Luke Filby often wondered what became of his fugitive uncle, Desmond “Dezi” Freeman, who shot dead two police officers and injured another before fleeing into the deep valleys of Victoria’s High Country.
Were his remains rotting somewhere in the dense forest? Was his decomposing body submerged beneath the Buckland River? Was somebody harbouring him?
When Filby heard the double murderer was shot dead by police on Monday morning, he was struck by strange mix of shock and relief.
“There is relief that he can’t hurt or terrorise anyone any more,” Filby said from his home in Albury-Wodonga.
“It is hard for me to feel grief that he is dead because I have disassociated and distanced myself from him for so long.”
Freeman was killed during a shootout at a rural property in the Walwa area, less than one kilometre from the Murray River following a tip-off to police.
“It is freaky. I am pretty shocked,” Filby said. “But I guess, there was a part of me that always did think it was possible he was out there somewhere and that he was still alive.”
It has been seven months since Freeman shot dead two officers and seriously injured another at a property in the small Victorian town of Porepunkah, after police arrived to execute a warrant related to historical child sexual abuse offences.
Freeman killed Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, with a home-made shotgun through the door of a bus he was living in on August 26.
He then opened a window and shot Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, 35, who also died at the scene.
Another detective seriously wounded in the attack is understood to have hidden under the bus for up to an hour until paramedics arrived, while Freeman fled into the sprawling valleys of Victoria’s High Country, evading a massive police manhunt.
In the early hours of Monday morning, Freeman is believed to have emerged from his hideout – a makeshift structure described as half shipping container, half caravan – cloaked in a bedding cover and wielding a gun, before being killed by police.
“I think it will take a long time for me to process,” Filby said.
“My uncle was incredibly narcissistic, aggressive, dangerous and scary man.”
Though they were related by blood, Filby, much like his extended family, had been estranged from Freeman for almost a decade by both name and ideology.
For years, he watched his uncle, with whom he played Super Mario Kart as boy and once considered more like an older brother, plunge into a frightening descent of violence, paranoia, rage and conspiracy theories, culminating in the horrific events in Porepunkah.
The last time Freeman saw his extended family was Christmas 2018. Filby said his uncle had spent the day erratically regurgitating his fanatical views to weary relatives on everything from religion and doomsday theories to the impending apocalypse.
During sudden bursts of rage throughout the lunch, he spewed out vitriol about his hatred of police and his disdain for authorities.
Only months before the family gathering, Freeman was at his father’s deathbed, ranting and raving about the government and bracing for the end of the world.
This particular Christmas was a final tipping point for many of the Filbys, splintering an already fractured family.
While Luke Filby’s overwhelming feeling is one of relief, he said for other family members, emotions would be more fraught and complex.
“My mum is going to feel it a lot differently,” he said.
His mum, who is Freeman’s older sister, was left heartbroken by her brother’s actions, his mental deterioration, and the brutal murders of the two police officers.
“I feel really sad for Dezi’s kids being dragged into all this shit,” Filby said.
“They didn’t ask for any of it.”
On Monday morning, a person who identified himself as Koah, Freeman’s eldest son, posted an emotionally charged message to a Facebook group denouncing locals whom he said were “celebrating” his father’s death.
“I am not here to defend my father’s actions because I know what he did was wrong,” the lengthy post on the Bright and District Noticeboard read.
“I hope you all realise that I am looking at everything you’s [sic] are saying, and that you all realise how that is making me feel.”
“Just bear in mind that to you’s [sic] my father was a cop killer, but … that’s still my father who raised me to be the man I am today. And for the people who know me well they know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Koah continued: “This is news that I’ll be grieving about while some of you disgusting humans celebrate online for me to watch.”
This masthead was unable to independently verify the account belonged to Freeman’s son.
For Jamie King, Freeman’s former landlord and neighbour who lived next door to him for years, the revelation he had been alive until the early hours of Monday was proof of what many locals had suspected for months.
“There were lots of reports he was dead, that he’d been bitten by snake, but I knew he’d be alive,” said King, who lives in the remote hamlet of Nug Nug, about 20 kilometres west of Porepunkah.
“I never doubted it. This was a guy who was doomsday prepper. He was running around with a harness strap video camera on him at all times. That’s how paranoid he was.”
King said his former neighbour owned a ghillie suit, an elaborate type of camouflage clothing, that he would wear in the remote bushland when he disappeared into the High Country for weeks on end.
“He knew the terrain around here unlike anyone else,” he said.
King vividly remembers when Freeman came to his house one afternoon holding sketches and drawings he had found online about how to make home-made guns.
Looking back now, that moment is chilling.
Their relationship soured in 2012, when King discovered a vast marijuana crop growing on the property and told Freeman to dig it up within 24 hours.
“He [Dezi] flipped out. I mean this guy went f—ing nuts … He was in my face screaming that he’s going to shoot me dead,” King previously told this masthead.
“It was like a switch flipped. This went on for five or 10 minutes.”
King said his phone had been pinging non-stop since Monday morning.
Some locals are now speculating Freeman had a car parked at the Porepunkah Airfield, which he used to flee after the double murder.
Others, like King, suspect he wandered through the rough, vast terrain from Porepunkah to the small town of Omeo, then along a rail trail to Walwa.
“I don’t know if we will ever know the truth of how he got to be in that shipping container,” King said.
“But one thing is for sure. He was getting help along the way and whoever was helping him will be in deep shit.”
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