Fifteen months after Lilly and Jack Sullivan disappeared from their rural Nova Scotia home, the two children are still missing.
There has been no confirmed sighting of the siblings since May 2, 2025.
Lilly was six years old when she disappeared. Her younger brother Jack was four. They were reported missing from their family property on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, a small rural community in Pictou County, about 140 kilometres north of Halifax.
What began as a report that two children may have wandered away has since become one of Nova Scotia’s most closely watched missing-person investigations.
Yet despite an enormous search operation, hundreds of interviews, thousands of pieces of video footage and more than a thousand tips from the public, investigators still have not determined what happened to Lilly and Jack.
And now, more than a year later, their mother is speaking publicly again.
Malehya Brooks-Murray says she continues to believe her children are alive and has suggested that they may have been taken from the property. At the same time, she has expressed frustration over the lack of answers and the limited information she says she has received from investigators.
Police, however, have been careful not to endorse any particular theory.
The Nova Scotia RCMP continues to describe the case as an active missing-person investigation. Authorities have said there is no evidence confirming that Lilly and Jack were abducted, while also stressing that all possible scenarios remain under consideration.
The morning the children disappeared
The last confirmed period in which Lilly and Jack were known to be with family came before their disappearance.
According to information released by police and later court documents, the children were together with family members on the afternoon of May 1, 2025.
They were put to bed that night.
The following morning, their mother reported that the children were missing.
At approximately 10:01 a.m. on May 2, Brooks-Murray contacted 911 and told police she believed Lilly and Jack may have wandered away from the property.
Officers arrived shortly afterward, and a large-scale search began.
The surrounding area presented an immediate challenge.
Lansdowne Station is a remote, heavily wooded community, with dense forest and difficult terrain surrounding many of the properties. Search crews quickly moved into the woods, examining areas where the children might have gone.
The initial operation involved ground search-and-rescue teams as well as specialized police resources.
Within days, the search had expanded considerably.
One of the largest searches in the area
The RCMP has described the investigation as a sustained and wide-ranging effort involving multiple police agencies and specialized resources.
Ground crews, helicopters, drones, police divers, search-and-rescue volunteers and specially trained dogs have all been used during the investigation.
In the early stages, authorities searched approximately 5.5 square kilometres of terrain around the family home.
Later efforts expanded much farther.
RCMP human-remains detection dogs eventually searched an area covering approximately 40 kilometres around Lansdowne.
Despite those efforts, investigators have not found Lilly or Jack.
A few physical clues have attracted attention, including pieces of a pink blanket believed to belong to Lilly and child-sized boot prints discovered during searches.
But none of those discoveries has led police to the children.
The RCMP has also said that extensive searches of nearby waterways did not uncover evidence that located the siblings.
Investigators have gone through thousands of files
The investigation did not stop when the large-scale physical searches were reduced.
Police began working through a massive amount of information collected from the area and from people connected to the children.
By April 2026, RCMP said investigators had reviewed 8,132 functioning video files obtained during their examination of surveillance footage.
They had also formally interviewed 106 people and continued evaluating 1,191 tips from the public.
More than 1,500 investigative tasks were being worked through.
Investigators also obtained court authorization to examine phone records, banking information and digital devices belonging to people close to the children.
Forensic examinations were conducted at the RCMP’s National Forensic Laboratory in Ottawa.
These efforts show that the case has not simply been left unresolved.
Investigators have continued working behind the scenes even though relatively little information has been released publicly.
That lack of public information has also contributed to growing frustration among people following the case.
Police are warning against rumours
As the months passed without answers, theories surrounding the disappearance spread across social media.
Some focused on the possibility that the children had wandered into the surrounding wilderness.
Others suggested they may have been taken.
Police have repeatedly urged the public not to confuse speculation with evidence.
In its April 2026 anniversary update, the RCMP specifically asked for specific, verifiable information, saying that rumours and speculation would not help investigators locate the children.
