In a development that’s left investigators and family reeling, Malehya Brooks-Murray, the mother of missing siblings Lilly and Jack Sullivan, delivered what sources describe as a “shocking confession” during a closed-door session with RCMP officials on November 10, 2025—mere hours before the six-month mark of the children’s vanishing. The admission, which reportedly revisits the chaotic hours of May 2 inside their rural Nova Scotia home, has prompted authorities to re-examine timelines and witness statements, though police maintain the case remains non-criminal in nature.

According to documents obtained by this outlet and corroborated by multiple sources familiar with the probe, Brooks-Murray’s statement centers on a pivotal discrepancy: the exact sequence of events after she and stepfather Daniel Martell put the kids down for the night. Previously, she had told investigators bedtime was around 9 p.m. on May 1, with the children seemingly tucked in. But in her latest account, Brooks-Murray allegedly confessed to a restless night marked by “multiple wake-ups,” including an unreported instance around 2 a.m. where she found Jack out of bed, fussing in the living room over a spilled sippy cup. “I just soothed him back without thinking twice—didn’t check on Lilly,” she reportedly said, her voice breaking as she detailed the oversight that now haunts her.

The revelation emerged during a voluntary re-interview at the Northeast Nova RCMP detachment in Bible Hill, prompted by fresh tips from a pair of unverified witness accounts surfacing last month. One neighbor, speaking anonymously, claimed to have seen “unusual lights” flickering at the Gairloch Road property between 1 and 3 a.m.—details that clashed with the family’s initial narrative of a quiet evening. Brooks-Murray, who has largely retreated from public view since bolting from the family trailer in May, arrived with her lawyer and infant daughter Meadow, looking gaunt and withdrawn. “It’s eating me alive,” she whispered to an officer upon entry, per a source who overheard the exchange.

For those tracking the Sullivan saga, this feels like a crack in the foundation of a case that’s defied resolution since the siblings—6-year-old Lilly, with her strawberry backpack and pink sweater, and 4-year-old Jack, in his dinosaur boots—vanished from their mobile home in Lansdowne Station, Pictou County. The remote spot, 30 kilometers from New Glasgow and ringed by dense forest, steep ravines, and boggy lowlands, became a focal point for one of Nova Scotia’s most exhaustive searches. Over 100 volunteers, RCMP divers, cadaver dogs, and drones scoured miles of terrain in the first week alone, unearthing only fragments: a torn scrap of Lilly’s beloved pink blanket snagged in a tree branch a kilometer out, another piece stuffed in the driveway trash bin. Boot prints matching Jack’s size 11 treads petered out into mud, leading nowhere.

The morning unfolded in mundane horror, or so it seemed. At 6:17 a.m., Brooks-Murray called Salt Springs Elementary to report Lilly home sick with a cough—Jack tagged along for caution. Surveillance from the prior afternoon caught the family at a New Glasgow Dollarama at 2:25 p.m. on May 1: Lilly giggling over stickers, Jack munching Goldfish crackers. Bedtime, per early statements, hit at 9 p.m. By 9:40 a.m. the next day, silence. Brooks-Murray and Martell, dozing with baby Meadow in the master bedroom, claimed to hear the kids’ chatter—Lilly popping in for juice requests, Jack’s laughter from the kitchen. Then, nothing. A wrench propped against the front door remained untouched; the back slider, silent and unlocked, became the presumed exit.

The 911 call at 10:01 a.m. launched a frenzy. RCMP arrived in 26 minutes, issuing a vulnerable persons alert but skipping an Amber Alert—no signs of abduction. Martell, a local mechanic with callused hands and a stoic demeanor, took point in the spotlight: “They’ll go with anybody—candy, a smile, and they’re off.” He surrendered his phone, bank logs, even insisted on a polygraph by May 12. Results: truthful. Brooks-Murray followed suit that day—same outcome. Their biological father, Cody Sullivan, cleared on June 12; even Martell’s mother, Janie MacKenzie, who lived in a separate unit on the property, tested inconclusive but cooperative.

