Relatives 'dumbfounded' by news prison escapee handed himself in after three decades

Tonight, Darko Desic is sitting in a cell in Sydney's Silverwater Jail.

The 64-year-old is back behind bars after escaping from prison nearly 30 years ago.

Darko had been living a double life, hiding in plain sight at Avalon on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

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Ten days ago - after his cash work dried up due to COVID-19 – he was homeless and living in the sand dunes behind Avalon Beach.

The man who locals knew as Dougie decided he could do it no more and turned himself into police.

For just under three decades, the fugitive lived under the radar as a hunted man with no family and no support.

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When Anthony Desic and his partner Joelie Sharp saw the news about his remarkable story, they put two and two together.

"I just thought, 'Wow, this is him, like, this is the man I've heard about pretty much my whole life,'" Anthony told me.

"Yeah, knew straight away … I could see the resemblance."

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It turns out Anthony is Darko's cousin. He was born a year after Darko broke out of Grafton prison.

Anthony's father Nikola was Darko's uncle.

"They said he was just an amazing man," Anthony remembered.

"Like he was generous, he was humble … very hard working and very trustworthy.

"They just loved him to death, especially my father … he just saw Darko as like his own son."

Darko doesn't even know Anthony exists or that Nikola died two years ago.

"I'm just dumbfounded that he's still around," he said.

"I thought that he was back in Croatia and we'd never heard from him again.

"But to see him on the news and this whole time he's been down in Sydney, down at Avalon, it's just … it's crazy."

In 1990, the Yugoslavian-born Darko was arrested for supplying cannabis and sentenced to three years' jail.

Darko feared he would be deported back to the war-torn country and persecuted because he had fled to avoid national service.

"I don't blame him," Anthony explained.

"The former Yugoslavia back then was a pretty brutal place.

"I'm pretty sure that if he would have went back there … the punishment that was waiting for him would not have been good for him."

So, in July 1992, the then 35-year-old allegedly used a hacksaw blade and bolt cutters to break out.

At one stage he even featured on Australia's Most Wanted.

Darko fell off the face of the planet and eventually found casual work as a stonemason. He had no driver's licence and no Medicare.

He even resorted to pulling out his own damaged teeth with pliers because he was scared that if he went to a dentist his true identity would be revealed.

"He has pretty much lived this whole time without having proper access to the resources that most of this country has," Anthony said.

Anthony is now reaching out to the cousin he never knew.

He wants his cousin to have a second chance.

And he isn't alone in wanting to give Darko, or "Dougie", a second chance.

When Avalon local Peter Higgins heard about Dougie, he wanted to do something to help.

"Really tugged at my heart strings," Mr Higgins said.

"I was deeply touched.

"I think the fact that he ended up sleeping on the beach because he was out of money - no Centrelink - just was an indicator that that guy had hit rock bottom."

Shell Avalon used to live next door to Dougie.

"He was a quiet, retiring guy who kept very much to himself," Ms Avalon told me.

"He's lived … two completely separate lives … the life he was living daily and the past life that he's had to keep secret."

At home in Coffs Harbour, Anthony is writing a letter to his cousin.

He'll include old family photos and the letter begins with "you probably don't know me".

"I'm just so grateful for the community of Avalon," Anthony told me.

"I am so grateful that there are people out there that actually care and that are actually there to support people that are in need and who are in trouble."

His partner Joelie added: "He's had no wife, no children, no family."

"I really feel for him … he would have felt really alone."

Darko will remain behind bars at Silverwater jail until he appears in court next week.

Lawyer Paul McGirr is now trying to determine what legal steps can be taken to help free him.

He's taken the case on - free of charge.

"You'd look at a pardon," he told me.

"You'd look at the intervention of the government, if possible, the attorney-general."

Mr McGirr believes Darko has paid his price to society.

"People are going to be saying, 'well, hang on, he got given a sentence'. Forget whether it was fair back then or not – 'he's got to serve the rest of it' - but I believe he's served his sentence," he said.

Anthony just hopes his long-lost cousin is watching A Current Affair tonight.

"No matter how lonely you feel right now, you have someone out there that cares about you and that's willing to meet up with you and catch up with you and willing to give you a new chance at life," Anthony told me.