New leaked text messages emerge from Pheobe Bishop’s flatmate after she vanished – as he makes bombshell allegations about the missing teen and a $5k sum

The flatmate of missing teen Pheobe Bishop has claimed that she stole money from him before she went missing.

The 17-year-old was last seen on May 15, leaving the rundown house she shared with James Wood and Tanika Bromley in Gin Gin, near Bundaberg.

She had planned to flee the living arrangements she had called a ‘hell hole,’ to be with her high school sweetheart in Western Australia.

She never made her flight and her social media, bank account and mobile phone haven’t been used since.

But in a string of leaked texts obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Australia, Wood alleged that Pheobe stole thousands of dollars from him and had enough cash to go on the run.

‘These f***ing coppers are in a witch hunt to see me and Tee (Tanika Bromley) burn at the stake all because we were the last to see her but turns out four f***ing days ago people came out stating they’d seen her with her luggage,’ Wood said.

‘Cops don’t seem to really care that when she left she took nearly $5K out of mine and Tee’s room but still harass us, like “well how could she have just gone, how hasn’t she popped up on her bank statements”? Because she has $5K f***ing cash.’

Wood said he is furious with authorities for putting his life in danger and wasting time and money when Pheobe had confided in him and his girlfriend about her fractured relationship with her family.

Pheobe Bishop’s flatmate James Wood claims she stole $5,000 from him before she went missing

Bishop has not been seen since May 15 after leaving the house she shared with James Wood and Tanika Bromley near Bundaberg

Now living in his car while the Gin Gin rental property remains a crime scene covered in police tape, Wood said in the leaked texts that the police were after him and Tanika.

‘Me and T have been hung out to dry. Been f***g witch hunted for Phee’s disappearance and now (they) want to charge inus with f***ing homicide,’ he said.

‘If the cops have their way they’ll save some money on court fees because neither me or T will live to see court. We’ve been hunted for the last week and the cops don’t give a f***.

‘They just keep pulling s*** in broad daylight, stirring it up. It’s like they’re hellbent to blame someone and they have nothing so they just decided, “well you two drove her to Bundaberg so you two will do, we’ll just keep stirring it up until it doesn’t matter”, guilty or not in court, in the press’s eyes and the public, they’ve got the win and achieved something.’

The friend said that if police had suspected them, their phones would have been tapped.

‘Yeah, probably and good luck to them because they’re wasting time and money because we didn’t do anything wrong and we’ve cooperated at every turn and even though at every turn things seem to get more f***ed for me and Tee directly after dealing with them,’ he wrote.

The friend texts back to Wood saying they hope ‘she turns up so all of this can be over’.

‘Yeah, trust me so do we. Hell, we wouldn’t even be angry about the money and jewellery she took,’ Wood said.

‘We couldn’t give a f***. Just want to know she’s safe and would like not to be lynched in the streets for something we didn’t do.’

Leaked messages expose what James Wood said to a friend after Pheobe Bishop vanished 

The person then texts back: ‘Only time will tell. With everything that’s been said, shared and done, regardless of the outcome, they’ve already made you both to be guilty.’

‘Yeps, basically unless she comes strolling into town whistling dixie, me and Tee are f***ing dead men walking,’ Wood said.

The friend also bluntly asked him ‘Why did the dogs get killed?’ 

During a search of the Gin Gin property after Pheobe went missing, several dead dogs were discovered. 

Wood responded: ‘They didn’t get killed. There was 5 puppies out of a litter of 13 that contracted hookworm and passed before the treatment could work,’ he wrote. 

Since Pheobe’s disappearance, Wood has been said to be living in a Hyundai ix35 with one of his dogs. 

Questions remain over why Pheobe was living with Wood and Bromley, but final posts she made to social media before she disappeared suggested the troubled teen had fallen out with her mother and would not return home. 

Wood was taken into custody at 11.40am on Wednesday in Bolewski Street, Bundaberg but no charges were immediately laid.

He remains holed up in the Bundaberg police station, with his parents arriving to pick up his dog. 

James Wood’s parents were seen leaving Bundaberg police station after collecting his dog

That came shortly after police announced they were calling off the search for Pheobe. 

Prior to being taken into custody, he spoke to Daily Mail Australia about the tense and emotional morning that ended with Pheobe getting out of the car adjacent to the airport – and never being seen again. 

The morning Pheobe vanished

Wood claimed that at their home at Gin Gin that morning, Pheobe was stressing about what to pack, what to wear and making the flight on time.

