Investigators are conducting a thorough forensic examination of the site to help determine how the three children – Jayda, 12, Maverick, 10, and Ember, 9 – were surviving with their father, and what resources they had. Police found multiple firearms at the campsite, alongside those recovered near Phillips at the scene of the shootout.
The findings of the investigation into the campsite are expected to provide crucial insights into the living conditions and daily routines of Phillips and his children, who went on the run in December 2021.
The siblings were reunited on Monday evening and were settled into the care of New Zealand authorities. Their case is being managed by the Family Court. It is not clear if they have met their mother, known as Cat, since their ordeal came to an end. She had not seen the children for almost four years.
Acting Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers said police would continue to work closely with the children, taking into account “the ordeal they have been through”.
“Our staff described the children as being engaged, and they readily spoke with our staff, who provided them with snacks and drinks while they waited to be brought out of the campsite,” she said.
A spokesman for Oranga Tamariki, the New Zealand children’s services authority, said the organisation had been working with police on a plan to reintegrate the children throughout the four years they were missing.
Cat, with her three children in 2021, a month before they were taken by their father, Tom Phillips.
“I want to assure you all that these tamariki [children] will be provided with whatever help and assistance they need, for however long they might need it,” the spokesman, Warwick Morehu, said.
Earlier, Chambers said it was hard to tell how long Phillips had been staying at the campsite, but the family had spent some time there, and some structures had been found.
“We know Mr Phillips has been moving around this very vast region frequently, so he hasn’t stayed in one location for the entire time.”
There have been multiple sightings of Phillips since he took his three children bush in 2021, but despite intense police efforts, he managed to evade capture in rugged and remote areas.
The scene where Tom Phillips was killed in a shootout with police.Credit: Mark Taylor/Stuff.co.nz
Police have long suspected that locals may have been assisting the fugitive father, possibly providing him with shelter, supplies or intelligence to keep him hidden.
A key focus for police now is determining the full extent of any assistance Phillips may have had, and how he managed to remain elusive for so long.
Loading
In 2024, Stuff reported many people in the region believed Phillips just should’ve been “left alone”.
“I don’t know where he is, I know people that do, and I’ve never asked them where,” a woman working at a local petrol station recently said.
Phillips’ father’s wife, Julia, denied claims that she and her husband were helping Tom and their grandchildren, saying people were merely guessing.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell told Radio New Zealand that Phillips had “multiple high-powered firearms” and was “very unstable in his thinking”, which had made it a very complicated situation.
“I think the whole country has seen play out in the last 24 hours just how dangerous the situation was and how it could have ended an even worse tragedy, and that would have been the loss of one, two or three young lives.”
Chambers told the New Zealand Herald on Tuesday morning there would be some people in the community who would try to defend Phillips, but “he was not a hero”.
In Marokopa village, near where the Phillips family has a farm, there was sadness among residents that the story had ended in bloodshed.
“It was inevitable, really, but it’s a shock all the same,” Gayle Keegan said.
“What was the outcome ever gonna be? He wouldn’t give up, he wouldn’t come out. He obviously felt he had no other way to deal with it.
Loading
“It’s sad, it’s just left everybody flat. I feel sorry for his family. Even though he’s done what he’s done, he still has a family.”
Her husband, Warren, said he was upset when he heard that Phillips was dead.
“I find it a bit hard. I think he mucked up, he shouldn’t have fired a shot. If you fire at the police, they’ve got to shoot back, you know.
“I’d have sooner seen him alive than shot. He’s done nothing to us down here in this village.”
