Months after that fateful day, Porepunkah remains a conspiracy-riddled mystery

First came an undercurrent of conspiracy, then one of the state’s most shocking tragedies.

After more than four months, the Alpine region and Victoria Police are still dealing with one of their most frustrating mysteries.

Shortly after 10.30am on August 26, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart were fatally shot at a property nestled in mountainous bushland on the outskirts of Porepunkah, in Victoria’s breathtaking High Country. A third officer was also shot, but survived.

The three were among 10 armed officers who had approached the secluded Rayner Track property that morning.

They had planned to catch known conspiracy theorist Dezi Freeman unaware and execute a search warrant. But somehow, the scene turned into an ambush and, as the shot officers lay near the ramshackle bus that Freeman and his family had been living in, the wanted man allegedly fled into nearby bushland.

In the days that followed, Australia’s largest-ever manhunt saw hundreds of heavily armed officers and the constant sound of helicopters descend on the mountains, bushland and towns more accustomed to being taken over by trekkers than tanks.

This photograph, captured on September 1 by Joe Armao and chosen by The Age as one of the defining images of 2025, shows heavily armed police searching a plantation in Porepunkah in the tense days that followed, in the depth of Victorian High Country winter conditions.

The sovereign citizen had spent a decade getting to know the remote and rugged bushland like the back of his hand.

The theories about what happened and Freeman’s whereabouts began almost as quickly as he disappeared – the avowed conspiracy theorist now the subject of them.

Is he still alive and hiding out in a bunker in the High Country? Did he fall down a mineshaft and die? Was his body eaten by feral pigs after suicide? Are other conspiracy theorists helping him hide out? Has he crossed the state border?

Police believe the most likely scenario is that Freeman is dead, a theory supported by reports of a single gunshot in the bush shortly after the ambush.

But without proof, all theories remain active, adding to the grief those close to the Thompson and de Waart-Hottart. And distressingly for locals, scenes like this image dominated an ever-widening section of the region for the rest of 2025.

Still, there has not been a single confirmed sighting of Freeman.

“I just wish it would finish. I wish they would find him somewhere, dead or alive, just so we have closure,” a former neighbour of Freeman’s said.

The vacuum left behind has frayed nerves, relationships and tight-knit communities.

The views of many were summed up by one Porepunkah local who knew Freeman, and is now dealing with a region that is both mourning and reeling: “So many people think he’s like Ned Kelly. He’s not Ned Kelly – he’s a f---wit.”

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