Martell.

“She had a pink shirt on. We could hear Jackie in the kitchen. A few minutes later we didn’t hear them so I went out to check. The sliding door was closed. Their boots were gone.”

Martell is not Jack and Lily’s father. He’s been Brooks-Murray’s partner for three years.

He said the children have undiagnosed autism and it is not like them to wander far. Martell said he immediately jumped in the car and searched neighbouring roads, looking in culverts. By the time he returned home, the RCMP were there, having been called by the children’s mother.

Brooks-Murray left the home Saturday to be with family. According to Martell, the two have had no contact since.

Martell said Wednesday that he had been working with Northeast Nova Major Crime, had provided the RCMP with his cellphone and had agreed to do a lie detector test.

  A map shows the area covered by Search and Rescue efforts by many officials and volunteers over the last week. Photo by RCMP handout
“These woods, they are very thick, there’s a lot of hurricane damage from Fiona, and we’ve had teams struggling to get through areas,” said Amy Hansen, search manager and a member of the Colchester County Ground Search and Rescue Association.

“I can’t say enough about the searchers. They’re pushing through all of these areas, going through all of these deadfalls, going through waterways and anything to cover their search area so we know that everything has been so thoroughly searched. . . . We’re exhausting people and we’re starting to see more injuries coming back the last couple of days. It’s just (that) it’s hard terrain.”

The RCMP have previously stated there is no evidence the children were abducted.

With files by Ian Fairclough

  Staff Sergeant Curtis MacKinnon announces that the search for missing Pictou Country children, Lily and Jack Sullivan, is being scaled back on Wednesday. Photo by Ryan Taplin
  An RCMP officer steps out of a command centre before an announcement that the search for missing Pictou Country children Lily and Jack Sullivan, is being scaled back. Photo by Ryan Taplin