Developments in the vanishing of two children in Nova Scotia’s Pictou County have seemingly stalled, as no new information is being shared with the public.
It’s been 24 days since Lilly and Jack Sullivan — aged six and four — were reported missing from their home in Lansdowne Station, N.S.
Their disappearance launched a multi-day search that involved upwards of 160 people, including volunteers and agencies from around the province.
Searchers were back to the woods near the home a week ago, but there have have been no significant updates since.
Family members, including the children’s stepfather, have speculated they were taken but police have remained adamant they do not believe the siblings were abducted.
That’s left some criminal experts to weigh in on why this case is raising alarm bells nationwide and beyond.
“They gave a clue and they said no abduction. That’s a big statement to make at this early in the game,” said Jim Hoskins, a retired Halifax Regional Police officer and former Major Crimes staff sergeant who is not working on the Sullivan case.
Nova Scotia’s recently updated policing standards defines abduction as “an incident where a reasonable belief exists that a child under the age of 18 years or a vulnerable person with an established mental or physical disability is removed from their environment without permission of the legal guardian or representative.”
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Hoskins says in his opinion — as someone who isn’t privy to information regarding RCMP’s ongoing investigation — he can only see two remaining possibilities. He believes the children either “legitimately got lost in the woods” or there’s “criminal involvement.”
He says he also finds it striking that two siblings went missing — an unlikely probability in his opinion.
“It’s bizarre. If you asked me what was bizarre, I’d say in this case, two with this particular family, two are gone,” he said.
A spokesperson from the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service told Global News they can’t say if RCMP has been in touch with them in the high-profile case.
The Sullivan children’s disappearance has sparked massive interest and is driving public obsession with the case, especially online.
Dr. Skye Stephens, a clinical forensic psychologist, says it’s evident there’s the “public’s desire” to reach a resolution in this case.
“Canada in 2024, there were just over 30,000 cases of missing children. The vast majority of those cases involve runaways or they involve teens,” said Stephens.
“Actually about 90 per cent of those cases are resolved within a one week period. So any time cases deviate from that, I think that is going to draw in the public.”
Although Stephens can’t comment on individual cases, she says when children in particular go missing, it tends to be harder for the public to digest.
“I think it taps into a lot of the fears that, for example, parents might hold about the safety of their children,” she said.
“But it’s really important to remember that of those, for example 30,000 cases, 0.1 per cent were cases of a stranger or parental abduction.”
Despite rumours online of criminal motives or cover-ups, Lilly and Jack’s stepfather, Daniel Martell, has refuted all claims of his involvement.
The disappearance has sparked rampant speculation on social media — much of it targeting Martell and the children’s mother. Martell calls it all “nonsense.”
“It will never be enough for people online. Everywhere I go, people stare. That’s something I have to live with until the truth makes its way out — and the truth always makes its way out,” he previously told Global News.
When asked if he had anything to do with the children’s disappearance, he was adamant in his answer.
“I 100 per cent did not and I will hold that to my last day on this planet,” he said.
Martell told The Canadian Press that he had voluntarily attended a four-hour interview with major crime investigators.
Meanwhile, Hoskins says he believes there’s still a chance the children are close by.
“You can’t write it off and say, ‘They’re definitely not in the woods.’ I can still say, ‘You can get overlooked — you can overlook bodies,’” said Hoskins.
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