New Zealand police said Thursday they are investigating a puzzling discovery — a collection of shoeboxes found on the quad bike of fugitive father Tom Phillips — after officers shot and killed Phillips during a pre-dawn confrontation that ended a nearly four-year disappearance with his three children.
Phillips, who vanished from the North Island township of Marokopa in December 2021 with his children Ember, 9, Maverick, 10, and Jayda, 12, was killed by police after a short, violent encounter early Monday near Te Anga Road in the western Waikato region. An officer shot by Phillips was taken to hospital with serious head and shoulder injuries and remained recovering after surgery, police said.
The operation began after Phillips and Jayda were seen stealing items from a PGG Wrightson farm-supply store in Piopio at about 2:30 a.m., police said. Witnesses reported the pair wearing headlamps and farm clothing. They fled on a quad bike and were stopped by police spikes roughly 33 kilometres away. After an initial confrontation in which Phillips shot a lone officer in the head with a high-powered rifle, backup officers returned fire, killing Phillips and taking Jayda into custody.
Two hours after the shooting, police located and rescued Maverick and Ember at a nearby campsite about two kilometres from the scene where items including multiple firearms were recovered. Photographs released by police and media showed rudimentary living conditions at the campsite, including quad bikes parked among trees, blankets draped over vehicles and containers and soft-drink cans scattered nearby.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said Wednesday that the shoeboxes found on the quad bike were a "very interesting" detail that investigators have yet to explain. "We know that Mr Phillips has been the suspect in a number of burglaries. At the moment, one of the things that we'll be doing is obviously connecting the dots and trying to better understand where equipment, clothing, whatever it may be, has come from," Chambers told the New Zealand Herald.
Chambers said Jayda had provided "very, very helpful" information to assist police in finding her siblings but was not taken to the campsite by officers because doing so would have presented a risk to her. "We would not put her alongside us as we move forward to the campsite because that presents a risk to her and we wouldn't be prepared to put her in any risk at all," he said.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell described Phillips as "very unstable in his thinking" and said the case demonstrated how dangerous the situation had become. "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," Mitchell said.
Oranga Tamariki, the government agency responsible for child welfare, said the rescued children were settled and being supported. Warwick Morehu, regional commissioner for Oranga Tamariki, said the children were "settled, they are comfortable. They are together" and that specialists would provide ongoing assistance. It was understood that the children had not yet been reunited with their mother, referred to in media reports as Cat. In a statement released Monday, she said she was relieved the ordeal had ended and that the children had been "dearly missed every day for nearly four years." She added that the family hoped for a safe return home.
Multiple firearms were recovered at the campsite, and Chambers said investigators were working to determine how Phillips accessed the weapons and whether anyone else had assisted him. "There's a lot of work to do over the next few months that will help us determine whether or not there is anybody else that's been involved," he said. Acting Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers said Phillips' body would undergo a post-mortem before being released to his family.
Phillips first drew national attention in 2021 after he and his children disappeared amid a custody dispute. His truck was found on a beach in March 2021 with no sign of the family; they later emerged from the bush after 17 days. Phillips was charged with wasting police resources but disappeared again before he was due to appear in court. Police at times suspected he and the children were living off the land in rugged countryside and had bolstered patrols in the area amid concerns he might have assistance remaining concealed.
Authorities said Phillips had been suspected in a number of burglaries and was wanted for more serious offending, including an alleged armed bank robbery in 2023 during which he was reported to have been accompanied by one of his children and to have fired at a member of the public while fleeing. CCTV footage and police inquiries suggested Phillips and the family had occasionally stolen supplies from rural properties to sustain themselves.
The case divided opinion in parts of the small coastal settlement of Marokopa, where some residents expressed support for Phillips to visiting reporters. Police stressed that anyone who endangered children or fired on officers would be treated as a criminal threat. "No one who does this to children, no one who unleashes high-powered rifles on my staff is a hero. Simple as that," Commissioner Chambers said.
Police said the site they located on Tuesday appeared to be a basic camp that could be moved easily and that further searches could reveal additional sites used over the years. Investigators will continue inquiries into the origin of recovered clothing, equipment and firearms and were treating the case as one that could involve other suspects. The officer shot by Phillips was described by Chambers as having been very close to death but now in a stable condition following surgery.