‘She wanted to get up at 5am but I said I wasn’t waking up that early, it’s not that far.

‘Then she slept through her alarm and when she got up she was furious.

‘She gets like that sometimes and usually we can calm her down but she was escalating and then she smashed the TV,’ Wood claimed.

James Wood – the flatmate of missing teenager Pheobe Bishop has revealed explosive new details about the her car ride to the airport on the day she disappeared

The Gin Gin property where Pheobe was living before she vanished without a trace 

James Wood has been living out of his car after Pheobe went missing

 ‘After that she started shouting about not having anything to wear and she was so worked up about seeing her boyfriend for the first time and she wanted to look good.

‘And I get it, she is a teenager and she thinks he may be the love of her life, so I understand.

‘I grabbed some grey brand new trackies I had and I threw them to her and said wear these and first she said she didn’t want to take them as they were mine but then she said “OK” and put them on.’

Wood claimed emotional outbursts were not unusual for the 17-year-old, but they had become more frequent in the weeks leading up to her trip.

‘She does have a temper but she is not a bad kid, she is actually a great kid, she is kind and smart and has good manners but she was living with us because she couldn’t live at home anymore,’ he said.

‘There were too many fights, too much had gone on and she is just a kid.

‘If I had a little sister and all she had was her car to live in then I would want someone to help her.

‘I had known her for almost a year when she moved in with us four months ago and Tanika worked with her as a carer so they knew each other well.’

After loading a large duffle bag – ‘almost the size of her’ – into the car alongside his dog, they set off for the airport, Wood claims

The car ride to the airport 

Despite the tardy start to the morning of her planned departure, Wood said there was still plenty of time to make her flight from Bundaberg, which was around 10am.

He quickly ran to the local IGA to grab energy drinks and returned to the house around 8am.

After loading a large duffle bag – ‘almost the size of her’ – into the car alongside his dog, they set off for the airport, with Bromley driving and Pheobe in the back seat.

Minutes later, about 8.30am, before they’d left Gin Gin for Bundaberg, Pheobe called her boyfriend to let him know she was on the way.

Daily Mail Australia previously reported the boyfriend claimed he heard shouting during the call.

The boyfriend later told a friend: ‘They were both yelling at her and I couldn’t really hear her.’

Wood doesn’t dispute the claim and said that Pheobe was still complaining she didn’t have time to do her make up and was worried she was going to miss the flight.

Wood said he told Tanika Bromley (pictured) to pull over so they could give Pheobe some space to cool off. After stepping away for a few minutes, he claimed he  returned to find her and her large duffle bag gone 

By the time they reached airport drive, less then 1km from their destination Wood says the arguing hadn’t subsided so he told Bromley to pull over into a layby

‘We just wanted to get her checked in and thought if we can just get there she will calm down.

‘Tanika grabbed her makeup bag next to her and passed it back and told her to take anything she needed.

‘Her plane was stopping in Brisbane and we told her that the airport had everything she needed and she can take her time and do the makeup in the toilets.

‘But she wanted to look nice for the flight first and wouldn’t let it go.’

The last time Pheobe was seen 

As they approached Airport Drive, less than a kilometre from the terminal, the argument continued, Wood said.

Wood told Bromley to pull the car over and they got out and walked a distance away to give Pheobe some space to collect herself.

‘We wanted to give her five minutes – give her her own space to do what she needed to do,’ he said.

‘We walked to the end, it was maybe five minutes, maybe it was three minutes or maybe it was eight but that’s about how long we were gone.’

Wood said when he returned to the car, Pheobe and her bag were gone.

He assumed that she had walked the short remaining distance to the terminal. The couple then drove toward the airport to check, he said, but they didn’t see her along the way.

‘You wouldn’t miss her carrying that thing, if you drove past her and saw her, you’d notice,’ he said.

Wood claims the pair then waited outside the small terminal for some time but did not go inside.

‘I said to Tanika if I go in it will just escalate things again but she said if she went in it would look like we were parenting her.’

They then decided to check surrounding roads in case she had walked off in another direction.

‘We drove around and as far as we thought she could have made it and then drove a bit further in case.’

Wood claimed this would have been the moment when CCTV footage picked up his car heading towards the Good Night Scrub National Park.

Wood insisted that he did not hurt Pheobe and assumed she had boarded the flight.

He said it was not until the following afternoon when he received a text message from Pheobe’s sister that he realised she was missing.

Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting Wood was involved in Pheobe’s disappearance, and likewise does not suggest Ms Bromley played any role in Pheobe going missing.

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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk