Mom Speaks Out After Fugitive Seen Living With Their Children in Woods

The mother of three missing children from Marokopa, New Zealand, has criticized the police response following a recent sighting of her children seemingly living in the woods with their fugitive father.

Jayda, Maverick and Ember Phillips disappeared with their father Thomas Phillips in 2021. Police said that on October 3 Phillips and the children were spotted by pig hunters in an area of bush in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island.

It was the first time all three children had been seen since they went missing.

The hunters called the emergency services and a three-day search took place, with air support, but the children could not be located. Police said they believed the sighting was “indeed Tom and his children.”

Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, the children’s mother and Phillips’ ex-partner, Cat, said it was like “Christmas come early” to see her children alive and well.

“I can’t see their faces but I can see them walking and they’re all there, and they’re capable of carrying their own bags,” she said.

However, she also criticized the police response to the latest sighting as “sorely lacking” and said “more should have been done instantly” to find the children after the sighting by making the most of daylight hours or heat detecting equipment.

“More could have been done and definitely faster. And what I’d like to know is why? Why wasn’t more done and why wasn’t it done faster?” she asked. “Especially when they know who they are dealing with. They’ve been dealing with him [Phillips] for nearly three years now and they’ve seen the way he rolls.”

“How can there not be more effort put in?” asked Cat. “There’s three children still missing with a criminal at large and it seems like realistically not much is being done.”

Newsweek has emailed the New Zealand police for comment.

Cat also suggested that the army or special forces should be brought in to help find and rescue the children, saying “that’s what they’re trained for.”

In the interview, Cat also appealed to anyone assisting Phillips, saying that they should put a stop to the “child abuse” by coming clean to authorities about what they know.

“They [the children] shouldn’t have to be worrying about where they’re going to sleep that night or whether they’re going to be warm,” she said.

When asked why she thinks Phillips had disappeared with the children, Cat said it was because he felt he was “entitled” to do so.

“He thinks he’s the be all and end all and nobody can tell him what to do,” explained Cat.

She also accused Phillips of using the children like “pawns in his game.”

Phillips first disappeared with the three children on September 11, 2021, sparking an extensive search.

Three weeks later they returned home, with Phillips claiming they had been on a camping trip. He was subsequently charged with wasting police time.

Phillips and the children disappeared for a second time in December 2021.

He is wanted in connection with an armed robbery on a bank in the small town of Te Kuiti in September 2023.

Cat said she saw Phillips in the parking lot of a store in the city of Hamilton in August 2023.

She said Phillips was wearing a disguise and drove off after being recognized, after which she gave chase before eventually losing sight of him.