Pod Insights The Case Of Dezi Freeman: How the fugitive was killed About this episode Dezi Freeman - wanted for the murder of two police officers - was shot and killed in March this year. More details of that day have now been revealed in the Coroner’s court.
Wodonga reporter Ashlee Aldridge knows the area well, and reveals for the first time the police’s version of events presented to the inquest into the fugitive’s death.
If you have any questions you’d like Ashlee and Stocky to answer in future episodes, please email [email protected] mailto:[email protected] .
The Case Of is the follow-up to the hit podcast Mushroom Case Daily, and all episodes of that show will remain available in the back catalogue of The Case Of.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 At a rural picnic spot in the dark, a young man suddenly disappears.
0:04 Speaker 01 You could nearly say an alien took him away because he's just vanished.
0:08 Speaker 00 When more clues from that night surface, something doesn't sit right.
0:12 Speaker 02 It's nonsensical where the stuff is. It's been scattered.
0:15 Speaker 00 I'm Rob Bergen. Join me as I investigate what became of Jack in the new season of Unravel.
0:21 Speaker 03 Is it a murder? Is it someone just gone missing? You know where my son is.
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0:45 Speaker 00 The Coroner's Court in Melbourne is a long way from where Dezi Freeman was killed on the Victorian border and from where he killed two police officers. But it's where we heard the minute by minute breakdown of his final morning. I'm Stephen Stockwell. This is The Case Of.
1:01 Speaker 05 Police haven't sighted the fugitive since he escaped into the bush.
1:04 Speaker 06 The last time that he was seen, he was heavily armed. Do not approach him.
1:07 Speaker 05 We have searched over 40 square kilometres by foot, by air, and we will not give up. Early this morning, they pounced, shooting the fugitive dead as he emerged, believed to be wrapped in a blanket and carrying a gun.
1:23 Speaker 00 The coroner will investigate exactly how Freeman's final moments unfolded.
1:30 Speaker 00 In August last year, Dezi Freeman shot and killed two police officers, Neil Thompson and Vadim Devat-Hodat. Seven months later, he was killed by police in remote north-eastern Victoria. The details of these deaths have been revealed at the Coroner's Court this week as two inquests began, one for Dezi Freeman and one for the officers that he killed. In this episode, we're going to break down Dezi Freeman's death. And in Thursday's episode, we're going to bring you all the details the Coroner's Court heard about the way that the two police officers were killed, what the final moments of Neil Thompson and Vadim Devat-Hodat were like. Following along through all of this has been Ashley Aldridge, a reporter for ABC Galway-Murray. Thanks for joining us, Ash.
2:12 Speaker 01 Hello, thank you for having me.
2:14 Speaker 00 Ash, you live and work in this community. You were the first reporter in Porpanca after the police were shot, Neil Thompson, Vadim Devat-Hodat. You also live not far from where we're going to spend this episode, the place where Dezi Freeman was found, Thalagalong. And we'll talk a lot about what happened that day, but first, what was it like out there while he was still on the run?
2:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, as you can imagine, there were a lot of unanswered questions and unanswered questions always sort of lead to many theories. But there were mostly two camps. Many people thought that he had gotten away after that initial shooting in Porpanca and others thought that he had perhaps died in the Mount Buffalo National Park in the days following that shooting on August 26. We know that the weather following that day was terrible. It was cold, it was raining. And of course, it had been seven months since he had last been seen. Victoria Police had confirmed that there had been absolutely no sightings of him. So there were really those two theories that people thought he had either gotten out or
3:19 Speaker 01 that he was dead. And I arrived at that scene in Porpanca very early as that situation was unfolding. And there, it wasn't cordoned off. So I can understand why people did think that perhaps he had gotten away on that day.
3:36 Speaker 00 Hmm. Yeah, the property he was living on there backed on to the Mount Buffalo National Park. So that's where he was thought to escape into after shooting Neil Thompson and Vadim Devat-Hodat. Then obviously Thalagalong, where he was found about 150 kilometres from all of that. All of these in north-eastern Victoria. And Ash, we're now in the coronial process, looking at what happened with these deaths. This isn't a process of determining criminal responsibility, it's just what happened. And as I mentioned, there's two inquests, one into Freeman's death, which we'll talk through today, and then one into the deaths of Thompson and Devat-Hodat that we'll unpack on Thursday. And the detail we've got here was outlined by councillor assisting the coroner in the opening. There's a couple of bar tables in this room and someone stands up at one end, that's a guy called Lindsay
4:20 Speaker 00 Spence, and he's basically run through all of this information in the openings. Ash, was there a lot of detail in this that we'd heard for the first time?
4:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely, particularly in regard to the Incident in Thalagalong, we had received details from Victoria Police on the day that Dezi Freeman was shot dead, but in terms of how it all unfolded, it was certainly new information that had come through, particularly the dialogue between police and Freeman over those few hours when they began to negotiate with him. We hadn't heard any of those details before.
4:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, and I'd love to unpack, Ash, how police tracked him down to start with, because, I mean, yeah, these two locations are a fair way away from each other. Do we know much about how he moved from one to the other?
5:11 Speaker 01 No, that's really one of the unanswered questions still. We really didn't hear any details about that during the hearing yesterday. We only really heard that police had received information that he was at that property in Thalagalong, nothing about how he did get there. And of course, this is still all part of an ongoing investigation. But what we do now know as of today is that two people have been arrested as part of Task Force Summit. Now, that is that task force that was set up following the Porpanka incident to investigate this, and they are based up here. So today, being Tuesday, we know that a 48-year-old man and a 35-year-old man were arrested this morning. They were arrested at two separate
5:55 Speaker 01 locations in North East Victoria. Victoria Police says that they are now being interviewed. There haven't been any charges, and they say that the investigation is still ongoing and that they won't provide any more details at the moment. So we have gone back to them to see if they could tell us whereabouts in the North East these arrests have occurred, but we haven't been able to get those details. But that is certainly some new information that has come through today about that.
6:25 Speaker 00 Very timely, as we're talking through this story as well. And I mean, the place that Dezi Freeman's found on March 30, Thalagalong, you know, police kind of had their eye on that or got wind that he was there, maybe about a week or so before, is that right?
6:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right. So we heard yesterday from the council assisting that police received intelligence that Freeman was hiding out at this property in Tholagalong. Now, we know that there was a special unit that had been set up in the aftermath of Porpanker and they were stationed in the Great Alpine area that consisted of detectives and members of the Special Operations Group. We didn't know exactly where they were stationed out of, but we do know that they were created to stay here and follow that investigation. So the details came through in the week before March 30 and then we know that they travelled to Tholagalong on the weekend of the 28th and 29th and they set up surveillance
7:23 Speaker 01 around that property. For people that aren't familiar with it, it was a farm and it was on a main road called the Murray River Road, which you could, you can see the property from the road, but there wasn't anyone living there at the time. There were shipping containers and other sort of outlying buildings there. So police have set up surveillance over two days until they could really confirm that the person at that property was in fact Freeman. And it was on the Sunday that they were able to cite him and confirm that it was Desi Freeman.
7:59 Speaker 03 They moved pretty quickly after that too, right Ash?
8:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, so Sunday they get confirmation that that is the man that they are after and then Monday morning, so the following morning at around five, just before 5.30, they move into that property and they set up that cordon around that shipping container that he had been hiding out in.
8:19 Speaker 03 Yeah. What did we hear about what Freeman was wanted for?
8:23 Speaker 01 So we learnt yesterday that two days after the fatal shooting of the two police officers in Porpanker, a warrant was actually issued in the Wangaratta Magistrates Court for his arrest. Now, that warrant was for the two murders of the police officers, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neil Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim Devart Hotat. Interestingly though, we also learnt that that warrant included the arrest. For the attempted murder of two other police members. We know that the third police officer was shot in the leg and critically injured in Porpanca. And then there was another officer that was also injured on August twenty sixth last year.
9:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, we'll go through all the detail of that shooting in our episode on Thursday. You know, the the detail we heard from the coroner or from council assisting yesterday about what unfolded at Porpanca was yeah, kind of shocking and we'll talk more about that later this week. Freeman was holed up in a shipping container on this property, right?
9:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right. So this was a shipping container that was forty foot long. It was quite kitted out for someone to live in, quite roughly, it's fair to say. It had a sliding door at one end and a makeshift veranda sort of at the front of it. And as I said, it was on this farming property that no one was living in at the time. But we saw in pictures of that shipping container, it was almost like a camp set up. There were cooking facilities outside and there was a solar panel. So we were able to see, I guess, how he was able to live there at that time.
10:00 Speaker 00 Hmm, yeah. And, you know, police, as you mentioned, have kind of surrounded this shipping container, makeshift house that Dezi Freeman is living in at this point. And they're basically trying to coax him out. Is that right?
10:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right. So they've gone in, they've surrounded that shipping container. We know that the Victoria Police helicopter was sort of hovering overhead at this point as well. And this is where those negotiation attempts really started. They attempted to wake him up, they had a loudspeaker, they had the sirens going. But at this point, there was no response coming from that shipping container from Freeman.
10:38 Speaker 00 Yeah, the the way that council assisting described this, you know, had the lights and sirens on, had the loudspeaker going to try and wake him up. I I suspect he was probably awake through through some of those things and probably awake pretty early in this process. And I was expecting this to be a kind of quicker process. I thought that the police might have arrived there and they probably would have sorted this or it may have come to a head. You know, in a kind of a shorter window of time, but police were negotiating with him for, how long was it, Ash?
11:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, so it was several hours that they were attempting to coax him out of that shipping container. We know that when he eventually did appear after those sort of tactics were used, gas canisters were deployed to try and get him out of the shipping container, that there were conversations that went on for several hours. We heard that from council assisting that Freeman at times was quite erratic. He was coming in and out of the shipping container. He was, I think it's fair to say, goading police at one point, calling them thugs and cowards. He also defended the shooting deaths of those two
11:45 Speaker 01 police officers in Porpanca as self-defence. Now, an hour after the special operations group officers arrived at that property, Freeman actually came out of that shipping container and he was standing under that makeshift veranda. It was at that point that he was shot in the leg by one of the special operations group officers with what was described as a less than lethal foam batten round. Now, that hit him in the leg, but he was able to retreat back inside that shipping container before they could arrest him. And then he sort of continued to be non-compliant and the negotiations continued on.
12:25 Speaker 00 Yeah, at one point I was surprised. It sounded like he was drinking maybe a beer, something from a bottle and, you know, talking to police, being like, yeah, come and have a beer with me. I think that, yeah, the term you've used in goading is probably a pretty accurate description of his behaviour from what it sounded like from council assisting yesterday. Ash, I mean, we know how this ends. This is an investigation into how Desi Freeman died because he dies at that property. At what point do police change tack and try to kind of wrap up this confrontation?
12:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, so we heard at around seven o'clock, a mobile phone was thrown at the door of the shipping container and Freeman was really encouraged to come out and pick that phone up to be able to speak directly with the negotiator. At that point, he refused to take the phone and I think it was then that he made that comment. Come and have a beer with me and we will talk about it. He was also refusing to effectively show the police members his hands and that he wasn't armed. So after about two hours, um, the special operations group officers got permission from the commander to put gas into that container. So people may have seen those photos of the Bearcat.
13:41 Speaker 01 It effectively pulls up to the side of the shipping container and it's got this long arm attached to it. And it pierced the shipping container and filled it with, with a gas, which is essentially forced Freeman to come out um, of that sliding door. I think it was within two minutes, he sort of had uh, come out and faced those police officers. And this is where things really started to escalate. We heard that when he came out of the shipping container, on this occasion, he had a green bag in his hands and it was in front of him. And he walked out and he turned to his left away from the Bearcat.
14:22 Speaker 01 And he then allegedly sees another group of police officers. At this point, we hear that he raises the gun uh, with his right hand. And police believe that he discharged it at that point and then they returned fire.
14:39 Speaker 00 And that's it?
14:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, we learnt yesterday that eight special operations group officers returned fire after they believed that Freeman initially fired first and they fired multiple rounds. We heard that Freeman then dropped to the ground. Um, at that point, he was assessed by medics as part of the special operations group. And we heard that paramedics were also stationed nearby and then they came and assessed him. But his injuries were described as non-survivable.
15:11 Speaker 00 Do we know how many police were involved in, you know, this, this raid at the property?
15:16 Speaker 01 No, we didn't hear much about those details yesterday in terms of numbers. Um, it's interesting when we heard about the Porpanka incident, we did get really specific numbers. That's not unsurprising, um, when it comes to these sorts of operations, not to get those details. That's not to say it may not come out in the full coronial inquest, but yesterday, those details certainly weren't revealed.
15:41 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. And we are just at the very beginning of this coronial process as well. Yeah, the hearing that, uh, Ash and I were in yesterday was the direction steering. It's like a date setting exercise going through some of the initial facts. So that's why it's not the full detail you get from a coronial inquest. Ash, I want to take a step back for a second because something stuck out to me at the moment that Dezi Freeman was shot. The way that council assisting talked about the police believing that he discharged the gun, you know, I think it was that the SOG operators believed either from what they heard or felt that the gun was discharged. Does that mean they weren't sure?
16:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was quite specific language that they used around that. It was certainly something that stood out to me as well as I was taking my notes. I was remembered. I highlighted it because, as I mentioned, it was quite specific. Um, they heard or felt was the terms that were used, but the council assisting did go on to talk about the gun that Freeman had. We did learn that that actually was the gun that was taken from one of the police officers, senior constable, Devart Hotart, back in Porpanka. Now, we heard that there was a spent cartridge case, which was consistent with having been, that
16:56 Speaker 01 gun having been fired. Um, and that was found close to Freeman's body. We heard that that gun was actually hit in the crossfire with police during that sort of shootout. Now, the gun, when it was hit, the magazine dropped out and there was one unspent round in that chamber. Now, the magazine contained 11 unspent rounds of ammunition. So the 12 rounds with one round fired by Freeman at the SOG members, and then the further round fired by him back at Porpanka, leaves one round unaccounted for, which we heard yesterday. And then another magazine with 15 rounds was also recovered at Soligalong that day as well.
17:39 Speaker 00 Yeah, Ash, that stuck out to me a bit, this this one round kind of remaining unaccounted for. I mean, you know, we're talking about a weapon here that was taken from a police officer that Dezi Freeman killed. So are the police just being thorough in accounting for all of the rounds, or is there something else going on there?
17:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was a it was a bit of a strange point in the hearing yesterday. They mentioned it, but they didn't really provide any further details. We do know that earlier this year, police conducted what they said was a renewed search for Dezi Freeman in the Mount Buffalo National Park. Now, that all stemmed from reports that a gunshot was actually heard within the park on the day that the police officers were shot in Porpanka, but it was after the incident. So it was an isolated incident from the actual shooting in Porpanka. Now, in January, police did what they said was firearms testing, and they were testing
18:35 Speaker 01 firearms for the acoustics in regards to the reports that they had received in regards to that sort of gunshot. So we don't know whether that investigation is part of this missing round that they conducted in the national park earlier this year, but perhaps we will find out in the full coronial inquest.
18:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, I'm interested in talking, Ash, with you on Thursday, more about the discharge of that firearm at Porpanka on the 26th of August 2025, because that was something that really shocked me, actually, from the evidence we, from the opening that was delivered by councillor Sisting in the hearing for the police officers that were killed. Something else, Ash, that stuck out to me as we were listening through this hearing yesterday, you know, so many police on this property. Well, we don't know exactly how many police, but it certainly felt and sounded like, from the way that councillor Sisting was describing it, that there was a decent team of people involved, a police helicopter hovering above at the time as well. But the thing that stuck out to me with these SOG operators, none of them had body worn cameras on them. Is that unusual?
19:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, I certainly was surprised um by that fact. I assume there is some operational reason for this that may or may not come out in the full coronial inquest, but certainly I was shocked, given that we heard previously the number of police in Paul Pankar that had body worn cameras on that day, to then hear that none of the special operations group were in fact wearing a body worn camera. We do know that the Victoria Police helicopter, which was hovering above, did capture the moment that Freeman was shot. And we also know that there was a voice memo that Dezi Freeman had activated about twenty minutes
20:22 Speaker 01 before he was shot dead, that also captured that moment. But in terms of body worn camera, it's certainly an interesting piece of information that came out yesterday, and we don't have any explanation for that yet, and whether we will get one remains to be seen.
20:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the coroner kind of approaches that and, you know, what happens in the wash up of this, if there's a recommendation around something like that, depending on the information that the coroner has during this process. So it'll be interesting to to unpack, Ash. But yeah, we will have the vision from the police helicopter. Also, as you mentioned, the voice memo that Dezi Freeman started about twenty minutes before he was shot, I'm assuming will be played to that inquest as well. So interesting to hear kind of what comes up from that as well. The other thing I've been thinking about a lot is this Bearcat that's rolled onto the property as part of this negotiation confrontation, depends what anger you come at it from, I suppose. This vehicle sounds terrifying. What is it?
21:22 Speaker 01 So it's a heavily armoured vehicle is the best way to describe it. And it is massive. It is black, it is really imposing. It's got these big tyres, you can't really see who's driving it, you can't see who is in it, and it sort of just rolls along the road. I actually passed it on the day that Desi was shot. It was coming back into town as I was heading out of town, and I had the unfortunate experience of passing it on this really narrow Bridge and I guess to give you some a feel of how big it is, I sort of stopped and thought, oh gosh, do I need to let it come off the bridge before I go on? Am I going to make it um go past it? But it until you see it in real life, I saw it for the first time in Pawpunka.
