A YouTuber who broke into Dezi Freeman’s final hideout in north-east Victoria and shared footage of the police killer’s makeshift camp online with tens of thousands of followers has been charged by police.
Leif Hughes, who uses the online handle The Chaos Chronicles, shared a brief video over the weekend where he told his 51,000 subscribers that Victoria Police had been looking for him in connection to the footage, which he posted online weeks after Freeman was shot dead on March 30.
“I had to hand myself into the police and I have just been charged, which officially makes me connected to the Dezi Freeman case,” Hughes said in the video.
“Now, before people start stressing out, it will more than likely be maximum a fine for this. If they wanted to charge me with more, they could have, but they didn’t.”
Hughes, a self-described former bikie who claims to have spent “more time than anything” in prison, shared footage in April showing the interior of a shipping container at the remote property in Thologolong where Freeman spent his final days.
In the video, Hughes said he had gone to the remote property to fly his drone over Freeman’s camp. But after the drone crashed, he said that he and a cameraman entered the private property to retrieve it.
Once there, they decided to venture into the shipping container before exploring the rest of the property.
The footage shows an eclectic mix of objects scattered around the camp, from folded newspapers to a generator and a battery set-up, connected to an outdoor solar panel.
Two vitamin bottles – one of odourless wild fish oil, the other magnesium – can be seen on a dusty wooden table. Next to them are a box of tissues, an empty container that contained sliced peaches, a bottle of methylated spirits, a small notepad, a pen, and salt and pepper shakers.
A self-described sovereign citizen, Freeman, 56, went on the run in August last year after fatally shooting Victoria Police officers Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart in Porepunkah.
The officers had gone to the property as part of a group of 10 to carry out a search warrant in relation to historical child sexual abuse allegations against Freeman when he opened fire.
A man known for his ability to survive in the wild, Freeman then fled into the bush, sparking one of the biggest manhunts in the state’s history.
For more than 200 days, he was a wanted fugitive. Many believed him to be dead until he was lured out of his hideout 150 kilometres away from Porepunkah, seven months on.
After hours of unsuccessful police negotiations, Freeman emerged from the Thologolong hideout wrapped in a blanket before he opened fire with a weapon he had stolen from one of the slain officers. Police responded, killing him at the site.
The footage shared by Hughes amassed more than 120,000 views online and drew condemnation from Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.
On Sunday, Victoria Police confirmed Wodonga Crime Investigation Unit detectives had charged a 43-year-old man from Yea over the incident.
“The Yea man was charged on summons with one count of trespass,” a spokesperson said.
He will appear at Wodonga Magistrates’ Court in October.
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Marta Pascual Juanola is an investigative journalist at The Age. Before that, she was a crime and justice reporter. You can contact her securely via m.pascualjuanola@proton.me or Signal on +61 468 688 436.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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