Pheobe Bishop: Housemate James Wood breaks silence hours before arrest over missing Queensland teen

Max Corstorphan
The Nightly
James Wood is being questioned over the 17-year-old's disappearance.

The housemate of missing teen Pheobe Bishop has broken his silence, hours after Queensland Police suspended a physical search for the 17-year-old.

On Wednesday, housemate James Wood revealed his version of the morning Pheobe went missing. Hours later, he was arrested by police.

Mr Wood has not been charged and The Nightly does not suggest that he was involved in Pheobe’s disappearance.

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“She wanted to get up at 5am but I said I wasn’t waking up that early, it’s not that far,” Mr Wood told the Daily Mail.

“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.”

Mr Wood went on to claim Pheobe “started shouting about having nothing to wear” and was “worked up about seeing her boyfriend for the first time”.

The housemate called Pheobe “a teenager”, saying he understood why she was excited by a potential “love of her life”.

He claimed he threw some “grey brand new trackies at her”, which he claims she put on.

“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.

Mr Wood said he had known Pheobe for “almost a year” when she moved in earlier in 2025.

Although Pheobe was allegedly “furious” about waking up late, he claimed he drove to an IGA to buy energy drinks before returning the their home for the airport run.

He described a bag of her belongings as being “almost the size of her”, which the two put in the car before heading to the airport.

Mr Wood said during the trip, shouting occurred, with Pheobe reportedly being unhappy she didn’t have time to do her makeup.

Their other housemate Tanika Bromley, who joined the drive, gave Pheobe her make up bag to take what “she needed”, according to Mr Wood.

When they approached the airport, the car pulled over less than a 1km from the airport entrance. Mr Wood said he and Ms Bromley went for a walk to give Pheobe “five minutes” to do “what she needed to do”.

He claimed the two walked away for anywhere between three and eight minutes, discovering Pheobe was no longer in the car when they returned. The two assumed she had gone to the airport along with her bag.

“You wouldn’t miss her carrying that thing, if you drove past her and saw her, you’d notice,” he told the outlet.

Mr Wood claimed he and Ms Bromley stayed where they pulled over for a few minutes, before checking the nearby area.

He told the Daily Mail he did not hurt Pheobe.

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