CANADA Canada - Jack, 4 & Lilly Sullivan, 6, Vulnerable, wandered from home 10am, Gairloch Rd, Landsdowne Station, Pictou County, NS, 2 May 2025 #5

[ilovepierre]

I’d be interested in knowing the distance between the home and the spot where the boot print was found.
I’m also curious to know, how is it that only one boot print was found? Surely there would have been plenty of areas where it was muddy enough to leave boot prints.
IMO

The boot print was found near “Pipeline Trail” which is approximately 1.2 kms from the home.

If this is incorrect, please correct me.

 

[MistyWaters]

<snipped to reply>
He had a few more things to say:

Asked whether a review has been ordered into his agency’s prior interaction with the children, he said: “As minister, I’ve seen a report. I’ll talk to that. I’ve personally seen the report. I asked for it,” he said. “I’m aware of how our department was involved in this.” He added: “I think we should be focused more on those kids than we are on looking to blame somebody.”

What an unusual quote! It could describe a scenario whereby the children have been voluntarily placed somewhere with somebody. No reason to blame anybody, no crime.

 

[TMich6811]

We'll just have to disagree on that.

Either way, I do suspect someone likely accused them of either neglect or abuse & that's what triggered the file to be opened on the kids and the home visit. I also suspect at some point it will possibly come out what the result of that visit was. It really wouldn't surprise me if they found zero grounds for the complaint & closed the file.

CPS would generally find it neglectful for children 4 and 6 fending for themselves for likely hours without any eyes on them or true supervision. I say this as someone who runs an agency with many CPS contracts.

I disagree that half of the population would find this acceptable for this age range. 8 and 10, perhaps.

I know you want to believe the family in this case but we cannot disregard a likely neglectful situation.

Again - it’s possible CPS opened a case purely because it was reported that they didn’t have supervision for hours.

 

[MistyWaters]

We'll just have to disagree on that.

Either way, I do suspect someone likely accused them of either neglect or abuse & that's what triggered the file to be opened on the kids and the home visit. I also suspect at some point it will possibly come out what the result of that visit was. It really wouldn't surprise me if they found zero grounds for the complaint & closed the file.

Referring parents to take parenting courses seems to be the latest trend. I can appreciate how a 4 and 6 year old plus a 16 month old could be overwhelming. Including the biodad having removed himself from shared time, then adding in DMs other two children.

I’d be very surprised if they closed the file and walked away since both parents acknowledged the children were behind at school and were possibly autistic. Doing so would be ignoring the wellbeing of the children. However it’s possible MBM expressed her future intention of relocating to her mother’s home?
JMO

 

[AddyFinch]

All of the OP's above true.... I have to laugh, a man of few words in a lifetime of honourable work, used to rail about the CAS in Ontario. He felt them too "woke", and too much of a doo gooder who never acted for the child to the full degree of the available laws insitu. He was often very correct. It was always a great debate re the skills/laws/workers/parents/political interference/poverty etc. Of course each case was different with a few commonalities. Then I read the link I posted today about the issues Nova Scotia is having in the same regards, I wonder if these kids fell thru the cracks, they were neglected, the family was struggling, and no one was coming to help. I would almost rather think they were snatched by an evil criminal than to have fallen d/t parental needs. Sad really.

 

[Ontario Mom]

CPS would generally find it neglectful for children 4 and 6 fending for themselves for likely hours without any eyes on them or true supervision.

I'm curious where you're getting it was "likely hours" that the kids were unsupervised.

- 6:17am mom marks them absent through the Arrive Safe app
- sometime that morning Lilly comes into the room & Jack is heard in the kitchen
- parents drift off to sleep & wake up 20 minutes or so later (according to DM) and they don't hear the kids - he starts searching & she calls 911

Hours between the absent report and the 911 call yes, but I've not seen it reported anywhere what time the kids themselves woke up, or that they were unsupervised for hours that morning.

 

[su5ie]

Neglect can be a reason for developmental delays. The home environment can be a reason a child is not thriving. The school reported issues to Child Welfare according to Martel.

Learning disabilities is not a reason in itself to do a report to child welfare.

It could be neglect in a sense of not following through on appointments with psychologist, physiotherapist, speech and language therapy, occupational therapists. Supports that may help children with delays such as parent courses which teach the parent strategies that can be applied at home to bring the child on and make it easier on the child .

If a child has delays because of autism for example this is not a case of neglect but it is neglect if you are unwilling to engage with the services and the school . It will be viewed as you as a parent do not want to support your child's needs

In photos the children appear happy and don't seem to be unkempt or malnourished so I would imagine it was the above that was the issue . Schools will take it very seriously if it appears that you could not be bothered implementing suggested strategies and structured support . Even something as simple as repeatedly failing to do ip learning support strategies at home can result in a home visit from inspectors

 

[Alethia]

A red flag for me is DM's statement that the final interaction with the children was to tell them to be quiet because Meadow (the baby) was still sleeping. (This is according to the narrator of They Didn't Just Disappear.) Trying to find the original source for that quote. Anyone with small children knows how frustrating it can be when, as a tired parent, you're hoping against hope that the baby will sleep just a little longer in the morning. If that quote is accurate, I'm worried about the scenario where the parent-child dynamic moments before the disappearance was potentially the father figure being upset with the children for making noise.

