The RCMP’s bombshell about the blanket and boot was barely twenty-four hours old when the Sullivan family detonated an even bigger one tonight, live on national television.

In a stunning 22-minute interview with CBC’s The Fifth Estate that aired at 9 p.m. Atlantic, Lilly and Jack’s mother, Malehya Brooks-Murray, and stepfather, Daniel Martell, sat side-by-side on the same couch where the children were last photographed alive and admitted, through shaking tears, that the original story was a lie.

“We told police they vanished from the house while we were sleeping,” Brooks-Murray said, voice barely above a whisper. “That wasn’t true. They never made it home that night.”

The confession unfolded like a slow-motion car crash:

On the evening of May 1, the family had driven to a remote cabin on the Northumberland Shore owned by Martell’s late uncle, an off-grid fishing shack with no cell service and no neighbors for miles. The plan, they claimed, was “one last overnight adventure” before summer. The kids were ecstatic: s’mores, flashlight tag, sleeping bags on the floor.

At approximately 2:17 a.m. on May 2, Martell says he woke to use the outhouse and discovered the cabin door ajar. Lilly and Jack were gone. Barefoot. In their pajamas. Temperatures had dipped to 4 °C.

Instead of calling 911 immediately, the couple spent almost five hours searching the surrounding woods themselves, convinced the kids had simply wandered toward the beach. When dawn broke and there was still no sign, panic set in.

“We made the worst decision of our lives,” Martell said, staring at the floor. “We drove them home, put their bedsheets in the washer, scattered a few toys around the living room, and called police at 10:01 a.m. pretending they’d disappeared from the house. We thought… if we admitted we’d taken them to that isolated place, they’d take our baby sister away from us. We thought they’d blame us. We thought we could still find them ourselves.”

The pink blanket and blue boot? Found exactly where the children had been sleeping inside the cabin, carried out into the woods by the kids themselves during their nighttime walk, the parents now believe.

RCMP confirmed within minutes of the interview airing that search teams are mobilizing tonight toward the previously undisclosed cabin near Caribou Provincial Park. Cadaver dogs that drew blanks around the family home are being redirected immediately.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking detail: Lilly’s stuffed unicorn, “Mr. Sparkles,” was discovered by a volunteer inside the cabin two weeks ago, logged as “unknown origin unknown” because no one in law enforcement knew the shack existed. It has been sitting in an evidence bag in Halifax ever since.

Reaction has been volcanic.

Nova Scotia Child Welfare has removed the couple’s 18-month-old daughter into emergency protective custody.
The $150,000 reward has been temporarily suspended “pending review of new information.”
Former search volunteers are posting videos burning their pink ribbons in disgust, with captions like “We risked our lives for a lie.”
Belynda Gray, the grandmother who held daily vigils, collapsed on her porch when told. Paramedics transported her to Aberdeen Hospital in stable but inconsolable.

Staff Sergeant Curtis MacKinnon addressed reporters outside the detachment at 10:30 p.m.:

“Obviously this changes every parameter of the investigation. Obstruction charges are under active consideration, but our only priority right now is finding Lilly and Jack. The public’s anger is understandable, but we are asking for calm while we redeploy every resource to the new search zone.”

As floodlights flare to life along the dark shoreline tonight, tracking dogs are already hitting on children’s scent trails leading from the cabin toward the water. Tide charts show an outgoing current at 2:30 a.m. that night.

Six months of agony, built on a five-hour lie.

Somewhere out there in the black Atlantic night, two tiny sets of footprints may have finally been given a chance to be followed, too late, too cold, but real.

Lilly and Jack, the truth is out. We’re coming. For real this time.