NZ father on the run for years shot dead by police
Charlotte Graham-McLay |
A New Zealand man who evaded authorities with his three children in remote countryside for almost four years has shot and killed by a police officer.
The December 2021 disappearance of Tom Phillips and his children – now about 9, 10 and 11 – confounded investigators for years as they scoured the densely forested area where they believed the family was hiding.
The family was not believed to ever have travelled far from the isolated North Island rural settlement of Marokopa where they lived, but credible sightings of them were rare.
Phillips has not been formally identified, New Zealand’s Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers told reporters in the city of Hamilton on Monday, but authorities believed he was the man killed.
His relatives confirmed his death to local news outlets.
A police officer was shot in the head and critically injured during a confrontation with Phillips after he robbed an agricultural supplies store early on Monday morning, Rogers said.
A child with Phillips at the time of the burglary was taken into custody. The officer was undergoing surgery at a hospital. Further surgeries were expected.
The whereabouts of Phillips’ other two children was unknown and authorities held serious concerns for them, Rogers said.
Detective Senior Sergeant Andrew Saunders said the child taken into custody on Monday was co-operating with the authorities.
The farm supplies store targeted was in a small town in the same sprawling farming region of Waikato, south of Auckland, as the settlement of about 40 people from where the family vanished.
The case has fascinated New Zealanders and the authorities made regular unsuccessful appeals for information.
Sightings of Phillips were limited to CCTV footage that showed him allegedly committing crimes in the area.
He was wanted for an armed bank robbery while on the run in May 2023, accompanied by one of his children, in which he reportedly shot at a member of the public.
Phillips did not have legal custody rights for his children, Saunders told reporters in 2024. Authorities feared for the children’s safety and said they had not had access to formal education or health care since their disappearance.
Law enforcement always believed Phillips had help concealing his family and some residents of the isolated rural area expressed support for him.
A reward of $NZ80,000 ($A72,000), large by New Zealand standards, and immunity from prosecution was offered for information about the family’s whereabouts in June, but it was never paid.
December 2021 was not the first time Phillips prompted national news headlines after disappearing with his children.
The family went missing that September, launching a three-week land and sea search after Phillips’ truck was found abandoned on a wild beach near where he lived.
Authorities eventually ended the search, concluding the family might have died, before Phillips and the children emerged from dense forest where he said they had been camping.
He was charged with wasting police resources and was due to appear in court in January 2022, but weeks before the scheduled date, he and the children vanished again.
He was last seen on CCTV in August as he robbed a grocery store in the night, accompanied by one of his children.
The children’s mother issued a statement to Radio New Zealand on Monday in which she said she was “deeply relieved” that the “ordeal” for her children had ended.
“They have been dearly missed every day for nearly four years, and we are looking forward to welcoming them home with love and care,” said the woman, who has been identified in New Zealand news outlets only by her first name, Cat.
AP
