Newly released court documents are shedding fresh light on the search for two missing Nova Scotia children and how police combed through bank records, phone data and GPS information to track the movements of their mother and stepfather leading up to their disappearance in May.
The redacted records, which were released at the request of CBC News, the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Press, include 12 record-access orders filed by RCMP and reveal that as of July 16 investigators did not believe the case was criminal in nature.
Lilly Sullivan, 6, and Jack Sullivan, 4, were reported missing on the morning of May 2 when police received a 911 call at 10:01 a.m. from their mother Malehya Brooks-Murray saying they had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station, about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax.
RCMP arrived 26 minutes later, at 10:27 a.m.
Their mysterious disappearance sparked an extensive grid search that spanned 8.5 square kilometres of mostly dense woods around the home and included wells, mine shafts and waterways.
The case has gripped people across Canada and around the world, prompting 740 tips to police and more than 9,300 videos, which RCMP said are being “evaluated and prioritized” by major crime investigators.
In a statement to CBC News this week, RCMP spokesperson Allison Gerrard said the disappearance remains a “very active investigation.”
“The Nova Scotia RCMP is using every available resource to help locate Lilly and Jack and determine the circumstances of their disappearance,” she said.
When asked whether the investigation has turned criminal in recent weeks, Gerrard said only that “a tremendous amount of careful, deliberate investigative work is ongoing.”
“The major crime unit continues to investigate Jack and Lilly’s disappearance under the Missing Persons Act, and the team remains committed to exploring all possible scenarios,” she said.
In the early weeks of the investigation, RCMP sought access to all electronic devices and data used by Brooks-Murray and her then boyfriend Daniel Martell during the period between May 1 at 2:25 p.m. and May 2 at 10:27 a.m. when police arrived.
“Location data from various sources including Global Positioning Systems, cell phone tower locations and file metadata can tell investigators the historical location of the device,” said RCMP member Cpl. Charlene Curl in her written request to the court.
“Logs such as call logs, chat logs, email logs will show investigators who Malehya and Daniel were in contact with prior to Jack and Lilly going missing and verify the information they have provided to police.”
Officers also accessed their bank records, using their transaction histories to cross-reference timelines previously provided to the police by Martell and Brooks-Murray.
“I’m completely open and transparent with everything on the case. They know my life inside and out and I was happy to share it with them,” Martell said this week in reaction to the release of the court records.
“It’s important for me because Jack and Lilly were my stepkids and there’s two innocent children that are missing.”
RCMP also accessed Brooks-Murray’s TextPlus account, a phone app she used for Wi-Fi calling.
By the time police sought the records in early July, the court records said Brooks-Murray had “deleted the app because she doesn’t need it anymore.” Regardless, RCMP were able to access her account.
On May 12, Martell and Brooks-Murray did separate polygraph tests with different officers. According to court documents filed by the RCMP, both passed.
Martell has told CBC he asked RCMP to do a polygraph test. He said all of the questions were focused on whether he killed Lilly and Jack.
“Malehya willingly agreed to undergo a polygraph examination in relation to this investigation, in an effort to eliminate her as a suspect in causing her children’s disappearance and possible murder,” Curl wrote in a May 16 court application.
An investigator’s comment is included in the document, stating: “I do not have reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offence has occurred. Because Jack and Lilly are still missing, polygraph examinations were conducted with the intention of ruling out that possibility.”
Family shows property where missing N.S. kids last seen
The documents also show Janie MacKenzie, Martell’s mother, did a polygraph test on June 10. Her “physiology” was “not suitable for analysis” and no opinion was rendered.
On June 12, Cody Sullivan, the children’s biological father, also did a polygraph and was determined to be truthful.
Cyndy Brooks-Murray, the children’s maternal grandmother, and her boyfriend, Wade Paris, both passed polygraph tests on July 2.
Some details of the six polygraph tests, including questions asked and officers’ notes, are redacted in the documents.
Since the Sullivan children disappeared 3½ months ago, their mother has avoided making public statements.
The newly released documents provide summaries of five statements Brooks-Murray provided to the RCMP. In her first police interview, she described Martell as “an involved parent who would help her especially when she was overwhelmed.”
She said he wasn’t aggressive with the children but “he had a voice they would listen to.”
Brooks-Murray told RCMP there was never any physical discipline.
In other sections where police summarized her account of their relationship, the document is heavily redacted.
The pair haven’t spoken since May 3.
