CANADA Canada - Jack, 4 & Lilly Sullivan, 6, Vulnerable, wandered from home 10am, Gairloch Rd, Landsdowne Station, Pictou County, NS, 2 May 2025 #3

[iamafiusny]

I disagree in that I think the mom's interview raises the most red flags and, in my opinion, she's showing very little emotion because she's using 100% of her mental energy to recount a particular storyline. That, or she's on a strong medication. Either way, the things she's saying don't add up, like "... they were outside playing but we weren't aware of it at the time ..." That interview, for me, was so mind blowing, it's the reason I sought out this forum.

But I've been looking for an excuse to say the following and, dang it, I'm taking it.

I know we all have our own opinions, obviously, but I'm having trouble understanding the sheer number of people saying the stepdad's words seem heartfelt. In every one, he is constantly shaking his head and keep the same facial expression—like it's a default setting. The rare, small, emotive outbursts come at the weirdest times, like when he talks about a man in military fatigues coming out of the woods, for instance, or when he's talking about his own actions in the search. He refers to Jack and Lilly as "two little kids" or "the children," like he's avoiding their names. The past tense. Like, I cannot count the ways.

To me, it seems like DM can't talk about the kids and display emotion at the same time. He talks about wanting to prove people online wrong (who would be remotely concerned with that at this moment?) and about running through dense woods ahead of drones and all of his heroics. No words to the children? Their abductor? Your wishes? Concerns? WHAT THE HECK.

Her words were definitely concerning. Unless domestic abuse is involved I do not think she's free of guilt. I did get the feeling she felt sorry for whatever happened though.

DM also covers his eyes whenever he's "crying".

Moo

 

[iamafiusny]

<modsnip: Quoted post was removed>

I will say that at least in the few pictures we have access to (and the birthday video) the kids always look clean, with combed hair, and the bits of trailer interior you can see in the background looked clean.

Moo

 

[musicaljoke]

MOO, theory? Absolutely. I think he was implying someone else opened/closed the sliding door. Not them. Not the kids. “Abductor”.

If the door opens silently, I expect it would glide across pretty easily. In that case, either the children or an abductor could open it. The door looks fairly new, so I don't doubt that it slides along pretty slick. In any case, it would have been the first thing the police checked.

Although, I don't know how you can get two kids out of the house silently, other than that they went out on their own.

 

[Chimera]

I disagree in that I think the mom's interview raises the most red flags and, in my opinion, she's showing very little emotion because she's using 100% of her mental energy to recount a particular storyline. That, or she's on a strong medication. Either way, the things she's saying don't add up, like "... they were outside playing but we weren't aware of it at the time ..." That interview, for me, was so mind blowing, it's the reason I sought out this forum.

But I've been looking for an excuse to say the following and, dang it, I'm taking it.

I know we all have our own opinions, obviously, but I'm having trouble understanding the sheer number of people saying the stepdad's words seem heartfelt. In every one, he is constantly shaking his head and keeping the same facial expression—like it's a default setting. The rare, small, emotive outbursts come at the weirdest times, like when he talks about a man in military fatigues coming out of the woods, for instance, or when he's talking about his own actions in the search. He refers to Jack and Lilly as "two little kids" or "the children," like he's avoiding their names. The past tense. Like, I cannot count the ways.

To me, it seems like DM can't talk about the kids and display emotion at the same time. He talks about wanting to prove people online wrong (who would be remotely concerned with that at this moment?) and about running through dense woods ahead of drones and all of his heroics. No words to the children? Their abductor? Your wishes? Concerns? WHAT THE HECK.

Rbm.
That is concerning and I've seen such opinions from the family members displayed in other cases.
If your kids or your girlfriends kids are missing, social media comments should be way, waaaay down on your list of worries.
Imo.

 

[thispersonj]

Her words were definitely concerning. Unless domestic abuse is involved I do not think she's free of guilt. I did get the feeling she felt sorry for whatever happened though.

DM also covers his eyes whenever he's "crying".

