Dom Phillips

Early life and education Phillips was born to Gillian (née Watson) and Bernard Phillips on 23 July 1964, in Bebington, Cheshire. His mother was a Welsh schoolteacher, and his father was an Irish accountant who later became a lecturer at Liverpool Polytechnic. He had a sister and a brother.

In 2007, Phillips moved to Brazil to finish a book about electronic music. His coverage of illegal deforestation in the Amazon was nominated for the 2020 Gabo Award for Journalistic Coverage and was a finalist for the Vladimir Herzog Prize that same year.

Phillips also contributed to The Times,

In June 2022, Phillips had been in the Vale do Javari region, researching for a book on sustainable development there. He had received a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation to write the book, and aimed to finish it by the end of 2022. Possuelo said that when they failed to appear, he retraced their steps to the location where they were last seen. Members of an Indigenous surveillance team there told him that a boat belonging to an illegal fisherman had been seen going down the river in the same direction after Pereira's boat passed. but retracted it the following day, apologizing to Phillips' family for "information that did not prove correct."

On 15 June, a second man named Amarildo da Costa da Oliveira, who was arrested days before in connection with the case, confessed to shooting and killing Phillips and Pereira and revealed the location of their bodies, confirmed by the Federal Police. The remains were then discovered by the Brazilian authorities, who sent them to the country's capital, Brasília, to be examined. On 18 June, Federal Police confirmed that the second body encountered at the crime scene belonged to Pereira.

The killings of Phillips and Pereira were condemned by the Director-General of the UNESCO Audrey Azoulay in a press-release published on the 16 June 2022. According to global monitoring on the safety of journalists by the Observatory of Killed journalist, Phillips was the 1st media professional killed in Brazil in 2022.

Funerals Pereira's funeral was held on 24 June 2022 in Recife, Pernambuco and Phillips' funeral was held on 26 June in Nitéroi, Rio de Janeiro. The bodies of both men were cremated. As of 27 June, police were still investigating to determine all of the people responsible for ordering and performing the assassination.