Nova Scotia’s haunting saga of two missing siblings has taken a spine-chilling turn 214 days after their unexplained disappearance, with freshly unsealed RCMP affidavits and a leaked family GPS log painting a picture of terror rather than tragedy. Lilly Sullivan, 6, and her brother Jack, 4—last seen giggling in a New Glasgow Dollarama on May 1, 2025—didn’t simply wander off from their rural Lansdowne Station home the next morning. Court docs, released December 1 amid mounting public pressure, detail a frantic 17-hour window where the children, equipped with a shared family smartwatch, ventured into the fog-choked Acadian woods, pausing at three identical 11-minute intervals along a glacial valley trail. But the real gut-punch? A torn scrap of notebook paper, clutched in Lilly’s tiny fist during a phantom “sighting” tip that fizzled, bearing her scrawled words: “It’s following us. Run Jack.” As the RCMP’s Northeast Nova Major Crime Unit digs deeper—now with 1,200 tips and forensic dives into the valley’s peat bogs—the case’s pivot from “endangered missing” to “active pursuit” has families bolting doors and online sleuths decoding every pixel. In a province where child vanishings echo like winter winds, this isn’t mere mystery—it’s a whisper of pursuit, turning idyllic forests into a labyrinth of fear.
For those late to this Maritime nightmare, the Sullivans’ story erupted on May 2, a dewy dawn that shattered the quiet of Gairloch Road’s rambling farmhouse. Mother Malehya Brooks-Murray, 28, and stepfather Daniel Martell, 30, woke to empty beds after tucking in Lilly—tousled curls and strawberry backpack—and gap-toothed Jack, diapered and dimpled—alongside baby sister Meadow. Initial RCMP reports painted a tragic toddler trek: door ajar, giggles heard at 8:50 a.m. by grandma Janie Mackenzie, silence by 9:40. But the Dollarama tape—timestamped 2:25 p.m. May 1—lingers like a ghost: Lilly waving stickers, Jack brandishing a toy car, their joy a stark prelude to peril. Brooks-Murray’s 10:01 a.m. 911 wail—”My babies are gone!”—launched a blitz: 160 volunteers, K9 cadaver dogs, drones over 15 square kilometers of bramble and brook. Weeks blurred into a scaled-back vigil, polygraphs passed (though “inconclusive” whispers persist), and a $150K reward dangling unanswered. Bio-dad Cody Sullivan, raided in Halifax, fumed from the sidelines: “They’re my world—not a stone unturned.” Yet as autumn stripped the birches bare, leads like a pink blanket shred in a ditch and a “tan sedan sighting” evaporated, leaving only echoes.
Enter the bombshell: December’s affidavit dump, pried via Freedom of Information battles by CBC and the Halifax Examiner, flips the script from accident to evasion. Buried in 200 pages of redacted RCMP logs? A family Apple Watch—gifted to Lilly for “big girl steps”—synced to Brooks-Murray’s iPhone, beaming a erratic GPS breadcrumb from 7:15 a.m. May 2. The trail snakes 2.3 kilometers northwest into Murphy’s Glacial Valley, a U-shaped scar from the last Ice Age: sheer slate walls, peat-choked floor, and mist that muffles cries. Three eerie pauses—each 11 minutes sharp—at coordinates aligning with abandoned logging clearings: 45.567°N, 62.912°W; then 200 meters north; then another. “Not random,” affidavit analyst Cpl. Elena Torres notes. “Deliberate halts, as if listening… or hiding.” Heart rates spiked to 140 bpm during treks, per the log—adult panic levels for tiny frames—climbing 20% at each stop. By 9:02 a.m., signal drop-off in a boggy hollow, battery at 12%. RCMP’s forensic techs, looping in Environment Canada for terrain maps, theorize battery death masked further flight, but cadaver hounds hit blanks.
The torn note seals the dread. Unearthed July 10 in a “credible tip” ravine—two small figures glimpsed by a hiker, per a now-retracted statement—the crumpled paper, no bigger than a credit card, bore Lilly’s wobbly crayon: “It’s following us. Run Jack.” Smudged paw prints? Or boot treads? Lab tests, per the filings, confirm child-sized grips, ink fresh as May’s dew. Handwriting matches Lilly’s school primers, seized from Salt Springs Elementary. “Not play-pretend,” Torres writes. “Fear-coded lexicon: ‘following’ implies pursuit, agency in ‘run.'” The hiker, a retired logger from Stellarton, recanted under polygraph—”Shadows in the mist, could’ve been deer”—but the note’s chain-of-custody holds: bagged, DNA-swabbed (traces of gummy bear residue, linking to Dollarama haul). Brooks-Murray, viewing scans in a tear-soaked Halifax briefing, collapsed: “My brave girl—writing warnings like a storybook hero. What chased them into that valley?”
