BURST
If there are clues for finding Lilly and Jack Sullivan in the warrant documents, they’re redacted.
If there’s hope, it can be taken from the extent and thoroughness they show of the efforts by RCMP investigators and search and rescue teams that have been seeking the two missing Pictou County children since they were reported missing from their Lansdowne Station home on May 2.
The documents used by police to get warrants were unsealed last week in response to a legal challenge by the Canadian Press, the Globe and Mail and CBC.
While heavily edited, they show an exhaustive investigative effort that includes polygraph tests of the children’s immediate family (they passed), checking of banking information and electronic communication, search histories and GPS co-ordinates of cellphones, pumping of area septic systems and searching the contents, collecting video from private cameras within an eight-kilometre radius along with businesses and school buses travelling in the area that morning and the Cobequid Pass toll booth (over 5,000 videos and photos), following up on 670 tips, interviewing those who had contact with and knew the children or their family, and conducting a massive search of the property, forest and lakes surrounding the rural home.
There’s more, too, but those efforts are redacted out of concern they would interfere with the investigation and, in some cases, violate the privacy of those involved.
“At this point in the investigation, Jack and Lilly’s disappearance is not believed to be criminal in nature,” reads the investigator comments on the polygraph tests.
“I do not have reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offence has occurred.”
But Jack and Lilly are still missing.
And the extent of the ground search makes it appear unlikely six-year-old Lilly and four-year-old Jack wandered into the woods.
Online, it’s gotten ugly.
An international obsession with the case has seen self-crowned online sleuths and AI-driven videos spreading theories and misinformation about the children and their family for profit. Accusations, thinly veiled threats and racial commentary are common on Facebook sites with thousands of members poring over every detail, factual or not, photo and social media account of family members.
The warrants
The 12 released warrant applications contain summaries of the RCMP investigative efforts to justify to judges why they need the ability to access or seize additional potential evidence.
They are for:
- GPS tracking data, communication and other records from the cellphones of stepfather Daniel Martell and mother Malehya Brooks-Murray.
- Video recordings from school buses operating in the area.
- Electronic records from companies in Montreal, Toronto and Halifax whose names and purposes are redacted.
- Banking records of Martell and Brooks-Murray.
- TextPlus messages from May 1 and 2 of three redacted phone numbers. Brooks-Murray is said to have used TextPlus in other parts of the warrants.
- Video recordings from the Cobequid Pass tollbooths.
- Closed circuit television footage from a redacted location.
Where Jack and Lilly were last seen
Brooks-Murray and Martell both told the RCMP independently that on the morning of May 2 they were in bed with their baby, Meadow, in their trailer on the Gairloch Road.
They said they could hear Jack and Lilly playing in the kitchen, and that Lilly at multiple points looked into the bedroom.
After a while of not hearing the children, Martell went out to check on them and they were gone, along with their boots and Lilly’s backpack. A wrench he’d wedged in the top of the front door the night before to prevent a black bear from pushing it open was still there, meaning the only other way out was the back sliding door.
Martell’s mother, Janie MacKenzie, who lived in the backyard in a camper, said she’d heard the children playing outside that morning, fallen back asleep and awoke to Martell calling their names.
Martell then took the family car to go looking for them, searching the woods and culverts. That evening he got friends to join the search.
Brooks-Murray called 911 at about 10 a.m.
The last time Jack and Lilly were confirmed to have been seen in public was the day before, at 2:45 p.m. at the Dollarama in New Glasgow. The children had been off school that day due to coughs. They, Martell and Brooks-Murray are on security camera footage at the store.
However, the RCMP interviewed a woman who said she saw children resembling Jack and Lilly while travelling the Gairloch Road on May 2 between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m.
The woman said she saw a girl holding a young boy’s hand walking down the side of the road toward Westville. She said the girl was white, with darkish hair in pig tails and wearing a tank top with blue strings. She estimated the girl’s age at nine or 10 and the boy to be five.
The witness said that just ahead of the children was a white woman estimated to be 50 to 60, with a “loose curl” haircut. She stood by an older-model light gold or tan sedan that was parked on the shoulder with the rear passenger door open.
