The family of a fugitive father have for the first time issued a direct appeal in a desperate attempt to get him to return home with his three children from New Zealand’s wilderness.
Tom Phillips has been on the run with his children – Ember, now nine, Maverick, ten, and Jayda, 12 – since December 2021. A warrant was issued for Phillips’ arrest in 2023 over his suspected involvement in a bank robbery.
The family was last seen walking in a grass field near Marokopa town on the country’s North Island, spotted by two young hunters who discreetly recorded them.
In the three years and eight months Phillips and his children have spent in the bush, his wider family and parents, Neville and Julia, have never given interviews.
Now as they’re coming to the end of four winters in the wild, Phillips mother, Julia, has written a heartfelt letter to bring them home, according to New Zealand news outlet Stuff.
“Tom – I feel really sad that you thought you had to do this. Not considering how much we love you and can support you,” the letter started, read by Phillips’ sister Rozzi in an interview with Stuff. “It hurts every time I see photos of the children and of you and see some of your stuff that is still here. Thinking what could have been if you had not gone away.
“Jayda, Maverick, Ember – I love you so much and really miss being part of your lives. Everyday I wake up and hope that today will be the day that you will come home.”
Phillips fled with his children after a dispute with their mother, identified only as Catherine. He did not have legal custody of the children and violated a custody order by taking them to an “unknown location”. It is believed the children have had no outside contact since.
Despite numerous police searches, rewards and public appeals, there had been no trace of Phillips until the October sighting.
After the encounter, one of the hunters alerted police, who launched a search with two helicopters including a military chopper with night vision. They were unable to find the family.
Rozzi Phillips described the letter as “from a mother’s heart, just to her son”, believing that the father will see the letter at some point.
“Maybe he’s going to see this, and maybe he’s going to get to see that he can come home, and that we are here for him, and it might just be okay,” she told Stuff.
The sister also joined his mother in issuing an emotional appeal directly to Phillips.
“There’s a lot of love and there’s a lot of support, and we’re ready to help you walk through what you need to walk through,” she said.
“I miss you, and I miss being part of your life, and I really want to see you and the kids and be part of your lives again. You’re very special to me. You’re my friend, as well as my brother, and I love you, and it’s okay.”
Rozzi Phillips also echoed a previous witness, who describe the family as seeming “well prepared for the wilderness”, according to Stuff.
She said her brother had completed a six-month outdoor survival program and often took the kids hunting. She believes he is a skilled builder and could build the children a shelter.
An arrest warrant for Phillips was issued soon after he vanished in late 2021, but the public has been warned not to approach him as he may be armed.
The children’s mother previously gave an emotional plea in video released last year: “I am standing here before you today begging you for your help to bring my babies home.”
“They are just innocent children, they don’t deserve to be treated this way. They do not deserve the life that is being provided to them right now.”
