Victoria Police fatally shot fugitive Dezi Freeman during a three-hour confrontation at a property in Thologolong, ending a seven-month search across the rugged alpine region of north-east Victoria.
Police formally identified the dead man as Freeman two days later, on April 1. The identification was therefore a later confirmation of the March 30 event, rather than information released at the time of the shooting.
The ABC reported that as many as eight officers from the Victoria Police Special Operations Group fired toward Freeman during the standoff. Police also deployed tear gas and non-lethal baton rounds. The Homicide Squad began an investigation into the shooting, and police said they could not yet provide a detailed account of Freeman’s movements during the months he was missing.
Freeman, 56, had fled into bushland behind his Porepunkah home in August 2025. Police said he had killed two officers and injured a third when a group arrived at the property to execute a search warrant. The Guardian described the two killings as allegations when recounting the case. Freeman had not faced a trial before his death, so responsibility for the earlier shooting remained a police allegation in legal terms.
The officers who died were Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, 35. Ten officers, including local police and members of a sexual-offences and child-abuse investigation team, had gone to the Porepunkah property on August 26, 2025. Freeman escaped on foot after the attack.
Search crossed difficult terrain
The manhunt became one of the largest in Australian history, according to the Guardian, involving hundreds of police officers and assistance from the army. Thologolong is about 100 kilometres overland from Porepunkah through mountainous country. The region experienced snow, severe storms and extensive summer fires during the period Freeman was missing.
The ABC reported that a January bushfire burned more than 120,000 hectares and destroyed 14 homes in the area. A local firefighter said its lightning-caused ignition point was less than one kilometre from the place where Freeman was eventually found. Police said their inquiries into his movements, including how he survived while the search continued, remained open.
Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said police believed Freeman must have received assistance. He told reporters that investigators would work backward to determine how long Freeman had been at the Thologolong location and whether anyone had helped him. He warned that anyone found to have been complicit would be held accountable. That was an investigative position, not a finding that a particular person had provided support.
Community response divided
Freeman had moved in circles associated with pseudo-law beliefs that reject the legitimacy of government and law-enforcement authority. Reporting from communities around Bright, Myrtleford and Porepunkah found sharply divided reactions to his death. Some residents welcomed the end of the manhunt, while sympathisers questioned the police account or spoke warmly of Freeman.
A woman identified by the Guardian under a pseudonym said she would not have contacted police had she encountered him. She described a broader local network sharing similar beliefs, but did not say she had sheltered Freeman. Other people who knew him years earlier said they struggled to reconcile their memories of him with his later actions and ideology.
Experts cited by the Guardian warned that parts of the pseudo-law community could portray Freeman as a martyr and incorporate his death into existing claims about state power. Police, meanwhile, focused on reconstructing his escape and possible support network.
The immediate confirmed outcome was narrower: Freeman died after a prolonged armed-police operation on March 30; the coroner and police confirmed his identity on April 1; and homicide detectives took responsibility for examining the fatal confrontation. Questions about where he spent the preceding seven months and whether anyone assisted him remained unresolved in the supplied reporting.
