Only just got round to doing the presser.
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE
7TH MAY
(
Corporal Carly McCann, Press Relations Officer, greets media and introduces personnel present)
STAFF SERGEANT - Thank you all for being here today. First of all, our thoughts go to the family and loved ones of Lily and Jack Sullivan, to their communities and to everyone who's worked day and night in an effort to find the children and bring them home.
Since the first 911 call was received by the RCMP reporting that six year old Lily and four year old Jack had wandered away from their home on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, a multi agency search has been underway.
Teams have been working around the clock. This search has included many agencies, including volunteer ground search and rescue teams from across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the Civil Air search and rescue Association known as Casera, Department of Natural Resources, air services, Nova Scotia public safety and field communications. Nova Scotia guard, joint Rescue Coordination Center, Salvation Army, the Canada heavy Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 5 and several RCMP units, including police dog services and drone operators.
Since Saturday, because we treat all missing person files as suspicious until our investigation leads us to determine otherwise, our Major Crimes Unit has been engaged. It's been an all hands on deck effort, using every available resource and tool. Since the search began on May 2nd. it has been concentrated in the Gairloch Road area and has covered 4 square kilometers of heavy wooded, rural terrain, up to 160 trained volunteer searchers, along with many others, have been involved in the search each day. 10s of 1000s of search hours have been dedicated to scouring the area, and GSR? has confirmed that over 100 tracks have been laid using GPS and grid searches. Efforts to locate Lily and Jack have also included two vulnerable missing person alerts, posting the children's photos information on Nova Scotia RCMP website and social media accounts. Our social accounts have more than 300,000 followers and releasing information to local media as well as reporters across the country. Lily and Jack have made headlines from coast to coast.
While the search has been ongoing, RCMP officers continued with the missing person investigation, speaking with family and community members to gather tips and other information that could help locate the children. We have not received any confirmed reports of sightings.
Lily and Jack's family have been provided with regular updates on the search and on the missing person investigation; they've also been afforded supports.
As of today, May 7th, the active search efforts to locate Lily and Jack will be scaled back. We're transitioning from a full scale search to searches in more specific spaces - spaces that have already been searched by our teams. We want to circle back to increase the probability that all clues have been found and when transitioning from an active search to a scaled back search, the probability of survival is taken into consideration.
I want to assure you that our missing persons investigation continues. We're not packing up and we're not giving up. Our investigation is broad, and it won't end till we know where Lily and Jack are and can bring them home. We'll continue to investigate and chase leads for as long as and as hard as we have to. We have the best investigators working every aspect of the file. We continue to appeal to anyone who have information related to our investigation, and who has not yet spoken to us, to contact the Pictou County District, RCMP, at 902-485-4333 or Crime Stoppers.
Before I close, I want to reiterate that our hearts go out to Lily and Jack's family, to the community and the people who've worked so incredibly hard today. Many of us have children of our own and want nothing more than to reunite Lily and Jack with their loved ones. Thank you.
REPORTER - You said you're going over areas that you've already seen - what's the purpose of that when, before that, you were telling us that you were extending the search?
STAFF SERGEANT - What we'll be doing is we'll be continuing on, just because today, the search is being scaled back, we will still continue on and we will go back to areas that we feel that we may need to re-look at, and we may expand out if there's any type of information that leads us to believe that we need to do that.
REPORTER - How would that help you to specifically go to places that have searched by hundreds of people? how could that help you find (
inaudible)
STAFF SERGEANT - Yeah, because of the terrain, there could be different types of things that we may want to try and get back in if we are able to locate anything that may come up that the searchers didn't catch the first time, but we will do everything we can to try and find Jack and Lily, and based on the weather, the season changes, we don't want to leave and we're not leaving, just that this part of the search is being scaled back.
REPORTER - You've done an incredibly exhaustive search in the area and major crime is also here, and having not found these children, having done a very thorough search, can you tell us like the role of major crime in this and what can you tell us about that investigation?