 

[mysteryseeker]

Oh I was just wondering what you meant ha

It’s paywalled for me

What does Paywalled mean?

 

[BCSleuth]

What does Paywalled mean?

Access to the content is blocked unless you pay to access. Usually requires a paid subscription. So there's a "wall" in the way unless you pay to remove it.

 

[musicaljoke]

It would neither be unlawful nor unheard of for a woman with sole custody of her children to place them with another person, possibly a friend or relative, who has agreed to care for them for a period of time. Who said they were ‘hiding’? It’s not as if we inventory the whereabouts of each Canadian child every night.

They are certainly hiding in such a case, where everyone in the country is trying to find the kids.

 

[Bigditch]

Yes it reads “relayed by someone at the children’s school…”

Read it again. Last 2 words, "Mr. Martell said."

 

[MistyWaters]

Read it again. Last 2 words, "Mr. Martell said."

I don’t have a reason to doubt what he said.

 

[Bigditch]

I don’t have a reason to doubt what he said.

Neither do I. The visit was not because they were bad neglectful parents. There seems to be a lot of bad actors out there that would like us to believe otherwise.

 

[BCSleuth]

I do doubt what he said. Developmental delay is no reason for CSP to get involved. Either the school tried to soften things or DM did. There was probably a different concern.

 

[OneLove]

Neither do I. The visit was not because they were bad neglectful parents. There seems to be a lot of bad actors out there that would like us to believe otherwise.

Could you clarify what visit and from which agency you are referencing when you say "the visit"? Visits from child protective services are never due to "developmental delays". Most parents with children with developmental delays are never investigated nor visited bt child protective services. IF you are referring to *that* visit, and your wording seems to imply personal knowledge, what do you believe this visit was about?

 

[OneLove]

I'm curious where you're getting it was "likely hours" that the kids were unsupervised.

- 6:17am mom marks them absent through the Arrive Safe app
- sometime that morning Lilly comes into the room & Jack is heard in the kitchen
- parents drift off to sleep & wake up 20 minutes or so later (according to DM) and they don't hear the kids - he starts searching & she calls 911

Hours between the absent report and the 911 call yes, but I've not seen it reported anywhere what time the kids themselves woke up, or that they were unsupervised for hours that morning.

Of course, we must keep in mind that those words are simply the story told by the parents and there has been zero corroborating evidence for that story. Even signing into the online system to mark Lilly absent could have been done by anyone with access to the mother's phone or computer. There's not even proof either of the children were still alive when that happened.

 

[MistyWaters]

Could you clarify what visit and from which agency you are referencing when you say "the visit"? Visits from child protective services are never due to "developmental delays". Most parents with children with developmental delays are never investigated nor visited bt child protective services. IF you are referring to *that* visit, and your wording seems to imply personal knowledge, what do you believe this visit was about?

How is it you know “child protective services are never due to developmental delays”? Developmental delays can be indicative of neglect, which happens to be something Child Welfare is interested in investigating.

Maltreatment rates in children with developmental delay | Canadian Child Welfare Research Portal

cwrp.ca

“It has been reported for many years that children with developmental delay are much more likely than other children to experience maltreatment. One study reported maltreatment for as many as 11.5% of children with delay, as opposed to only 1.5% for other children. Physical neglect was an aspect of this maltreatment in 92% of the cases. For a population that is already very vulnerable, this is a serious concern.”

 

[MistyWaters]

I do doubt what he said. Developmental delay is no reason for CSP to get involved. Either the school tried to soften things or DM did. There was probably a different concern.

See above, my question is how do you know developmental delay is no reason for CPS to get involved.

 

[OneLove]

See above, my question is how do you know developmental delay is no reason for CPS to get involved.

When school staff sees developmental delays, they refer students for testing for said specific delays. That could be hearing, vision, dyslexia, attention deficit, autism spectrum, etc. When they see signs of possible home neglect or abuse that may be *contributing to* said delays, they report the specific neglect or abuse signs to cps. Things such as malnutrition, signs of beatings like bruises, burns, & welts, mites or other signs of filth in clothing, consistent lack of sleep, smell of alcohol or drugs, refusal to comply with remedial interventions, consistent truancy w/o acceptable reason, lack of lunches or money for lunches, signs of sexual abuse, uncontrolled urination or defecation, and so many more symptoms are taught to all teachers and those in positions of required reporting. No child is EVER reported to cps for a simple developmental delay nor would cps involve themselves in developmental delays without reported sign of abuse or neglect. An example would be delayed eye-ear-hand coordination in early elementary. This would never be reported to cps. Consistent lack of sleep, unexplained bruising, hunger, smelly urine soaked clothes daily, smell of meth cooking chemicals, and starvation level skin and bones ALONG with lack of appropriate eye-ear-hand coordination would be referred to BOTH cps and for school adjacent professional analysis and remediation. These two entities do not overlap other than for reporting purposes for the highest good of the child and in the best interests of the child's health, wellbeing, and future.

This was a long explanation but I worked professionally as a social worker, a teacher specializing in at risk populations, and as a juvenile justice professional. I've definitely seen a *lot* of tragic developmental delays caused by neglect and abuse, along with plenty of adults who simply shrugged off said abuse and neglect as acceptable. Its not just the victim children that pay, it's society as a whole.

ETA: a reading delay is diagnosed & remediated by *school* intervention. Abuse and neglect are remediated by *cps* intervention. Its actually very simple.