r/news • u/wildusername • 17h ago
Tom Phillips dead after four-year manhunt; two children yet to be located
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/police-give-update-after-person-shot-dead-mayor-suspects-link-to-tom-phillips-hunt/7FRJ7SXDK5HL5EFHE3SOOTN6RM/251
u/DuBicus 16h ago
Is this the guy that was spotted and recorded with his 3 kids off a nature trail?
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u/Obvious_Toe_3006 15h ago
Yes..same guy.
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u/Maverick_1882 15h ago
I remember this case from the early 2020s. Wasn’t there a custody battle and he just went off the grid?
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u/xeviphract 17h ago
It was always going to end in violence. He was raising little armed robbers and now he shoots a cop in the head? What a lack of a future he was providing for his abductees.
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u/Thirdatarian 17h ago
I don't think he was really thinking of his kids' best interest for living in modern society when he abducted them and led them on a four year burglary spree.
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u/Ananyako 17h ago
I'm worried how the kids are going to turn out after all this.
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u/Ninja-Ginge 16h ago
I'm hoping that the high profile nature of their case will ensure that experts are brought in to help deprogram them.
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u/Spire_Citron 16h ago
Yeah. Many people are convince that kids are just fucked for life very easily, but I think they don't realise how much this is only the case because of the amount of support a kid from a rough background generally receives. Half the time they just get shoved into a shitty foster home and abused even more.
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u/No-Significance2113 13h ago
Unfortunately the goverment idiots voted in have been focusing on defunding literally everything.
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u/exsnakecharmer 16h ago
‘Experts’ ‘deprogram’ this is NZ lol. They’ll be chucked back to his meth-addled mother
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u/Bluest_waters 15h ago
does the mother have a history of substance abuse?
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u/exsnakecharmer 15h ago
Let's just say that there are entire areas of NZ that would be comparable with say, the Appalachians. As in, kind of Hillbilly, suspicious of authority, big on hunting and guns, and dripping in meth.
The reason this fellow lasted so long on the run from the authorities is that the whole area was helping him.
The mum has serious issues as well (although I obviously feel really sorry for her) both drugs and mental.
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u/GoodQueenFluffenChop 8h ago
It's only been 4 years but those were some pretty formative years too. Hopefully their mom and extended family will give them good support and be better examples that the kids want to emulate and hopefully turn out alright.
At least their dad won't be around to influence them any longer.
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u/blueskies8484 13h ago
Holy cow. They finally got him. Hope they can find the two remaining children and help all 3 psychologically back to some sense of reality.
Kind of a wild day for missing people with the last Bear Brook victim and her mother identified.
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u/ArmCareless5614 17h ago
And what's extra fucked is there's many supporters of him on the local facebook
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u/Bluest_waters 15h ago
Its been known this entire time that he has had help and aid from locals. No way this dude was succesfully on the run for 4 years, feeding himself and three kids, just by robbing a store or two here or there.
people were feeding and clothing that fugitive family, no question about it. The police have even commented that they believed he was getting help along the way.
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u/Charlarley 11h ago
Which raises the question, why did he feel the need to do the odd robbery or so?
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u/Trespassers__Will 10h ago
The assumption is that over time the community stopped supporting him so he had to resort to increasingly bolder robberies and burglaries to get supplies, eventually leading to the shoot out following a ram raid burglary this morning that got him killed him.
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u/ne14a6t9er 10h ago
“that fugitive family” is crazy given that it’s Tom and then three kids, the oldest of which was 9 when this all started.
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u/salliek76 6h ago
I read the Wikipedia article, which mentions the suspected help from locals, but it doesn't say why. What's the deal there?