MAJOR CRIME - So, major crime became involved earlier on in the investigation. We were able to bring in some specialized knowledge and skill sets, and we help with the information management and decision making. As we scale back, as we've identified, there are certain areas that are going to be re-looked at that could contain a confined area, perhaps, and maybe need some more specialized search areas, but I'll leave that to the search crews to expand on, and we're going to continue pursuing any leads or information that comes in and the stuff that we do have. We have engaged in all areas of the RCMP, all tools that are available to us are being considered and engagement appropriate.
REPORTER - The general population looks, you know, looks at it says you have searched very thoroughly this area, you would have found them if they were there, which then makes people, you know, certainly on social media, people are assuming, rightly or wrongly, that there's some criminal elements to this, what can you tell me about that, you're work on that?
MAJOR CRIME - Well, I can't really speculate on the investigation, obviously, that wouldn't be fair to the process, but we are constantly reviewing everything that's been done, looking at all different facets of available information, and we'll make decisions on that. I can't really comment on the details of that, but we will pursue every lead that becomes available and take it to where it needs to go.
REPORTER - You at first said it wasn't suspicious, that the kids had just wandered off - now you're saying every missing persons investigation is considered suspicious, is it still suspicious? are there any suspects here?
MAJOR CRIME - Again, I'm not going to comment on the details of the investigation, but I will comment -when somebody goes missing and we become engaged, as any police officer, not just major crime, we will look at all the details and make considerations on the information we have, right? When it comes to a missing person, we have to automatically consider those - are there people that are have different charter applications and things like that; so we will automatically start to consider what evidence is pointing us towards what's suspicious in nature. Again, I can't comment more than that, but every missing person case, we would approach it from the same process, a methodical collection and review of information with decisions based on that.
REPORTER - The family has said they believe it's an abduction or they suspect it's an induction - are there now any clues, or anything leading you to think that that might be possible?
MAJOR CRIME - If we had any information that led that way and we felt that we could provide anything with the public, we would have done that, we would have got that information out. We're working very closely with the family, and we will pursue every avenue. But again, I'm not going to make any specific comments, but anything that would point towards that, we would immediately take steps to address things that need to be addressed.
REPORTER - You talked about survivability, I wonder if you could address that specifically given the ages of the two missing children and the weather conditions we've experienced this week.
STAFF SERGEANT - Yeah, so, the incident command person with the RCMP, along with the search manager, at some point, I have to make a decision when to scale back this search and a number of factors would have to be taken into consideration, and they would, based upon scientific information that they have, to deem when that time has to come, and that is now. A lot of those factors that come into play would be the age of the missing persons, the weather, how long it's been, what area has been covered, so at that point they have to make a decision on that.
REPORTER - I hate to ask this, but given their age and the conditions.. if they were still in the woods do you think they would still be alive?
STAFF SERGEANT - I guess it goes back to all those factors that have to come into play, right? so we are scaling back because it's time to move to a different part of the search.
REPORTER - Scale back versus active search - I know yesterday there was a number at or around (
inaudible) searchers on the ground (
inaudible); can you quantify what scale back is? like fewer searchers, smaller area, larger area, how does that look?
STAFF SERGEANT - Just to go to the first point, there's been a lot of searchers here, and we can't thank them enough for being here. They've given up... a lot of them have been here since day one, and they have given up... some have taken time off work, some have left their families behind, and we are very grateful for that. Saying that, we will look in on them and their senior managers to give us some recommendations of what else we can do, but we will take that and we will explore whatever we have and whatever we can do to check in spots that need to be checked, or whatever. But, at this point in time, after today, we just won't see all these searches here.
REPORTER - I saw a person yesterday who was dressed like you limping, being carried, all hot and sweaty. Can you talk about how rough it was in the woods? it looks almost impossible, what did you see? what did your people see when (
inaudible)
RCMP - Well, these woods; they are very thick, there's a lot of the hurricane damage from Fiona a couple years ago, and we've had teams struggling to get through areas. And I can't say anything more about the searchers, they're pushing through all of these areas, going through all of these dead falls, going through waterways, and anything possible just to cover their search areas, so we know that everything has been so thoroughly searched that it's time to, as they say, scale back. And we are exhausting people, and we're starting to see more injuries coming back the last couple of days, and it's just.. it's hard terrain.
