‘We deserve answers’: Missing N.S. children honoured at candlelight vigil

quintet blueness balloons fluttered in illumine twist below cotton candy skies outside a Nova Scotia RCMP detachment on Wednesday evening as community members and friends and family of missing children Jack and Lilly Sullivan gathered for a candlelight vigil.

Children sat at a picnic table in Stellarton and decorated a card for Jack on his 5th birthday as the crowd of roughly 40 people listened to a prayer, poem and song for the siblings, who disappeared nearly six months ago.

Jack, 5, and Lilly, 6, were reported missing on the morning of May 2, when police received a 911 call from their mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, saying they had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne, a sparsely populated community about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax.

Despite extensive searches and a massive investigation led by RCMP major crimes, there are still no answers about what happened to the children.

“Until we have answers, we have hope,” said the children’s aunt Haley Ferdinand, describing the phrase she had printed on the back of a T-shirt, her niece and nephew's smiling faces emblazoned on the front.

“It's something that I wouldn't wish on anybody. It's something that I wish we as a family weren't going through. It's two innocent kids that up and disappeared.”

Ferdinand, Brooks-Murray’s sister, said Jack is a rambunctious boy who loves to be outdoors and play with bugs. She said Lilly is a “little princess.”

“She's so beautiful,” said Ferdinand through tears. €œBoth of them deserve better. We deserve answers.”

The vigil marked the first time that loved ones from all sides of Lilly and Jack’s family have come together since May. Tensions have been high since Brooks-Murray left her then boyfriend, Daniel Martell, at the search scene following a disagreement between their two families the day after the children went missing. Martell is Lilly and Jack's stepfather.

Brooks-Murray and Martell are no longer in a relationship. 

Members of Brooks-Murray’s family, the children’s paternal grandmother and Martell all gathered for the sombre occasion as night fell over the rural Nova Scotia town, where a makeshift memorial has been growing.

At the base of a post, a white lighthouse embellished with Jack and Lilly’s names sat encompassed by brightly coloured stuffed animals, dinky cars and flickering candles.

Brooks-Murray did not attend the vigil. A family member said she was marking Jack’s birthday with her mother and the card signed by people at the vigil would be delivered to her.

Brooks-Murray has declined repeated interview requests, but broke her silence a few weeks ago, releasing a statement through the volunteer non-profit Please Bring Me Home.

She wrote that there isn’t a second that goes by that she isn’t thinking of her children, and it “feels extremely hard to keep going.”

“With no answers it is just pure lostness, like I can no longer feel at home anymore,” she wrote.

“No matter how lost I feel, I have not given up hope that my children will be returned home to me safe and sound. I have all the faith and hope I will see them again.”

Belynda Gray, the children’s paternal grandmother, wrote a poem and read it aloud at the vigil, describing it as her “birthday promise to Jack.”

“We hold steadfast the pictures of Lilly and Jack, seeking answers to bringing them back,” said Gray, becoming emotional.

“For a grandparent’s promise is etched in the soul and I'll search for our grandchildren no matter the toll.”

The event also included words from Pictou County Warden Robert Parker and RCMP Staff Sgt. Curtis MacKinnon.

MacKinnon, who also spoke at the first vigil held one month after the children went missing, remarked on the far-reaching effects of the case.

“I know you care deeply about these children, and so do we,” said MacKinnon, district commander of the Pictou County District RCMP, one of several Mounties who were on hand for the event.

“I can assure you that we have not wavered in our commitment to determine what has happened to Lilly and Jack.”

Some community members wept as an original song titled Where Are They, written by Rushell MacDonald, played through a speaker.

Following the event, Martell said he felt it was important for him to be there, despite the tensions and the accusations being hurled his way that he was somehow involved in the children’s disappearance.

“I didn’t miss the first vigil and I would definitely not miss this one. Definitely not on Jack’s birthday. An important date for everybody over the last six months and I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he said.

“I'd like … everybody to know that I'm working with major crimes almost every day just trying to figure stuff out.”

The mysterious nature of the case, fuelled by a lack of answers, has garnered international attention and has spurred countless theories online.

Kent Corbett, who helped organize the event, said the RCMP had requested the memorial outside of the detachment be dismantled for the winter, to get it out of the elements.

Corbett said Amtek Ltd. In Alma, N.S., an electrical contractor, has agreed to display the memorial until spring or until there is a conclusion to the case.

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Reporter/Editor

Aly Thomson is an award-winning journalist based in Halifax who loves helping the people of her home province tell their stories. She is particularly interested in issues surrounding women's health, justice, education and the entertainment industry. You can email her with tips and feedback at aly.thomson@cbc.ca.

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