Lilly, left, and Jack Sullivan were reported missing from their home in Lansdowne Station, N.S., on May 2, 2025.Lilly, left, and Jack Sullivan were reported missing from their home in Lansdowne Station, N.S., on May 2, 2025.

A few slim details released by the RCMP about their investigation into the disappearance of Jack and Lilly Sullivan have rekindled online speculation.

But the newly redacted sections of RCMP warrants don’t provide any answers to what happened to the two Pictou County children who were reported missing by their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, on May 2.

Also, witness statements contained in them are not corroborated by other evidence.

In response to a court challenge by the Canadian Press, the Globe and Mail and CBC, in September the RCMP unsealed added sections of the warrant documents, which lay out much of their extensive investigation up to late May.

With a court date looming where the media was going to seek more redactions be lifted, the RCMP voluntarily lifted more (but not all) of the redactions last week.

The formerly redacted information

They include statements by two people who live near the rural property in Lansdowne Station that Jack, 4, and Lilly, 6, shared with their mother, step-father Daniel Martell and his mother, Janie McKenzie.

Two weeks after Jack and Lilly’s disappearance, one nearby resident told police he heard a vehicle go and come from the property “five or six times” during the night before the children were reported missing.

Another area resident told police that at about 1:30 a.m. on May 2 he heard a car on Highway 289, which runs past Jack and Lilly’s home, then turn around by the railway tracks near the area of Gairloch Road and Lansdowne Station Road. The vehicle stopped making noise for a few minutes, then headed on toward Lairg Road.

Wide public scrutiny

Speculation in chat rooms and among self-declared sleuths operating YouTube channels feeding into an international obsession with the case is that this contradicts the version of events told police by both Martell and Brooks- Murray — that the children were put to bed at about 9 p.m. on May 1 and that no-one left the house until the morning.

The children were last seen in public the previous afternoon, May 1, based on security footage from a Pictou County Dollarama.

The RCMP followed up on the statements, looking at security and hunting camera footage obtained from properties in the area.

“Investigators conducted a thorough review of surveillance footage from the Gairloch Road area during the early hours of May 2 and found no evidence of any vehicle activity at that time,” reads a statement from the RCMP.

“As such, no driver has been identified, and the presence of a vehicle has not been substantiated as a key element in the investigation.”

Family’s testimony

Brooks-Murray and Martell told the RCMP independently that on the morning of May 2 they were in bed with their baby, Meadow. They said they could hear Jack and Lilly playing in the kitchen, and that Lilly at multiple points looked into the bedroom.

After a period of not hearing the children, Martell went to check on them but 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 a sliding door at the back.

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.

Released warrant applications

At about 10 a.m., Brooks-Murray called 911, leading to a massive search of the woods, roads and waterways near the home. In the following days, RCMP Major Crime would begin a large investigation that continues.

The released warrant applications are for:

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GPS tracking data, communication and other records from the cellphones of Martell and mother 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. In other parts of the warrants, Brooks-Murray is said to have used TextPlus.
Video recordings from the Cobequid Pass tollbooths.
Closed circuit television footage from a redacted location.

Six months after Jack and Lilly’s disappearance, if the RCMP have clues as to what happened to the children, they’re keeping them close to their vests.