For 12 months fugitive father and son, Gino and Mark Stocco, worked on a NSW stud farm.
They lived on a Coolatai property in northern NSW not far from the Queensland border, doing handyman and caretaker work, while building trust with owner Ian Durkin and his family.
Five months ago, after a disagreement with Mr Durkin, the pair up and left without a word, disappearing in the middle of the night.
Two days later Mr Durkin found fences had been cut, holes drilled through tyres and three guns were missing from the gun safe.
A month later, more tyres were drilled and 36 fences cut.
Mr Durkin has no doubt it was 58-year-old Gino Stocco, then known as John, and his 35-year-old son, though the pair have not been arrested or charged.
He suspects the duo had a back-up plan when they left his place, moving quickly on to their next victims.
"I think that's their MO," Mr Durkin told AAP on Wednesday.
"They're fine the whole time until there's a falling out."
For the past six months Mr Durkin has studied the pair, who are wanted in three states for a string of offences committed in NSW and Queensland.
They've been on the run for eight years, evading police while hiding in plain sight, he says.
"Part of that is moving from state to state. And they've always got a plan B," Mr Durkin said.
"They travel so much they know all the back roads and shortcuts too."
Mr Durkin described the Stucco father and son as "a bit strange".
"There were a few times they might say something weird but there are plenty of people you might say are a bit strange or eccentric, but they don't go shooting at police," he said.
Further south in NSW, Donna Tidswell, from the central west town of Canowindra, is another who strongly suspects of being a victim of the pair's "evilness" and "revenge attacks".
The difference is that she never met them.
Instead, the Stoccos lived on a property in 2011 that she and her husband Guy purchased in 2013.
"Then in 2014 we had an arson attack in the middle of the night, 72 tyres were drilled, tractors and sheds burnt, the whole workshop burnt," Ms Tidswell told AAP.
"We lost nearly $200,000 worth of stuff."
Her son spotted two men fleeing the scene in a vehicle with numberplates that matched some found in a car dumped near Wagga Wagga last week, where the duo allegedly shot at police.
"They're dangerous. Obviously they're not going to give up easily," Ms Tidswell said.
