Fugitive father and his 3 children spotted in New Zealand wilderness 3 years after vanishing

A group of pig hunters spotted a missing man and his kidnapped children trudging through the New Zealand wilderness in camouflage with a gun, according to a report.Tom Phillips vanished with his three children, Ember, 8, Maverick, 9, and Jayda, 11 in 2021 — and no one had known if the kids were dead of alive since then.The children’s worried mother, Cat, who had custody of the kids, became overwhelmed with emotion when she saw the cell video of her long missing brood made by the hunters in the Pacific nation’s Marokopa region.“I’m so happy that they’re all there,” she told the paper.

“I’m so relieved to see all three of my babies.They’re all alive.”John McOviney said his 16-year-old grandson were the two hunters who encountered the family near his farm last Thursday and started filming.

The three kids, wearing masks, asked from a distance if “anyone knew they were there,” before marching off into the brush after their dad.“They were all packed up, they had big packs on,” McOviney told the New Zealand Herald, which obtained the video.“I think the father sort of kept them moving,” he added.The hunters, seeing Phillips’ gun, decided not to interact further and phoned New Zealand authorities.Two helicopters scoured the area over the weekend, but the four have not been located, officials said.Police confirmed that the sighting was “credible” and called it a “positive line of inquiry” despite not being able to find them.“This is the first time all three of the children have been sighted, which is positive information, and we know it will be reassuring for the children’s wider family,” police said in a statement.Phillips fled into the wilderness with his children after a dispute with their mother nearly three years ago.He did not have legal custody of the children and authorities believe the children have had almost no outside contact since they disappeared.The father was last seen in November, when he stole a quad bi...