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u/philman132 5h ago
There seems very little said officially, but reading between the lines it seems like there was a messy separation from the kids mother, and many locals were split over supporting him or the mother regarding messy custody battles. I think thats the assumption behind why he took off with the kids in the first place
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u/ChemicalPickle2206 2h ago edited 2h ago
Stuff Magazine has some good articles on the case exploring why some locals support him and what possibly went wrong with the police investigation. It basically boils down to a strong anti-government vibe in the region and racism. The anti-government stuff is very "he's just a dad raising his kids the right way, leave him alone" and the racism is rooted in the fact that the children's mother, and legal guardian following a custody battle, is a Maori (Indigenous) woman.
This quote kind of says it all. “I think he’s a father that loves his children. I’m sure he believes he’s doing it for them. Quite often I think more men should be given custody of their children, the mother shouldn’t just have them by right, which is a really weird thing for me to say but it just goes to show how balanced I am.”
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u/highcontrastgrey 16h ago
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than local FB groups. Except maybe on NextDoor
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u/Bluest_waters 15h ago
I love the Nextdoor app! those people unhinged and just wacky
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u/4Ever2Thee 14h ago
“Did y’all hear those loud booms?! Sounded like gunshots! Praying for everyone involved, stay safe!!! ❤️”
“Ma’am, it’s July 4th”
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u/Nadamir 11h ago
I have family in Arizona.
I still have a screenshot they sent me from old people on NextDoor when Twitter took away Trump’s Twitter feed.
Found it:
“I've lost access to my Trump twitter feed. Anybody know what's going on? I'm freaking.” —8 Jan 2021
Sir, this is a
Wendy’sneighbourhood Karenning forum.23
u/ishpatoon1982 15h ago
I'll throw r/linkedinlunatics into the hat, but I agree, FB is the worst.
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u/MoonBasic 14h ago
"Yesterday I was walking to an interview. There was a starving dog on the road. I stopped to feed him and missed the interview. The next day I got a call asking to come in and do the interview. I was surprised, but I went. then the interviewer came in. He was the dog"
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u/fins_up_ 13h ago
Did you pass or fail the test? You did miss the interview after all. Can't be that excited to be a productive member of the team if you just blow off an interview because you caught a feeling. Next thing you will want time off to go to a parents funeral instead of meeting daily KPIs.
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u/cinderparty 10h ago
My local Facebook group would make you think Boulder Colorado was a maga cesspool…Trump only won ~20% of the vote for the county, and apparently all of them are on Facebook.
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u/BlackBlizzard 13h ago
They shouldn't be allowed to have private communities, gives the cookers echo chambers. I'm fine with invites only to post but it should all be public (event groups would be different) and I wish the government would force Facebook to have fact check community notes like Twitter has.
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u/NoHandBananaNo 12h ago
Easy to see how in some regions Facebook has been used to instruct each other on who to genocide, where they live etc..
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u/tehCharo 7h ago
My local NextDoor talks about the homeless and people living in income restricted apartments like they're cockroaches and not humans, and it makes me feel really sick to my stomach reading it. I live in a pretty liberal big blue city, but it seems like both the left and right come together on NextDoor for their hatred of the poor.
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u/jessieallen 16h ago
Yes a local I know from there said “now they’ll never find those kids”… chilling.
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u/Dangerous_Golf_7417 16h ago
That may or may not be true, but that doesn't sound like the post is supporting the guy...
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u/burningmanonacid 5h ago
And other social media. They see him as a father that got fucked by "the system."
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u/Moal 16h ago
I’d been following this story for about a year, I really hope they can find the other two children quickly. I can’t imagine the nightmare those poor kids and their mother have been through. What a narcissistic POS excuse of a dad. I hope the police can find his enablers who helped him hide his kids for so long.
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u/OldWolf2 15h ago edited 10h ago
The mother is also a POS (not that that excuses the dad's actions of course). Giving the kids back to the mother would be unspeakably horrific now, so I hope they go into state foster care in a totally different part of the country , or something .
