The unit that took charge of a missing children case that has captured the minds of Canadians for the past year is asking for “verifiable” tips.
Police have been tight-lipped in the months following the disappearance of Jack and Lilly Sullivan, who were four and six on May 2, 2025, when they went missing. Nearing the one-year anniversary of their disappearance, officials released a statement that didn’t add many new details.
“At this stage of the investigation, what investigators need are specific, verifiable details to work from. Rumour and speculation won’t lead us to Lilly and Jack,” S/Sgt. Rob McCamon, Officer in Charge (acting) of Major Crime and Behavioural Sciences, said.
The pair of young children is believed to have “wandered” from their rural home in Lansdowne Station in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. By 11:00 a.m. that day, officers were scouring the woods near the home in a full-scale operation. What followed were days of intense searching that turned up few physical clues as to where the two children had gone.
Police say that “all possible scenarios remain under consideration” for what happened to them.
“This investigation has involved sustained and wide‑ranging efforts over the past year,” McCamon said in the release. “Substantial RCMP and partner agency resources continue to be dedicated to this file, and they’ll remain in place until the circumstances surrounding Lilly and Jack’s disappearance are determined with certainty.”
In the updated statement from police, RCMP said they have conducted interviews with 106 people, used polygraph (lie detector) tests, reviewed over 8,000 video files gathered from around the area and searched 40 kilometres around Gairloch Road using human remains detection dogs.
According to officials, they have looked into 1,191 tips.
All of these details have been previously reported, offering a frustratingly quiet update for the public, as the sombre one-year anniversary looms.
Michael Arntfield, a professor, criminologist and cold case expert, told The Canadian Press that investigators can’t reveal everything they know or suspect, given that doing so could jeopardize their investigation by tipping off potential suspects.
“At this level, they’ve got investigators who are of the highest calibre … in terms of criminal intelligence and using all kinds of furtive investigative techniques,” said Arntfield, a professor at Western University in London, Ont., and founder of the university’s Cold Case Research Group.
“RCMP certainly have exploited these successfully in many cases where the public was kept in the dark the entire time … as a matter of operational necessity.”
As for the theory that Jack and Lilly wandered from their home, Arntfield said he finds that scenario hard to believe, citing observations that the surrounding woods are so dense that two small children could not have walked very far.
Research on lost children indicates that those between the ages of one and six often follow small animals into the woods, unaware they could lose their way. More importantly, these lost children rarely go far, choosing instead to seek shelter and sleep at night.
This weekend, a public vigil is expected to be held outside the RCMP detachment in Stellarton, N.S., and the family is encouraging people to print and distribute Jack and Lilly’s missing persons poster.
With files from Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press