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

[iamafiusny]

I found the schedule but am not able to copy the link. It says that curb-side pickup on Mondays (Tuesday if Monday is a holiday) for residents in the village of Landsdowne. My question ... is the Martell residence considered to be "in the village?"

Rural properties typically have to arrange their own private garbage pickup or make regular dump runs, there is no municipal pickup like there probably is in the village.


Eta: I live in usa so maybe Canada different

 

[Calcano]

Is it unusual for two or more young children to become lost together? I know that sadly children do wander off and become lost, but a lot of the time it is a single child. Are there other incidents from anyone's memory to perhaps indicate how often this occurs?
Would two of them being out there together increase their odds of being found safely somehow?

 

[CityKid]

This is what I’m wondering. If Mom and Dad are both lying in bed together, then they’d know the other couldn’t have done it, right?

Only under the assumption that this happened on the day they said it did. IMO. We know that the last day we have someone outside the family seeing the children is Tuesday, the bus driver. Wednesday there was no school, and Thursday Lily stayed home sick, and they planned to keep her home sick on Friday, the day the children disappeared.

 

[LadyL]

I genuinely think it is just an accident. I think people are dwelling on the argument too much (what young couple hasn't argued before?) and I can't imagine the guilt of the parents that this happened while they were arguing.

There is also a discussion on CBC with a criminal expert who goes over some of the data, and he says in the database, only 0.3% of wilderness searches like this one end up being criminal in nature (vs. 4% of urban searches).

Just considering the area, and the young age of the missing children, it just makes sense to me they got lost and the parents are now grieving that. Statistically, it also seems unlikely that they are responsible.

Here is the Q&A with the expert if you guys are interested, it goes into much greater depth:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/missing-person-expert-lansdowne-station-search-1.7531338

[bbm]

did they say they were arguing in the bedroom?

 

[Warden23]

Rural properties typically have to arrange their own private garbage pickup or make regular dump runs, there is no municipal pickup like there probably is in the village.


Eta: I live in usa so maybe Canada different

Not in Cumberland Country, where the home is. It's under municipal service. Waste Management - Municipality of Cumberland

 

[Warden23]

[bbm]

did they say they were arguing in the bedroom?

I haven't seen anything saying that. It might in the Globe timeline, but I don't have access to it. Other than that possibility, I haven't seen anything saying that.

 

[tlcya]

I've heard nothing about an argument in the bedroom. The first argument I've read of was the one described by DM at the property on Saturday that caused MBM to leave with their child and block him.

 

[Andromeda]

Something else to add about the mother’s statement/s. She only uses “I”. She is not concerned about the childrens' welfare. Or, if they are cold or scared. She wanted an Amber Alert (blaming someone else for their kids’ disappearance). Police insist there was no reason to believe the children were abducted. Note, the kids were sneaky (playing outside without their parents’ supervision/permission). That is disparagement, as in blaming the kids/a sliding door, for not being outside and watching them play so they go missing. I’m looking to see if there are any other statements from her...

 

[MistyWaters]

Speaking legally if you take him at his word that CPS actually said “he can’t see the child” then it is because they are involved and have a belief him contacting the child could cause harm otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to interject. If he was just going there hoping they would mediate a visit they would have to tell him they can’t involve themselves in the issue.

Sorry I’m a bit behind here. But the mother took the child when she left DM so if CPS seized the child, it was from her, not DM, so it seems it’s her, not his parental rights that have been put into question as he never had sole custody of the child after she left. But now, considering the two parents are separated, custody, visitation and child support pymts and all that still has to be arranged through Family Court.
JMO

 

[LadyL]

What's going on? I haven't read the last 7 pages, but it sounds like one or more of the children are subject to child protection services. Is that true, or speculation?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with children playing in the fenced backyard while the parents are inside.

[bbm]

unless it's unsafe, which in my opinion, this backyard is an unsafe garbage dump/deathtrap

 

[katydid23]

Statement from Mom:
CTV News Video

They know that the children were playing outside, but they weren't aware of it, and then they realized that the children were quiet, so they went outside to look for them.

