Father Who Hid For Years In The Wilderness With His 3 Kids Is Shot Dead By Police
HuffPost
The 2021 disappearance of Tom Phillips and his children confounded investigators in New Zealand.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A man who evaded authorities with his three children in the remote New Zealand countryside for nearly four years was shot and killed by a police officer Monday, law enforcement said.
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 Phillips and his children — now about 9, 10 and 11 years old — confounded investigators for years as they scoured the densely forested area where they believed the family was hiding.
The father and children were not believed to ever have traveled far from the isolated North Island rural settlement of Marokopa where they lived, but credible sightings of them were rare. Phillips has not been formally identified, but authorities believed he was the man killed.
Police officer was shot and critically injured
