Dezi Freeman and the Long Legacy of Bush Fugitives in Australia

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The Australian bush has served as a hiding place for fugitives from the law for centuries, as police search high and low for a “modern-day Ned Kelly” accused of killing two officers in cold blood.

Dezi Freeman has sparked a massive manhunt after allegedly shooting dead detective leading senior constable Neal Thompson and senior constable Vadim De Waart.

He was last seen fleeing into dense bushland on Tuesday morning after the officers and eight others attempted to serve a search warrant at a Porepunkah property in Victoria’s high country.

The dangerous and complex bush terrain is hampering search efforts, police admit.

The 56-year-old suspect, believed to be potentially armed, is familiar with the “bush like the back of his hand” and has been described by locals to AAP as a “modern-day Ned Kelly”.

Kelly and other bushrangers operated in rural areas in the late 18th and 19th centuries, hiding and escaping into the bush after committing crimes.

In more modern times, accused murderers have deployed the same tactic to evade the law.

Malcolm Naden

Malcolm Naden was on the run for seven years after neighbour Kristy Scholes was discovered strangled in the bedroom of his grandparents’ house in Dubbo in June 2005.

His cousin Lateesha Nolan, also 24, had gone missing in January that year, with the mother of four’s bones found in 2016.

Between 2005 and 2012, Naden broke into multiple properties while evading capture in the bush, taking thousands of items of food and clothing, along with several weapons.

A team of five police officers are walking along a dry, grassy riverbed, with a steep, wooded bank rising behind them. The officer on the far right is wearing a white forensic suit.

In 2016, police confirmed that a bone found near a Dubbo river belonged to Lateesha Nolan. Source: AAP / Vision Communicators / Brian Harvey

Police cornered him near a campsite at Nowendoc in 2011 but he escaped after shooting a policeman in the shoulder.

A reward of $50,000 for information leading to Naden’s capture rose to $250,000 by the time he was finally arrested in 2012 on private property near Gloucester, in mid-north NSW.

The former shearer and abattoir worker was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the 2005 murders.

Gino and Mark Stocco

Former father-and-son fugitives Gino and Mark Stocco spent eight years on the run from police for property offences and other crimes.

They opened fire on highway patrol officers to avoid arrest near Wagga Wagga, sparking a major manhunt in October 2015.

The pair were tracked to an Elong Elong property in central west NSW and arrested by heavily armed officers.

A man in a baseball cap with a towel draped over his shoulders is being escorted by two plainclothes police officers. He is handcuffed and appears to have a bruised face.

Gino Stocco and his son Mark were arrested in Dunedoo in north-west NSW on 28 October 2015. Source: AAP / David Moir

Detectives later discovered the body of missing Italian-born caretaker Rosario Cimone.

Gino later told a psychiatrist he and his son began an itinerant life working on farms after a bitter separation from his wife and the pair’s jailing for burglary.

He said he was “relieved it’s all over” before the father and son were sentenced to respective 40-year jail terms.

James D’Zilva

James D’Zilva repeatedly eluded police in the Yarra Ranges bushland to Melbourne’s east after stabbing Senior Constable Chris Bullen at a service station in Healesville on December 7, 2010.

One officer said the dreadlocked, barefoot bushman had the speed and endurance to run at the Olympics.

D’Zilva was eventually picked up by police in the inner Melbourne suburb of Richmond on January 5, 2011.

Police said D’Zilva, who had schizophrenia and was ultimately sentenced to 604 days in jail, appeared to make occasional forays into the city fringe to steal food without any assistance or a permanent camp.