High Country hide and seek: How hunt for accused shooter Dezi Freeman could unfold

Near-impenetrable alpine bushland and the possibility of further ambushes will hamper police as they pursue accused killer Dezi Freeman.

Freeman, a conspiracy theorist, allegedly ambushed police who had arrived with a warrant at his rural property in Porepunkah on Tuesday morning. He then fled into dense bushland.

The property where he was living backs on to forests that become part of Mount Buffalo National Park, terrain locals describe as dense and steep, with no easy walking paths.

“Most of it you’re bush-bashing,” said Robert Deeble, who manages a store in Mansfield and regularly hunts in the area. “Even as an experienced hunter, it’s tough going.”

Freeman is also an experienced bushman, so Deeble estimated that he might be able to travel 10 to 15 kilometres a day through the area.

The dense terrain, full of crags and gullies, meant finding Freeman from the ground would be extremely difficult.

Former police search and rescue officer and consultant Philip Benfield said: “Even if we’re looking for someone deceased, out in the open, a search party would have great difficulty finding them – even if they are two metres away.

“He could be hiding, camouflaged. It’s going to be a shit-fight in my opinion.”

A source with knowledge of police special operation tactics, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, said officers had to assume Freeman had prepared for the attack.

That could mean he had various camps within the forest, and had prepared further ambushes.

Instead of pushing into dense bushland, where Freeman would probably be able to detect them, they were likely to wait him out, the source said.

Freeman has allegedly already killed two police, and faces mandatory life in jail if convicted of those crimes, meaning he could have nothing left to lose other than his life.

“It’s going to be a shootout at the O.K. Corral if you corner him,” the source said.

Most of the search, they said, is likely to take place from the air, with police using helicopters carrying snipers and thermal cameras, and potentially drones.

Victoria Police also has a fixed-wing Beechcraft King Air350ER with thermal cameras available.

Thermal cameras can pick out the heat generated by a human body through layers of vegetation – even warm footprints left behind.

“It’s not really a challenge if you’ve got the right equipment,” said Michael Coates, operations manager at C-Astral Aerospace Search and Rescue.

Helicopters and drones would move in a chessboard pattern through the search-zone, double-checking each area. They would slowly narrow the large initial search area until Freeman was found.

Benfield said thermal cameras were not infallible, and there were ways to avoid them.

However, drones could be flown at a high altitude, where they would be harder for Freeman to spot and avoid than loud helicopters.

An area headquarters has been set up at a local winery. The police source said intelligence specialists would work from there to sift through phone records and Freeman’s social media history as well as trying to interview his friends and family to gather information to help catch him.

Once a likely location is found, police could deploy search and rescue specialists – skilled climbers who are equipped to move through rough conditions. Police dog handlers are also on the scene.

Special operations group officers equipped with rifles, flashbangs and tear gas could also be used for a direct assault on Freeman’s campsite.

It is not clear if Freeman was carrying supplies when he fled. If not, he will soon need to find food and water, creating a chance to detect him.

Expert bushman Malcolm Naden hid in NSW bushland for almost a decade before police finally caught the fugitive by following a string of regional burglaries and using hidden cameras to track him.

They could use a similar trick here, said Benfield, doorknocking locals to see if any food or water had gone missing, and then deploying motion-activated cameras.

“The general rule is four days without water, four weeks without food,” Benfield said. “So he’d be needing some water sources soon if he’s moving. I’d be looking at water holes, houses with water tanks, creeks.”

Former NSW Police hostage negotiator Vincent Hurley, who lectures in policing at Macquarie University, said a bush search on foot would be extremely difficult.

“The only thing they could do would be to do a grid search – so they would divide the map up into a manageable bite-size grid. It might be 100 metres by 100 metres, and they could just move from east to west or from north to south,” he said.

“It would be really physically draining on the police carrying equipment and food with them, which they will have to do, as well as whatever firearms they are carrying with them.”

With Alex Darling