Brooks-Murray did, however, call RCMP at 12:45 a.m. on May 3 to report that the children’s biological father might have picked them up and taken them to New Brunswick.
RCMP showed up at Sullivan’s house at 2:50 a.m.
“Cody said he had not seen Jack and Lilly in three years and confirmed they were not with him,” Curl said in her court application.
On May 7, RCMP spoke to Sullivan again because a tip said he had been seen by a hotel employee in New Brunswick.
Police confirmed once again he was at home in Nova Scotia.
Later that month, RCMP requested all camera footage at the Cobequid Pass, the location of a toll plaza on the Trans-Canada Highway in northern Nova Scotia about 70 kilometres from the New Brunswick border, between May 1 at 2:25 p.m. and May 3 at 3 a.m.
The children were on video surveillance at the Dollarama in New Glasgow, a town about 20 kilometres northeast of Lansdowne Station, at 2:25 p.m. on the Thursday before their disappearance.
“This time frame will encompass the time frame between when they were last seen and when Cody Sullivan was confirmed to be in Nova Scotia. Footage from this timeline will assist investigators with independently verifying Cody Sullivan’s statement to police and confirm Jack and Lilly did not leave Nova Scotia,” writes Curl in her application.
It’s not clear from the documents what the camera footage did or did not confirm.
Martell said he had no idea Brooks-Murray called RCMP that first night to report Sullivan might have taken the children.
“I was so exhausted on the night of May 2, I went to bed. I still remember that I sat on the bed, I gave Malehya a hug and everything and then I literally passed out cold because I was so tired from searching all day and I fell asleep at 9:09,” he said.
“You think she would have told me that the next day. But nothing.”
Brooks-Murray told police she was awake most of the first night the children were gone. She slept between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.
The documents describe in detail how the family spent the days leading up to the disappearance running errands.
On Wednesday, April 30, all five, including Jack and Lilly’s baby sister, went to Brooks-Murray’s grandmother’s house to do laundry at 2 p.m.
More than an hour later, Brooks-Murray took the baby with her to get a licence plate for her car while Martell stayed at her grandmother’s house with Jack and Lilly.
According to the documents, “they went to the Ultramar in Millbrook to get gas and she stopped to get a vape for Daniel at High Grade.”
The entire family later went for groceries and eventually arrived back home at 10:19 p.m.
On May 1, Jack and Lilly didn’t go to school. The entire family went to New Glasgow in the afternoon and were home for the evening.
Brooks-Murray initially said she put Jack and Lilly to bed at 9 p.m, then changed that time to 10 p.m. in a later statement to police.
According to Brooks-Murray, Martell stayed up and she didn’t know what time he came to bed.
She said she heard the kids “giggling, laughing and talking to each other” in their shared bedroom in the early hours on Friday, May 2.
She was fading in and out of sleep, but when she heard silence she told Martell and they started checking inside and outside their home before Brooks-Murray called 911.
In the chaotic hours that followed, an extensive search ensued with more than a hundred trained volunteers combing the woods, accompanied by air support from helicopters and drones.
Loved ones from all sides of Jack and Lilly’s family frantically looked for signs of the children.
Around 4 p.m., relatives of Brooks-Murray came out of the woods saying they had found a pink blanket down the road from the children’s home. The blanket was seized by RCMP and photographs were taken.
According to the documents, a police dog walked for about one kilometre in the area and did not pick up a scent.
Another piece of blanket was seized from a garbage bag in a bin at the end of the family’s driveway. Martell tells CBC it was the same blanket but had been ripped apart.
Brooks-Murray told police it was Lilly’s LOL doll blanket that she had “sometimes dragged around with her” but had decided she no longer wanted. Martell had been using it to stop a draft around the door, according to her statement.
“Malehya took the blanket from the door because the weather was getting nicer about a week before and she threw it in the garbage,” the documents said. “There was already a piece missing from it when she did that because Daniel ripped it off when he put it up.”
RCMP have previously said a pink blanket that was seized on Lansdowne Road early in the search is being forensically examined.
An impression casting of a boot print found in the nearby woods was also taken to the lab for testing.
An investigator’s comment states in a July 16 document that “because Lilly’s boot print was confirmed to be a size 11, it is consistent with the boot print located on the pipeline trail in the search area.”
Multiple loved ones, including Martell, his mother and the children’s paternal grandmother Belynda Gray, have all told CBC they do not believe the children are in the woods.
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