Search crews and specialist dogs are trudging through dense and perilous bushland as they continue a desperate hunt for Australia's most-wanted fugitive Dezi Freeman.
The latest five-day search to find the 56-year-old began on Monday with cadaver dogs and specialist officers from across the nation descending on Mount Buffalo National Park.
Freeman allegedly shot dead Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart as a team of police officers were attempting to serve a warrant at his home in the small northeast Victorian town of Porepunkah in late August.
Photos show dozens of police and volunteers gathering at a staging point, illuminated by overhead floodlights before they embarked on their search mission.
Footage shows crews moving through waist-high shrubbery as they slowly scaled down steep mountainous embankments, while specialist sniffer dogs also scoured a 1.3km area of bushland, about the size of 52 football ovals, with their handlers.
The search ended on Wednesday without any breakthroughs, police said.
The fresh operation on Mount Buffalo is focusing on a region close to a previous search area, based on intelligence gleaned about a gunshot that rang out about two hours after the fatal shootings.
Police on Monday revealed there had been no sightings of Freeman since the shooting, nor any signs of life since he disappeared into the bush.
Freeman was either dead in the national park, escaped the park and was being harboured by others or had escaped the area without any help, Detective Inspector Adam Tilley said.
He said police "believed strongly" Freeman was dead somewhere in the area.
"I'm not saying that he is 100 per cent confirmed dead. I am saying there is a strong possibility that he is deceased on Mount Buffalo and we just haven't located him," Insp Tilley said.
Asked if that was the strongest possibility in this situation, he said: "It is at the moment, yes."
Detective Senior Constable Thompson, 59, was just a week away from retiring, while Senior Constable de Waart-Hottart, 34, was on temporary assignment to the area.
More than 400 police deployed in the days after the killings failed to find Freeman, who was last seen fleeing into dense bushland in the alpine region.
Officers have investigated thousands of pieces of intelligence, including numerous tip-offs from the public, with the hunt for Freeman remaining the force's "number one priority".
A $1 million reward, the largest in the state's history, and the possibility of indemnity for information leading to the fugitive's capture is on offer.
