New Zealand police shoot dead fugitive father after 4-year manhunt, 2 kids found in woods
Tom Phillips was killed after robbing an agricultural supplies store with one of his children
One child was with Tom Phillips at the time of the confrontation and the other two children were found in the forest hours after the shoot-out, in which an officer was critically injured.
The December 2021 disappearance of Tom Phillips and his children – now about nine, 10 and 11 – confounded investigators for years as they scoured the densely forested area where they believed the family was hiding.
The family was not believed to have ever travelled far from the isolated North Island rural settlement of Marokopa where they lived, but credible sightings of them were rare.
Phillips had not been formally identified, New Zealand’s Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers told reporters in the city of Hamilton on Monday, but authorities believed he was the man killed. His relatives confirmed his death to local news outlets.
A police officer was shot in the head and critically injured during a confrontation with Phillips after he robbed an agricultural supplies store early on Monday morning, Rogers said. A child with Phillips at the time of the burglary was taken into custody.