A private investigator who previously tried tracking down Tom Phillips says the area where the fugitive’s campsite was found was where people expected. 

Phillips was killed in a shootout with police after a quad bike he was riding with one of his children was spiked by police on a rural Waitomo road yesterday morning. 

Following a large manhunt, the remaining two children were found at a campsite two kilometres away. 

Chris Budge told Ryan Bridge the area is rugged in parts, back country gravel roads, with little isolated farming communities. 

He says the area is quite hard to look through, which is why police weren’t able to locate them over the last few years. 

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