Mother of AFL players recounts visit from Dezi Freeman detectives

Wed 17 Jun 2026 at 3:31pm

Wed 17 Jun 2026 at 3:31pm

In short:

The mother of AFL players Ben and Sam Reid has confirmed on her podcast that police investigating the movements of Dezi Freeman searched her home in Buckland in Victoria's north-east yesterday.

Kay Reid said police took their phones and copied her hard drive while executing a warrant.

She said she and her husband have nothing to hide.

Kay Reid, a regional Victorian businesswoman and the mother of AFL premiership players Ben and Sam Reid, has confirmed police searched her home as part of Taskforce Summit's investigation into the movements of police killer Dezi Freeman after he went on the run in September last year.

On a podcast which Ms Reid co-hosts, she revealed that police had attended her and her husband Bruce's Buckland home, near Porepunkah in north-east Victoria, to execute a search warrant.

She also posted photos of police inside her home.

Ms Reid said the couple had "nothing to hide" and that they did not know why police were searching their property.

Police arrived at their home at 7am on Tuesday and took their phones, copied her hard drive and searched the property, she said.

"Well, probably to do with the Dezi stuff, I don't know. Because we knew him. I don't really know, they couldn't really tell us," she said.

"We don't really know why they were there. I'm going to have to chase up that magistrate".

She said there were nine police officers at their home for three hours but they were not arrested and that, while they were there, she told officers to do research about mRNA vaccines and the constitution.

Freeman, a self-described sovereign citizen, shot dead two police officers and injured a third at his home on a Porepunkah property in September last year when officers arrived to investigate an alleged sexual assault involving a child under the age of 16, as well as allegations he tried to involve a child in the production of child abuse.

Police also had a warrant for his devices, which they suspected contained files of child abuse material.

After shooting officers Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart, Freeman fled into the bush and remained on the run for 216 days until he was confronted by police at a property in Thologolong near the New South Wales border.

He was shot by specialist officers after a three-hour standoff.

Victoria Police's Taskforce Summit is investigating Freeman's movements over the seven months and who may have helped him survive and evade police.

Police executed seven warrants at properties across Victoria and New South Wales yesterday morning as part of the investigation, arresting a 64-year-old Lucyvale man in Wodonga.

He was interviewed and released without charge.

Three properties were searched in Buckland and Stanley, in the region near Porepunkah, as well as Lucyvale, further to the north-east of Victoria.