Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
At a rural picnic spot in the dark, a young man suddenly disappears. You could nearly say an alien took him away because he's just vanished. When more clues from that night surface, something doesn't sit right. It's nonsensical where the stuff is. It's been scattered. I'm Rob Bergen. Join me as I investigate what became of Jack in the new season of Unravel. Is it a murder?
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The coroner's court in Melbourne is a long way from where Dizzy Freeman was killed on the Victorian border and from where he killed two police officers. But it's where we heard the minute-by-minute breakdown of his final morning. I'm Stephen Stockwell. This is The Case Of.
Police haven't sighted the fugitive since he escaped into the bush.
The last time that he was seen, he was heavily armed. Do not approach him. We have searched over 40 square kilometres by foot, by air, and we will not give up.
Early this morning, they pounced, shooting the fugitive dead as he emerged, believed to be wrapped in a blanket and carrying a gun.
The coroner will investigate exactly how Freeman's final moments unfolded.
In August last year, Desi Freeman shot and killed two police officers, Neil Thompson and Vadim Davat-Hodat. Seven months later, he was killed by police in remote northeastern Victoria. The details of these deaths have been revealed at the coroner's court this week as two inquests began, one for Desi Freeman and one for the officers that he killed.
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Chapter 2: What events led to the death of Dezi Freeman?
Mm-hmm. And so there were really those two theories that people thought he had either gotten out or that he was dead. And I arrived at that scene in Pulp Unca very early as that situation was unfolding. And there, it wasn't cordoned off. So I can understand why people did think that perhaps he had gotten away on that day.
Yeah, the property he was living on there backed onto the Mount Buffalo National Park. So that's where he was kind of thought to escape into after shooting Neil Thompson and Vadim Devat-Hodart. Then obviously Tholigalong, where he was found about 150 kilometres from all of that, all of these in northeastern Victoria. And
Ash, we're now in the coronial process looking at what happened with these deaths. This isn't a process of determining criminal responsibility. It's just what happened. And as I mentioned, there's two inquests, one into Freeman's death, which we'll talk through today, and then one into the deaths of Thompson and Devathodat that we'll unpack on Thursday.
And the detail we've got here was outlined by Counsel Assisting, the coroner, in the opening. There's a couple of bar tables in this room and someone stands up at one end. That's a guy called Lindsay Spence and he's basically run through all of this information in the openings.
Chapter 3: How did the police respond to Freeman's escape?
Ash, was there a lot of detail in this that we'd heard for the first time?
Yeah, absolutely, particularly in regard to the incident in Thologalong. We had received details from Victoria Police on the day that Desi Freeman was shot dead, but in terms of how it all unfolded, it was certainly new information that had come through, particularly the dialogue between police and Freeman over those few hours when they began to negotiate with him.
We hadn't heard any of those details before.
Yeah, and I'd love to unpack, Ash, how police tracked him down to start with because, I mean, yeah, these two locations are a fair way away from each other. Do we know much about how he moved from one to the other?
No, that's really one of the unanswered questions still. We really didn't hear any details about that during the hearing yesterday. We only really heard that police had received information that he was at that property in Thologalong, nothing about how he did get there. And of course, this is still all part of an ongoing investigation.
But what we do now know as of today is that two people have been arrested as part of Task Force Summit. Now, that is that task force that was set up following the Paul Punker incident. to investigate this and they are based up here. So today, being Tuesday, we know that a 48-year-old man and a 35-year-old man were arrested this morning.
They were arrested at two separate locations in northeast Victoria. Victoria Police says that they are now being interviewed. There haven't been any charges. And they say that the investigation is still ongoing and that they won't provide any more details at the moment. So we have gone back to them to see if they could tell us whereabouts in the northeast.
These arrests have occurred, but we haven't been able to get those details. But that is certainly some new information that has come through today about that.
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Chapter 4: What new details emerged from the coroner's court about Freeman's final moments?
Very timely as we're talking through this story as well. And I mean, the place that Desi Freeman's found on March 30, Thalagalong, you know, police kind of had their eye on that or got wind that he was there maybe about a week or so before. Is that right?
