Victoria police say they have arrested a 42-year-old woman and a 15-year-old boy, interviewed them and released them “pending further inquiries” in the manhunt for suspected gunman Dezi Freeman in Victoria’s high country.
As of Friday morning there had been no confirmed sightings of Freeman, 56, also known as Desmond Filby, since he allegedly shot and killed two police officers and injured a third when they came to execute an arrest warrant on him at a rural property in Porepunkah on Tuesday.
Guardian Australia confirmed police raided a property in Porepunkah on Thursday night as they continued to search for Freeman, who vanished into the bush at the base of Mt Buffalo.
Victoria police on Friday morning said they had “safely” arrested the woman and teenage boy after detectives and special operations police attended a Porepunkah address about 8.40pm.
Police said the pair were taken into custody, interviewed and released, and that their arrests formed part of the ongoing investigation into the deaths of Det Leading Sen Const Neal Thompson, 59, and Sen Const Vadim De Waart, 35.
Freeman’s location remained unknown, police said.
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Victoria police have not confirmed how many properties in the area they have left to search or whether they suspect anyone of harbouring the so-called “sovereign citizen” or pseudolaw adherent.
The Thursday night raid at Chandler Court was at least the third raid on a property in the Porepunkah area within 24 hours.
The house was quiet on Friday morning, but some residents appeared to be at home – with a note on the door saying “private”.
Two neighbours on the street told Guardian Australia they had not heard anything while the raid was conducted, although one said he saw flashing lights.
They said they did not know the people who lived at the property that police entered.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Friday morning said federal authorities would offer Victoria “every support that is required” to assist in the search for Freeman and confirmed the Australian federal police’s elite tactical unit had joined the operation.
“What’s occurred here is that we have offered the premier, Jacinta Allan, every support that is required. And this is a full court press,” Albanese said on Channel Nine’s Today show.
“This guy clearly is dangerous. He’s on the run and we want him caught and we want people who are traumatised in that north-east community of Victoria to feel safe again.”
One of Freeman’s former neighbours told Guardian Australia he had an intimate knowledge of Mount Buffalo and the bush around it and that he used to spy on her, including with drones.
Loretta Quinn, who lived next to Freeman in Myrtleford between 2017 and 2019, on the opposite side of Mount Buffalo to the site of the fatal shooting, said the local bush was “full on” but Freeman knew it really well.
The Victoria police deputy commissioner of regional operations, Russell Barrett, on Thursday conceded the search for Freeman would be “protracted” and police were navigating “really difficult terrain”, which includes dense bushland, caves and old mine shafts.
“It’s complex terrain, and it’s not something that we, even with our specialist resources, can move through quickly, because it’s it is dangerous terrain as well,” he said.
Barrett also confirmed that the officers who came to arrest Freeman in Porepunkah on Tuesday were using a warrant relating to a matter that had been investigated by Victoria police’s sexual offences and child abuse investigation teams.
Police on Friday were also continuing to deal with deteriorating weather conditions that were likely to make the search for Freeman more difficult.
The Bureau of Meteorology on Thursday released a severe weather warning that included parts of the alpine region, with initial snow showers in areas above 1,000m expected to move as far down as 600m.
Porepunkah is at 280m but the slopes of Mt Buffalo rise sharply from the outskirts of the town, with the summit at 1,723m.
A large sign had been erected on the road to the mountain, warning motorists that Mt Buffalo national park was closed.
With additional reporting by Josh Butler