CORPORAL - And I will note as well, having had the opportunity to participate yesterday in a helicopter search as well, it is immensely clear, looking from above, based on the orange tags on the trees, how thoroughly and meticulously the area has been searched, based on the indications you can see, even from up in the air, of how thorough the searches are. So I also give a hats off to the many, many searchers who have have participated here in support of finding Lily and Jack.
REPORTER - (
inaudible) continuing in the forest - is there evidence that the children are in the forest?
STAFF SERGEANT - Yeah, so at one point, there was a possible boot impression found, and I can tell you that the search and rescuers then performed grid searches of that area and expanded out from that area in a meticulous fashion. They're focused in tight searches, and nothing else was found.
REPORTER - And do you believe that the evidence you found was of the children?
STAFF SERGEANT - It appeared it was a possible boot print of a... a smaller boot print. So when we have a possibility like that, that's when we exhaust that area as well to make sure that that wasn't a clue that we were missing.
REPORTER - I understand K-9 unit had been involved, have cadaver dogs been involved at this point?
STAFF SERGEANT - I don't believe cadaver dogs have been involved at this point yet.
REPORTER - Will they become involved? and I'd also like to circle back to the question about survivability - can you give a little more detail there about how you're making the decision of bringing in cadavar dogs and (
inaudible).
STAFF SERGEANT - So, the cadaver dogs could be the next step in terms of when we talk about scaling back, that could be another option that we now look at using, and getting back to that point; that decision was made based on a lot of factors, and if we thought they were alive right now, we'd still be out there.
REPORTER - Does that mean there are no plans yet?
STAFF SERGEANT - Not that I'm aware, I can't speak to whether cadaver dogs are coming or not, I can't speak to it.
REPORTER - I was wondering if you can clarify - we heard major crime has been involved since Sunday, is that correct?
STAFF SERGEANT - Saturday morning.
REPORTER - Since Saturday, okay, so do you believe the children have met foul play?
MAJOR CRIME - Again, I'm not going to comment on specifics of the investigation. We're going to continue on, and when we get to a point that we've got information that we're able to make any decisions that are able to be public, we'll let you know at that time. But right now, I'm not going to comment on specifics.
REPORTER - So, you don't believe the children are alive anymore?
MAJOR CRIME - No. Based on the experts and the review of the facts, the inclement weather, the timeframes and their age, the likelihood that they're alive right now is very low.
REPORTER - Okay and can I just ask one more question about the scaling back of the search - are you reducing the number of searchers out there, or is it being concentrated just with RCMP now? or what? how is that looking differently on the ground?
STAFF SERGEANT - Yeah, absolutely. So the searchers will be finishing at the end of the operational period today, and now it'll come back to the Picto district, RCMP, we'll make decisions and put in plans of how we move forward.
CORPORAL - So, rather than having the large presence here, the massive number of searchers on scene every day, searches will be based on information that comes in and specifics in order to make things pointed and specific to areas that are pinpointed or specific to a search need in the area.
REPORTER - You mentioned you're circling back to find rules and document the boot prints - is there anything you're looking to find, expecting to find, or usually find in these situations?
STAFF SERGEANT - We're looking for any type of clue, any information to help us out, and then we'll take that information and work forward from that.
REPORTER - Is the boot print still involved in the search process or was that deemed to be not relevant?
STAFF SERGEANT - I can't say that it's not relevant, but it was.. the search was exhausted in that area, and we were not able to find any more clues or evidence in that area.
REPORTER - Sorry, can you just clarify - you just said to the previous question that the ground search and rescue... like the volunteers are being called off after today?
STAFF SERGEANT - Yes, at the end of the operational period today, they will be done.
CORPORAL - Out of respect for the search and rescue teams that continue to be on scene here and the police as well, we conclude this media availability today. And our thoughts do remain with Lily and Jack's loved ones at this difficult time.