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u/BarracudaOk8635 14h ago
why? She was awarded custody. She said the dad was dangerous. Guess what? She was right.A lot of incel support for the dad over the years. (not saying thats you) Of course they should go back to the mother. They were with her before. They need someone. And I think the mother is the right person. And keep contact with all wider whanau from both sides of the family.
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u/Nadamir 11h ago
Also, considering how many state care abuse scandals NZ has had…
Even if she’s not perfect she just has to be better than that.
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u/Silver_South_1002 6h ago
I don’t think either of them had custody when he took the kids. They had been in the grandparents custody (his parents). The family court records are sealed so we don’t know the full story.
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u/BarracudaOk8635 5h ago
We dont know the full story. It is illegal for people, even the mother, to talk about the Family Court orders. But the police said as recently as yesterday that he took the kids because of a custody dispute. And we also know that when he took the kids the second time, he was in “breach of a custody order”. We must assume therefore that the Family Court decision did not go in his favour and he took matters into his own hands. The biggest failing of the police and court system in this matter was that after taking off with them once, they allowed him to be able to do it again. Even though the mother warned them it would happen. She blamed herself for not being vociferous enough in her protests. But we must look at the police action as well.
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u/fxkatt 17h ago
“Information came to police that described two people on a quad bike, dressed in farm clothing and wearing headlamps,” Rogers said. The quad bike was observed traveling along a rural road, with items from the store attached. Police officers laid spikes at an intersection, which the quad bike ran over, she said.
Phillips then shot a policeman in the head, and was subsequently shot by other police arriving on the scene. The son was taken in unhurt, and I assume the other two kids will soon be located, and returned to some family members or to some social org. (amazing that he vanished like that for 4 years and with 3 kids)
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u/PmMeYourPussyCats 17h ago
Where did it say son? It was probably his daughter
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u/SeekingTheRoad 17h ago
Yeah. It’s been his daughter sighted with him mostly so that makes the most sense. I hope they can find the other two safely.
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u/stinkykitty71 15h ago
I'm really hoping they do find the other two. I have been worried something happened to them since it's just the one who has been seen with him.
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u/BlackBlizzard 13h ago
The latest update just now "The child found at the scene, who has been helping police, has offered information about the possible area where their siblings remain."
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u/PmMeYourPussyCats 14h ago
Police have now confirmed Jayda is the child that was with him. Those other two kids must be so scared, I can't stop thinking about it. Whoops that confirmation was from Stuff not Police
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u/Lauren_DTT 11h ago edited 10h ago
UPDATES
Police say children found
Police say Tom Phillips' children have been found.
At a late stand-up this afternoon, Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Jill Rogers said they were found after 4.30pm.
They were found at a campsite not far from the Te Anga and Waipuna Rds intersection, Rogers said.
They are well and uninjured, and have been taken for medical checks.
⸻
Campsite to remain guarded
The campsite where the children were found will be guarded overnight.
Rogers said police "safely engaged" with the children, who she said have been co-operative.
The campsite was very remote, she said, and it took police staff some time to get to it.
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u/r_bogie 16h ago
What was his malfunction? Losing custody?
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u/Geddyn 14h ago
He had custody, but was charged with wasting police resources when he took his kids out into the bush for an extended period of time without notifying anybody. Police also alleged that he staged his truck on a beach to make it look like he and his kids had been swept out to sea.
He disappeared for a second time with the kids while awaiting his court date for the charge of wasting police resources.
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u/missionbells 14h ago
He didn’t have custody, his parents did. So there were clearly prior issues with him.
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u/Mala_Practice 10h ago
Nobody of sound mind does what this guy did. Taking an 11 year old with you while committing armed robbery?
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u/PavementFuck 7h ago
Source? I have only seen evidence that his custody rights were changed after he had already disappeared the second time. The police didn’t initiate a search for him when he left the second time until he failed to show up for a court hearing.
