The first photos of the campsite where a fugitive father was hiding with his three children in the remote New Zealand countryside before he was shot dead by police have been released.
Tom Phillips, who had been on the run with his three children since 2021, was shot and killed by a police officer on Monday following a shootout.
On Tuesday, law enforcement said they will now try to “put the puzzle together” of how the family lived, found food and avoided detection by searchers for so many years.
Phillips was with one child during the confrontation with police, and the two other children were found in the forest about 13 hours after their father was killed.
Photos supplied by the police of the family’s final campsite — where soda cans, tires and a metal container sat amid camouflaged belongings — gave few clues. The site was likely a temporary one, officials said, but it was in terrain that had been searched before.
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This Sept. 8, 2025 photo, released by the New Zealand police, shows the campsite where Tom Phillips and his children were hiding before he was shot and killed in Waitomo, located in the district of Waikato, New Zealand.
New Zealand Police
New Zealand’s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told reporters that it’s “highly likely that we’ve been very, very close” to locating the campsite.
On Monday, the child with Phillips was taken into custody and hours later, helped law enforcement to find the campsite where the other children — now aged 9, 10 and 12 — waited.
This Sept. 8, 2025 photo, released by the New Zealand police, shows the campsite where Tom Phillips and his children were hiding before his shooting death in Waitomo, located in the district of Waikato, New Zealand.
New Zealand Police
Investigators believe that since Phillips and his children disappeared in December 2021, they had never travelled far from the tiny rural settlement where they lived in the farming region of Waikato.
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Chambers said officers would seek to uncover the identities of “anybody who may have been helping Mr. Phillips.”
This Sept. 8, 2025 photo, released by the New Zealand police, shows the campsite where Tom Phillips and his children were hiding before he was shot and killed in Waitomo, in the district of Waikato, New Zealand.
New Zealand Police
Phillips was skilled in wilderness survival, but law enforcement said they were increasingly sure he had help to remain concealed.
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“I can tell you he is no hero,” Chambers said Tuesday. “No one who does this to children, no one who unleashes high-powered rifles on my staff, is a hero, simple as that.”
New Zealand Commissioner of Police Richard Chambers, left, and Police Minister Mark Mitchell address a press conference in Hamilton, New Zealand, on Sept. 9, 2025.
Christel Yardley/Waikato Times via AP
Phillips was located after police responded to a break-in at an agricultural shop in a tiny rural town, leading to a confrontation that left one officer critically injured after being shot in the head, according to Jill Rogers, New Zealand’s acting deputy police commissioner.
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The officer was undergoing surgery in hospital and his injuries are survivable, Rogers told reporters. She added that the officer was shot “multiple times with a high-powered rifle” and further surgeries are expected.
After visiting the injured officer, referred to as Officer A, in hospital, Chambers shared an update.
“I was pleased that I could meet him and his family today and offer my encouragement and support to them. While the officer has a long road to recovery, we will be there to support him and his Whānau at every step,” Chambers said.
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Chambers said that the officer is “a dedicated and caring constable and represents the best of what it means to be a rural police officer.”
“I’m proud of him, and the officers who arrived on the scene seconds later and dealt to the threat,” he added.
The camp area in Waitomo and the scene of the shooting remain active crime scenes, with forensic staff on-site Tuesday to gather evidence.
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Rogers said that a number of investigations are underway into the incident, including an Independent Police Conduct Authority investigation, Coronial enquiries and a Critical Incident Review.
“The body of Tom Phillips was removed from the scene late yesterday, and there will be a post-mortem tomorrow, after which his body will be released to his family,” Rogers said Tuesday.
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“Investigation staff are going over the areas where the family had been staying, and have been speaking with farmers, locals, and workers in the area. That work is to help us build an accurate picture of the movements of Tom Phillips and the children,” she added.
Officials did not share details about the children’s whereabouts after their rescue but did confirm that a child protective service agency was involved.
“There’s a careful plan with everyone becoming involved at the right time in terms of making sure that they’re put on a really strong and healthy pathway to recovery,” New Zealand’s Police Minister Mark Mitchell told reporters.
Rogers described the children as “being engaged.”
“They readily spoke with our staff, who provided them with snacks and drinks while they waited to be brought out of the campsite,” Rogers said.
Tom Phillips (L) disappeared into the New Zealand bush with his three children in 2021.
New Zealand Police
On Monday, a High Court judge issued a temporary injunction that bars officials or news outlets from disclosing certain details of the case, which has gained mass media attention.
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“They have seen and been exposed to things that children in our country should not be,” Mitchell said. “It’s very complicated and it’s very complex and it has been for quite some time.”
Warwick Morehu, Oranga Tamariki and Whānau Services Regional Commissioner Waikato and Bay of Plenty, told People magazine on Tuesday, “I want to assure the community here in the Waikato, and also the wider public of New Zealand, that my team here in this region have been planning and preparing for the return of these children from when they went missing.”
Morehu said that the children had “a settled night” and confirmed that they are “doing well under the circumstances.”
“Going forward, I have an experienced and dedicated team of staff assigned to this, they are prepped and ready to respond to whatever needs these children might have,” Morehu added.
“We are joined up with our partner agencies across the children’s system to respond to those needs,” he said. “We have clinical professionals who’ve put their hands up to assist if required. I want to assure you that these children will be provided with whatever help or assistance they may need, for however long they may need it.”
Morehu said that everyone is “doing their best to ensure” they can return the children “to some form of a normal daily life.”
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—With files from The Associated Press