LANSDOWNE STATION — Police have scaled back a search for two children reported missing from their home in northeastern Nova Scotia, saying Wednesday there's little chance they could have survived after six days in the densely wooded area.
RCMP Staff Sgt. Curtis MacKinnon said most searchers would finish their shifts at the end of the day, and the effort to find the children would be reduced to specific areas – including places that had already been looked at. Six-year-old Lily Sullivan and four-year-old Jack Sullivan were reported missing as of 10 a.m. Friday in rural Pictou County, about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax.
"If we thought they were alive right now we'd still be out there," MacKinnon told reporters at the search command centre.
Up to 140 trained searchers at a time had been looking for the children, with the help of police dogs and heat-seeking drones, covering four square kilometres of heavily wooded, rural terrain. Police say there have been no reported sightings of the two children.
Search leader Amy Hansen said the effort of recent days has been exhausting. "We know that everything has been so thoroughly searched that it's time to scale back," she said.
Hansen spoke in the afternoon, after a morning of heavy rain soaked the forest where teams have spent days looking for the children. Some members of search teams, wearing bright orange, were visibly emotional and looked upset after the media update.
Staff Sgt. Robert McCamon, acting officer in charge of major crimes with the RCMP in Nova Scotia, told reporters that criminal investigators have been involved in the case since Saturday. "When it comes to a missing person … we will automatically consider what evidence is pointing us toward (whether it is) suspicious in nature," McCamon said.
"We're working closely with the family, and we'll pursue every avenue."
The children's stepfather, Daniel Martell, said on the weekend he believed the siblings slipped out the back door of the family's home in Lansdowne Station, N.S., as he and the children's mother were still in bed with their 16-month-old baby.
On Wednesday Martell said Wednesday he gave a four-hour interview with two officers with the major crimes unit, providing details “step-by-step, minute-by-minute through this whole thing.”
The 33-year-old said he drew them maps of the areas around the house where he thought the children might have gone. “I’ve been 100 per cent co-operating. I gave them my (smart)phone, I offered them drug tests. I offered them lie detector tests. I offered them everything,” he said.
“I wasn’t treated as a suspect or anything like that.”
He said the children were last at school on Tuesday, April 29, adding that there was no school April 30. Martell said the children were both at home on Thursday and Friday because “Lily had a little bit of a cough.”
Asked during the news conference if he believed there was criminal activity involved in the children's disappearance, McCamon said he wouldn't comment on details of the investigation. "We're going to continue on and when we get to a point where we have any decisions that can be made public we'll let you know at that time," he said.
"Based on the experts and review of the facts, the inclement weather, the time frames and their age, the likelihood they're alive right now is very low," McCamon said.
The search initially concentrated on the area near Gairloch Road, where the children lived. The Mounties issued two vulnerable missing persons alerts across Pictou County as the search began, but they did not issue an Amber Alert because those are reserved for abductions. On May 3, the Mounties broadcast an "intrusive alert" to residents of Antigonish, Colchester and Pictou counties.
The search has included volunteer ground search-and-rescue teams from across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as well as specially trained civilian pilots, the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax, the air services wing of the provincial Natural Resources Department, Nova Scotia Public Safety and the Canada Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Task Force.
MacKinnon said that to date, cadaver dogs have not been a part of the search effort, but involving dogs that can identify human remains "could be the next step."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2025.
— With files from Michael Tutton and Michael MacDonald.
Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press
