Father and son bush fugitives Gino and Mark Stocco, who evaded police for eight years, have pleaded guilty to a raft of charges, including murder.

The pair had been on the run before police caught up with them on a rural property north-east of Dubbo in central western NSW last October.

Police surrounded the property and arrested the Stoccos in dramatic scenes before finding the decomposing body of the property caretaker, Rosario Cimone, 68.

The manhunt for the pair had ramped up 12 days earlier when they shot at police at a roadside stop outside Wagga Wagga.

Appearing by audio-visual link in Dubbo Local Court on Wednesday, both men pleaded guilty to one count of murdering Mr Cimone, two counts of shooting to avoid apprehension related to the incident outside Wagga Wagga, and one charge of arson.

The Crown dropped charges of attempting to murder police.

The pair were eventually caught in a covert operation on October 29 after police received a tip-off from a member of the public who saw the Stocco's ute hidden under debris in the Goonoo State Forest, near Dunedoo.

The forest backed onto an extremely remote property, Pinevale, where the Stoccos had previously worked as farm hands.

The property's caretaker, Mr Cimone, had past links to cannabis cultivation and the mafia and neighbours suspected the Pinevale property was being used to grow cannabis.

Mr Cimone's family had reported him missing days before his decomposed body was found on the property by police.

The Stoccos built a sinister yet bizarre reputation as they ran amok through rural areas along the country's east coast for eight years.

They allegedly carried out moonlight raids to steal goods, went on vandalism sprees, stank "like a pair of polecats" and lived off the grid with no phones, licences, bank accounts or friends.

The sentencing process will begin in the NSW Supreme Court in August.