New Zealand police have announced renewed efforts to find Thomas Callam Phillips, a fugitive who has been on the run with his three children since 2021.
Officers will be searching the area in and around Te Waitere and Te Maika, which are rural communities in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island, around 13 miles from where Phillips was last seen, over the next few days, police said in a statement published Wednesday.
Phillips has been evading police for three years since disappearing with his children Ember, Maverick and Jayda – who were 5, 7 and 8 at the time – into the rugged wilderness of the country’s North Island during a bitter family split in December 2021.
New Zealand’s North Island is home to the wild, awe-inspiring landscape that formed some of the backdrop to Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies.
Steep hills with sweeping views drop away into deep valleys, dotted with caves covered by a blanket of dense forest.
At first, Phillips was wanted for failing to appear in court on charges of wasting police resources but, three years on, his charge sheet has grown longer and more serious, with allegations that he robbed a bank in May 2023 with an unnamed female accomplice.
Police have scrambled search teams, helicopters and planes to investigate sporadic sightings but have failed to find them.
In October 2024, pig hunters made what is believed to be the first sighting of all three children since 2021 in Marokopa.
One recorded the four figures on video, providing the first proof of life of the missing Phillips children that their mother Cat has seen since they left.
The case has gripped New Zealand, with many questioning why authorities haven’t been able to track Phillips and his children down.
“This is not a big country we’re talking about,” said Lance Burdett, a former detective inspector and lead crisis negotiator for New Zealand Police, at the time.
“It’s very surprising that they haven’t been found, particularly since the number of sightings are in a very similar area.”
Max Baxter, mayor of the Otorohanga district that includes Marokopa, a rural community home to fewer than 100 people, says authorities believe Phillips is receiving help.
“We absolutely believe that somebody, or some people, are helping them,” Baxter said in October 2024.
“Tom still has a number of supporters out there believing that he is doing the right thing for him and his children.”
Phillips was raised in the Marokopa area and his parents still live there in the family home.
In a statement provided to TVNZ in 2023, his mother denied any knowledge of her son’s whereabouts and said the family would “like nothing more” than for the four to return.