The glacial valley itself looms like a suspect. Murphy’s—named for 19th-century trapper Elias Murphy, who vanished there in 1887—carves Pictou’s highlands: 300-meter drops, echoey kettles from melting ice blocks, and “whisper winds” locals curse for carrying voices astray. Folklore whispers of “the Follower”—a spectral miner from the 1920s colliery cave-in, luring strays with lantern glows. RCMP dismisses as bunk, but filings cite seismic quirks: micro-tremors from old shafts, audible as low rumbles—perhaps the “something” Lilly fled? Search teams, resuming November 16 pre-snow, deployed ground-penetrating radar, unearthing rusted picks but no bones. Volunteer Cheryl Robinson, knee-deep in peat, told Global News: “That valley swallows secrets—echoes play tricks, make you run from your own shadow.” A November drone sweep logged anomalous heat signatures—foxes, per thermal— but the 11-minute pauses align with known “echo pockets,” where sounds bounce like pursuers.
Family fault lines crack wider under the revelations. Brooks-Murray, relocated to Ontario post-separation from Martell (May 6 fallout, per docs), fired off a November 20 Facebook clarion: “214 days. My warriors ran from shadows we couldn’t see. Don’t stop—Lilly’s words demand it. 💔”—racking 25K shares, but igniting sleuth wars: “Staged note?” vs. “Maternal Morse code.” Martell, holed up in Truro, battled stress ulcers, telling the Chronicle Herald: “Door ajar? My fault—kids slipped like ghosts. But running? From what—bears? Worse?” Grandma Belynda Gray, paternal anchor, hosted a Pictou vigil November 25: 200 souls, lanterns mimicking Lilly’s “lantern fear,” chanting “Run home safe.” Sullivan, bio-dad, poured GoFundMe cash ($60K now) into private PIs, one leaking to the Coast: “GPS screams evasion—third party, human tracks.” Baby Meadow, 2½, babbles “Jack-Jack” at shadows, her coos a communal knife-twist.
RCMP’s pivot pulses with urgency: “Suspicious flight pattern,” per Sgt. Lisa McCully’s December 2 briefing, ups tips to 1,200—sightings from PEI ferries to Maine motels. Partnerships swell: FBI child-expert liaisons, CBSA border pings, even Mi’kmaq trackers from Sipekne’katik First Nation, honoring maternal grandpa’s roots. “Not criminal yet,” McCully cautions, “but pursuit implies peril—human or haunt.” Polygraph “inconclusives” resurface: Martell’s “deceptive on timeline,” Brooks-Murray’s “elevated baseline.” Highway cams, subpoenaed May 3, scanned 2,000 plates leaving Nova Scotia May 1-3—no tan sedans with child seats. A July “gold vehicle” lead? Busted as a mirage.
Public frenzy? Biblical. #SullivanShadows trends with 2.5M X impressions, Reddit’s r/UnresolvedMysteries dissecting “11-minute code” (Morse? Prayer lulls?). TikTok timelines rack 5M views, psychic “valley visions” clashing with drone recreations. Petitions for federal AMBER expansion hit 100K—rural blind spots decried: “No sirens in the sticks,” laments Missing Children Society’s CEO. Volunteers, 300 strong, brave December drifts for “echo hunts”—bells on boots, mimicking lost calls. A New Glasgow mural, siblings’ Dollarama grins eternalized, weeps fresh petals daily.
As solstice snow seals the valley—searches paused till thaw—this glacial ghost hunt endures. Lilly’s torn testament—”It’s following”—haunts like a half-heard cry, her GPS ghosts pausing in panic’s rhythm. Were they fleeing fog-forged phantoms, family fractures, or something sinister in the slate? For a fractured clan, a fogged province, the chase persists: not just for two fled lights, but answers in the ice-carved dark. Tip line: 1-800-780-7654. In Nova Scotia’s whispering wilds, the run isn’t over—it’s echoing.
