In the remote coastal settlement of Marokopa in New Zealand’s Waikato region, pōhutukawa trees – lush green giants with flowers like tiny crimson fireworks – have bloomed. For many, the red blossom of the nation’s native Christmas tree marks the holiday season and family gatherings. But for one family, the flowers will signal a painful anniversary – a third Christmas spent without three of their youngest members.
Just before Christmas two years ago, Tom Phillips fled into the Waikato wilderness with his children Ember, 7, Maverick, 9, and Jayda, 10, following a dispute with their mother.
Despite multiple sightings of Phillips, extensive searches and appeals begging him to bring the children home, the family is no closer to knowing where they are.
It is not the first time Phillips has gone bush with his children. In September 2021, they were reported missing and his ute was found abandoned along the Marokopa shoreline, resulting in a major search operation across land and sea.
Nineteen days later, Phillips and the children walked into his parents’ farmhouse just outside Marokopa. Phillips claimed he had taken his children on an extended camping trip in dense bush in an effort to clear his head. He was charged with wasting police time and resources.
But fewer than three months later, the four were reported missing again and when Phillips failed to show for a January court appearance, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
The case has fascinated New Zealanders, prompting questions over how, in a country where small communities are closely connected, a man has managed to stay hidden with his three children for so long.
Hiding or being hidden?
Marokopa – population 69 – is two hours from the nearest city, Hamilton, and has become inextricably linked with Phillips’s story.
Before he disappeared, many New Zealanders would have struggled to pick it out on a map. It is a quiet, isolated settlement, with one long winding road in and out of the densely forested and hilly landscape. When the Guardian visits, most of the houses are locked up, the campsite is largely empty and a lone stallion wanders the main street.
Longtime resident Trevor Neal stands in the kitchen of the house his grandfather built, just metres from the Marokopa estuary. Through the window, the river and the black sand dunes shimmer. Historic photographs of Marokopa adorn the walls.
Neal, who has just returned from shearing 70 sheep high in the hills, says like the Phillipses his history here goes back generations. “I grew up here, went to Marokopa school,” he says. “I remember my pop building this place when I was a young kid.”
He knows the Phillips family well but he has no idea what has become of the father and his three children.
“It was the talk of the town when it first happened,” Neal says. “A lot of people were worried about the kids [and] say they aren’t being socialised, but I guess it’s a bit like the pioneers who first came out here – you wouldn’t see your neighbours for three or four months at a time.”
The weather in the rugged hill country can be “bloody cold and wet”, Neal says, and he hopes the family are somewhere warm and dry.
The vast Waikato region, where Phillips is presumed to be hiding, is made up of long sweeping coastline to the west, forested terrain and farmland in the centre, limestone cave networks to the north and a smattering of small rural towns and settlements throughout.
“It’s sparsely populated, surrounded by hill country and farming, it’s rugged and certainly not easy to navigate,” says John Robertson, mayor of the Waitomo district in Waikato, adding that the remoteness of the landscape has frustrated police efforts to find the family.
While the environment lends itself to concealment, its harshness makes survival a challenge, and Phillips’s attempts to gather supplies are seemingly becoming more desperate.
In May, he was charged with aggravated robbery, wounding and unlawful possession of a firearm after allegedly robbing a bank and shooting at a supermarket worker in Te Kuiti. In August he was seen driving a ute reported as stolen, then sighted at two hardware stores disguised in glasses and a face mask. There, he paid cash for headlamps, batteries, seedlings, buckets and gumboots. The owner of the stolen ute also reported winter clothing missing from his property.
In November, Phillips allegedly stole a quad bike from a rural property and broke into a shop in Piopio, with CCTV footage showing two figures on a street, believed to be Phillips and one of his children.
But still he evades police.
Nobody knows for certain how Phillips and his children are surviving, but the police have asked farmers to check for missing stock. Phillips’s purchases suggest he could be living off the land, while his behaviour indicates he is operating alone. But the family and police have another view: that he is being helped.
In previous interviews, the police South Waikato area commander, Will Loughrin, described Phillips as someone who “doesn’t live a mainstream lifestyle”.
“He doesn’t engage in social media [and] he is really guarded in terms of his use of mainstream banks,” Loughrin said. “He likes to exist off the grid.”
Loughrin believed Phillips could be getting support from “a person or persons who believe in his cause, believe that Tom is doing is the right thing”.
The police declined an interview, but in a statement to the Guardian, Acting Det Insp Andrew Saunders said they were relying on specific information to prompt searches, and the community’s knowledge would be key to bringing the children home.
“While we appreciate there are certain loyalties held by people in small communities, this is not the time to keep them.”
Phillips’s alleged crimes and evasion of authorities were “unacceptable”, as was the risk of involving his children and putting them in harm’s way, Saunders said.
People in Piopio, Te Kuiti and Ōtorohanga were reluctant to speak to the media about Phillips. Robertson, the local mayor, says: “It’s surprising in a community like this that someone doesn’t know where he is, or if they do know, that it doesn’t leak out.”
Still, some within the community hope he will bring the children home.
“I think it’s just about time for Tom to come out,” says Neal. “It’s not going to get any easier.”
‘The children come first’
The missing children’s mother has kept out of the media but six months after Phillips’s second disappearance, she issued a rare public appeal through the police.
“People will understand our wider family situation is complex, but putting that aside, our focus is solely on the children and putting their wellbeing first,” she wrote. “We are beside ourselves with worry and need more than anything to know the kids are well.”
The children’s older half-sisters have made various attempts to draw out information – through online appeals, offers of a $10,000 reward for information, and media interviews. Their public Facebook page – Missing Marokopa Children- is occasionally updated with pleas for information, or tender messages in recognition of another birthday slipping by.
But as time drags on, hope wanes. When the Guardian sought an interview with the family, they declined, believing that further media coverage was no longer going to help. And so their wait for Jayda, Ember and Maverick continues.
In one interview, Jubilee Dawson, one of the older sisters, said she wanted her siblings to know they were missed, and the family was waiting for them.
“My biggest fear is they’re out there wondering why we haven’t come to get them.”
