{"id":381268,"date":"2025-12-30T22:15:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T22:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381268\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T22:15:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T22:15:17","slug":"police-search-for-alleged-carjacker-who-broke-into-latrobe-valley-home-with-axe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381268\/","title":{"rendered":"Police search for alleged carjacker who broke into Latrobe Valley home with axe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police are searching bushland near Moondarra, 150 kilometres east of Melbourne, for a man who allegedly carjacked two vehicles, rammed a police car and broke into a home with an axe during a two-day crime spree across the Latrobe Valley.<\/p>\n

Victoria Police alleged the man fled into the bushland next to Moe-Rawson Road about 5am on Tuesday after ditching a stolen car on the side of the road.<\/p>\n

Local police officers, the air-wing unit and the dog squad have been working together to comb the area since the early hours of the morning.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe the spree began on Saturday morning when the man allegedly approached a woman on Firmins Lane in Hazelwood South at about 11am and demanded her car keys before driving away in her vehicle.<\/p>\n

\"Green<\/p>\n

Part of the bushland Victoria Police is surveying in Moondarra. (ABC News: Jack Franco Colantuono)<\/p>\n

Police said they spotted the stolen car at a service station on the Princes Highway in Traralgon East about 4:15am on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

As officers attempted to box the car in, the man allegedly rammed a police vehicle and escaped.<\/p>\n

‘No imminent risk’<\/p>\n

Police believe the man abandoned the car at Castleknock Drive in Glengary at about 5am before forcing entry into a nearby home with an axe.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The operation involves several crews, including the Victoria Police air-wing unit, the dog squad and local police officers. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

After breaking into that home, police allege the man stole the resident’s black hatchback.<\/p>\n

Police followed the man to Moe-Rawson Road in Moondarra, where they said he ran from the stolen car into the bushland.<\/p>\n

Victoria Police reported there was no imminent risk to the public, but urged locals to secure their homes and vehicles while the search continues.<\/p>\n

No-one was injured during the theft.<\/p>\n

‘Threatened with a huge axe’<\/p>\n

Glengarry woman Melissa Frances posted on social media saying she was the victim of the break-in.<\/p>\n

“We were all home. He threatened us with a huge axe. My daughter’s room is right next to the door he smashed through. We’re all very overwhelmed,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Francess’ partne,r Ashley Spowart, commented on the post too.<\/p>\n

“He threatened me with an axe, so we just did what he asked and got him out as fast as possible,” Mr Spowart said.’Police cars shooting up the mount’<\/p>\n

Wilson Caravan Park owner Mark Lee said he saw the abandoned car on Moe-Rawson Road on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

“I was just shooting down the valley this morning mate, going down there to pick up a few things, and there was a car that sort of had a bingle on the side of the road and the CFA (Country Fire Authority) had it blocked off,” Mr Lee said.<\/p>\n

“And then as I came down \u2026 the mountain, there was another police car sitting there in the middle of the road, and a car had sort of fallen off the side.<\/p>\n

“I must have got there five minutes after it happened because there was no helicopter there, but as I got closer to Moondarra, there was about 10 police cars shooting up the mount.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are searching bushland near Moondarra, 150 kilometres east of Melbourne, for a man who allegedly carjacked two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[205132,205133,58039,58042,205131,43,205135,72540,44,1158,7452,41,39,42,40,205134],"class_list":["post-381268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-airwing","tag-break-in-with-axe","tag-car-theft","tag-carjacking","tag-dog-squad","tag-headlines","tag-latrobe-valley-crime","tag-manhunt","tag-news","tag-police","tag-search","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-victorian-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}