Lessons to be learnt from the end of this tragic road

April 1, 2026 — 5:00am

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When Desmond Filby – self-styled as “Dezi Freeman” – died in a hail of gunfire on Monday, he was already a kind of ghost.

The sheer remoteness of the Victorian wilderness into which he fled after murdering police officers Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart near Porepunkah in August last year, and the persistent suspicion that he might have taken his own life soon after, gave his brief and doomed reappearance the power of a revenant.

“Days like today offer a sobering reminder that policing happens while you sleep, when the media spotlight on an investigation dims and when everything seems lost and forgotten,” was how Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt put it.

More than 450 police officers had been involved in the fugitive’s pursuit, and well over $1 million was spent on the manhunt itself, with a further $2.5........

© The Age