22:06 Speaker 01 There were several up there and they really make you stop and watch.
22:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, it sounds just like this gigantic, black armoured truck, basically, which is more or less what you've described. I'm imagining sort of a magnitude of two times a a normal car size or something like that. Uh what's the timeline from here, Ash? When we, when will this kind of get underway proper or when are we going to start seeing other developments?
22:26 Speaker 01 So it'll be a while now. Uh we know that the brief of evidence needs to be served by October thirty this year. No actual dates were set for the full coronial inquest, but a tentative date for March next year was sort of mentioned in the process, but not locked in. So given the amount of evidence that needs to be sort of collated for this inquest, it wouldn't be surprising to see that it won't be um come back before the court. Really in its full process until early next year.
22:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, and I mean, there's two processes that we've got running here. There's the the inquiry into Dezi Freeman's death, also the inquiry into the police officer's deaths, the police that he shot in in August twenty twenty five. Uh despite the similarities, they're going to be run separately, right? These coronial inquests, they're not going to run them as basically one big one?
23:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right. And the council assisting did make a point of that yesterday to say that they will continue into separate hearings. Um it's not surprising, given that they were two separate incidents, even though they do stem from the same chain of events. They were two separate incidents and they're both mandatory. Freeman is considered a death in custody or death while trying to be taken into custody. So it is a while it is a similar coronial inquest process, they are slightly different.
23:45 Speaker 00 Got it. Okay. Um Ash, I mean, you're living in the region that this has all unfolded in. What's the feeling in the community like up there? I mean, is there an interest in kind of learning what happened, following this process and understanding the decisions and the things that have led to these events? Or do people just want it to go away?
24:04 Speaker 01 I'm not sure that the fascination that people have with this case more widely is felt the same here locally. Um, I think there's a bit of a frustration every time something like this happens. It sort of brings it back to the forefront. I spent a lot of time in Porpanca following the incident. I was there for days on end last August, but then I continued to go back in the months that followed. And there was a real feeling that people just wanted to move on. And then when Freeman was found so far away in Thalagalong, there was almost a feeling of a sense of relief that it hadn't happened in Porpanca. It was sort of no longer their issue, so to speak.
24:47 Speaker 01 Um, and they were quite, I guess, just relieved that it had come to an end because there was always this fear when I was speaking, particularly with businesses, that it could become something of an urban legend hanging over the town if it didn't come to a conclusion. People were worried that people would stop going to Mount Buffalo because Dezi Freeman perhaps was there still. So there was that sense of relief when it did come to an end. Um, then in the days that followed the March thirty incident, the more time I spent in Porpanca, um, there was a, a real sense of change. People were becoming quite frustrated, as you can imagine, the media comes back into town and they felt like it was bringing a bit of negativity back to the town.
25:32 Speaker 01 And we really should remember that this area had suffered through the Black Summer Bush Fires and then COVID hit them and they rely really heavily on tourism. And then the Porpanca shooting happened. It was a lot, a lot for businesses and they were really ready to move on. And there were also a lot of people that were supportive of Dezi Freeman in that area. Um, he was very much ingrained in parts of the community and he and his family were, I spoke with many people that were sympathisers of him as well. So that was a, a whole different aspect.
26:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, there's a lot more to unpack around what happened in Porpanca in August twenty twenty five. Uh, we'll be back in your feed on Thursday with the details of the, uh, coronial opening into the investigation of the police that were killed. And some of the details from that, Ash, were really quite shocking.
26:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think particularly the moments and Freeman's actions following the shooting of those two police officers in those moments directly after was something that really stood out to me yesterday and something that we will look at moving forward.
26:44 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, we'll have a conversation about that on Thursday this week. Something that surprised me and I think just points to, I guess, some of his actions following the shooting of those police is that, you know, councillor Sistine didn't want to read out some of the things that he was saying because there were family in the room yesterday. So I think that points to, yeah, just what was happening in that moment. Ash, I really appreciate you joining us for this one today and yeah, look forward to having you back with us on Thursday.
27:12 Speaker 01 My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
27:13 Speaker 00 If you have any questions about this process, about what's unfolded in these coronials, feel free to get in touch. You can send us an email, [email protected] is our email address. Also, make sure you grab ABC Listen, best place to listen to The Case Of and all sorts of other great Australian content on there. And I'll be back in your feed on Thursday.
27:38 Speaker 00 The Case Of is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. This episode was reported by Ashley Aldridge and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson. This episode was produced on the land of the Warradjiri and Warranjiri people.
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