Yet, the family’s cohesion frayed fast. Brooks-Murray fled the trailer days later, crashing with relatives on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore and blocking Martell on socials. “Grief hits different,” he told CTV in June, amid troll-fueled rumors of foul play. Whispers of prior CPS flags—bruises chalked up to play, undiagnosed autism making the kids “wander-prone,” spotty school attendance—leaked via redacted warrants unsealed in August. Belynda Gray, the kids’ paternal grandmother, demanded a public inquiry in a blistering op-ed, slamming the system: “What did they miss? Those bruises, those warnings—could’ve saved them.”

Martell’s earlier podcast gaffe in October, hinting at Brooks-Murray’s “secret” overload as a mom juggling special needs in isolation, had already stoked the fire. Now, this confession—framed by skeptics as a desperate bid for closure—pours gasoline. “She admitted what we all suspected: the night wasn’t as calm as painted,” a family insider told this reporter, speaking off-record. “Jack up at 2 a.m.? That changes the sleep timeline—maybe they weren’t as settled as she said.” RCMP sources, however, downplay the bombshell: “It’s a clarification, not a contradiction,” one said. “We’re re-canvassing, but no pivot in direction.”

The probe’s scope has ballooned: 760 tips vetted, 8,000 hours of video scrubbed from doorbell cams and highway tolls like the Cobequid Pass. A hotel clerk in New Brunswick’s tip about spotting Sullivan with the kids? Debunked. That neighbor’s “five or six” vehicle comings-and-goings the night before? Unverified, per October RCMP filings. Even the pink blanket’s dual finds—tree and trash—yielded no DNA hits. By July, the Major Crime Unit, bolstered by Ontario and New Brunswick detachments, declared it “not believed criminal.” A $150,000 reward lingers, untapped.

Public fervor hasn’t waned. The “Find Lilly and Jack Sullivan” Facebook page, now at 45,000 followers, erupted post-confession leaks—hashtags like #SullivanTruth surging on X with 2.3 million impressions in 24 hours. A candlelit vigil for Jack’s October 29 birthday drew 200 to the Stellarton detachment, pink ribbons fluttering in the Atlantic wind. Cyndy Murray, the maternal grandmother, issued a raw plea last week: “My girl’s breaking—let this bring them home.” Brooks-Murray herself resurfaced on the page October 13, her words a gut-punch: “I love them more than life… can’t hold them, kiss them, wake to their smiles.” No mention of the confession, but the subtext screamed regret.

Martell, holding the fort at the empty trailer—a ghost yard overgrown with weeds—stayed mum on the news, posting a single photo of the kids’ swingset: “Still searching souls.” His mechanic gigs have dried up under scrutiny; online sleuths dissect every frame of his interviews, hunting micro-expressions. “Cleared by machines, condemned by mobs,” he vented in a rare text to a reporter. The step-grandmother, MacKenzie, recounted her May 2 haze to CBC in July: voices on the swings, then silence. “I heard nothing after,” she said, echoing the void that swallowed the case.

Broader ripples hit hard. Nova Scotia’s child welfare system, already under fire post-inquiry calls, faces audits—did those 2025 home checks miss the isolation’s toll? Autism advocates rally for better rural supports, citing the Sullivans’ undiagnosed traits as a red flag. Media ethics debates flare: YouTube deepfakes peddling abduction yarns rack millions of views, while true-crime pods like “Untold Crimes” spin “bombshell” theories sans evidence. RCMP’s Cpl. Charlene Jordan Curl, leading the charge, urged restraint in a terse update: “Speculation hinders—tips help.”

As November’s frost grips Pictou County, the woods that claimed Lilly and Jack—or hid darker truths—stand sentinel. Brooks-Murray’s confession, slip or soul-baring, reopens wounds without mending them. Investigators vow “every avenue,” but six months in, hope’s a fragile flame. The trailer echoes empty; the reward poster fades on telephone poles. For a family splintered by loss, the real shock isn’t the words—it’s the silence that follows. If this unlocks answers, time’s ticking. For now, Nova Scotia waits, hearts heavy, for two little ghosts to come home.