Tom Phillips disappeared in late 2021 with his three children, Amber (now nine), Maverick (ten), and Jayda (twelve), into the wilds of the North Island following a dispute with their mother, and since then they were only rarely seen.

From time to time they were recorded on security cameras robbing stores.

Last night, police ambushed them on their way back from another robbery, shot the father dead, and captured the daughter Jayda.

After hours, the younger siblings were also found in the forest.

Their mother said: “A wave of complex emotions; we are waiting for them at home.”

New Zealand Police announced early this morning (Monday) that the father, Tom Phillips, who disappeared in 2021 with his three children and fled with them into the wilderness following a dispute between him and their mother, was shot dead last night by officers after he robbed a store.

One of his children, twelve-year-old Jayda, was with him and was captured, and information she provided to the police led them, after hours, to find her two brothers, aged nine and ten, at an isolated camp in the forests.

This brought to an end a four-year manhunt during which Phillips repeatedly managed to evade arrest.

The affair captivated New Zealand and made headlines around the world.

An eight-year relationship broke down; he taught the children at home.

Amber, Maverick, and Jayda before they were abducted in 2021.

Was there also a baby in the forest?

Phillips’ killing became possible following a report received by New Zealand Police of a robbery at a shop in a small town in the Waikato area, the region where the father and his children disappeared.

The report was received at around 2:30 a.m. local time (5:30 p.m. Israel time last night), and in response the police placed spike strips on the road where the suspects in the act—later found to be Phillips and his daughter Jayda—were expected to travel on their way back.

Phillips’ motorcycle was indeed damaged by the spikes, and a gunfight developed between him and the officers.

One officer was seriously wounded, and another managed to hit Phillips, and the father died at the scene.

Even hours after Phillips’ death and the discovery of twelve-year-old Jayda, the search continued for her two younger siblings, Amber, nine, and Maverick, ten.

There were serious concerns for their well-being, based on the assessment that now, with their father dead, there was no one to care for them and provide for their needs.

In addition, temperatures in the area were expected to drop at night to zero degrees.

Not long after Jayda was found it was reported that she was cooperating with the police, and later the information she provided enabled officers to find her two brothers.

The siblings Amber and Maverick were found alone at an isolated camp in the forests, and it was reported that they were in good condition and not injured, but would later be taken for medical checks.

The two cooperated with the security forces who found them, and it is not clear whether they were informed of their father’s death.

The searches for them involved helicopters and dozens of officers on the ground, including members of a police elite unit.

Earlier, it was reported in New Zealand that the children might be armed, and the police refused to comment on a report that they also had a baby with them.

The affair began in September 2021, when Phillips and his three children disappeared for nineteen days.

They were reported missing, the father’s vehicle was found abandoned, and as a result a wide search operation was declared by sea and land.

After almost three weeks, the four appeared at the home of Phillips’ parents, and the father, known as a hunter and an experienced survivalist in camping, claimed that he had only taken them on a long camping holiday.

Almost three months later, on December 9, 2021, the father and his three children disappeared again, but this time they did not return.

They blended into the wild nature of Waikato, on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, and since then were only rarely seen.

Footage from the robbery committed by the father Phillips and one of his children at the end of last month.

Security forces and journalists on the road where the father Phillips and his daughter Jayda were caught last night.

Phillips himself, who did not have legal custody of the children, was recorded in 2023 on a security camera stealing an all-terrain vehicle from a home and breaking into a shop in the Waikato area, and with him another person, believed to be one of the children, was recorded committing the break-in.

Last year, teenagers who went out to hunt pigs in the Waikato area spotted him and his children; they even managed to exchange a few words and filmed the father, with a long beard and carrying a weapon, and the children, who, like him, wore camouflage clothing and masks with heavy backpacks on their backs.

About a week and a half ago, a security camera recorded the father and one of his children once again, this time breaking into a shop with headlamps, stealing supplies from it, and escaping on an all-terrain vehicle.

Besides these recordings, the police received hundreds of reports over the years from people who testified that they had seen Phillips, but most were not verified, and none reported seeing the children with him.

Law enforcement assessed that someone was helping Phillips hide his children, and some residents of the remote area also expressed support for him.

In June of last year, the authorities offered a reward of 80,000 New Zealand dollars (47,000 U.S. dollars) to anyone who would provide information leading to his capture—a large sum by New Zealand standards.

Phillips was also wanted for a bank robbery committed in May 2023, when he was already a fugitive, together with one of his children—a robbery during which he shot a person.

The documentation provided by the teenage hunters: Phillips and his children walking with backpacks and in camouflage clothing.

One of the children asked: “Who else knows we are here?” The documentation from last year.

The mother of the three children, Catherine, stated this morning that last night’s events brought over her a wave of complex emotions: “Everyone missed them very much day by day for four years, and we are waiting to receive them back home with love and care.” The daughter Jayda, who, as mentioned, was the first to be found, has not yet been reunited with her mother, and naturally neither have her brothers.

Before the two remaining children were found, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said this morning that he was very concerned about their fate: “The whole country is anxiously waiting to hear that the missing children have been found,” he declared.

“I doubt there is any New Zealander who has not followed—at least to some extent—the story of the children’s abduction.”

The last testimony from people who managed to speak with Phillips was from the teenagers who went out to hunt pigs in October 2024 and encountered him and his children.

The grandfather of one of the young hunters said at the time that he and his friends managed to get close to the father and the three children and speak with them briefly.

According to him, the father asked the teenagers: “What are you doing here?

Who are you?

Does anyone else know that you are here?”, and his grandson answered, “Only you.” One of the children, it was reported, asked the teenagers: “Who else knows we are here?”, and afterwards the father and his children kept walking.

The scene where the shootout took place, this morning.

The mother of the children, Catherine, who at that time had not seen them for three years, confirmed then that those seen in the photos provided by the teenagers were her children.

“I am so happy that they are all there,” she said then, “I was so relieved to see all three of my babies.

They are all alive.” About the moment when she received that first sign of life she said: “It was amazing, it was the best thing.

I just fell apart.

I cannot see their faces, but I can see them walking and they are all there, they are able to carry their bags.”

Catherine and Phillips were in a relationship for eight years, and after they separated Phillips was responsible for educating the children at home.

The mother previously accused the father of endangering their children, and said that the daughter Amber suffers from asthma and needs medical treatment.

She claimed that Phillips did not care about the children and that for him they were only pawns in a game: “He is trying to teach me a lesson.”

The mother Catherine and her children before the abduction.

“Grieving every day for the loss.”

“I grieve every day for the loss of three children, for the loss of innocence, for the loss of my babies; they deserve more than this,” she said last year.

It was noted then that it is difficult for her to talk about her children because it is clear to her that things have changed for them after the years they lived in nature, without formal education and medical care and under the control of their fugitive father: “I know how they were before that, but almost three years have passed.” She said that after years on the run she wants her children “to live, not just survive.”

Recently, Phillips’ family called on the father to return home with his children.

In a letter published in the media, his mother, Julia, wrote to him: “Tom, I am really sad that you thought you had to do this, without thinking how much we love you and can support you.

It hurts me every time I see pictures of the children and of you or see some of your things that are still here and think what could have happened if you had not gone.”