The heartbroken mother of three who disappeared with their fugitive father three years ago believes her daughter may have called for help when they were spotted wandering bushland last week.
Tom Phillips and his three young children, Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8, first went missing on September 11, 2021.
About 18 days later they returned to the family farm in New Zealand, with relatives revealing they had spent the time in a tent in dense bushland.
However, they disappeared again months later and are believed to have been living off the land since December 2021.
In a shocking update to the case, Phillips and his three children were caught walking in camouflage at a remote coastal farm near Marokopa on October 3 by a pair of teenage pig hunters.
The 16-year-olds initially thought the group were poachers and shouted at them from about 60 yards away when Jayda responded.
“I said, ‘This is private property,’ and she said, ‘Yeah… duh.’ Then I asked, ‘Does anyone know you’re here?’ and she said, ‘No, just you guys,'” one of the boys recalled to a local news outlet. Stuff.
The children’s mother, Cat, now wonders if her daughter was trying to convey a message to the public.
Cat (pictured) is the mother of missing children, Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8, who are believed to be living off the land with their fugitive father Tom Phillips
‘Is that a cry for help? Is that: ‘Does anyone know we’re here? Is someone coming for us?” We can’t hear the tone of her voice, but I think that’s what I’m thinking,” she told Mata Reports in a lengthy television interview.
“It’s like she’s trying to say something without actually saying anything because her father is there, and she’s worried if she says the wrong thing and phrases it the wrong way, she’s worried about the consequences later.”
All four family members wore camouflage clothing and carried large backpacks.
Phillips walked about thirty feet ahead of his children, who trudged along behind him in a single file.
The sighting was reported to the police and it was the first time Cat had seen images of her children in almost three years.
“It was really good, they brought their own stuff, it’s the best news anyone could hope for,” she said.
Cat was sad that her husband and three children had visibly lost a lot of weight when they returned home three weeks after their disappearance in September 2021.
“I can’t imagine what they’ve been through in these three years, it’s just wrong on so many levels,” she said.
Cat believes the police response to her missing children has been inadequate, adding that she expected teams, including sniffer dogs, to be immediately deployed to the scene where the children were seen.
Cat said every day without her three children was a ‘waking nightmare’ (they are pictured)
Tom Phillips (pictured) is wanted by police for an alleged armed robbery
The images were reported to police on Thursday, but Cat did not hear from investigators until the next day.
“The system has failed my children miserably from the beginning,” 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.”
In her attempt to cope with the loss of her children, Cat says she is trying to pretend they are not still missing.
She has two other daughters, who are older than the three children with their father, but admits she feels ‘lost’.
‘I’ve been lost since they left. I’m not me. They were my world, they were my everything,” she said.
‘I feel like I didn’t fight hard enough and didn’t make enough noise. I feel like it’s my fault.’
Looking back on their relationship, Cat described how Phillips had extreme control over her.
She claims he didn’t like her going anywhere or doing anything alone, and didn’t want her to put their children in daycare.
Phillips and his three children were filmed walking in camouflaged gear on a remote coastal farm near Marokopa on October 3 by a pair of teenage pig hunters
“Supporting Thomas is essentially supporting child abuse, because that’s what it is,” Cat said.
“I just want my babies home. I still have some of their clothes and Christmas presents from the year they disappeared. I don’t even know what they look like now.’
Phillips is wanted for questioning over an alleged armed robbery of a bank in Te Kuiti near Marokopa in September 2023.
CCTV footage showed Phillips riding a motorcycle with another person, believed to be Jayda, on the back.
There have been several “unverified” sightings of Phillips since he disappeared, but police believe the most recent footage from the pig hunters is the most credible.
In June this year, an $80,000 reward was offered for information that could help locate the three children. However, this reward expired after eight weeks without results, despite more than forty observations considered important by officers.