Daniel Martell and his brother Justin Martell, left, wait for an update from search and rescue at his home on May 5, in Lansdowne Station, N.S., where his two stepchildren went missing on May 2.Chris Donovan/The Globe and Mail
Searchers continued to scour the thick woods in rural Nova Scotia for two missing young children on Monday overnight, looking for any clues that might help them locate the siblings who disappeared from the family home four days ago.
Lily Sullivan, 6, and Jack Sullivan, 4, are believed to have wandered away from their home on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, a remote wooded community in Pictou County, an hour-and-a-half northeast of Halifax, said RCMP.
“The priority is finding them and getting them back to their loved ones, the people who care about them,” RCMP Corporal Carlie McCann told reporters at the search-and-rescue command site on a dirt road near the children’s home.
“It’s been really important to have engagement from anyone who knows these kids.”
The children’s maternal grandmother, Cyndy Murray, told The Globe and Mail that she is hoping and praying the children will be located safe.
“We’re staying positive, and our goal is to bring our babies home safely,” she said, adding that the family is appreciative of the support they’re receiving from people across the country.
Ms. Murray said she and her daughter are following advice from the police and staying out of the woods to allow the searchers to do their work.
The children were reported missing around 10 a.m. on Friday.
Their stepfather Daniel Martell told The Globe that the children were playing in the next room while he dozed in the bedroom with their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, and the couple’s 16-month-old when the children went missing. He said he surmised they opened the sliding glass back door, put on their rubber boots and went outside, escaping from the fenced-in backyard. He said Lily took a white backpack with strawberries on it. Jack would’ve been wearing a pull-up diaper, he added.
He said the children had stayed home from school that day because Lily had a cough. Mr. Martell said he was home that day because he’s only getting one shift a week at a local sawmill and Ms. Brooks-Murray is an at-home mom.
On Monday, RCMP came and went from the home scattered with children’s toys and car parts on the side of a rural highway where Mr. Martell waited for news with his brother and mother, who also lives on the property in a trailer.
Plainclothes major crime officers spoke to him in the early afternoon to better understand the timeline of the missing children, he told The Globe. About an hour later, another officer arrived to show him photos of items, including a pink blanket, found in the woods. None belonged to the children, he said.
While RCMP say the missing children’s case remains a search, Mr. Martell said he’s convinced it’s turning into a criminal investigation.
“The search and rescue can only do so much and they’re not coming up with any evidence,” he said as a helicopter buzzed overhead.
“I already asked to put officers at the New Brunswick border, PEI border, and get them at every single airport. Are they doing that? They said ‘That’s not the concern right now.’”
Earlier in the day, he said RCMP redid a search around the home with a canine unit.
RCMP Cpl. McCann said she can’t speak to when a search investigation might turn into a criminal investigation. “It’s all about the information being assessed and analyzed as it comes in, and I’m very hesitant to give a timeline because it’s always evolving and it’s always going to be changing as information comes in.”
Search manager Amy Hansen of Colchester Ground Search and Rescue said up to 140 ground searchers have been working around the clock. After four days of searching, some teams are starting to get exhausted and some individuals have had to take a break, she said, but new searchers are also joining every day.
“Our best bet is in the daytime. So that’s when we push and get people out in the woods,” she said. “It’s easier to find the little things in the woods when we look in the daylight.”
The children are part of Sipekne’katik First Nation, a Mi’kmaq community near Truro, N.S.
Lily is described as having shoulder-length light brown hair with bangs. She may be wearing a pink sweater, pink pants and pink boots, RCMP said.
Jack has short blondish hair and is wearing a pair of blue dinosaur boots.
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