Victoria Police are refusing to reveal if Dezi Freeman’s body has been released to his family after he was shot dead by officers during a standoff last month.
Freeman, 56, was shot on March 30 by heavily armed officers during a siege at an off-grid compound in Victoria’s northeast, seven months after he went on the run, having killed two police officers.
After an enormous police operation to find the fugitive, officers located Freeman in a converted shipping container, or a ‘long caravan’ as they called it, at Tholo Farm near Walwa, 188km northeast of Porepunkah, where he fled from last year.
Footage showed him wrapped in a blanket when he emerged from the shipping container, which appeared to be a makeshift campsite, before pulling a gun from underneath and fatally pointing it at police. He was hit by up to 27 bullets.
His body was then transported by police as part of the formal identification process.
However, when asked by the Daily Mail on Tuesday morning if Freeman’s body had been returned to his family, a Victoria Police spokesperson bluntly answered: ‘This information is not provided to media.’
Usually a body will be released to families within five to seven days, unless the coroner needs to do a more extensive investigation.
‘The coroner will authorise the release of a deceased person as soon as they can,’ the Coroners Court of Victoria’s website states.
Dezi Freeman was shot by armed police during a standoff near Walwa last month
Victoria Police will not reveal if Freeman’s body has been released to his family yet
Chief Commissioner Mike Bush declined to address questions suggesting a tip-off had prompted the operation
‘Two things need to happen first: A funeral director applies for the release of the deceased [and] the coroner is satisfied all required examinations are complete for the investigation.’
It’s understood St John Ambulance provides the Coroners Court with transport services in metropolitan areas and repatriation services to regional Victoria.
It’s expected the coroner will look into the circumstances of the seven-month period Freeman was on the run, as well as the deaths of the two police officers and Freeman, in detail, to establish how they died and what could be done to prevent a similar incident happening.
As part of that process, a brief of evidence will be compiled, witnesses will be called to give evidence and the judicial official will also study the final moments of Freeman’s life and the decision to shoot him.
Freeman’s family, including his wife and eldest son, Koah, are grieving the loss of the cop killer.
‘I am not here to defend my father’s actions because I know what he did was wrong,’ Koah, 21, wrote in an emotional Facebook post hours after his father’s death.
‘What I’m here about however is seeing so called ‘friends’ and people who I thought were nice people say some questionable things.
‘I hope you all realise that I am looking at everything you are saying, and that you all realise how that is making me feel. I know you people all have thoughts to share about the situation that has been happening.’
He went missing on August 26 last year after he gunned down Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart
Freeman disappeared from Porepunkah on August 26 after he fatally gunned down Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, 34.
A third officer was seriously injured in the attack.
The officers were part of a team who’d gone to the sovereign citizen’s property to serve a warrant over historic sex crime allegations.
Freeman, whose real name was Desmond Filby, was last seen armed with the dead cops’ guns near his Rayner Track property, sparking the biggest search operation in Victoria Police history.
Police used cadaver dogs and drones to search more than 100 homes and properties around rocky terrain littered with caves and mineshafts, while the area was battered by blizzards, hail, damaging winds and bushfires.
