The mother of the three children who vanished with their father three years ago has a disturbing theory concerning the recent encounter hunters had with him.
On October 3, teenage pig hunters in New Zealand captured footage of Tom Phillips with his children, Ember, 8, Maverick, 9, and Jayda, 11, as they navigated through a remote area. This marked the first sighting of the family since they went missing in December 2021 following a conflict with the children’s mother, Cat.
Although the police have been searching, they believed the family was hiding in the western Waikato region of the North Island, yet they had not successfully located them. A reward of $48,800 (NZ$80,000) for information also did not yield any helpful leads, leaving the mother in the dark.
The footage revealed Phillips leading the children, who followed in a single file. The encounter happened when a 16-year-old hunter approached the group.
The hunters informed a local news outlet, Stuff, that they initially thought the group were poachers and shouted at them from about 60 meters away. Jayda, the eldest daughter, was the one who responded.
The hunter recounted: “I said, ‘This is private property’, and she was like, ‘Yeah… duh’. Then I asked, ‘Does anyone know you’re on here’ and she said, ‘No, just you guys’.”
Phillips reportedly had a gun, while the children carried backpacks and wore masks, all dressed in camouflage clothing. This exchange has led Cat to suspect it might have been a subtle plea for help.
Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, she expressed: “I just broke down … 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 conveyed to Mata Reports: “Is that a cry for help? Is that ‘Does anybody know that we’re here? Is anyone coming for us?’ We don’t get to hear the tone of her voice but to me, that’s what I think.”
Cat further elaborated: “It’s like she’s trying to say something without actually saying something because her father is right there, and she’s worried if she says the wrong thing and words it the wrong way, she’s worried about later repercussions.”
The Daily Mail quoted her expressing disappointment in the system, stating her children have been “failed miserably from the get-go.”
She said: “They shouldn’t have to live like this, they deserve so much more. They deserve to have friends, they deserve to go to the park and eat McDonald’s.”
Since their disappearance, she has lived as if they had never gone missing. The mother, who has two other daughters, feels she has lost her sense of self.
She stated: “Since they’ve been gone, I’ve lost my way. I’m not me. They were my world, they were my everything.”
“I feel like I didn’t fight hard enough, I didn’t make enough noise. I feel like it’s my fault,” she lamented.
Phillips is also wanted in connection with an armed robbery at a bank in Te Kuiti near Marokopa in September 2023.