{"id":586980,"date":"2026-04-05T12:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586980\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T12:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:01:17","slug":"alpine-towns-fear-dezi-freeman-accomplices-are-among-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586980\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpine towns fear Dezi Freeman accomplices are among them"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JacksonSave<\/p>\n

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A prominent Bright community figure close to Dezi Freeman\u2019s wife says if police find someone in the town had helped Dezi Freeman evade capture, it will bring \u201canother level of trauma\u201d to those in the town.<\/p>\n

As holidaymakers swarm to the region for the Easter long weekend, those in the area are on edge after police released two people without charge on Saturday evening following arrests at separate properties in north-east Victoria.<\/p>\n

\"LeanneLeanne Boyd, a friend of Mali Freeman, says if people in Bright or Porepunkah are found to have helped Dezi Freeman, it will bring \u201canother level of trauma\u201d to the community. Ruby Alexander<\/p>\n

Police have not provided any further information on those arrested, and say their investigations are ongoing, leaving locals wondering who had been questioned and whether someone known to them had helped Freeman.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it turns out that there is somebody in Bright, what will happen is that will divide the town \u2026 it would be another level of trauma,\u201d said Leanne Boyd, a friend of Freeman\u2019s wife, Mali Freeman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope it\u2019s no one we know. Because that\u2019s more traumatic, it means someone lied to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

It emerged last Monday that Freeman had been hiding out in a shipping container on a remote bush property in Thologolong, near the border town of Walwa. After a three-hour stand-off, police shot dead the 56-year-old<\/a>, having repeatedly called for him to surrender.<\/p>\n

\"HolidaymakersHolidaymakers enjoying a warm Easter Sunday in Bright while locals are left with more questions than answers around Dezi Freeman.Eddie Jim<\/p>\n

Freeman had been on the run since August 26 last year, when he killed Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, 34, at a Porepunkah property when they arrived as part of a group of 10 officers to carry out a search warrant in relation to child sexual abuse allegations against him.<\/p>\n

Neil Sutherland, whose brother\u2019s property was where police found Freeman, said the release of those arrested had not brought any closure after a whirlwind week of learning the fugitive had been hiding out in a converted shipping container a kilometre from his own property.<\/p>\n

\"NeilNeil Sutherland lives next door to the property where Dezi Freeman was hiding.Justin McManus<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is proven to have aided this bloke, I\u2019d take it as closure,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom last Monday, there has been just questions and no answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his brother, who had been in Tasmania for months, had been unaware Freeman was on the land. Neil has tried to work out on a map what route Freeman could have taken \u2013 a trek that if taken through the bush would be up to 100 kilometres and possibly three to four days\u2019 hiking.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Dezi<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know whether he\u2019s stumbled on the place or whether people have told him,\u201d Sutherland said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t rule out him walking here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Leanne Boyd hopes one outcome of the events is mental health reform after it emerged Freeman\u2019s closest family had convinced him to book a mental health appointment<\/a> in the weeks before he murdered the two officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, in all of it, as angry as he appeared at the police, he was also fearful of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope there\u2019s reform in dealing with people with mental health, so there are no more police deaths in this way, and you don\u2019t have the ensuring tragedies that occurred like they did [last Monday].\u201d<\/p>\n

Father Tony Shallue at Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church delivered an Easter service on Sunday that did not mention the case that has engulfed the region for the past seven months.<\/p>\n

\"ChurchgoersChurchgoers leave the Easter service at Our Lady of Snows Catholic Church in Bright on Sunday.Eddie Jim<\/p>\n

He said Mali Freeman was a member of the church but had not attended since the two police officers were killed by Freeman last year.<\/p>\n

The effects had been felt widely, he said.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Organ<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no good in it. You start with the family, then those who knew him, then you\u2019ve got the community, the businesses, and it went on for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"JacksonJackson Graham<\/a> is an education reporter at The Age. He was previously an explainer reporter.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-586980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586980","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=586980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}