Missing NS children: Police ruling out abduction early on was “big statement,” ex-cop says
They gave you a clue when they said no abduction. That’s a big statement to make at this early in the game. It’s been 24 days since Lily and Jack Sullivan were reported missing from their home in Lansdowne Station. Family members have speculated the children were taken, but police have remained adamant they do not believe the siblings were abducted. According to Nova Scotia’s recently updated policing standards, abduction is defined as when a person under 18 years of age or a vulnerable person is taken without the permission of their legal guardian.

Jim Hoskins is a retired HRP officer and former major crime staff sergeant. Despite not working the Sullivan case himself or being privy to any information regarding RCMP’s ongoing investigation, he can see only two remaining possibilities. “What I see from the outside, there’s only two options here: criminal involvement… they haven’t found them yet, or they legitimately got lost in the woods.”

“I felt, okay, let’s give them a couple of days to see if these kids just wandered off, because they’re only six and four. So, are they lost? They’ll find them. Maybe. If not, let’s see how far it goes.” And he says, “If it goes beyond 2 or 3 days, uh-oh, that was my reaction. What’s next? Uh-oh.”

A feeling felt across the province that could be driving public obsession with this case.

In Canada in 2024, there were just over 30,000 cases of missing children. The vast majority of those cases involve runaways or they involve teens. Actually, about 90% of those cases are resolved within a one-week period. So anytime cases deviate from that, I think that is going to draw in the public. And, of course, there’s the public’s desire to see it resolved.

Although Stevens cannot comment on individual cases, she says when children, in particular, go missing, this tends to be harder for the public to digest. “It taps into a lot of the fears that, you know, for example, parents might hold about the safety of their children.”

But it’s really important to remember that, of those, for example, 30,000 cases, only about 0.1% were cases of stranger or parental abduction. Despite rumors online of criminal motives and cover-ups, Lily and Jack’s stepfather, Daniel Martell, has refuted all claims of his involvement, offering to take a polygraph test.

And Hoskins says there’s still a chance the children are close by. “You can’t write it off and say they’re definitely not in the woods. I can still say you can overlook bodies.”

Searchers were back in the woods near the home a week ago, but there have been no significant updates since. In all his years as a police officer, Hoskins says what strikes him most is the probability of something like this happening. “It’s bizarre. If you ask me what was bizarre, I’d say in this case, two— with this particular family, two are gone.”