Twenty-four hours after Dezi Freeman’s life came to a violent end at the hands of officers from Victoria Police’s specialist operations group, his nephew let out a deep breath.
“Now it’s come to an end … it is a sigh of relief,” Luke Filby said.Â
“It’s like mixed feelings, half and half, hurt and relief.”
Forensic investigators were seen entering the shipping container where Freeman had been living. (ABC News)
Mr Filby has been estranged from his uncle for several years but was shocked when he heard the news Freeman had been locked in another stand-off with Victoria Police, this time at an isolated property on the NSW-Victoria border.
“Hard to pinpoint my feelings and emotions … it feels, it’s like hate and some kind of love there, I don’t know where, it’s hard,” Mr Filby said.
“I’m trying to work it out what I feel.”
Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan had on Monday described Freeman as “an evil man”, an assessment Mr Filby agreed with.
“There was this evil inside [him] and he couldn’t contain it,” Mr Filby told 7.30 about his deceased uncle.
“I could always see it, but it was just like, I’ve seen a lot of people that have had anger issues and I can’t stand them.”
Mr Filby said he was speaking out so Freeman’s children and other members of his family could grieve in peace.
Luke Filby says his mother, Dezi Freeman’s sister, is “devastated”. (ABC News: Andrew Altree-Williams)
He said his mother, Dezi’s sister, is distraught at the news.
“I spoke to my mum last night, you know, she was in tears,” Mr Filby told 7.30.
“She’s devastated. She’s really upset.”Deadly showdown
The Thologolong site where Dezi Freeman was found by police. (ABC News)
The property where Freeman made his final stand is located in the small hamlet of Thologolong on the southern banks of the Murray River, about an hour east of Albury-Wodonga.
A tip-off to police in the days prior to Monday led them to the off-the-grid property, where they watched for at least a day before moving in on the shipping container he was living inside before sunrise.
Neil Sutherland, who lives on a property less than one kilometre away, woke to the sound of the police operation at his brother’s place.
“I was woken up about five in the morning with the helicopters doing circle work,” Mr Sutherland told 7.30.
Neil Sutherland lives on a nearby property and heard the police operation that resulted in Freeman’s death. (ABC News: Andrew Altree-Williams)
“I got up and was wondering what was going on and I heard the police siren and [a] woman’s voice with a loudspeaker and I could only make two words out, which was … ‘come out’.”
Mr Sutherland told 7.30 he had no idea the state’s most wanted man was on his brother’s property.
“It was a bit of a shock because I really thought Dezi would’ve been decomposing up in the alps somewhere, because I thought we’d heard the last of Dezi,” he said.
For three hours Victoria Police negotiated with Freeman about his surrender; he refused.
At 8:30am he emerged draped in bedding, at which point police say he revealed a Victoria Police issued handgun.
Dezi Freeman was killed by police on Monday morning. (Supplied)
His body is now in the process of being formally identified.
After reviewing video of the operation, Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said there was nothing in Freeman’s demeanour at the time of his death that suggested his psychological or physical condition had changed since the day he disappeared, other than to say “his hair was a little bit longer and he had a beard”.
While forensic police continue to comb over the scene for any evidence, Chief Commissioner Bush said that speaking with the property’s owner, Richard Sutherland, is a priority for the investigation.
“Very important that we talk to this person. We know who that person is and our officers have reached out to ensure that we interview them as soon as possible,” he said from Wodonga Police Station.
Police officers at the property in Thologolong where Dezi Freeman was shot. (ABC News: Annie Brown)
Neil Sutherland told 7.30 on Tuesday his brother expected to be interviewed by police.
“We all sort of expect to be interviewed at some stage, but I would guarantee that [he] didn’t have any knowledge of the murderous fella that was there.”
Neil Sutherland said his brother is currently in Tasmania with family. He told 7.30 Richard does not hold sovereign citizen views and has no connection to Freeman.
“He’s never been sort of affiliated with any political type grouping, he’s not aligned with anything like that,” Mr Sutherland said.
“No one here’s got any connection and the sooner it all dies down and we get back to normal, the better.”
Lessons in Freeman’s demise
Luke Filby was estranged from his uncle Dezi Freeman. (Supplied)
In October, Mr Filby told 7.30 he believed his uncle had taken his own life somewhere in Mount Buffalo National Park.
Police revealed in February during another search of Mount Buffalo that investigators were working off a theory Freeman was already dead.
The extraordinary turn of events on Monday has provided a different conclusion to a dark story in Victoria’s High Country.
It is a chapter of Mr Filby’s life that he is ready to close. He believes his uncle’s demise serves some lessons when it comes to a life that became lost.
“He couldn’t appreciate the things that he could have loved, like even his family,” Mr Filby said.
“Fighting the government and all these conspiracy things became more important … and he ended up losing the real values of life over paranoia and fear.”
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