Seven weeks after two children went missing from a rural Nova Scotia community, family members are still questioning why an Amber Alert wasn’t issued for Lilly and Jack Sullivan.
The young siblings have been missing since the morning of May 2, when police received a 911 call reporting they had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station, about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax.
RCMP have said all along that the case did not meet the criteria for the alert, and are now providing more details on the factors that are considered and the process that plays out in such situations.
Amber Alerts are a national public notification system used to help find abducted children believed to be in imminent danger.
Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay, who works in the RCMP’s communications unit, was working the day of the disappearance and reviewed the policy on Amber Alerts.
He said the criteria state there must be something to point the public toward, such as a suspect, a person of interest or a vehicle.
“You want to direct the public to look for a specific vehicle, to look for that licence plate, to look for that suspicious person, to have a photo of someone or more information to suggest that there was an abduction,” said Tremblay in a recent interview.
While Tremblay reviewed the policy, it’s the risk manager — appointed for every major incident — that ultimately decides if an alert should be sent out.
In this case, the force issued two “vulnerable persons” alerts.
The first was sent at 12:43 p.m. on the day of the disappearance and was directed to cellphones across a swath of communities in northeastern parts of Nova Scotia’s mainland, including Lansdowne Station and New Glasgow.
The second was issued at 5:26 p.m. the following day — May 3 — and included a larger area from Truro up to Tatamagouche and stretching across to Antigonish.
For Daniel Martell, the children’s stepfather, those alerts did not go far enough.
He said he asked RCMP to issue an Amber Alert early on, and to position officers at the New Brunswick and P.E.I. borders and the airport, but was told the situation did not meet the criteria.
“I think they should have just bent the criteria at that moment,” said Martell. “It wasn’t just one missing person, but two vulnerable children.”
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Lilly and Jack’s mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, posted on her Facebook page the day after the disappearance asking for an Amber Alert to be issued.
RCMP have repeatedly said there is no evidence to suggest the children were abducted.
But that hasn’t quelled the concerns of Belynda Gray, the children’s paternal grandmother.
She, too, wanted police to issue an Amber Alert, given the children’s vulnerability.
Lilly and Jack’s mother and stepfather have both spoken to the media about how the siblings could have autism, but it has not been diagnosed.
Gray says it’s unfortunate an Amber Alert hinges on a specific car or person being identified as involved in a disappearance.
“These are vulnerable kids,” Gray said in a recent interview. “They do have a bit of a learning disability, so that puts them even more vulnerable.”
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The investigation has included searches of 8.5 square kilometres surrounding the children’s home, including wooded areas, the family home, mine shafts, wells, septic systems and lakes.
There are 11 RCMP units working on the case, with the major crime unit taking the lead. Formal interviews have been conducted with 54 people, some of whom were administered polygraph tests.
Police have also collected hundreds of hours of video from the surrounding area, including dashcam footage of Gairloch Road — where the family home is located — from days before the disappearance.
Meanwhile, the Nova Scotia government is offering up to $150,000 for information about the disappearance.
On Thursday, Justice Minister Becky Druhan repeated that Amber Alerts involve specific criteria that were followed in this case.
She noted they are administered through a national system, so the criteria are standardized across Canada and any changes would be beyond her department’s scope.
“Right now, we are focused on doing what we can to help support the investigation,” said Druhan.
“Ther RCMP has asked us to include this case in the major rewards program, and so we’re hopeful that that’s going to help generate some information that’s going to help solve this case.”
There were eight Amber Alerts involving 10 children issued last year across Canada, according to the RCMP’s National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains. All of those children were found alive.
