We begin tonight in Nova Scotia, where there is a renewed search for two young siblings who vanished without a trace more than two weeks ago. Today, teams were back near their rural home searching for the children. Here’s a timeline of this case so far.

It was quiet again on Gearlock Road—
but not the kind of peaceful quiet that settles in after a storm.
This was different.

This was the kind of silence that follows a scream no one heard.
The kind of silence that settles over a place where something terrible happened—
and left no trace.

For nearly two weeks, the forests, fields, and waterways of Pictou County had been combed by dozens—sometimes hundreds—of trained search and rescue teams. They came from Halifax, from Colchester, from East Hants.

They brought with them everything: dogs, drones, air support, and hope.
And yet, by May 7th, the RCMP stood before the cameras and made it official:
The search for Lily and Jack Sullivan was being scaled back.

Six-year-old Lily and four-year-old Jack Sullivan were reported missing from their home in Pictou County on Friday, May 2nd. Nova Scotia RCMP launched a search with more than 100 people involved on the ground and in the air.

On day six, the RCMP announced the search for the missing kids was being scaled back.
While most crews left the area, dive teams scoured local bodies of water but found no evidence.

Six-year-old Lily and four-year-old Jack were gone—vanished without a trace.
No cries, no sightings.
Just an open sliding door, and two small sets of rain boots missing from the front step.

The children had been reported missing from their home in Landstown Station on May 2nd.

What began as a frantic search quickly turned into a methodical operation—
but by the seventh day, it had become something else entirely:
a recovery effort.

The press release didn’t say it outright,
but between the lines, the message was clear:
RCMP believed the children were no longer alive.

Still, something didn’t sit right.
Because just 10 days later, on the morning of May 17th,
those same teams returned—
without warning,
without explanation.

The search resumed.
Not everywhere—
just around one place: Gearlock Road.

The area where the family lived.
The place already searched—now being searched again,
only this time with sharper eyes and lower expectations.

There were no more missing posters going up,
no more calls to neighbors to check sheds or basements.
This wasn’t about rescue anymore.
This was about recovery.

And when nearly a hundred trained professionals—men and women who had already pushed their bodies to the edge during the first week—gathered again near that narrow rural stretch of Nova Scotia,
it was clear something had changed.

No new press conferences.
No Amber Alert.
No major new clue released to the public.
Just quiet footsteps through wet brush and cold soil.

One searcher would later say,
“We weren’t looking for voices. We were looking for silence. A patch of ground too still. A space too untouched.”

And though the public didn’t know it yet,
behind the scenes, investigators weren’t just mapping the woods.
They were circling a theory.

And if they were right,
the truth wouldn’t be hiding deep in the forest—
it would be hiding in plain sight,
right where it all began.

Back at the house on Gearlock Road.
Back where the silence first began.
Back where—if anything remained of Lily and Jack Sullivan—
it would finally, painfully, start to speak.

By the time the sun rose on May 17th,
the air in Landstown Station carried a different kind of weight.
It wasn’t hope.
It wasn’t panic.

It was purpose.
Quiet.
Precise.
Grim.

After 10 long days of speculation, silence, and suspicion,
the search for Lily and Jack Sullivan had returned—
but not in the way it once had.

Gone were the sweeping search lines cutting through open pastures.
Gone were the posters taped to gas station windows,
or the door-to-door pleas for sightings.

What returned wasn’t a community call for help.
It was a calculated operation.

This wasn’t a rescue mission.
This was something colder,
sharper,
tighter.

And on Friday, RCMP announced the search would resume this weekend.
More than 100 volunteer searchers were back in the sparsely populated area,
140 kilometers northeast of Halifax.

CTV’s Paul Hollingsworth is there.

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