New Zealand fugitive Tom Phillips killed by police, children found safe

A wanted criminal on the run with his three children in the remote New Zealand countryside for nearly four years was shot and killed in a confrontation with police on Monday, law enforcement said.

Tom Phillips and his children — now about 9, 10 and 11 years old — disappeared in December 2021, confounding investigators as they scoured the densely forested area where they believed the family was hiding.

Phillips did not have legal custody rights for his children, and authorities said they had not had access to formal education or health care since their disappearance.

One child was with Phillips at the time of the confrontation, and the other two children were found in the forest hours after the shootout.

The police tracked down Phillips after he robbed an agricultural supplies store early Monday morning, New Zealand’s Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers told reporters in the city of Hamilton.

A police officer was shot in the head and critically injured, and was undergoing surgery at a hospital. His injuries were survivable, Rogers said, but he was shot “multiple times with a high-powered rifle" and further surgeries were expected.

Rogers told reporters that the two remaining missing children were found unaccompanied about 13 hours after their father was killed at a remote campsite in rugged forest. The child found with Phillips and taken into custody cooperated with the authorities, allowing them to narrow the search area, she said.

The farm supplies store targeted Monday 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.

Authorities believe Phillips had help

The case has fascinated New Zealanders, and the authorities have made regular unsuccessful appeals for information.

Sightings of Phillips were limited to surveillance 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.

Law enforcement always believed that Phillips had help concealing his family, and some residents of the isolated rural area expressed support for him.

December 2021 was not the only time Phillips disappeared with his children. After a three-week land and sea search, 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 the 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.

The police did not immediately launch a search because Phillips, who is experienced in the outdoors, had told family he was taking the children on another trip. He never returned.

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.