{"id":14921,"date":"2025-09-08T13:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T01:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14921"},"modified":"2025-09-08T13:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T01:23:11","slug":"mother-of-missing-marokopa-children-speaks-out-after-tom-phillips-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=14921","title":{"rendered":"Mother of missing Marokopa children speaks out after Tom Phillips killed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The mother of Marokopa fugitive Tom Phillips&#8217; children says the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/572405\/live-marokopa-dad-tom-phillips-killed-in-shootout-with-police\">news of his death in a shooting<\/a>\u00a0has brought a &#8220;wave of complex emotions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Phillips had been evading police\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/519335\/tom-phillips-a-timeline-of-the-search-for-missing-marokopa-man-and-his-children\">since December of 2021<\/a>, along with his three young children Ember, Maverick and Jayda.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;First and foremost, we are deeply relieved that for our tamariki this ordeal has come to an end. [The children] have been dearly missed every day for nearly four years, and we are looking forward to welcoming them home with love and care,&#8221; the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/530552\/mother-of-missing-marokopa-children-hits-back-at-online-trolls\">mother of Phillips&#8217; children<\/a>, Cat, told\u00a0<i>Mata<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the same time, we are saddened by how events unfolded today. Our hope has always been that the children could be returned in a peaceful and safe way for everyone involved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--EtKLlv3Y--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1757285120\/4K1EJGM_Image_10_jpg?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"Police at the back of PGG Wrightson in Piopio.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mother of Marokopa fugitive Tom Phillips&#8217; children says the\u00a0news of his death in a shooting\u00a0has brought a &#8220;wave of complex emotions&#8221;. Phillips had been evading police\u00a0since December of 2021, along with his three young children Ember, Maverick and Jayda. &#8220;First and foremost, we are deeply relieved that for our tamariki this ordeal has come [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14923,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14921\/revisions\/14923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}