The search effort is ongoing for a sister and brother who were reported missing from their home in Nova Scotia’s Pictou County on May 2.
RCMP say they were called that day to find Lily Sullivan, 6, and Jack Sullivan, 4.
The children are believed to have wandered away from their family home on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, N.S., about 20 kilometres southwest of New Glasgow.
When were they last seen?
According to the children’s stepfather, Daniel Martell, Lily and Jack were last seen on Friday morning.
The children attend Salt Springs Elementary, but Martell said they were not at school on Friday because Lily had a cough, and they were also home sick from school on Thursday.
Martell said that while he and their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, were in the bedroom with their one-year-old baby, Lily came in and out several times, and Jack could be heard in the kitchen.
He thinks the children must have opened the sliding back door, which he said is nearly silent, and went outside.
“When we noticed that the children were gone, I immediately jumped in the vehicle, surveyed all the areas, [as] many dirt roads, [as] many culverts as I could and waited for the police to get there,” Martell told CBC News on Monday.
How are authorities treating the investigation
When the children were reported missing on Friday, the RCMP said there was no evidence they had been abducted.
Since then, there’s been no indication from police that this has changed. But Martell said Tuesday that he now believes the children were taken.
He said investigators with the RCMP’s major crimes unit spoke with him a few days ago and with members of his family on Monday.
“[The RCMP were] taking statements from the very start. They just want to rule everything out before they switch … concerns from being, you know, search and rescue to abduction,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
When asked on Tuesday if the major crimes unit is involved, an RCMP spokesperson said a “variety of teams” are working on the investigation “in order to provide tools, skills and resources as necessary.”
Why wasn’t an Amber Alert issued?
In an interview with CTV News on Saturday, the children’s mother said she appreciated the huge search effort, but she wished an Amber Alert had also been issued.
“Not just that they could possibly be abducted — which it is a possibility that they could have been — but just an alert to let everyone know that they are missing,” she said.
Police have said there was no Amber Alert because there is no evidence the children were abducted.
A vulnerable persons alert was issued for Pictou County when the children were first reported missing Friday, and an additional alert was issued Saturday evening to Pictou, Antigonish and Colchester counties.
The search remains focused on the rural area surrounding the family home, which is heavily wooded, making it difficult for search and rescue teams to comb through.
Continue Reading Article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/missing-children-pictou-county-lily-jack-sullivan-1.7527613
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