Moo

Yeah. I went and reread what you wrote and I think we're pretty much on the same page w/ mom's interview. I don't see the sorrow so much but I can see what you mean.

And regarding:

He was talking about these children a lot, about their personalities, likes and dislikes, while the mother said nothing. And I don't buy that the police forbade her from doing that.

He did this once in an early interview—same part in which he refers to both children in the past tense at different moments.

 

[MistyWaters]

<snipped for response>I also mentioned before how in my opinion RCMP wouldn’t have brought in SAR outside of the RCMP until they had reason to believe the parents story was off.

I’m curious why you think this because IMO it’s the exact opposite, the role of SAR (aka Search and Rescue) is to find living people/children. In Canada it is typical for SAR to partner with the RCMP to support rescue efforts especially in challenging environments so the missing can be found asap, hopefully alive. So the way I see it, the large scale search proceeded, not because the police had reason to believe the parent’s story was off, but because of the belief the children would be found alive in the forest.

Why police didn’t notice the parents story to be questionable, I don’t know but maybe there was no option other than to give the parents the benefit of doubt rather than put the lives of two children at risk. JMO

SAR and public funding -

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6758265

 

[iamafiusny]

You raise a good point. Accidently, the only plausible theory I can come up with is ingesting something. IMO if there was an accident involving both of them, that is the only thing I can think of.

Could link I'm with the mom cutting contact with DM if she held him accountable. I.e it was something of his they ingested and could possibly lead us to believe that up to then. Ie them being in bedroom, kids playing in kitchen etc being true

I agree it's the most likely of the accident options since there are two kids, but it still would require them both to want to eat it, and it to affect them both the same way; death by the time the parents noticed they were quite.

I found this online, and the cases describe it taking at least a couple hours for the breathing to stop. Maybe if they ingested something the night before.

Twenty-five cases met study criteria: 22 male and 3 female; 76% of these cases were within the two to four age range. Twelve of these 25 cases were fatal, corresponding to a case-fatality rate of 48%. Of the fatal cases, five involved ingestion of oral fentanyl citrate, in the form of lollipops and lozenges; five involved fentanyl patches, and two fatalities were by oral route from unknown type of fentanyl. Females represented only one of twelve fatalities; the male:female ratio for all cases was 7.3.

Just using fentanyl as an example because it's a popular one at the moment. But you can see that it doesn't always result in fatalities and that boys are more likely to ingest (although DM did stress they do everything together, for whatever that's worth), I think that would be typical for most things - it wouldn't necessarily impact them both the same.

Moo

 

[shetalksinstereo]

Bbm.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who found that odd !
Imo.

I have found it odd from the beginning. Maybe they were "busy" and didn't want to say that? JMO

 

[iamafiusny]

I have found it odd from the beginning. Maybe they were "busy" and didn't want to say that? JMO

The scanner talks about Lilly and Jack last being seen at 8am, with the 911 call coming in about 10am and both parents saying they hadn't seen Jack at all.

I can't think of anything to make their story work, especially when you add in the fact that no evidence was found other a couple of spots that may or may not have been boot prints that may or may not have been from that morning.

Moo

 

[AIGT]

I’m curious why you think this because IMO it’s the exact opposite, the role of SAR (aka Search and Rescue) is to find living people/children. In Canada it is typical for SAR to partner with the RCMP to support rescue efforts especially in challenging environments so the missing can be found asap, hopefully alive. So the way I see it, the large scale search proceeded, not because the police had reason to believe the parent’s story was off, but because of the belief the children would be found alive in the forest.

Why police didn’t notice the parents story to be questionable, I don’t know but maybe there was no option other than to give the parents the benefit of doubt rather than put the lives of two children at risk. JMO

SAR and public funding -

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6758265

I believe this from my own experience which I won’t dive into. But, while these SAR organizations can be great, RCMP isn’t going to just invite multiple different SAR orgs with different levels/standards of training unless they’ve (RCMP) first done their own track/search of the area children would’ve been in if the story was true - I this case it was a 6km radius. They know that if the story was true their dogs would’ve likely been successful in the track. Now combine that with info they got from talking to the parents I think that they were probably leaning a different way pretty quick in this. That’s not to say that there wasn’t still a full force SAR attempt going on that could locate the children if they were out there.

