Dezi Freeman search enters day seven – as police show no sign of closing in on the alleged cop killer

Police have been battling extreme weather conditions and the sheer magnitude of the High Country wilderness as their search for alleged double police murderer Dezi Freeman enters its seventh day.

Many locals in Porepunkah have spoken about Freeman’s survivalist skills and say he has been known to go into the bush alone for days on end.

One said Freeman is an experienced hunter who can shoot at a distance of 200m with precision and is adept at making traps such as snares.

Even with a 450-strong search force, Dezi’s knowledge of the area, combined with blizzards, mist, and rain, has hampered search efforts.

However, it seems police may be closing in on the wanted fugitive after a dramatic series of events in Porepunkah yesterday.

A huge convoy of police vehicles raced from the forward command post in Ovens into Buffalo Mountain National Park at about 1.45pm on Sunday afternoon.

The park’s entrance is 4km from Freeman’s bush compound on Rayner Track, where he allegedly shot two police officers dead and injured a third on Tuesday morning.

In a departure from recent activity, some police vehicles featured flashing lights, and marked police cars blocked media from keeping up with the convoy for around 15 minutes.

An officer told a Daily Mail photographer that the blockade was for ‘your safety and security’.

Two BearCats travelled to the scene, and one was seen ‘going like a bat out of hell’ toward the park, according to witnesses.

A police helicopter circled in a focused area above Mt Buffalo from 3pm until nightfall.

In a dramatic development at 5.45pm, three more vehicles carrying masked tactical and special operative officers entered the park, with one towing lighting equipment.

It is understood this is the first major nighttime search undertaken by police.

Around 8pm last night, a convoy of masked tactical officers and the dog squad left the national park.

• Dezi Freeman, 56, remains on the run after he allegedly gunned down Detective Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart, 35, at his rural property in Porepunkah in the Victorian High Country on Tuesday.
• Ten officers attended his home to serve a warrant for historic sex assault charges involving a minor, when the father of three allegedly opened fire, killing the pair and wounding a third.
• Freeman allegedly stole the dead men’s service pistols and seized a police radio before fleeing into the bush, and has not been seen since.
• Freeman has now been on the run for seven days as 450 heavily-armed police, special operations units and air support scour the surrounding mountains in one of the largest manhunts in Australian history.
• At the heart of Freeman’s ideology is his identity as a self-proclaimed sovereign citizen, an anti-authority movement whose followers insist that government rules, police orders and even the courts have no power over them.
• Freeman’s wife, Amalia Freeman, publicly pleaded for him to safely surrender and end the ordeal in Victoria’s high country.

Police are throwing everything at their hunt for alleged gunman Dezi Freeman, who has been on the run for seven days after two officers were killed.

Freeman’s wife, Amalia, pleaded for him to safely surrender and put an end to the ordeal in Victoria’s high country.

Freeman has been at large since August 26 following a double shooting at his property in Porepunkah, about 300km northeast of Melbourne.

The 56-year-old self-described sovereign citizen is accused of killing Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart, 35.

Victoria’s Police Minister Anthony Carbines conceded the search was placing a strain on resources but everyone was doing everything possible to bring it to a conclusion.

‘We’re throwing everything at it,’ he said.

Ms Freeman said she did not hold anti-authority views and would co-operate with police in any way she could.

Ms Freeman and her 15-year-old son were arrested at a Porepunkah home last week.

Both were interviewed and later released without charge.

‘We echo the requests of the Victoria Police for the swift and safe conclusion of this tragedy,’ she said on Sunday.

‘Please Dezi, if you see or hear this, call 000 and arrange a surrender plan with the police.’

She offered her condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the officers killed, saying she was grieving for their loss.

Ms Freeman urged anyone harbouring or helping her husband, or anyone with a snippet of information, to contact police.

Police are probing whether a 61-year-old man arrested at Bright, just outside Porepunkah, was associated with Freeman.

Stephen Mallett (below) was allegedly found with weapons and cannabis.

He has been charged with possessing an imitation firearm and a drug of dependence.

Mr Mallett said he had never met Freeman, who was a member of a 45,000-strong online group he founded that was dedicated to sustainability and largely focused on hunting.

‘It’s not right at all. I’ve never met him, not at all,’ he said.

He recounted armed police knocking on his door.

‘I looked up once and I thought, shit, and I saw all of the hands on the triggers – Jesus Christ, and I thought, don’t even move,’ he said.

‘I stuck me bloody hands up and I’m waiting for the bullets to come howling in on me.’

Alex Krstic (first picture), who is the former colleague of slain officer Neal Thompson (second picture), described losing his friend as ‘absolutely horrible’ and said he had known him for 30 years.

‘He was a country boy with wide eyes, ready to go into the police force. He was very keen to learn,’ he told Channel Nine’s Today on Monday.

‘We hit it off fairly well. I think I was probably responsible for firing up his interest in becoming a detective when I took him down to the major crime squad offices during one shift and he met some of the detectives there.

‘He said: “How do I get involved in this? I think it’s pretty good.”‘

Mr Krstic said he had kept in ‘fairly close contact’ with Mr Thompson.

‘I only saw him a couple of weeks ago, we had a beer at the Alexandra pub together, and he was telling me about how he was looking forward to retirement, and how things were going up on his farm,’ he said.

Respected criminal psychologist Dr Tim Watson-Munro told Daily Mail that a perfect storm of politics, poverty and relentless exposure to the darkest corners of the internet may have combined to push Dezi Freeman over the edge.

Freeman is said to be a ‘sovereign citizen’ – a person who believes they are independent of government laws and authority – but Dr Watson-Munro said he could be described as a ‘cooker’ – a gullible person susceptible to conspiracy theories.

Dr Watson-Munro suspected Freeman was ‘unhinged, but not insane’ in a medico-legal sense.

‘He is bad, rather than mad,’ he said.

‘I have not examined this guy, but I have examined people like him. I’ve had one or two sovereign citizens come across my desk,’ he said on Wednesday.

‘The dynamics [of a cooker] are obvious but also complex if you consider it in the context of our current economic circumstances. There is a big schism between the haves and the have-nots. People are suffering economically, and inherent resentment and hostility develops towards the “system”.’

Dr Watson-Munro said people with ‘cooker’ tendencies proliferated when the world was hit by the Covid pandemic in 2020.

Indeed, Freeman’s ‘sov citizen’ beliefs first bubbled to the surface early that year when he began sharing anti-vaccination and anti-abortion posts to the ‘Truth and Justice’ page around April.

‘What you’re looking at here is a guy who’s descending into cooker-land, and I think the dynamics are feeling disenfranchised and disempowered,’ Dr Watson-Munro said.

‘People are feeling angry and resentful and then they link up with others on social media, who they may never meet in person but they all reinforce each other’s values and it goes from there. It gives [these feelings] legitimacy in their minds.’