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On an isolated bush block in the state’s far north-east in a squalid camp without running water or electricity, cop killer Dezi Freeman’s seven months on the run came to an end.
It’s not clear how or when the 56-year-old fugitive found his way onto the 35-hectare Murray River Road property in Thologolong, where he was shot and killed by heavily armed police on Monday morning.
Freeman was living in a collection of shipping containers and portable houses set among what one local described as “a whole heap of crap”.
Aerial videos of the property, taken from a news helicopter in the aftermath of the siege, show a ramshackle camp spilling out around three shipping containers, a “donga” and a broken-down bus surrounded by plastic tarps, camp chairs and cheap tables.
The circular encampment was dotted with haphazard piles of metal waste, 50-gallon drums, a wheelbarrow and discarded commercial bins. He was apparently cooking his meals with a small gas-powered camping stove and some pots and pans left out to dry in the sun. Nearby is a small set of solar panels.
Dominating the scene is Victoria Police’s armoured Bear-Cat vehicle, which appears to have delivered heavily armed officers right onto Freeman’s doorstep.
The land is one of only a handful of privately owned blocks sandwiched between the vastness of Mount Lawson State Park to the west and south and Lake Hume, fed by the Murray River, to the north.
The area was nearly burnt out in January by the bushfire that engulfed the Walwa-Mt Lawson State Park area and burnt through 120,000 hectares over a month.
Freeman was believed to be living in the remnants of a camp left behind by the land’s registered owner, Richard Arnold Sutherland, who himself enjoyed living off-grid before he moved interstate.
“There are several shipping containers. Richard’s an eccentric engineer, and so there’s a whole heap of crap. Richard lived in his shipping containers – off grid. He’s an off-grid guy,” said a former local familiar with the property.
There is no suggestion Sutherland even knew Freeman had taken up residence on the land. The former local said Sutherland had moved interstate to live with family after being diagnosed with cancer.
Sutherland could not be reached for comment.
The Thologolong property is a long way from where this saga started – more than 150 kilometres, a two-hour drive or a near two-day walk – from a similarly decrepit property in Porepunkah where he shot and killed two police officers on August 26.
How Freeman arrived there – and who may have assisted him – remains an active investigation despite his death.
Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said in a press conference announcing Freeman’s death that there was no one else on the property at the time, but a number of vehicles were found.
“It’s a rural property. No doubt at some point we’ll be able to describe it and provide photographs,” Bush told reporters.
“It’s a very remote community. That is now forming part of a crime scene that will be totally examined.”
In the seven months Victoria Police were hunting for Freeman, the search never really left the region stretching from Mount Buffalo to Benalla – some two hours away.
Officers involved in the search for Freeman, dubbed Taskforce Summit, scoured hundreds of square kilometres in the alpine regions looking for the cop killer but found no trace of him for 216 days.
The revelation that the state’s most hunted man was hiding far to the north-east came out of nowhere only days ago, sources say.
