What the missing Phillips kid really said to the pig hunters

Saturday, 28 December 2024

This story was first published on October 10, 2024.

Two teenage boys hunting for pigs on their granddad’s remote Waikato farm came across the missing Phillips family a week ago. In an interview with Tony Wall, they reveal what one of the kids really said.

It was just on dusk a week ago when two Hamilton schoolboys out pig hunting on their family farm came across Tom Phillips and his three children, missing for almost three years.

The 16-year-old friends were near a trig station on the coastal farm, about 4km north of Marokopa, waiting for pigs to come out of the bush.

About 60m away, they saw four figures dressed in camouflage and carrying large backpacks crossing the rugged farmland.

Thinking they were poachers, the boys approached the group.

It’s been reported that one of the children asked, “who else knows we’re here?”, something their mother, Cat, has suggested was a cry for help.

But that’s not what was said during the exchange.

Stuff spoke to the two boys at the farm, where they have been docking sheep during school holidays and going hunting in the evenings.

They wanted their names withheld because they have been getting blowback on social media.

The boy who spoke to the Phillips family - a mate of the grandson of farm owner John McOviney, told Stuff that it was the eldest girl, Jayda, who replied.

“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’.”

And that was it. The family kept walking, in the direction of a neighbouring farm and towards Marokopa.

The boys say the children seemed normal and weren’t in any distress.

Phillips himself, who was holding a gun, turned around, but didn’t speak. The boys say he had a large beard, with a grey tip. He was walking about 10m ahead of the children, who were in single file.

It’s also been reported that the family were “masked”, but the boys say they only had hoods.

McOviney’s grandson had the presence of mind to pull out his phone and record the family as they walked away.

“That’s just what you do when it’s poachers, eh, just try to get a video of them,” said the grandson’s friend.

But then the boys started to wonder if maybe it could have been the missing Phillips family.

Luckily, the spot where they were hunting was one of the only places on the 3400ha sheep and beef farm that had cellphone coverage.

McOviney’s grandson rang his granddad.

“He said, ‘I’ve seen this guy and three kids, is that maybe the guy they’re trying to find?,” McOviney said.

“He sent me the video and I had a look and said, ‘absolutely, definitely it’s them’. I said to ring 111 and [the farm manager] and he [the manager] rang a police guy that he knew.”

The boys headed home quickly after the sighting, without having caught any pigs. Police questioned them for about 10 minutes.

McOviney said while police put up checkpoints on roads in the area, “they could have been a bloody sight quicker” with mounting a search.

“But they’ve got protocols to go through. They did track them apparently in the morning, with dogs … but it was too late.”

McOviney said he’d been told police found a motorbike at the edge of the property, but it was unclear if the family had used it.

Last weekend, there would have been about 50 police on the property, he said.

“There were two choppers parked up, they overtook [the farm manager’s] house, they slept in the garage … just doshed down anywhere.”

The children’s mother, known as Cat, told Stuff she found it shocking that more wasn’t done on the Thursday night.

“Police told me they were out there straight away, but that's semantics as far as I'm concerned because they were not there in the right context. Patrolling is not searching.”

Police said in a statement to media that for “operational security reasons” they would not provide details of when police arrived on the ground, or specific details around the resources involved.

They wanted to “reassure the public that we have the resources in place to respond to any information or reports of sightings that come in”.

McOviney said the footage of the family wouldn’t have been seen by the public if he hadn’t given it to media.

“The thing that annoyed me about the cops was that they wanted to keep it all in-house - I think people deserve to know.”

In a statement to Stuff, police said they did not release the footage because it was evidence, and part of an ongoing investigation.

McOviney said his farm was very steep in places.

“There’s a couple of beach cottages, but you’ve got to know the code to get into them … there’s no windows broken so they haven’t used them.

“All the farm houses are occupied, there is an old house there but it’s right close to the other houses, so the chances of them being in there are remote.

“I would say they’ve been in the bush somewhere.

“There is another four or five thousand hectares out there in bush, that borders on to us, they could disappear into there for a month and you’d never know.”

McOviney said Phillips was a “smart bushman” who knew how to survive.

“If he knocked over a sheep or a goat or a deer or a pig, we’d never know.”

But he still found it amazing that they’d managed to elude police for so long.

“We can put people on the moon, you’d think we’d be able to find four people.”