The manhunt for alleged cop killer Dezi Bird Freeman has entered its fourth day.
Three days after the alleged killer of two police officers escaped into the bush, he is still eluding police.
Victoria Police insist they are throwing everything at the hunt for Dezi Freeman, but they have also admitted there has not been a single confirmed sighting of the suspected “sovereign citizen” conspiracy theorist since Tuesday, when he opened fire on officers at Porepunkah, in the state’s rural northeast.
Police have called on him to “surrender” himself and end the arduous search.
However, a criminologist says that, if Freeman is well prepared, he “could be out there for months”.
That would be reminiscent of the case of murderer Malcolm Naden, who spent seven years on the run in the New South Wales back country between 2005 and 2012, with police tantalisingly close to capturing him on multiple occasions.
Freeman, formerly known as Filby, had a history of animosity towards the police. He allegedly opened fire on several officers who visited his rural property as part of an investigation into sexual offences and child abuse.
Constable Vadim De Waart and Detective Neal Thompson died at the property, and a third officer was injured.
Freeman then reportedly vanished into the bush with the slain officers’ guns and radio.
His family were later located and are safe and well.
On Thursday, police searched several houses in Porepunkah. At one home on Francis St, they reportedly ordered people inside to “come out with nothing in your hands”. Up to six people were detained. The Herald Sun has reported that the home is linked to a Freeman family member.
The family have said they are “devastated and sickened” by the allegations against Freeman and have said he “detached” himself from his relatives “decades ago” in “both name and ideology”.
Finding Freeman is proving a tough challenge, despite the full weight of Victoria’s police force bearing down on Porepunkah.
“It’s fair to say we’ve got a protracted search. We’re methodically working through it,” Deputy Commissioner of Regional Operations Russell Barrett said.
“It’s complex terrain, and it’s not something that we, even with our specialist resources, can move through quickly because it is dangerous terrain as well.”
Barrett has told Freeman to simply give himself up.
“We will support a surrender plan, that option is open to him,” he said on Thursday.
Terry Goldsworthy, a former detective inspector and now an associate professor of criminal justice at Bond University in Queensland, said there were plenty of places Freeman could hide.
“The dense bushland around Mt Buffalo is full of caves, rocky outcrops and rugged four-wheel drive tracks, so [police having] local knowledge is crucial.
“As they hunt for Freeman, police will also be monitoring his digital footprint, in particular his phone, to try to triangulate his location.
“Police will be trawling his social media and local contacts to see who can help with information about Freeman and his possible location,” Goldsworthy told academic website The Conversation.
He added that police would have set a cordon around the area Freeman was thought to be in to further tighten the search. But the success of that cordon assumed he had not already ventured further afield.
“The specialist units will be co-ordinating closely with local police to use their knowledge of the rugged bushland to assist in their hunt.
“Given the terrain around the incident area, this will be no easy task”.
Fugitive Malcolm Naden went on the run after the June 2005 murder of Kirsty Scholes in Dubbo, New South Wales.
Over the years, he was sighted numerous times across the state.
On at least three occasions, police almost caught up with him. In 2011, an officer was shot and injured while trying to capture him. Finally, in 2012, he was captured in a rundown cabin near the Hunter Valley.
Ex-police chief Carlene York, who worked on the Naden manhunt, told A Current Affair about the similarity to Freeman’s case.
“We know Freeman’s heavily armed … and he knows the area like Naden did.
“Naden knew the tracks and the area very well. And the police go in not having that advantage.
“If [a fugitive] knows the bush very well, they can hide for extended periods.”
Criminologist Vincent Hurley told Channel 9’s Today show that Freeman could theoretically evade capture for a long time, but he expected the conditions would wear him down.
“If he’s a bit of a prepper, he could have somewhere in a cave, food, water, change of clothes, jacket, firearms and ammunition, so he could be out there for months.”
The soggy conditions in the Victorian mountains are certainly hampering police. But they may also be working against Freeman, who is likely to be camping outdoors.
“Once they find him, they may not rush in and arrest him, but they’ll assess his physical condition because he’s exposed to the elements,” said Hurley, a lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney.
While police could search in shifts, Freeman “will be in the bush 24/7”.
“The conditions will wear him down.”
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