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 witness details are set 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 get some redactions lifted.
The documents contain court requests filed by investigators seeking permission to search phone records, bank records and videos related to the case. They include unproven statements made by the police.
Lilly, 6, and Jack, 4, were reported missing 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 her home in Lansdowne Station, a sparsely populated community about 140 kilometers northeast of Halifax.
The brothers 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 officers spoke with Brad Wong, who lives near the house.
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 elevated from Daniel’s residence and he could see vehicle lights over the treetops,” said RCMP Cpl. Charlene Curl in her written application 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 went off into the distance and he could hear it stop and then return. He said it stayed within earshot the entire time.”
CBC has obtained new information about Jack and Lilly Sullivan. The children disappeared from their home five months ago. Angela MacIvor has the story.
On May 17, an officer 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 next to the railroad tracks near the area of Gairloch Road and Lansdowne Station Road.
That intersection is near the house where the children disappeared.
“It made noise and then went silent. The vehicle was silent for about two minutes and then headed towards Lairg Road,” the RCMP member wrote.
“[Justin Smith] He later spoke with Brad Wong, who informed him that Daniel’s vehicle came and went five or six times that night. Wong said the car Smith heard was Daniel’s.
The records detail Martell’s account of the night before the children were reported missing.
He told police he went to bed “pretty early” and didn’t wake up until dawn the next morning.
The documents say Brooks-Murray told police she first put Lilly and Jack to bed, then her 1-year-old daughter, and then went to bed herself around 9 p.m.
He said Martell stayed up and was going to clean his house, but it wasn’t clean when he got up, so “he doesn’t know what he did.”
“Malehya said she was not woken up all night and does not know when Daniel went to bed,” the document says.
Months after two young children went missing in Nova Scotia, we have access to the property they first disappeared from. Janie Mackenzie, Lilly and Jack Sullivan’s step-grandmother, took CBC’s Aly Thomson through the property at Lansdowne Station.
In a telephone interview Friday, Martell said no one in the family left the property that night and they received no visitors.
He said the RCMP never asked him about the vehicle coming and going.
“I know investigators work hard,” Martell said. “They are exploring all leads.”
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 an interview request on Friday.
Records also show 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 presented the theory that Malehya put the children in a vehicle and sent them away before reporting them missing.
He said Geddes noted that his comments “could be wrong, they 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 that he may 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 children disappeared and also spoke with Patti Pearson, Brooks-Murray’s grandmother, about the research.
“[The constable] “He stated that Geddes was confrontational and evasive when asked questions 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 provided police with a video recording of a telephone conversation between Pearson and Geddes, who is Pearson’s first cousin.
The conversation was recorded the night of June 21 and it is unclear whether Geddes knew he was being recorded, but there appeared to be an expectation of privacy, according to the document.
It’s unclear 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 search network that spanned 8.5 square kilometers of mostly dense forest and involved about 160 ground search and rescue volunteers, service dogs, drones and helicopters.
The mysterious nature of the case, fueled by a lack of answers, has attracted international attention.
Last week, the RCMP announced that cadaver dogs found no human remains in searches conducted around the property and in high probability areas in the community.
In an interview, 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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