I have a lot of reasons to think this but I’ll just say it was something that stuck out to me in my opinion.

 

[MistyWaters]

I believe this from my own experience which I won’t dive into. But, while these SAR organizations can be great, RCMP isn’t going to just invite multiple different SAR orgs with different levels/standards of training unless they’ve (RCMP) first done their own track/search of the area children would’ve been in if the story was true - I this case it was a 6km radius. They know that if the story was true their dogs would’ve likely been successful in the track. Now combine that with info they got from talking to the parents I think that they were probably leaning a different way pretty quick in this. That’s not to say that there wasn’t still a full force SAR attempt going on that could locate the children if they were out there.

I have a lot of reasons to think this but I’ll just say it was something that stuck out to me in my opinion.

Allow me to ask if you’re Canadian? Because I notice search arrangement in the US seem to be far less formal than here. Search groups definitely do not invite themselves to search for the RCMP. A significant difference between the two countries is Canada has many remote and unpopulated regions, heavily forested and mountains, therefore SAR requires specialized training.

RCMP Role in Search and Rescue | Office of Justice Programs

www.ojp.gov

In enhancing the effectiveness of its national SAR program, the RCMP has examined and, in some cases, completely overhauled RCMP responsibilities, service levels, standards, training, and resource allocation. The national SAR program emphasizes response, interdepartmental cooperation, prevention, and volunteers. Each province or territory served by the RCMP has a SAR coordinator. Minimum training requirements for search commanders include a basic SAR course and a management SAR course. Various types of RCMP equipment are used in SAR operations, including water transport and patrol vessels, fixed wing aircraft, and helicopters…..

Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada

Registered not-for-profit, educational organization that supports, coordinates, develops, informs, promotes, implements search, rescue and emergency response.

sarvac.ca

About Search and Rescue (SAR) - Canada.ca

Canadian Armed Forces contribution to search and rescue services throughout Canada.

www.canada.ca

 

[ilovepierre]

Not sure if anyone has replied as I am catching up. Mother is stay-at-home. Wednesday was a national holiday/pd day, so the kids were home from school. She called Lilly in sick with a cough so kept her (and Jack, presumably) home Thursday. No mention if she had called the kids in sick on the Friday before the 911 call was made. jmo

There was no national/federal/stat holiday on that Wednesday. It was a PD (professional development) day. School was out for students, but teachers still went in. Not every school in the country had one that day.

 

[ilovepierre]

It was a national “day" (Truth and Reconciliation). So businesses and banks could choose to recognize it and close too. jmo

Truth and Reconciliation Day isn’t until September 30.

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation - Canada.ca

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is observed September 30. The day honours First Nations, Inuit and Métis Survivors and their families and communities and ensures that public commemoration of the tragic and painful history of residential schools is a vital component of the...

www.canada.ca

 

[AIGT]

Allow me to ask if you’re Canadian? Because I notice search arrangement in the US seem to be far formal than here. Search groups definitely do not invite themselves to search for the RCMP. But a difference between the two countries is Canada has many remote and unpopulated regions, heavily forested and mountains, SAR requires specialized training.

Canadian, yes and have been “in the room” for discussions when deciding to bring in outside SAR groups to assist law enforcement. Not with NS RCMP though so that’s why I say my opinion only. I agree with your take that it is less formal in Canada and which is why I trust the RCMP on the ground had good reason to decide to bring in multiple different groups to assist instead of a focused search with only RCMP dog teams.

It’s a well thought out decision, not just “kids missing in the woods - let’s bring in everyone we can. To the public, if they don’t bring in these groups it can look like there not doing everything they can. I have been involved in situations where SAR groups have even complained to media while an ongoing search is happening because their services were denied.

