Experts point to anomalies in 'unprecedented' case of missing N.S. children
Two weeks after two young siblings vanished without a trace in rural Nova Scotia, experts are pointing to anomalies in what they say is an unprecedented case that deviates from a typical missing children investigation.
Police have said they do not believe the children were abducted, but have not ruled out that the case is suspicious.
Michelle Jeanis, an associate professor in the criminal justice department at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said the facts of the case and apparent lack of evidence makes it an "anomaly."
"It doesn't meet a lot of the normal criteria for what we would see for these types of cases," said Jeanis, whose research areas include missing persons and juvenile justice.
"Usually there is evidence in some way that would suggest something nefarious has happened. It mirrors … those adult missing persons cases where we call it 'quiet disappearances.' There's no evidence."
A few details stand out to Jeanis as unusual, including the children's absence from school that week.
The children's stepfather, Daniel Martell, told CBC News the children were not in school on Thursday or Friday — the morning of the disappearance — due to illness. They also were not at school on Wednesday due to a professional development day.
"It could just be incredibly bad timing that they had 48 hours unaccounted for before the disappearance. But that's just one of the things that stands out in my head," she said.
Police will not say if anyone else had contact or saw the children in the days leading up to the day they went missing.
Jeanis said she believes police should be considering whether a person played a part.
In a stereotypical kidnapping by a stranger, the offender doesn't usually target a specific child or children, they create a plan and whoever is in the environment at the time falls victim, said Jeanis.
"It doesn't seem like that would be the case here because ... what we know is they were in their backyard in a rural community, so it's not like they were walking to school or to the gas station or something where it can be an easy snatch situation," she said.
"So, if it was a stereotypical stranger kidnapping, it would have had to have been somebody who said, 'I want those kids in particular."
Nova Scotia RCMP said on Tuesday they were following up on more than 180 tips from members of the public and exploring all avenues in the investigation.
The Mounties said 35 people were identified for formal interviews, including community members and those closest to the children.
Michael Arntfield, a criminologist at Western University in London, Ont., called the case "unprecedented," saying it's highly unlikely for two siblings who live together to vanish when a parent is not involved.
"And there's no evidence of that. If that had been the case, I think we would have heard about that very quickly," he said.
"This case, when you overlay it on a hundred other missing children cases, it just doesn't add up at many levels."
He also said police should have said publicly in the early days of the search whether the case was considered suspicious.
"I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that there is some active lead being worked and they don't want to upset the equilibrium that they're in," said Arntfield.
"But based on appearances, this went in the wrong direction early on and key momentum and leads were lost when they were out in the fields looking for kids that maybe were never there."
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