The half-sister of the three missing Phillips children, Jubilee Dawson, has opened up about the first time her younger siblings disappeared and what they told her about the so-called “camping trip” they went on with their father.
Back in 2021, Tom Phillips took his children—Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8—from their home in New Zealand after a disagreement with their mother, Cat. They’ve been missing ever since.
Earlier this month, on October 3, there was a “credible” sighting of them in Marokopa. Now, Jubilee is speaking out about how hard the last year and a half have been for her and her family.
“It’s tough to just keep going every day, worrying about my siblings and not knowing if they’re okay,” she told 1News. “My biggest fear is that they’re out there wondering why we haven’t come to get them. It’s been so long, and there’s not much else we can do.”
Jubilee recalled the last conversation she had with her siblings. It was just after they returned from their first disappearance, which lasted nearly three weeks.
“I cried the most when they came back after those 19 days. It was just relief,” she said. “They got home in the evening, but the police weren’t called until the next morning. Mom got the call around 10.”
She said she only got to see the kids briefly, and they kept asking if she could stay the night. “They weren’t allowed to talk about it,” Jubilee explained. “They called it a ‘camping trip.’ They did mention their rice went bad and that they were near water. Maverick said they walked a lot. That’s all they told us.”
Jubilee believes her siblings knew they had been on the news and missing. Weeks after they returned home, they disappeared again, and haven’t been seen since.
“My siblings are real kids,” Jubilee said. “They’re the ones missing out, and they’re going to have to deal with the consequences of all this. They’ll probably have trauma from it.”
She added that when they first disappeared, they were just 5, 7, and 8 years old. “I want people to understand they’re just kids. They’re probably scared and confused.”
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/1News / New Zealand Herald
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