At the same time, police said all possible scenarios remain under consideration.
That distinction is important.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed an abduction.
They have also not publicly established that the children simply wandered away and suffered an accident.
The investigation remains open because investigators have not determined with certainty what happened.
A witness report raised another question
Court documents released during the investigation contained several unproven statements made to police.
One witness told investigators that she believed she saw two children walking along a road in the area on the morning of May 2.
According to the documents, she described a young girl holding the hand of a younger boy and a woman standing near an older tan or gold sedan.
The witness later helped investigators identify the general area where she believed she had seen them.
But police have never publicly confirmed that the children in that account were Lilly and Jack.
In fact, documents noted that investigators were still working to determine whether the sighting was connected to the missing siblings.
This is another example of why individual clues in the case must be treated carefully.
A reported sighting may be important to investigators, but it is not the same as a confirmed sighting.
The children’s mother is speaking again
After spending months largely out of the public eye, Brooks-Murray recently spoke about the disappearance in an interview with CBC and The Globe and Mail.
She said she still believes Lilly and Jack are alive.
She also rejected the idea that she should be expected to explain herself publicly while she continues waiting for answers about her children.
Her comments come as the investigation enters its 16th month.
Brooks-Murray and Daniel Martell, the children’s former stepfather, are no longer together.
Their relationship has also been examined by investigators as part of the broader effort to understand the circumstances surrounding the children’s disappearance.
Martell has not been charged in connection with Lilly and Jack’s disappearance.
He was arrested in January 2026 in connection with an unrelated case involving allegations made by an adult complainant. Those allegations have not been tested in court, and the complainant’s identity is protected by a publication ban.
It is important not to treat that separate case as evidence that Martell was responsible for the disappearance of Lilly and Jack.
No such finding has been announced by police.
The family is still waiting
The disappearance has also divided and strained people close to the children.
Their paternal grandmother, Belynda Gray, has remained one of the most visible family members calling for answers.
A public rally was held in May 2026 to mark the first anniversary of the children’s disappearance.
Supporters gathered outside the RCMP detachment in Stellarton, demanding answers and reminding investigators and the public that Lilly and Jack had still not been found.
Gray said there were still many unanswered questions.
For the family and supporters, the passage of time has made the absence harder, not easier.
Lilly and Jack should now be older than they were when they disappeared.
Jack, who was four at the time, is now five.
Lilly is now seven.
But there is still no confirmed information about where they are.
A $150,000 reward remains available
The Province of Nova Scotia established a reward of up to $150,000 for information that could help solve the disappearance of Lilly and Jack.
The reward remains one of the tools being used to encourage people with genuine information to come forward.
Police continue to ask anyone who has specific information about the children’s whereabouts or the circumstances surrounding their disappearance to contact the Northeast Nova RCMP Major Crime Unit.
Authorities have emphasized that even information that may seem insignificant could be important if it can be independently verified.
What happens next?
At this point, there is no announced breakthrough that explains what happened to Lilly and Jack Sullivan.
There have been no confirmed sightings that have led police to their location.
There has been no public confirmation of an abduction.
There has been no announcement identifying a person as responsible for their disappearance.
And there has been no recovery of the children.
What investigators do have is a large and still-growing body of information.
They have thousands of video files, more than a thousand tips, interviews with more than 100 people, forensic examinations, digital records and extensive search operations behind them.
The challenge now is determining which pieces of that information can finally establish what happened.
The RCMP has repeatedly said the investigation remains active and that investigators have not stopped working.
For the family, however, every passing month brings the same painful question.
Where are Lilly and Jack?
Their mother continues to hope that they are alive and that they can still come home.
Police say they need facts rather than rumours.
And until investigators can establish the circumstances surrounding the disappearance with certainty, the case remains open.
Fifteen months later, two young siblings are still missing from Nova Scotia.
And for the people who love them, the search for an answer has not ended.