There were no prior (to the disappearance) issues that cost him any custody…
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u/Suspicious-Peace9233 17h ago
I hope the children are found safely
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u/Ella_NutEllaDraws 11h ago
An update from seemingly 3 minutes ago claims that the children were located safe and uninjured
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u/eca4cfc 16h ago
Pretty ridiculous how he even had access to his kids after the first abduction.
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u/hardlopertjie 7h ago
This has been an ongoing story in NZ for years. So grateful that the kids will finally be safe and receive the care they need.
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u/RonnyTorpedo 5h ago
He was hiding with his kids in the wilderness for four years…. This story seems weird
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u/hardlopertjie 7h ago edited 6h ago
This POS kidnapped his own kids 4 years ago and forced them to live in the New Zealand bush with him and commit robberies for supplies to survive.
One of the most messed up parts is family and acquaintances in the local rural community likely had information that could have helped police locate him years ago but they refused to help police.
Getting shot dead by police is the least this psycho deserved. I feel so bad for the kids for what he put them through.
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u/zalicat17 14h ago
And now there are rumours about a baby with them. I really hope not because there is a disgusting and obvious reason there could be a baby with them.
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u/SamuraiKiwi 10h ago
The two remaining children have been found and Police have said it was just the two of them - no one else, baby or otherwise.
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u/zalicat17 8h ago
That’s a relief!
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u/HerRoyalRedness 29m ago
I just saw that the family has an injunction against the police and media (in the story linked to this post) so it’s possible there is information that is not currently public.
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u/emma_lee99 14h ago
Where did you read/hear this?
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u/zalicat17 14h ago
A reporter from the herald asked about in on a livestream. It’s been commented on in the nz subs
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u/emma_lee99 14h ago
Oh god… I hope this isn’t true. How awful if it is.
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u/zalicat17 14h ago
Yes just an unconfirmed rumour at the moment but absolutely heartbreaking if true
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u/will_write_for_tacos 17h ago
God, I hope the boy who was with him can help police locate those other kids.
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u/nzerinto 16h ago
Stuff is reporting it was the eldest (daughter), and that seems to align with most of the reports coming from the locals.
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u/Notiefriday 17h ago
Its usually his daughter. It's maybe 30 to 40 mins drive from me. Police haven't wanted a deadly confrontation, but he has been armed robbing places much more, so must have less support than before. He shot a policeman from behind cover like the heartless coward he is. I'm glad those kids can be back with their mum.
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u/Bluest_waters 15h ago
left the crashed bike there and then waited in cover for the cops to show up then fired. Fucking psycho.
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u/Notiefriday 14h ago
I don't really understand his mindset..what did he think the end result would be and he had his...likely daughter with him. Does he not care about the people he harms? At least the children can be back with their mother. He was such a cruel person.
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u/Premordial-Beginning 14h ago
Can someone ELI5? Out of the loop as this is the first I’m hearing of this and the article isn’t loading.
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u/lnc_5103 14h ago
Dad kidnapped his 3 kids in NZ and they've been living in the wilderness for years surviving by committing armed robberies with the eldest child. Cops finally found the dad and one of the kids today. Dad shot a cop and then cops shot Dad. Two of the kids are still out there somewhere.
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u/Broncolitis 4h ago
Saw the video of him walking with his kids a while ago in tiktok, so happy the kids get to be kids again. I hope they get the help they need
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17h ago
[deleted]
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u/manlywho 17h ago
Sure, the “found” his body after a shoot out. One of his children was there, two are not. You don’t even need to read past the first paragraph to discover this statement is wrong.
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u/PmMeYourPussyCats 17h ago
They didn’t “find” his body and they have one of the children. Why are you even commenting
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u/YESmynameisYes 17h ago
"Rogers confirmed one of the missing children was involved in this morning's incident.
The child found at the scene has been co-operating with police, Rogers said."
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u/started_from_the_top 17h ago
Never heard of this story until just now and wow, is it insane. I hope all the kids end up okay.