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HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government is offering a reward of up to $150,000 for information about two young children reported missing from their rural home north of Halifax almost seven weeks ago.
Provincial Justice Minister Becky Druhan issued a statement Thursday saying the disappearance of six-year-old Lilly Sullivan and her four-year-old brother Jack is being felt across the province and beyond, as an intensive police investigation has turned up few clues.
“My heart goes out to the family, the community and everyone who has been working to find these children since Day 1,” Druhan said. “Police and investigators are working tirelessly to find answers, and I urge anyone with information to please share this with the RCMP as soon as possible.”
The reward amount will depend on the “investigative value” of the information, the statement said.
Police have repeatedly said there is no evidence to suggest the children were abducted. But on June 11, RCMP Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay would not say if abduction was considered as a possibility.
Former police officer Scott Blandford, who now teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University in southwestern Ontario, said the decision to offer a reward suggests officials are eager to generate more leads for police as soon as possible.
“It’s been seven weeks (and) that’s a lengthy time for young children,” said the associate professor, who served for 30 years with the municipal police force in London, Ont. “The threat level rises the longer the investigation goes on.”
Those who believe they have information to share can call the RCMP’s unsolved crimes program. It requires them to disclose their identity and may also result in them being called to testify in court.
People who wish to remain anonymous, however, can call Nova Scotia’s Crime Stoppers program.
Crime Stoppers vets calls for authenticity before relaying information to police, said Blandford, coordinator of Laurier’s policing and public safety programs.
“They try to weed out the people who want to become involved for the sake of saying they’re involved, using false leads,” he said, adding that some people may be too afraid to reveal their identity.
“Sometimes people may be of the mindset that they may somehow be involved … and may be implicated because they have this knowledge.”
The Mounties started a missing persons investigation after they received a report that the two children had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station, N.S., which is surrounded by a heavily wooded area east of Truro, N.S.
Family members told police they last saw Lilly inside the home on Gairloch Road and could hear Jack walking inside at around 10 a.m. on the morning of May 2. Police later confirmed the siblings were last seen in public with their family the previous afternoon.
Several extensive searches have covered more than five square kilometres around the home, where the hilly terrain is covered in a think tangle of brush and trees toppled by post-tropical storm Fiona in 2022.
Volunteer ground search teams have been joined by helicopter crews and aerial drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras capable of detecting the heat signatures of people.
On May 7, the search was scaled back after police announced there was little chance the pair could have survived on their own in the woods for that long.
Still, subsequent searches have focused on certain areas, but very little evidence of their whereabouts has been found aside from a boot print on a nearby pipeline trail.
Daniel Robert Martell, who has described himself as the missing children’s stepfather, has told The Canadian Press he voluntarily took part in a four-hour interview with major crime investigators and handed his cellphone to police.
Martell said he and the children’s mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, had been together for more than two years and moved to a trailer-home in the community about two years ago.
He has said that on the morning of May 2, he and Brooks-Murray were in their bedroom with their 16-month-old baby when Lilly poked her head through the doorway. He said they could also hear Jack in the kitchen that morning.
Martell said he then heard the sliding door that leads to their backyard open and close. Within minutes, he said he headed outside to search for the two, driving his vehicle on back roads and looking in culverts.
He said Brooks-Murray left the home the day after the search began, and has been staying with her mother in Wentworth, N.S.
Last week, the Mounties confirmed they had received 488 tips from the public. As well, they told a news conference that 11 sections of the RCMP were engaged in the investigation, including a “truth verification unit” that has used lie-detectors — otherwise known as polygraph machines — while interviewing some people.
Polygraphs measure fluctuations within a person’s sympathetic nervous system as they answer questions. Those changes are measured to assess the truthfulness of responses. Results from this kind of testing are not admissible in Canadian courts, but the machines are considered an investigative tool.
In all, 54 people have been interviewed by police, but investigators have declined to say how many were subjected to polygraph testing or what the results showed.
Martell told The Canadian Press on May 28 that he had passed a polygraph test, but the RCMP declined to confirm or deny his claim.
Meanwhile, police recently confirmed investigators had searched the couple’s trailer, as well as outbuildings on the property, nearby septic systems, wells, culverts, four abandoned mine shafts and local lakes. Police have also asked local residents for dashcam footage or any other video from along Gairloch Road recorded between noon on April 28 and noon of May 2.
Lilly Sullivan is described as four feet tall, weighing 60 pounds, with light brown hair and hazel eyes. At the time of her disappearance, she was believed to be wearing a pink Barbie top, pink rubber boots with a picture of a rainbow on them, and carrying a cream-coloured backpack that features an image of a strawberry.
Jack Sullivan is described as three-foot-six, weighing 40 pounds, with dark blond hair and hazel eyes. He was believed to be wearing a pull-up diaper, black Under Armour jogging pants and blue rubber boots with dinosaurs on them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2025.
Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press
