Step-grandmother of missing N.S. kids recalls hearing their voices, followed by 'nothing'
Janie Mackenzie says she believes Lilly and Jack Sullivan are still alive
Janie Mackenzie was asleep in her trailer when she awoke to the sound of her dog barking, a telltale sign her two young step-grandchildren were out playing on a swingset in the backyard.
She said she heard Lilly and Jack Sullivan's voices. Her bedroom is only a few steps away.
"After that, I heard nothing," said Mackenzie of the morning of May 2, when the two children disappeared from the property in Lansdowne Station, a sparsely populated community in Nova Scotia's Pictou County.
The next thing she did hear was her son, Daniel Martell, yelling the children's names.
A short time later, she emerged from the trailer to find the children's mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, standing in the driveway with her one-year-old daughter on her hip.
Extensive searches turn up little evidence
Brooks-Murray told her the children were missing, recalled Mackenzie, and had been gone for about 20 minutes.
"I closed the door, got my boots on, came out here, ran up in the woods," Mackenzie said in an interview outside of her trailer. It is the first time CBC News has been given access to the property from which the children went missing.
Mackenzie said she was speaking to her brother on the phone for about two minutes at 8:48 a.m. local time and then dozed off before being awoken by the dog's barking, so the children went missing sometime after that.
What followed was days of extensive searches of the property and surrounding woods that turned up little evidence, aside from two boot prints and a piece of a blanket. Over the past 11 weeks, nearly a dozen RCMP units — including major crimes — have been working on the case, but have released few details about what may have happened to Lilly, 6, and Jack, 4.
Mackenzie has decided to share her side of the story in the hopes of bringing more clarity to what transpired that morning and to help dispel the flurry of rumours that have been circulating online.
"I blame myself for not getting up that morning to see the kids because ... this would have never happened," she said through tears.
Mackenzie described the scene on her property — where she has lived for 26 years — as chaotic on that first day of the disappearance as RCMP officers, search and rescue officials and reporters descended upon the rural community.
Two years before, Martell and Brooks-Murray came to live there with Jack and Lilly, whose biological father had chosen a few years prior not to be a part of their lives. Soon after, Martell and Brooks-Murray welcomed their daughter.
Mackenzie said she gave the young family the mobile home and she started living in a small RV. She built the wooden swingset in the backyard, which she outfitted with a blue slide and sandbox.
"They were part of my life for two years. When they came to live here, they became part of this family," said the 59-year-old Mackenzie.
Mackenzie said she and her family have been nothing but co-operative with police since the children disappeared, all while it has attracted intense international interest.
Mackenzie said there was one instance on the very first day of the search when an officer attempted to enter her trailer and she stopped the officer, but only because she wanted to remove her dog first.
Since then, the property has been scoured. Both RCMP and search and rescue officials have searched the property's mobile home and trailer multiple times. The well and septic tank have been searched. A drone was even flown under the mobile home. Martell was also given a polygraph test, which he says he passed.
And yet, accusations that she or her son are somehow involved in the disappearance continue to be hurled their way online, she said.
"My life has been turned upside down, inside and out," she said. "I had nothing to do with any of this.… I want them home safe and sound just as much as everybody else does. I want to know what happened.
"I want the rumours to stop. I just want everything to stop. For me, for the sake of the other children, my grandchildren. They don't deserve this. They're innocent of everything. Jack and Lilly are innocent of everything. They didn't deserve this."
In the beginning, her family was receiving regular updates about the investigation. But that has all but stopped in recent weeks, leaving her and Martell with many unanswered questions. She feels the case now lacks the urgency it deserves.
She's also critical of the RCMP's initial response to the case, questioning how far two children could have reasonably travelled through thick woods in the span of roughly 20 minutes. Having lived on the property for decades, she's acutely aware of just how dense the forest is, which was made worse by downed trees during post-tropical storm Fiona in 2022.
"We've went for walks in the woods. I had to practically … carry Jack through the woods because there was no way that he was walking through all that tree falls and bushes," she said, later taking CBC News through a path the children often used, littered with criss-crossing trees.
RCMP investigation questioned
"I don't think they're in the woods. We searched this place.... They had helicopters out. They had drones out. They had searchers. They went over this place with a fine-tooth comb."
A member of Brooks-Murray's extended family is also critical of how the RCMP investigation has played out.
Darin Geddes, a cousin of Brooks-Murray's grandmother, said he had been speaking with many members of both families in the weeks following the disappearance and believed he had information that could be pertinent to the investigation, but was brushed off by the Mounties.
"It's not hurt. It's rage. And I'm trying to control it," Geddes said in a recent interview, adding he did eventually track down an officer to take his statement.
On Wednesday, RCMP said units from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario are working on the case.
Spokesperson Cpl. Carlie McCann said a pink blanket that was seized on Lansdowne Road on the first day of the search is being forensically examined. McCann said the family has confirmed the blanket belongs to Lilly.
McCann said police are following up on more than 600 tips from the public, reviewing 5,000 video files and have interviewed more than 60 people.
Asked if police are investigating the possibility of the children still being alive, McCann said: "We've not closed any doors on the investigation at this point."
She also said an RCMP family liaison is in regular contact with a designated relative of Lilly and Jack, providing ongoing updates and support. She would not say who the designated relative is.
Mackenzie said she lived a quiet life before the disappearance launched her and her family into the spotlight, as keyboard warriors and podcasters dissect every aspect of the case.
She said cars will drive by and slow down, peering down the gravel driveway flanked by the mobile home and trailer. It's also not uncommon for drones to be flown over her house, for members of the media to knock at her door, and to be recognized everywhere she goes.
"I mostly stay around back here and if I do go out front for anything, I usually have my head down because I don't want people to see who I am," she said, seated in front of a green fence that separates her trailer from the rest of the property.
"It's not because I'm hiding from anybody…. I'm just a quiet person that just wants to be left alone."
The day after the children went missing, Martell and Brooks-Murray attended an RCMP briefing. After that, Brooks-Murray did not return to the home in Lansdowne Station and has not been back since.
Mackenzie said she also hasn't seen her two other grandchildren, Martell's kids from a previous relationship, since the disappearance. She remarked that she went from seeing her five grandchildren regularly to not being able to see any of them, and yearns to be called "Granny" once again.
Brooks-Murray did one interview with CTV News the day after the disappearance, but has not spoken to media since. Her mother has told CBC News they were told by police not to speak to media.
Through it all, Mackenzie does not believe the children are dead.
"You know if something bad happens, you get like your heart drops? Mine hasn't dropped," she said.
"Deep down in my heart, I do believe Jack and Lilly are alive."
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