“Police are also keen to speak to anyone who may have heard this gunshot, including any members of the public who may have been in the area at the time and believe they could be the person responsible.”
Although they were forewarned of the technical operation, the sound of shots and sight of renewed police road blocks was a grim reminder for residents still struggling to recover from the tragedy and desperately hoping for closure.
Police have extensively searched dense bushland between the Buckland River and Mount Buffalo, but are now using firearm acoustic tests.Credit: Victoria Police
“They are trying to work out if that was a police pistol going off into Dezi’s person, or something else,” one Porepunkah resident said.
Just a day earlier, residents and businesses were relieved by the long-awaited return of a sense of normality to the Alpine region.
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Groups of visitors wearing homemade hats wandered from tourist parks to the Porepunkah Pub to celebrate Melbourne Cup Day, spilling into the streets in the first sign that the disastrous silence that has fallen on the area since the tragedy could be easing.
But while Freeman remains unaccounted for, an uncertainty hangs over the region as it tries to move on but can’t.
“Locals aren’t talking about it. It’s not that they don’t care, they do care, but they are probably just over it,” Bright cafe owner Leanne Boyd said. “It’s a complicated situation.”
There is also movement back at the Rayner Track property where Freeman lived, with nearby residents reporting in early October that cars were passing in and out, though they did not recognise the vehicles or those driving them as having been in the area before the police murders.
“There’s people back there. I wouldn’t have a clue who any of them are,” one resident said at that time.
“Nobody really wants to be involved because these people are obviously a bit nuts.
The Rayner Track home on the property where the fatal shootings occurred. Credit: Joe Atrmao
“We haven’t had any problems with them, we haven’t had any contact with them. Nobody really knows them.”
Andrew and Rebecca Swift, who own the property, returned later, with their presence welcomed as a sign things might eventually get back to normal.
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“Most of them seem to have come back. The same little cars that were there [before the murders] are back,” another resident said.
“Andy [Swift] is a beaut bloke.”
Rebecca Swift is working at the Wild Thyme Cafe in Bright, and down the road at another eatery where Freeman’s teenage son, who had also been living at the Rayner Track property at the time of the shootings, has been hired as an apprentice chef to help him get back on his feet.
Many locals have rallied around Freeman’s wife, Mali, and her children, drawing a clear line between them and the alleged actions of their husband and father.
“Apart from him [Dezi], the rest are fine,” said one Porepunkah resident supporting the family.
Amalia Freeman pictured in 2022 with the three children she has with Dezi Freeman.
With her car badly damaged during police searches and unable to return home to the bus that was the scene of the murders, Mali and her children struggled to find a place to live until supporters in the tight-knit towns stepped in.
Friends have provided her a house in Bright, and a group is providing meals and organising social gatherings to support them.
“Now she has a small baby and no car. Fortunately, at the moment, people are bringing her food and things,” one supporter said. “She has lots of help because everyone loves her.”
Fallen officers Vadim De Waart-Hottart and Neal Thompson.
Residents are also continuing to mourn the loss of Thompson and De Waart-Hottart, and trying to balance the complex and overlapping relationships within their towns.
Businesses are trying to cope with a huge economic loss and continued drop in tourist numbers, despite the reopening of the Mount Buffalo National Park.
One Bright retailer, who asked not to be named because he was still battling the state government over its “deplorable” assistance package, said he’d lost $70,000 and trade remained 25 per cent slower than normal years. Other hospitality businesses reported being up to 40 per cent down on normal trading.
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“We are still in it, there’s still trepidation to come here,” the retailer said.
“It’s like a bushfire, you don’t bounce back for six months. But this was more frightening than a bushfire.
“This was very different. There were 400 police in town and Bearcats driving around town, and that is pretty frightening.”
Bright and District Chamber of Commerce president Marcus Warner said the region’s recovery was slower than expected because some tourists didn’t feel confident returning to the area.
Eighteen Porepunkah businesses took up a first-round grant offer, but a second round of grants aimed at easing the longer-term impacts on the wider region have been much harder to come by.
The government’s criteria required Alpine region businesses to prove they had suffered losses of more than $10,000 between August 26 and the end of September, and at least a 40 per cent drop in trading compared with the previous year.
But because the 2024 snow season was one of the worst on record, businesses say that proving a significant drop in trade on that year alone has been almost impossible and want the government to base the losses on a wider comparison.
“We are asking them to revisit that. Unfortunately, at this stage, they have very strict criteria, and they’re not going to budge on it,” Warner said.
“But that money is still available. If it’s not used and not taken up by those businesses, they will look to try to fairly redistribute that back through the community and back through the local economy in another way.”
Bright cafe owner Leanne Boyd says businesses in the Alpine region are still impacted by the Porepunkah police deaths.Credit: Jason South
Cherry Walk Cafe owner Boyd had been optimistic when the grants were first announced but, like many, she is disappointed with the reality and the prolonged empty streets.
Boyd’s business has suffered a 29 per cent reduction and lost $20,000 in trading.
“Nearly nobody in Bright got that grant,” she said. “It was all talk. They had no intention of giving that grant to anybody or, if they did, they made it very difficult.”
A Victorian government spokesperson said 24 grants of $5000 each had so far been awarded under the $2.5 million support package.
Six kilometres down the road, Porepunkah Pantry owner Jacob Hanna is thankful he was able to access the grant, and even more hopeful that the returning Cup weekend crowds were a sign that people would return to the region.
“The grant was good, but it doesn’t make up for eight weeks of losing $3000-$4000. And I know there are a couple of businesses that were really hurting during that period who I don’t think were able to access the grant,” Hanna said.
“On the weekend, it kind of felt like we were back to what a public holiday weekend should feel like.
“Things have been picking up, particularly when the weather is good.”
But the confused feelings and raw emotions of the Porepunkah tragedy lie shallow beneath the surface for many locals.
A gate built by Dezi Freeman to keep people out of the Rayner Track property – complete with one obvious and another hidden security camera – which is now disabled and fastened with chains and padlocks.Credit: Grant McArthur
One reacted angrily when approached about how the area was recovering, claiming the media was trying to turn the incident “into something else” and shouting wild claims about the policemen’s deaths.
Later that same day, another long-time local, who’d known Freeman for many years, was at pains to state that such views were the minority.
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“People are angry at Dezi, he’s the one who brought this on,” he said.
For those living near the Rayner Track property, this week’s gunshots were a disturbing reminder of what has happened, and of the loss of Thompson in particular, a respected local officer.
“I just wish it would finish. I wish they would find him [Freeman] somewhere, dead or alive, just so we have closure,” one neighbour said.
“So many people think he’s like Ned Kelly. He’s not Ned Kelly – he’s a f—wit.
“I don’t think it could happen again. I don’t think there will be more issues – you can’t get that many f—ing idiots in one lifetime, can you?”
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