In the misty, wooded expanses of rural Nova Scotia, the saga of missing siblings Lilly and Jack Sullivan has gripped the nation like a vice, blending heartbreak with haunting mystery. On May 2, 2025, the six-year-old girl and her four-year-old brother vanished from their mobile home on Gairloch Road in Lansdowne Station, Pictou County—a remote hamlet 140 kilometers northeast of Halifax. What began as a frantic 911 call from their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, at 10 a.m., claiming the children had simply “wandered off,” has spiraled into a six-month odyssey of exhaustive searches, polygraph tests, and now, a tantalizing new lead that could shatter the impasse.

The bizarre timeline details, long shrouded in fog, are finally piercing through. Lilly and Jack, last seen attending Salt Springs Elementary on April 29, were kept home the following days due to Lilly’s nagging cough. April 30 marked a PD day with no classes, and the family— including Brooks-Murray, stepfather Daniel Martell, and their one-year-old sister Meadow—made a routine grocery run, returning by 10:19 p.m.

Surveillance footage later confirmed they were spotted together in nearby New Glasgow on the afternoon of May 1, a day before the alarm. Yet, in the dead of night on May 2, around 12:45 a.m., Brooks-Murray dialed authorities again, this time suspecting the children’s estranged biological father, Cody Sullivan, might have whisked them across the border to New Brunswick. Officers arrived at Sullivan’s home by 2:50 a.m., where he insisted he hadn’t laid eyes on them in three years. By morning, the “wandered off” narrative took hold, but no Amber Alert followed—police deemed abduction unlikely, opting instead for a vulnerable missing persons bulletin.

Fast-forward to November 2025, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Northeast Nova Scotia Major Crime Unit is unearthing “strange details” from the temporal abyss. In a grueling marathon, investigators pored over a single two-minute surveillance clip for a staggering six hours, frame by excruciating frame. This isn’t routine drudgery; it’s a testament to the case’s labyrinthine complexity.

The video, sourced from the family’s May 1 outing in New Glasgow—its exact spot still classified to safeguard the probe—captures the siblings in pink and blue attire: Lilly in her signature sweater, pants, and boots, possibly clutching a white backpack; Jack in his dinosaur-stomping kicks. But the real bombshell? A fleeting anomaly in the timestamp shadows—a vehicle hum reported by witnesses the night prior, echoing through the rural quiet like a ghost’s whisper. This overlooked sliver, missed in initial sweeps of hundreds of hours of dashcam and resident footage from April 28 to May 2, now points to a potential intruder or overlooked departure.

RCMP affidavits reveal deeper quirks: A second fragment of Lilly’s pink blanket, discovered in household trash and undergoing forensic scrutiny. Polygraphs administered to Brooks-Murray and Martell, aimed at ruling out foul play, yielded “inconclusive” initial reads, though no charges have surfaced. Tips flooded in—488 by June—prompting dives into septic tanks, wells, mineshafts, and dense forests where Martell once swore he heard a child’s scream drowned by helicopter blades. Even social media sleuths, like relative Darin Geddes, peddled unverified theories implicating the mother, but police dismissed them as baseless conjecture.

As autumn leaves carpet Gairloch Road, hope flickers brighter. “The case will end in a few days,” an RCMP insider confided, their voice laced with cautious optimism. This timestamp revelation isn’t just a clue; it’s a Rosetta Stone, potentially decoding whether the siblings met a tragic wilderness fate or fell victim to something far more sinister. Communities rally with $150,000 rewards and roadside memorials of stuffed animals and flowers, a poignant reminder of innocence lost. For Brooks-Murray and Martell, wracked by anger and grief four weeks in, the wait has been interminable. Yet, in this digital deep-dive, the truth edges closer. Will it bring Lilly and Jack home, or seal a darker verdict? Nova Scotia holds its breath—the clock, once merciless, now ticks toward resolution.