Dom Phillips

On 5 June 2022, he and Brazilian Bruno Pereira, an expert on indigenous peoples of Brazil, went missing in the remote Javari Valley in the far western part of the state of Amazonas in Brazil, one of the most remote zones in the rainforest. On 14 June, Amarildo da Costa da Oliveira allegedly confessed to shooting and killing Phillips and Pereira and led police to the men's bodies the following day.

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.

Orlando Possuelo, an Indigenous rights activist, said he received a message from Pereira at 6 a.m. on 5 June 2022. Pereira said he and Phillips were going to pass by the riverside community of São Rafael on their way to Atalaia do Norte, in the remote Javari Valley, in the far western part of the state of Amazonas in Brazil, one of the most remote zones in the rainforest. Possuelo arranged to meet Pereira at 8 a.m., but Pereira and Phillips never arrived. 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. The Brazilian embassy in London released a statement that his body had been found on Monday, 13 June, but retracted it the following day, apologizing to Phillips' family for "information that did not prove correct."

Phillips wrote about politics, poverty and cultural development in Brazil. From 2014 to 2016 he contributed to The Washington Post, where he covered Brazil's preparations for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. He reported on deforestation in Brazil, leading an investigation by The Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism of large-scale cattle ranches established on cleared forest land. 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 married a woman named Nuala, whom he later divorced. In 2013, Phillips met Alessandra Sampaio at a party near his home in Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro. They married in 2015. He lived in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador.

In 2007, Phillips moved to Brazil to finish a book about electronic music. In 2009, he published Superstar DJs Here We Go!: The Rise and Fall of the Superstar DJ, a frontline history of 1990s club culture.

In Liverpool, Phillips set up The Subterranean, a short-lived fanzine, with Neil Cooper in the early 1980s. It was named after the Jack Kerouac novel The Subterraneans. In the 1990s, Phillips wrote and edited for Mixmag, where he coined the term "progressive house".

Dominic Mark Phillips (23 July 1964 – 5 June 2022) was a British freelance journalist. He wrote for The Guardian and The Washington Post, and contributed to The Times, the Financial Times and Bloomberg News, among others.

Phillips was born to Gillian (née Watson) and Bernard Phillips on 23 July 1964, in Bebington, Cheshire. His mother was Welsh and later became a schoolteacher, and his father was an Irish accountant who later became a lecturer at Liverpool Polytechnic. He had a twin sister and brother. During his youth, Phillips shared his family's interest in music and outdoor activities, forming a series of bands with his brother and friends.