Six-year-old Lilly Sullivan and her four-year-old brother Jack have not been seen in public since May 1, a day before their mother and stepfather say they wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station. The rural Nova Scotia community is part of Pictou County, an area of dense forests and meandering rivers, where memories of recent tragedies in the province—a horrific mass killing in 2020 and a missing toddler that same year—remain vivid. Over four months after the siblings’ disappearance, a sense of unease permeates the region, even as residents rally at vigils and in community Facebook groups to try to keep hope alive. And while everyone seems to have an opinion about what may or may not have happened, not a single soul appears to know for certain.

In the days after the children were declared missing, hundreds of trained searchers spent long, arduous days scouring the almost impenetrable woods around the family’s home, using drones, dogs, and an underwater recovery team, though in the end, these efforts yielded little more than a child’s faint boot print and scraps of pink blanket. As of mid-July, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police team leading the investigation has assessed more than 760 tips from the public, reviewed more than 8,000 video files obtained from the surrounding area, and interviewed at least sixty individuals, some of whom, including the children’s stepfather, Daniel Martell, were given polygraph tests. While police have stated there is no evidence to suggest that the children were abducted, they have not ruled out the disappearance as suspicious. For now, the case remains an active investigation.

For locals, the lack of resolution has been devastating—as have the media frenzy and online speculation. What began as initial shock turned to cautious hope that the children would be found safe. But as the days passed, hope began to waver and ever more elaborate theories about the disappearance started to circulate. In the intervening months, a number of social media spaces and true crime websites have blown up with wild and often lurid stories. Many of these accusations are directed at Lilly and Jack’s family, as online sleuths parse every word uttered by relatives for evidence of guilt and offer outlandish theories about what they might have done.

I n theory, police can keep rumours at bay by keeping the public informed. But communicating openly can be risky when a missing-person case is still active. “Law enforcement always has more evidence than they share with the public,” says Michelle Jeanis, an associate professor in criminology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “They want to hold back on........

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