Nova Scotia is offering a reward of up to $150,000 for information in the disappearance of two young children who were last seen more than a month and a half ago.
Lilly Sullivan, 6, and her brother Jack Sullivan, 4, were reported missing on May 2 from their home in Lansdowne Station in Pictou County.
Their disappearance has been added to the province’s Major Unsolved Crimes Program, which the province says is a “tool to help police in major unsolved crime cases.”
In a brief call, the children’s maternal grandmother told Global News that the family’s focus is on finding Lilly and Jack, and that they hope the reward will help in the case.
In a Thursday news release, Becky Druhan, Attorney General and Minister of Justice, said, “The disappearance of Jack and Lilly Sullivan is felt across the province and beyond, and my heart goes out to the family, the community and everyone who has been working to find these children since Day 1.
“Police and investigators are working tirelessly to find answers, and I urge anyone with information to please share this with the RCMP as soon as possible.”
The amount rewarded under the program will be based on the “investigative value” of the information.
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“Anyone with information regarding this crime should call the Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program at 1-888-710-9090,” the province said in the release.
“People who come forward with information must provide their name and contact information and may be called to testify in court. All calls will be recorded.”
Information can also be shared anonymously through Crime Stoppers of Nova Scotia at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
Numerous searches
RCMP have previously said they’ve obtained video footage of the children with their family in public taken the day before they were reported missing.
The search for Lilly and Jack has involved hundreds of hours of searching in difficult terrain near the children’s rural home. Once the search was scaled back, more targeted operations in areas around the home have been conducted.
It’s believed Lilly, who is four-feet-tall and about 60 pounds, was wearing a pink Barbie top and pink rubber boots with a rainbow at the time of her disappearance. She was also carrying a backpack with a strawberry print.
Jack is described as being three-feet-six and 40 pounds, and was wearing a pull-up diaper, black Under Armour jogging pants and blue rubber boots with a dinosaur print.
In an update last week, RCMP said finding out what happened to the siblings may take longer than they had “hoped.”
As part of their investigation, some people who were interviewed had undergone polygraph tests, police said.
They also revealed several national agencies, including the National Centre of Missing Persons and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, had joined the investigation.
The children’s stepfather, Daniel Martell, previously said he offered to take a polygraph and that it had been administered.
“I do have results, and I don’t know if I can share those results, but they were good in my favour. I’ll say that,” he said on May 28.
He said he was aware of public and social media speculation suggesting he was involved in their disappearance, but he has strongly denied those allegations.
Martell also indicated he has not been in contact with the children’s mother since May 3 — a day after they disappeared.
A former Nova Scotia police detective told Global News last week he believed the search was a criminal investigation.
Jim Hoskins, who is not working on the case, said investigators would have gone “on the balance of probabilities” and considered the fact that multiple searches of the heavily-wooded area around the home had not turned up any evidence.
“If you can’t find them, somebody has to say, ‘Enough is enough right now for searching those areas.’ So now we move to where? There’s only one other option. A nefarious take to this. In other words, a criminal type thing. That’s only my personal opinion,” he said.
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