Two people who live near Jack and Lilly Sullivan’s home told police they heard a vehicle coming and going in the middle of the night, just hours before the Nova Scotia children were reported missing, court documents show.
The new details from witnesses are laid out in redacted records that were previously released in August at the request of CBC News and other news agencies. On Friday, new details of the case were released after CBC News fought to have some redactions lifted.
The documents contain court applications filed by investigators for permission to conduct searches for phone records, banking records and video related to the case. They include unproven statements made by police.
Lilly, 6, and Jack, 4, were reported missing on the morning of May 2, when police received a 911 call from their mother Malehya Brooks-Murray. She told police they had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station, a sparsely populated community about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax.
The siblings lived on the property with their mother, their stepfather, Daniel Martell, the couple’s one-year-old daughter and Martell’s mother.
On May 9, two constables had a conversation with Brad Wong, who lives near the home.
He told them he heard a “loud vehicle” coming and going from that area in the early morning hours of May 2.
“He said his residence is at an elevated position from Daniel’s residence and he could see vehicle lights over the treetops,” said RCMP Cpl. Charlene Curl in her written request to the court.
“He said the vehicle left three or four times after midnight and into the early hours of the morning. He said the vehicle would drive off in the distance and he could hear it stop and then return. He said it remained in earshot the entire time.”
On May 17, a constable took a statement from Justin Smith, who also lives in the area.
Smith said he was awake and on Facebook during the early hours of May 2. Around 1:30 a.m., he heard a car on Highway 289 turn around by the railroad tracks near the area of Gairloch Road and Lansdowne Station Road.
That intersection is near the home where the children went missing.
“It made noise then went quiet. The vehicle was quiet for about two minutes then drove towards Lairg Road,” the RCMP member wrote.
“[Justin Smith] later spoke with Brad Wong who informed him Daniel’s vehicle came and went five or six times that night. Wong said the car Smith heard was Daniel.”
The records detail Martell’s account of the evening before the children were reported missing.
He told police he went to bed “fairly early” and didn’t wake up until it was light the next morning.
The documents said Brooks-Murray told police she put Lilly and Jack to bed first, then their one-year-old daughter, and then went to bed herself around 9 p.m.
She said Martell stayed up and was going to clean the house for her, but it wasn’t clean when she got up so she “doesn’t know what he did.”
“Malehya said she was not woken up throughout the night, and does not know when Daniel came to bed,” the document said.
Family shows property where missing N.S. kids last seen
In a phone interview Friday, Martell said no one from the family left from the property that night and they did not have any visitors.
He said the RCMP never asked him about the vehicle coming and going.
“I know the investigators work hard,” said Martell. “They’re exploring every lead.”
Brooks-Murray has not responded to interview requests.
An investigator’s comment in the same document said that as of July 16, the children’s disappearance was not believed to be criminal in nature.
The RCMP declined a request for an interview Friday.
The records also show that police interviewed one of Brooks-Murray’s relatives, Darin Geddes.
Geddes is believed to have appeared on a YouTube true crime show under the pseudonym Derwood O’Grady, where he put forward a theory that Malehya put the children in a vehicle and sent them away before reporting them missing.
It said Geddes noted his comments “could be wrong, could be speculation.”
“Darin Geddes has suggested in social media posts that Malehya may have been involved in their disappearance, but this is his theory. He has also suggested he might know the location of the children,” an RCMP investigator wrote.
On May 30, two RCMP members met with Geddes, who told them he spoke with Martell a few weeks after the kids went missing and also spoke with Patti Pearson, Brooks-Murray’s grandmother, about the investigation.
“[The constable] said Geddes was confrontational and evasive to questions asked of him and wanted police to provide him with information about the investigation,” the document said.
“He became upset when his questions were not answered.”
On June 26, Brooks-Murray gave police a video recording of a phone conversation between Pearson and Geddes, who is Pearson’s first cousin.
The conversation was recorded on the evening of June 21 and it’s not clear if Geddes knew he was being recorded, but there appeared to be an expectation of privacy, the document said.
It’s not clear from the records exactly what Pearson and Geddes said during the conversation.
CBC News interviewed Geddes on July 4 and he shared similar theories. However, the information could not be verified.
The children’s disappearance in May sparked an extensive grid search that spanned 8.5 square kilometres of mostly dense woods and involved about 160 ground search and rescue volunteers, service dogs, drones and helicopters.
The mysterious nature of the case, fuelled by a lack of answers, has garnered international attention.
Last week, RCMP announced that cadaver dogs did not find human remains in searches conducted around the property and in areas of high probability in the community.
In an interview, Staff Sgt. Rob McCamon reiterated that the case is still being investigated under the Missing Persons Act and is not a criminal case.
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