A search for the missing Sullivan children turned up items not deemed relevant: RCMP

Searchers return to the base camp after looking for six-year-old Lilly Sullivan and four-year-old Jack Sullivan, two children missing in Lansdowne Station, N.S., Wednesday, May 7, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ron Ward© The Canadian Press

HALIFAX — A search for Lilly and Jack Sullivan, six and four years old, turned up a number of items, including a child’s T-shirt, blanket and a tricycle.

However, Nova Scotia RCMP say none of the items are relevant to their investigation of the missing children.

It could be disappointing, but search organizer Nick Oldrieve says even a negative search result is still useful.

“If you’re looking for a missing person, you got to be used to striking out more times than you have successes,” Oldrieve says. “Lack of evidence is evidence in itself. So if you walk away from an area not finding anything, it’s still progress.”

The Sullivan children were reported missing by their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, on May 2, from their home in Lansdowne Station.

The heavily wooded area bordering the home has been searched several times over the past months, including by a team of specially trained cadaver dogs in October.

Oldrieve runs Please Bring Me Home, an Ontario-based non-profit, which has helped find 50 people across the country. He says he was initially approached to lead a search by Belynda Gray, the children’s paternal grandmother.

Oldrieve directed a search Saturday with 32 volunteers, focusing specifically on the Middle River of Pictou. He says several people with previous experience came out, including a retired military member with eight years of ground search and rescue.

He says the mood is a sombre one, even as searchers are hopeful they will find something of use. “It’s heartbreaking,” says Oldrieve, noting that searching for children missing for an extended period of time can be difficult. It’s very possible they are looking for human remains, and, Oldrieve says, “you can’t gloss over that.”

Oldrieve says the searchers split into groups of six, and kept meticulous records of where they looked and co-ordinates of any items they found. He is compiling all the records to deliver to the RCMP.

In an email, the RCMP say they extend “sincere thanks to Please Bring Me Home volunteers for their support with the search efforts.”

Oldrieve says he was particularly impressed by the previous searches. He says that based on the number of tags and ribbons marking the area, he is increasingly skeptical that the children wandered into the woods. “I can’t think of where they could have been missed,” he says. Instead, he says he finds the most logical explanation that the children fell in the water.

Oldrieve says the Please Bring Me Home team wanted to do another search before the weather turned and made conditions too difficult.

Everyone, he says, wants “Jack and Lily found desperately.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 16, 2025.

Emily Baron Cadloff, The Canadian Press