One Tiny Footprint That Changed Everything | Lilly and Jack Sullivan
I’m going to keep fighting for the rest of my life to find these kids. That’s the only goal I have at this point.

Every day when I wake up, it feels like I’m reliving the nightmare of May 2nd. The feelings of sadness have slowly turned into anger — because there’s no evidence at all, even after a month. And it’s really taking a toll.

Since May 2nd, when Lily and Jack went missing, people here in Pictou County are still struggling to understand what happened — and why there are still no answers. I know they’re working hard, and using every resource they have. That gives me hope. Because at this point, hope is all we have.

On the morning of May 2nd, 2025, two young siblings vanished into the forests of rural Nova Scotia — and the world seemed to stop. Lily was just six. Her little brother Jack, only four. They were said to have wandered away from their quiet home in Lansdowne Station — a remote stretch of land with more trees than people, more silence than sound.

Within hours, a full-scale search was underway — drones, helicopters, K9 units, boots on the ground. They scoured over five square kilometers. But found nothing. No footprints. No fabric. No cries for help. In a forest that should have whispered clues — there was only silence. And sometimes, silence is the loudest red flag of all.

Based on details gathered so far, we have confirmed that Lily and Jack were seen in public with family members on the afternoon of May 1st, 2025, in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia — roughly 30 km from their rural home. Surveillance footage shows them with their mother, Malaya Brooks-Murray, their baby sibling, and their stepfather, Daniel Martel.

The RCMP has confirmed that this video exists — but that’s where the clarity ends. What follows is a 24-hour void. And in that void, two children vanish.

From April 28th to May 2nd, the RCMP has zeroed in on the family’s digital footprint. Phones have become witnesses — GPS coordinates, call logs, social media interactions. Every swipe, every step, every silent notification is being examined with the scrutiny of a forensic lab. Where they drove. Who they contacted. What they searched. Investigators are rebuilding those days, minute by minute — hoping the truth lives somewhere in the metadata.

They say they’ve covered a 5.5 km search area and received 355 tips so far in the search for Lily and Jack Sullivan.

—Ella MacDonald, Global News, Lansdowne Station, Nova Scotia

To date, over 355 tips have poured in. Fifty people have been interviewed. But the newest request from the RCMP feels different — desperate, even. For the first time, the public is being asked to check their dash cams and home security systems — specifically between noon on April 28th and noon on May 2nd, with an emphasis on Garlock Road. The stretch of rural terrain that wraps around the Sullivan property like a noose of trees.

They’re not just looking for vehicles. They want everything — movement, shadows, unfamiliar faces, cars that linger too long. Even a glimpse could change everything.

But here’s the question no one seems willing to answer: Why did it take four weeks to make this plea?

In a missing child case, time is oxygen — and when it runs out, so do chances. In most disappearances, the first 48 hours are critical. After that, the odds begin to collapse. So why was such a vital step — gathering surrounding footage — delayed until nearly a month had passed? Was it strategic? Was it a failure? Or was there something about the timeline that authorities weren’t ready to acknowledge?

The search for the missing Sullivan siblings, Lily and Jack, will resume in the morning. Police announced they’ll be joined by ground search and rescue teams to once again head into wooded areas. They’ll focus specifically on areas around Garlock Road and the Nearline Pipeline Trail near the family’s home.

It’s also where a boot print was found in earlier searches. The location? A narrow stretch of forest along Garlock Road and the adjacent pipeline corridor — a place already combed weeks before. A place where something had lingered in plain sight but was never fully explained.

Tiny footprints — that was the clue.

According to Daniel Martel, two were spotted near the home in the early days, and another, more isolated, near the pipeline itself. For weeks, the public wondered if those prints were real, if they belonged to Lily or Jack — or if they were simply part of the forest’s many false promises.

The renewed search wasn’t framed as a rescue mission — not anymore. The language had changed. Carefully. Deliberately. Officials didn’t speak of hope. They spoke of containment. Recovery. Evidence.

And though no one dared say it outright, the implication hung heavy in the air: they weren’t expecting to find the children alive.

The pipeline corridor had always been an eerie thread in the geography of this case — a narrow trail shielded by thick brush. Far too easy to access, and far too easy to hide within. That investigators chose to return there says more than any press conference ever could. It suggests that the theory of abduction — once tentatively offered — may now be quietly falling away.

What remains is a theory grounded in proximity. In concealment. In the devastating possibility that the children never left this place at all.

And yet the question remains: if these footprints were real, if this area held even the slightest promise of answers — why wait nearly a month to act? Why now, and not then?

The RCMP asked the public to keep their distance. Not because they’re afraid of interference, but because they need precision. Every blade of grass might matter. Every inch of soil could hold the truth.

And in that truth lies the most painful possibility of all: that the final pieces of this puzzle have been here the entire time — hidden not by malice, but by the devastating oversight of human error.