"What happened was that we woke up I heard them playing in the next room beside us and I was drifting in and out of sleep, and they're not the type of kids that we tell them not to go outside on their own. We always make sure that we're out there with them, watching them, then they happened to just get out that sliding door and we can't hear it when it opens and they were outside playing, but we weren't aware of it at the time and the next thing we knew the [lurt-unknown] like it was quiet and we get up and I tell him, my partner, Daniel, I tell him "do you hear the kids" and he says "no" and we get up instantly, we're looking outside, we're looking everywhere, yelling for them and I instantly just called 911, as j-unknown I had the instinct I need to call."

I know that was her statement---We, We, We, all the way through.

But immediately after that statement, halfway through the press update, mom reportedly sat in. the back of an ambulance for awhile and then took the baby and left with her mother, to return to her family. And she blocked her partner.

So it feels to me like she is re-evaluating what happened that morning. IMO

If her statement was 100% true then she'd have no reason to leave her home and partner and block him. I think she has been thinking hard about what happened that morning, and maybe some doubts have creeped in?

 

[katydid23]

I was thinking about geofencing. That's where the police do not need a suspect's cell phone. They can identify all cell phones within a given area within a certain timeframe and then identify the owners of those phones. So, of course, they will look at the morning the kids went missing, but I suspect they will identify all visitors since the last time anyone besides mom and dad saw those kids.

I read something in one of the posted articles upthread, which said there was no cell phone service in much of that area. I wonder if that is true or not?

 

[abanddb123]

I still don't for a second think these kids wandered off. Not a trace of them to be found after 8 days? Very unlikely IMO.

Because they are hidden and dead, just hidden or sold. Just my opinions.

 

[musicaljoke]

I read something in one of the posted articles upthread, which said there was no cell phone service in much of that area. I wonder if that is true or not?

I expect that is true. Yes, one of the articles said that the lack of cell phone service was hindering the search.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/day-three-may-4-pictou-county-missing-children-search-1.7526104

 

[katydid23]

IME, this is common in autistic folks, who tend to value accuracy in speech. It often comes off as over explaining to neurotypical people, when it’s the speaker trying to make sure they’re not being misunderstood.

So is the stepdad on the spectrum as well?

 

[TristanP]

What's going on? I haven't read the last 7 pages, but it sounds like one or more of the children are subject to child protection services. Is that true, or speculation?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with children playing in the fenced backyard while the parents are inside.

There is when they disappear.

Or end up dead in a barrel like that poor little girl in Kentucky recently.

 

[katydid23]

I’d like to know why Daniel’s mother thought that sending her daughter-in-law away from the area the kids disappeared from, was appropriate?

If I try to put myself in her shoes, I can understand her decision.

If my grand baby went missing---God Forbid---and my daughter-in-law and her Mom came to my property, accusing my son of being involved, I'd probably tell them to leave as well. Just sayin....

 

[musicaljoke]

I still don't for a second think these kids wandered off. Not a trace of them to be found after 8 days? Very unlikely IMO.

The landscape is brutal through there because of hurricane Fiona damage. I really don't know if searchers could even walk through much of that area to search carefully under trees and lifted roots. I believe two children could easily be hidden from view, especially if they crawled back into a space where the adults couldn't get to.

Post-tropical storm Fiona decimated Nova Scotia’s woodlots. These ecological foresters tell us what cleanup should look like. - Halifax Examiner

Unlike most other Canadian provinces where the Crown owns most of the land, in Nova Scotia just 29% is designated Crown land. Much of that private land is in the hands of 30,000 private woodlot owners. Since post-tropical storm Fiona, the provincial government has allocated millions of dollars...

www.halifaxexaminer.ca

 

[MistyWaters]

Thank you for your information. That being the case, I simply cannot imagine how two small children could have gotten so far away that they haven't been found.

I’d imagine the searchers desperately hoped to find alive children, detected by their movement or sound, and so the search also moved forward as quickly as possible, time was of the essence, anticipating a rescue to occur. So in my opinion it would’ve been entirely possible they simply missed finding them, especially if they had crawled into secluded spaces such as gaps into a large pile of downed timber.
JMO

 

[Can_Sleuth]

So is the stepdad on the spectrum as well?

We have no idea, was just speaking from my experience as an autistic person who speaks like this and knows others who do as well.