“Investigators are working to identify the children seen by (the witness) to determine if they are Lilly and Jack,” reads the investigator comments.
RCMP also received a report from an employee at a hotel in New Brunswick, the name and location of which are redacted, who claimed to have seen the children’s biological father, Cody Sullivan, with Jack and Lilly. The father, who has been separated from the mother since October 2021, told RCMP he was at home (location redacted) on May 2, didn’t know where the children were and had had no contact with Brooks-Murray.
In its warrant seeking video from the Cobequid Pass, the RCMP stated that it was to help confirm Sullivan had not left the province in the aftermath of the children’s disappearance. There are multiple roads that circumvent the Cobequid Pass toll booth.
Polygraphs
Known as lie detector tests, polygraphs measure blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and skin conductivity of a person as they are being asked questions. Due to the potential for inaccurate readings, polygraph results are not admissible in court but are commonly used by police as an interrogation tool.
Both Martell and Brooks-Murray voluntarily underwent the tests. The questions asked of them are redacted, but both were found to have answered truthfully.
Sullivan also was found to have answered redacted questions truthfully in two polygraph examinations by the RCMP.
As did Wade Paris, boyfriend of Brooks-Murray’s mother, Cindy Murray.
Janie Mackenzie, mother to Martell, was found to have physiology “not suitable for analysis and an opinion on the polygraph examination was not rendered.”
BOOT PRINTS
Search and rescue teams discovered child-sized boot prints on the pipeline through the woods some distance behind the family home at 1407 Gairloch Rd. between the evening of their disappearance and the following Saturday morning.
“There were clumps of them and they were two different sizes,” reads an RCMP synopsis of what they were told by Amy Hansen, who co-ordinated the massive effort involving hundreds of ground search and rescue volunteers, drones, helicopters and police sniffer dogs.
“She said they were small in size and corresponded to what children would wear.”
A cast was taken of one of the boot prints and it was found to have a 29 marked on its tread. That number corresponded to the tread of a size 11 child’s boot.
Using Brooks-Murray’s banking records, RCMP were able to see that she had purchased size 11 children’s boots for Lilly at Walmart in March. RCMP purchased some of the same boots from Walmart for their investigation.
“(Search and rescue) heard reports of people with kids out searching,” reads the RCMP synopsis of the investigation into the boots.
“So they were not sure the boot prints belonged to Lilly and Jack. They did think it was an out of the way area for people to bring their kids to search.”
Mackenzie told RCMP she didn’t believe the children would have wandered away into the woods.
“Janie said Jack would not go for a walk on his own,” reads the RCMP synopsis of Mackenzie’s statement.
“She said she, Jack, Lilly and Daniel went for walks in the woods all the time and they had to carry Jack sometimes because he got tired and would just sit in one place. Janie said she does not believe the kids are in the woods.”
Pink blanket
On the evening of the Friday that Jack and Lilly disappeared, family members found a torn piece of pink blanket in bushes off the Lansdowne Station Road, a kilometre from the home. Below it on the ground were some rags. Brooks-Murray and Martell confirmed it was a piece of Lilly’s blanket.
An RCMP dog unit searched the area but picked up no scent.
On May 4, another part of a blanket was found in a garbage bag at the end of the family’s driveway. Brooks-Murray said the blanket had most recently been used around the edge of a drafty window in their trailer.
Relationship
Brooks-Murray and Martell had been together for three years as of May. She said that while Martell was not the father of Jack and Lilly, he was an involved parent and that he would help her, especially when she was overwhelmed.
“He was not aggressive with the kids but had a voice they listened to,” reads the RCMP synopsis of her statements.
“There was never any physical discipline.”
Martell worked one day a week at a sawmill in Westville. Family members said Martell and Brooks-Murray were struggling financially.
The day the children disappeared, Brooks-Murray took their baby and left to stay with her mother. She told the RCMP that decision caused conflict between her and Martell’s family.
She also blocked him on messenger apps.
Both Martell and Brooks-Murray said they kept the location option on their phones open all the time so they could see their whereabouts. They provided their phones to the RCMP.