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It seemed that Dezi Freeman, a sovereign citizen who murdered two police officers and wounded a third at a rural property about 200km north-east of Melbourne in August 2025, had vanished.

After the shootings, he fled into thick bushland near Mount Buffalo, and then, like the fog that shrouds the mountain’s summit, he evaporated without a trace.

What was left was a soup of misinformation, rumour and speculation, as befitting a man who spent years before the killings at Porepunkah unspooling conspiracies, a habit hypercharged by the pandemic.

Among the theories were that Freeman had fled interstate or overseas. That he had a well-stocked bunker in the undergrowth. That he killed himself only minutes after the shooting using a police handgun, which was the theory investigators themselves said they favoured.

And yet the truth was perhaps even more compelling: he was shot dead near Thologolong on Monday, at another rural property about 100km from where he was last seen, after a standoff with police. There had been no confirmed sightings of him for seven months.

Victorian police chief commissioner, Mike Bush, gave no detail about how Freeman was found, and little detail about the circumstances of his death.

He said police believed Freeman was armed when he was killed on Monday morning at a building described as a cross between a caravan and a shipping container.

Officers were involved in a standoff with him for about three hours after demanding his surrender, but Bush could not confirm whether Freeman shot at police.

He said police would also investigate if Freeman still had weapons taken from the officers he had slain, and who helped him during his time on the lam.

But it was clear this was no chance encounter. Police suspected Freeman was there – either after receiving a tipoff or because of other intelligence – and likely spent days surveilling the site before moving in.

Bush confirmed later on Monday that police had been at the scene for about 24 hours, and spotted no other people at the site.

Police had attempted to contact the owner of the property.

Freeman left the building he was staying in with something similar to a blanket cloaking his shoulders, Bush said, before he “presented” a gun to police. Multiple officers from the special operations group then fired on Freeman.

“The deceased was given every opportunity to resolve this peacefully and did not take that option,” Bush said.

“I have seen video of the deceased leaving the building and presenting a firearm at our officers … that action took away any discretion our officers had to resolve this peacefully.

“Everyone wanted this to end peacefully, everyone wanted closure, unfortunately we only have one of those two things.”

There was a $1m reward for information about the case, but Bush said whether that would be paid would remain confidential.

The first people contacted by police after the shooting were the families of Det Sen Const Neal Thompson and Sen Const Vadim de Waart-Hottart.

Bush said the death would bring them closure. Closure too, he said, would come for the force, which had conducted the largest manhunt in state history, and to the town of Porepunkah.

The region opened again to tourists last year, and was no longer visibly swarming with police – just last weekend, hundreds of people trekked across Mount Buffalo for a trail run.

There was a lingering unease and tension, however, beneath the surface, of the kind that could only shift when Freeman was dead or captured.

While that may now pass, questions remain about how the tragedy occurred, how Freeman evaded police for so long, and what will come next.

Little is known about the child sexual abuse allegations that led police to Freeman’s door in the first place.

The risk assessment the force conducted resulted in 10 officers executing the warrant – far more than usually necessary. The fact it still ended in bloodshed has not come under public scrutiny.

It is unclear whether police had intelligence that Freeman could be armed, despite having his firearms licence cancelled, and how seriously they considered his previous threats of violence towards police. It is also unclear how Freeman came to be armed.

Freeman was something of a known quantity, having frequently butted heads with police during the pandemic. But did that familiarity breed complacency when it came to planning his arrest? And should greater care have been taken in dealing with a sovereign citizen, a person who does not believe the law applies to them?

How Freeman slipped under the guard of hundreds of police, and stayed hidden for so long, will also be examined.

“We will track backwards from here to work out how long he’s been here, and who helped him to be here,” Bush said.

Bush was asked on Monday morning whether public statements by police backing the theory that Freeman was most likely dead were a “tactical” decision. Were police making it seem that they thought Freeman was dead as a ruse so he felt more at ease, more liable to slip up?

“There was a lot to suggest that Freeman had taken his own life,” Bush said.

“But I can tell you standing here that our investigators – that’s why they’re professionals – keep their mind open to every possible outcome and follow every possible lead.”

Members of Freeman’s family said, too, that they believed Dezi was dead: that he had fled the Porepunkah property, secreted himself in a place where he thought he would never be found, and shot himself.

Mali, his wife and mother of his three children, said that his last words to her before he disappeared into the bush were “I’ll see you in heaven”. Earlier this month, she was cleared of charges of “indictable obstruction of police”.

Family members did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Bush suggested Freeman was helped by others “in this escapade”, and made plain he had a theory about what the fugitive did in the 24 to 48 hours immediately after the shooting, but would not share that publicly.

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, said: “Today, an evil man is dead.

“It’s over. And it’s good this individual is no longer a threat to the Victorian community.

“But to the families of Neal Thompson and Vadim De Waart-Hottart, this will never be over.”

There are internal investigations and an inquest – the coroner travelled to the crime scene on Monday – to come.

As police swarmed another rural property on Monday, just as they had done seven months earlier, the prevailing sense was one of closure and justice; of a chapter closing.

But another has just begun: processing why this tragic shooting of three police officers happened, and uncovering what could be done to stop it happening again.