I mentioned it before but in my experience for lengthy searches in dense woods or wilderness the most successful ones have been ones that consisted of multiple, highly trained, small dog teams(k9, handler and one or two other trained officers) from the same agency. All the training is the same, they are all on one radio frequency, there is no middle man that has to relay comms between groups etc.

Any missing persons I have been involved with that had other volunteer SAR groups involved have always ended in more of a recovery mission.

I understand this is not universal and there are cases that are the opposite from my experience but this is just my opinion based on my experiences.

 

[AIGT]

Could he have bought a plot of land from his mother /family member who owned the land?

Anything’s possible. It’s very difficult to get a lot of or accurate info on that kind of stuff and even more so for info on criminal history, court documents, etc in Canada compared to the US

 

[Judy Sleuth]

Apologies in advance for gabbling. It's early morning here in the UK and ive slept pretty poorly for the last few nights. But jumping on this..I've thought a lot about an accident following which the children were reported "missing" to cover up the fact...but then my mind wonders what accident could have occurred which would involve both children? I'm struggling to come up with answers for that....I could very easily see an accident happening to one child, but surely if they wanted to hide that it would be much easier to disappear that child alone..why both?

It kind of makes me want to rule out the accident theory but then what are we left with? The children wandering off voluntarily (but there just seems too many red flags for this)? An abduction (although LE seemed to rule this out pretty quickly)? Or the children coming to deliberate harm and an attempt to hide that fact?...but again this raises questions. What could possibly have gone on to cause two children to be harmed? Why not all three children? Is it because it would be harder to explain away a 16 month old disappearing? Does the parentage of the older children play a part I.e they are not DMs bio children?

If it was intentional and the missing story is just that...why this particular narrative? As other posters have mentioned it would have been much less suspect to have said the sliding door was left open..or even go further and say you woke to find them both missing. Why provide a back story of bot seeing one child all morning, staying in bed until 10am etc which opens the parents up to intense scrutiny? I just don't get it

So many questions

Can someone clarify the bold "back story of both seeing one child..." above? I'm not sure I've heard the mom say she saw Lily. I thought it was the stepdad that said that (maybe in a couple of different phrasings), while the mom talked about drifting in and out of sleep.

 

[iamafiusny]

Can someone clarify the bold "back story of both seeing one child..." above? I'm not sure I've heard the mom say she saw Lily. I thought it was the stepdad that said that (maybe in a couple of different phrasings), while the mom talked about drifting in and out of sleep.

I think it's meant to say NOT seeing one child.

Moo

 

[Unscripted]

This is the search map handout provided by the RCMP and published, on May 7, by The Chronicle Herald (RCMP scaling back search for missing Pictou County children). IPP (initial planning point) is last seen location -- the family home, and CP is the command post. The outermost green circumference is 2.5 kilometers from the house.

It seems that search efforts were more heavily weighted to the west/southwest/northwest of the home.

(In the early days, I pondered whether the children might have walked along the pipeline corridor, about 1.2 kms west of the property. The pipeline starts near the bottom left (southwest) on the map -- straight pink line/thin green stripe-- running northeasterly under the red squiggles/yellow area at top center . Obviously it's been gone over with a fine-tooth comb.)

 

[sar2them1984]

This is the search map handout provided by the RCMP and published, on May 7, by The Chronicle Herald (RCMP scaling back search for missing Pictou County children). IPP (initial planning point) is last seen location -- the family home, and CP is the command post. The outermost green circumference is 2.5 kilometers from the house.

It seems that search efforts were more heavily weighted to the west/southwest/northwest of the home.

(In the early days, I pondered whether the children might have walked along the pipeline corridor, about 1.2 kms west of the property. The pipeline starts near the bottom left (southwest) on the map -- straight pink line/thin green stripe-- running northeasterly under the red squiggles/yellow area at top center . Obviously it's been gone over with a fine-tooth comb.)

View attachment 586175

I wonder where the "cabins" DM mentioned owning are in relation to the searches

 

[tlcya]

I wonder where the "cabins" DM mentioned owning are in relation to the searches

yes, I wish we knew this