Porepunkah shooter Dezi Freeman found and shot dead by police

The fugitive was confronted by heavily armed cops on Monday morning after more than seven months on the run.

Dezi Freeman has been shot dead by police more than seven months after he gunned down two officers in regional Victoria.

The 56-year-old was confronted by heavily armed police on Monday morning before being shot, bringing to an end a marathon search for the fugitive.

Police said Freeman had been hiding in a shipping container-like structure in Thologolong, in Victoria’s northeast near the border with NSW.

Police confirmed Freeman was shot dead at a rural address shortly after 8.30am following a three-hour-long stand-off.

Aerial footage shows a blue shipping container and various items strewn around the property including two camping chairs, an upturned boat, kegs, buckets and gas bottles.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush spoke to the media on Monday morning saying police had made an appeal for Freeman to leave the structure he was hiding in.

He exited the building and police strongly believed he was armed, Bush said.

“There was an opportunity for him to surrender peacefully, which he did not,” Bush said.

“We’re examining the sequences of events and we’ll be able to report on that but it did result from a standoff.”

Police are investigating the possibility the gun Freeman had his possession was one of the weapons he took from a police officer during the August 2025 shooting in Porepunkah.

Bush said the structure Freeman was residing in was a cross between a shipping container and a “very long caravan”.

He would not confirm what led police to the location or if anyone had been aiding Freeman.

It also remains unclear exactly how Freeman made his way to Thologolong, 146km away from his home in Porepunkah.

Bush conceded it would be “very difficult” for the fugitive to get to the location “without assistance”.

No one else was living at the property where Freeman was found.

“Everything I know at this point tells me that this shooting was justified,” Bush said.

The families of the two police officers Freeman shot dead in August last year — Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, 34 — were the first to be told of Freeman’s death.

Bush said Freeman’s death brings closure to a “tragic and terrible event”.

“Had the other outcome been suspected where he may have taken his own life, that would have been difficult to bring closure, so this has brought closure,” he said.

“I’m speaking with some of those (family members) straight after this.”

Some members of de Waart Hottart’s family are currently in Melbourne after attending a memorial marking the 40th anniversary of the Russell Street bombing last week.

Thompson and de Waart-Hottart died as they served a warrant at Freeman’s semi-rural property on Rayner Track in Porepunkah, 300km northeast of Melbourne, on the morning of Tuesday, August 26.

A third officer, a detective that authorities have not identified publicly, underwent surgery for a leg wound. Seven other police escaped physically uninjured.

Freeman — also known as Desmond Filby — fled the scene and had been on the run ever since.

Extensive searches on the ground and in the air had been conducted for Freeman with hundreds of police officers stationed in Porepunkah since the shooting.

The Mount Buffalo National Park had been at the centre of the police search effort and was closed for months.

In September 2025 police announced a $1 million reward for the arrest of the cop killer, the largest reward offered for an arrest in Victoria’s history.

Bush would not confirm whether someone had claimed the reward and said any information related to the money would be kept confidential.

A five-day search for Freeman was conducted in February following information received about a gunshot heard shortly after the fatal shooting.

At the time police said they believed he was no longer alive but were open to the possibility he was still at large.

“There has been no information or intelligence (that) has come forward, no proof of life since the 26th of August last year,” Detective Inspector Adam Tilley said.

In the press conference on Monday Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said there was a “lot to suggest” Freeman had in fact taken his own life.

“But I can tell you standing here that our investigators, that’s why their professionals, (they) keep their mind open to every possible outcome and follow every possible lead,” he said.

Fallen police officers remembered

Police Association Victoria said in a statement that Freeman’s death represented a “step forward” for the families of the two police officers who were killed as well as the entire police force.

“Today we don’t reflect on the loss of a coward,” it said.

“We will remember the courage and bravery of our fallen members and every officer that has doggedly pursued this outcome for the community,” it said.

“RIP Vadim and Neal. Today, we remember you.”