A four-year search for fugitive father Tom Phillips, who vanished into the wilderness of New Zealand with his three children in 2021, came to a dramatic and violent conclusion this week. Phillips was shot and killed by police in the early hours of Monday morning after an armed confrontation in the North Island town of Piopio. The children, who had been hidden from authorities for years, were found safe hours later at a remote campsite.
The case, which gripped the country and raised difficult questions about custody, policing, and survivalism, ended in tragedy but also relief. For Phillips’s family and the wider New Zealand public, the saga has been a chilling mix of mystery, endurance, and law enforcement frustration.
Tom Phillips first made headlines in December 2021 when he and his children — Jayda, now 12, Maverick, 10, and Ember, 9 — disappeared from Marokopa, a coastal settlement in the Waikato region. At the time, Phillips was in a custody dispute with the children’s mother. Authorities said she held legal custody, but Phillips, a devoted but troubled father, took the children into the bush without permission.
Despite large-scale searches that included helicopters, drones, and police teams combing dense forest and rugged coastline, the family could not be found. Their disappearance sparked national concern, with some fearing the worst. Others speculated Phillips was hiding deliberately, determined to keep his children away from their mother and the authorities.