In the weeks before he shot dead two police officers and seriously injured another, Desmond “Dezi” Freeman’s family were increasingly concerned by his erratic behaviour and desperately tried to get him psychiatric help.
It seemed an impossible task. The 56-year-old’s spiralling descent into conspiracy theories and hatred of the police and authorities had been ingrained for years, and were only more entrenched following the government’s hardline response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Even at his father’s deathbed in 2018, Freeman was ranting and raving about the government and bracing for the end of the world.
But four sources close to Freeman’s family told this masthead his wife, Amalia, known as Mali, and brother James Filby had finally convinced Freeman to book in for a mental health appointment after months of pleading with him.
Freeman never made it to the appointment.
Days after Mali confided her concerns to a neighbour and then to another friend while she was dropping their youngest son off at daycare, Dezi killed two police officers, who had arrived in a group of 10 officers with a warrant for his arrest at the remote rural alpine property where he was living on a bus with his wife and children.
A close friend of the family, who spoke to this masthead on the condition of anonymity, said that in the weeks before the first fatal shooting with police in the small town of Porepunkah, Freeman had become increasingly fixated on his belief that some officers had a vendetta against him.
“He was getting worse with the rants, and he really believed there were some police that were out to get him,” she said.
Others close to the Freeman and Filby families, who said they have been asked by close relatives not to speak to the media, confirmed matching details of events leading up to the August 26 murders of Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart.
One family friend said that before the Porepunkah shootings, Dezi Freeman had confided the nature of historical child sexual abuse allegations he was accused of, which were the subject of his arrest warrant, to at least one close relative. He denied he had done anything wrong and vowed “he’d never go to jail”.
The friend said the relative had had ongoing discussions with Freeman about seeking professional mental health support to better cope with the allegations and appointments for him were being sought for the coming weeks.
“The police showed up two weeks too early,” the family friend said. “Who knows whether he would have actually gone [to mental health appointments], though.”
This masthead has made numerous attempts to contact James Filby, but he could not be reached this week.
On Monday, the seven-month manhunt for his brother, Dezi Freeman, came to a dramatic and bloody end.
The fugitive emerged from a Cosco shipping container, allegedly armed and wrapped in a blanket, and was shot dead by police following a tip-off and a three-hour stand-off with specialist officers.
The steel shipping container, where Freeman had been living and sleeping for an unknown time, was more than 150 kilometres from where he had fled into the dense bush.
The property owner, Richard Sutherland, has been in Tasmania for months and has not yet returned. Sutherland had no idea Freeman was there, according to his brother.
Next to the container, there was an upturned boat, dinner plates, a gas stove and two camping chairs.
Police believe Freeman was harboured by supporters, enabling him to survive harsh conditions for more than 200 days – from snow to severe storms and wild bushfires, which ravaged the rugged bushland of Victoria’s High Country.
Freeman’s intense disdain for police is well documented in online posts, video footage and court documents. Since his death on Monday, videos have resurfaced again as they are reshared online by his supporters, some of whom refuse to believe he is dead.
In a tense altercation with police in one video, Freeman calls the officers “predators” as they try to fine him for not wearing a face mask during the pandemic.
Freeman, who changed his surname from Filby, also appeared on the Mike Holt Show podcast to boast about how he had “arrested” a magistrate at the Wangaratta court in a civil case involving a land dispute, warning authorities had “picked the wrong person to mess with”.
In the bizarre exchange with Holt in 2019, who is also a self-declared “sovereign citizen”, Freeman said: “The government can come in and police can come in and raid your fridge and cook your dog.”
He has previously labelled officers “frigging Nazis”, “Gestapo” and “terrorist thugs”.
On Friday, crowds of holidaymakers flooded Porepunkah and nearby Bright for the Easter weekend.
Under sunny autumn skies, families cycled along paths next to the Buckland River and swam in pools in booked-out caravan parks as some locals expressed relief the manhunt had finally come to an end.
Other locals were fed up with the media who descended on the area again this week as news of Freeman’s death spread.
Yet, among his supporters and friends there remained a quiet sympathy and grief for Freeman, and bubbling frustrations were felt by those who share his extremist ideologies.
One self-described sovereign citizen and friend of Dezi Freeman said his friend had been persecuted for his views on the COVID-19 pandemic, which had split the community and isolated their group, with tragic consequences.
He said last August’s police shootings had eroded trust among Freeman’s friends, who had closed ranks and were not willing to talk.
Wild conspiracy theories spread around Bright and Porepunkah in the hours after Freeman was declared dead.
Some friends of Freeman’s expressed unfounded beliefs to this masthead that he was not dead and this week’s shooting was an elaborate hoax.
Another said his body had been kept on ice for months and that he had been killed last August.
Others expressed the unfounded view Freeman was “executed” because he was going to take down former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.
One friend of the family was more blunt when contacted by this masthead. “Tell the truth, you f—ers,” they said.
Meanwhile, transient camper Wayne Blake has been left wondering how long he was sleeping near Australia’s most wanted man.
Blake had parked his campervan in the remote bushland near where Freeman was shot dead by police and slept there in the days before the stand-off.
He returned on Monday afternoon to find a media scrum and heavy police presence near his old camping spot.
“It’s a bizarre coincidence,” he said, adding he had never seen anyone arriving or leaving the remote property.
But police are in no doubt there people helping Freeman and warned they would be held to account.
“We will track backwards from here to work out how long he’s been here, and who helped him to be here,” Victorian Police Commissioner Mike Bush said.
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