HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — In a case that’s gripped the nation and beyond, the baffling disappearance of six-year-old Lilly Sullivan and her four-year-old brother Jack from their rural Nova Scotia home six months ago took a darker turn this week. As the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) ramp up a $150,000 reward for tips, fresh details emerged about their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, allegedly updating her Facebook relationship status to “single” just 24 hours after the kids vanished — then hightailing it across the province with their infant sister, Meadow, leaving behind a trail of blocked contacts and unanswered questions.

The siblings were last seen on May 1, 2025, playing outside a local dollar store with family members, according to RCMP statements. The next morning, May 2, Brooks-Murray called 911 around 10 a.m. to report them missing from the family’s isolated trailer on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, Pictou County — a densely wooded area about 30 kilometers from New Glasgow, riddled with steep banks, thick brush, and nearby waterways that have swallowed searches whole. Brooks-Murray and stepfather Daniel Martell claimed the kids had slipped out a sliding back door while the couple tended to 16-month-old Meadow, who was sleeping nearby. By the time authorities arrived at 10:27 a.m., the only trace was a single child-sized boot print in the dirt driveway, Lilly’s pink rubber boots and white strawberry-patterned backpack gone, along with Jack’s blue dinosaur sneakers.

What followed was a frenzy: over 160 searchers, drones, helicopters, canine units, and ground teams combed the rugged terrain for days, turning up a child’s T-shirt, a tricycle, and fragments of a pink blanket belonging to Lilly — one piece snagged a kilometer away, another stuffed in a trash bag at the driveway’s end. But none panned out as leads, and by May 7, the massive effort scaled back, leaving volunteers and family to pick up the slack. Polygraph tests cleared Brooks-Murray and Martell early on, with investigators noting in July that the vanishing “is not believed to be criminal in nature” — though skeptics point to redacted timelines and the sheer improbability of two toddlers trekking into wolf-populated woods without a whisper.

Enter the latest bombshell: court documents and social media sleuths reveal Brooks-Murray’s profile shift to “single” on May 3 — a mere day after the 911 call — amid reports she’d already packed up Meadow and fled to her mother’s home elsewhere in Nova Scotia, blocking Martell on every platform. Martell, speaking to CBC News on May 6, vented frustration: “She left the area to be with her family… and blocked me on social media.” By then, he’d urged cops to scour New Brunswick borders and airports, fearing abduction — a theory Brooks-Murray herself floated, briefly suspecting the kids’ estranged biological father, Cody Sullivan, might’ve snatched them across the line. Sullivan, who hadn’t seen Lilly and Jack in three years after a bitter custody battle, passed his polygraph and was quickly ruled out.

The move has reignited whispers in Pictou County’s tight-knit circles, where the case has fractured families and stoked conspiracy mills. Online forums buzz with speculation: Was the status change a cry for help, or a calculated pivot? Brooks-Murray’s recent pleas on the “Find Lilly and Jack Sullivan” Facebook page — including a gut-wrenching October 27 post begging, “Someone, somewhere, knows something so please bring my babies home” — clash with deleted family photos and her brother’s cryptic posts. One X user, @ShaneatraSpeaks, highlighted dispatch audio from the early days, capturing searchers spotting footprints, a “shiny star” near a bridge, and discarded clothing — items that fizzled under scrutiny. Another post from @GrannysCrimeB questions if Martell is shifting blame to Brooks-Murray’s kin.

Dig deeper, and the family’s pre-May 2 portrait paints a grim tableau of dysfunction. Reports from The Globe and Mail detail financial freefall: Martell’s car broken down, child support from Sullivan halted after his roofing gig tanked, and Canada Child Benefit checks — about $1,900 monthly — frozen because taxes went unpaid. Child Protective Services (CPS) had flagged the home multiple times, with photos surfacing of Jack sporting a green-purple bruise under his eye in March 2025 and a possible black eye in September 2024 — injuries Martell chalked up to roughhousing with Lilly. Both parents denied physical discipline, but neighbors whispered of meth use and Martell’s controlling streaks, including jealousy-fueled bans on visits to Sullivan’s side. The kids were pulled from school on May 1 and 2 for Lilly’s cough, isolating them further in the bush-bound trailer.

Paternal grandmother Belynda Gray, 62, of Middle Musquodoboit, has become a fixture in the woods, her kitchen table a war room of flyers and timelines. She hasn’t seen her grandkids in two years, cut off after Brooks-Murray’s custody win, but she’s haunted by the what-ifs. “Any time we wanted to see the kids, she’d bring them by all the time,” Gray told reporters, voice cracking. Now, she’s calling for a public inquiry, slamming the RCMP’s “hundreds of hours” of video reviews and 488 tips as too little, too late. Her son Cody echoes the pain, enduring community side-eyes as whispers tie him to the void despite his alibi.

On the maternal side, Brooks-Murray’s pleas pull no punches. In a CTV interview days after the vanishing, she choked out, “That night was one of the worst… I don’t want to go another night without them.” October brought more raw emotion: As Jack’s fifth birthday loomed on October 29, she rallied for a candlelit vigil at the Stellarton RCMP detachment, vowing on Facebook, “I desperately want them home… The pure pain I suffer of just not knowing has impacted my life and Meadow and my family in the most devastating way.” Yet, her flight with Meadow — now nearly two — raises eyebrows. Was it grief-stricken escape, or something stickier? Witnesses reported a vehicle idling oddly near the home pre-dawn on May 2, but RCMP debunked it as a dead end.

Martell, meanwhile, has gone radio silent on specifics but fired off accusations in a June YouTube clip, fingering Brooks-Murray’s stepsister and mother in the mix — claims that landed like grenades in family chats. A May 3 family dust-up at the trailer devolved into meth-fueled finger-pointing, with relatives trading barbs over blame. Reddit’s TrueCrimeDiscussion thread exploded with over 700 upvotes on a Globe exposé, users dissecting bruises, blocked bonuses, and the “impossible” woods trek: “This family was in a bad way… any could have been the catalyst to tragedy.”

As November 17 dawns cold, the probe grinds on: 54 interviews, polygraphs for kin like step-grandma Janie MacKenzie, and a volunteer surge from Please Bring Me Home on November 15. Premier Tim Houston’s May plea — “People in Pictou County and across Nova Scotia are praying for a positive outcome” — feels worlds away now, with winter’s bite threatening to bury clues forever. RCMP’s Northeast Major Crime Unit vows no quit: “We’ll keep going until we determine, with certainty, the circumstances.”

For Gray and the Sullivans, certainty is a ghost. “Everyone wants Jack and Lilly found desperately,” Martell said in August. Brooks-Murray’s digital about-face and swift exit only deepen the chill: In a saga of shattered trusts and silent woods, did a heartbroken mom run from pain — or from truth? The reward line (1-888-710-9090) hums with hope, but in Lansdowne’s shadows, doubt echoes loudest. As one X post nailed it: “Malaya back on social media?” The question lingers, unanswered, like the kids themselves.