Yeah, that's right. So we heard yesterday from the council assisting that police received intelligence that Freeman was hiding out at this property in Thologalong. Now, we know that there was a special unit that had been set up in the aftermath of Paul Punker and they were stationed in the Great Alpine area that consisted of detectives and members of the Special Operations Group.
We didn't know exactly where they were stationed out of, but we do know that they were created to stay here and follow that investigation. So the details came through in the week before March 30, and then we know that they travelled to Tholagalong on the weekend of the 28th and 29th, and they set up surveillance around that property there.
Chapter 5: What were the circumstances surrounding the police officers' deaths?
For people that aren't familiar with it, it was a farm and it was on a main road called the Murray River Road, which you can see the property from the road, but there wasn't anyone living there at the time. There were shipping containers and other sort of outlying buildings there.
So police have set up surveillance over two days until they could really confirm that the person at that property was in fact Freeman. And it was on the Sunday that they were able to cite him and confirm that it was Desi Freeman.
They moved pretty quickly after that too, right Ash?
Yeah. So Sunday they get confirmation that that is the man that they are after. And then Monday morning, so the following morning at around five, just before 5.30, they move into that property and they set up that cordon around that shipping container that he had been hiding out in.
Yeah. What did we hear about what Freeman was wanted for?
So we learned yesterday that two days after the fatal shooting of the two police officers in Pawpunka, a warrant was actually issued in the Wangaratta Magistrates Court for his arrest. Now, that warrant was for the two murders of the police officers, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neil Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim Devant Hotat.
Interestingly, though, we also learned that that warrant included the arrest for the attempted murder of two other police members. We know that the third police officer was shot in the leg and critically injured in Pawpunka. And then there was another officer that was also injured on August 26 last year.
Yeah, we'll go through all the detail of that shooting in our episode on Thursday. You know, the detail we heard from the coroner or from council assisting yesterday about what unfolded at Paul Punker was, yeah, kind of shocking. And we'll talk more about that later this week. Freeman was holed up in a shipping container on this property, right?
Yeah, that's right. So this was a shipping container that was 40 foot long. It was quite kitted out for someone to live in quite roughly, it's fair to say. It had a sliding door at one end and a makeshift veranda sort of at the front of it. And as I said, it was on this farming property that...
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Chapter 6: How did the community react to Freeman's actions and subsequent death?
But police were negotiating with him for how long was it, Ash?
Yeah, so it was several hours that they were attempting to coax him out of that shipping container. We know that when he eventually did appear after those sort of tactics were used, gas canisters were deployed to try and get him out of the shipping container, that there were conversations that went on for several hours.
We heard that from Counsel Assisting that Freeman at times was quite erratic. He was coming in and out of the shipping container. He was, I think it's fair to say, goading police at one point, calling them thugs and cowards. He also defended the shooting deaths of those two police officers in Pawpunka as self-defense.
Now, an hour after the special operations group officers arrived at that property, Freeman actually came out of that shipping container and he was standing under that makeshift veranda. It was at that point that he was shot in the leg by one of the special operations group officers with what was described as a less than lethal foam baton round.
Now, that hit him in the leg, but he was able to retreat back inside that shipping container before they could arrest him. And then he sort of continued to be noncompliant and the negotiations continued on.
Yeah. At one point, I was surprised. It sounded like he was drinking maybe a beer, something from a bottle, and talking to police being like, yeah, come and have a beer with me. I think that the term you've used in goading is probably a pretty accurate description of his behavior from what it sounded like from counsel assisting yesterday. Ash, I mean, we know how this ends.
This is an investigation into how Dizzy Freeman died because he dies at that property. At what point do police change tack and try to kind of wrap up this confrontation?
Yeah, so we heard at around 7 o'clock a mobile phone was thrown at the door of the shipping container and Freeman was really encouraged to come out and pick that phone up to be able to speak directly with the negotiator. At that point he refused to take the phone and I think it was then that he made that comment, come and have a beer with me and we will talk about it.
He was also refusing to effectively show the police members his hands and that he wasn't armed properly. So after about two hours, the Special Operations Group officers got permission from the commander to put gas into that container. So people may have seen those photos of the Bearcat.
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