How long can an accused double killer and supposedly expert bushman stay on the run from highly trained cops in some of Australia’s most rugged terrain?
It took police seven years to catch Malcolm Naden after searching for the two-time murderer across hundreds of square kilometres of mountains, valleys, forests and plains.
Naden was once among the nation’s most wanted men, but the manhunt that eventually led to him being hauled in to face justice only ever had sporadic media attention.
Victorian ‘sovereign citizen’ Dezi Freeman gained international notoriety as soon as he was accused of shooting dead two policemen and disappeared into the wilderness.
Naden’s suspected crimes were appalling but not widely reported, at least initially, and the 31-year-old was given a handy head start on his pursuers.
It is still remarkable that once police were on his tail, Naden managed to stay ahead of authorities and largely out of sight from the middle of 2005 to the early months of 2012.
Two years into the search police posted a $50,000 reward – not for supplying information which led to Naden’s conviction but simply for him being brought into custody.
It was believed to be the first time a bounty had been offered for a wanted man in NSW since a price was put on the heads of homicidal brothers Jimmy and Joe Governor in 1900.
Malcolm Naden was on the run for seven years, wanted for two murders committed in his home town of Dubbo in western NSW. He is pictured after his capture in March 2012
Double killer and sex offender Malcolm Naden evaded police by stealing food and supplies from remote properties as he hid out in the Barrington Tops
Dezi Freeman (above) allegedly shot dead Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart on August 26 in Victoria’s high country
The Governors and their accomplice Jacky Underwood murdered nine people – men, women and children – across NSW and were declared outlaws, meaning they could be lawfully shot on sight.
Jimmy Governor was captured near Wingham on the mid-north coast in October 1900. Four days later, Joe Governor was shot dead by a grazier at Mount Royal, near Singleton, in the Hunter Valley.
Jimmy Governor was hanged in January 1901. His story was fictionalised in Thomas Keneally’s 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and the 1978 film of the same title.
Naden was wanted over the June 2005 murder of his cousin’s girlfriend Kristy Scholes and the disappearance five months earlier of his cousin Lateesha Nolan. He was also being sought over the aggravated indecent assault of a 15-year-old girl.
All Naden’s violent offending had been done in and around his home town of Dubbo where the Newell, Mitchell and Golden Highways intersect in the Orana region of central NSW.
Scholes was found strangled to death in Naden’s bedroom at his grandparents’ house, three days after he had headed for the hills. Nolan’s grave was never located.
Freeman allegedly shot dead Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart and wounded a third officer on August 26 at Porepunkah in Victoria’s high country.
Thompson, De Waart and eight colleagues had attended Freeman’s property to serve a warrant over historical sexual assault charges involving a minor when the 56-year-old opened fire on them.
Malcolm Naden murdered his cousin Lateesha Nolan, 24, at Sandy Beach near Dubbo
Malcolm Naden murdered Kristy Scholes, the girlfriend of his cousin, at a West Dubbo house
Freeman escaped into surrounding bushland and despite a manhunt involving several hundred police has still not been sighted.
Like Freeman, who is described as an experienced hunter and skilled survivalist with the ability to live off the land, Naden was portrayed as a master bushman. For a while he was also painted as a kind of folk hero.
Naden had learnt some Indigenous bushcraft while camping with his family as a kid but that didn’t make him Bear Grylls.
NSW homicide squad boss Detective Superintendent Mick Willing dispelled the myths about Naden as a modern-day bushranger after his capture.
‘He’s a psychopath,’ Willing said. ‘And he was lucky.’
‘The whole Ned Kelly, master-bushman thing started from the night we found Kristy’s body, because he had books on that sort of stuff there.
‘I remember he had Sun Tzu’s The Art of War laying there next to her body.’
One of the detectives who interviewed Naden at length after his arrest said the killer had no real plan for his life on the run.
This photograph of Malcolm Naden was used to identify him while he was hiding out at Dubbo’s Western Plains Zoo
Naden killed a Galapagos tortoise (above) at Western Plains Zoo and ate its insides
‘We had a whole number of theories that he was following trails, but he just said he was wandering,’ Detective Senior Constable Mangan said after Naden had been convicted of two murders.
The search for Freeman has been concentrated in the area surrounding Porepunkah, about 300km north-east of Melbourne. Naden also stuck close to home when law enforcement first tried to close in on him.
In the latter months of 2005 the onetime abattoir worker was spotted several times while he hid out in Dubbo’s Western Plains Zoo amid 1,000-odd captive animals.
He stole bananas from elephants, slept in the roof cavity of a manager’s hut and used coin-fed barbecues to cook himself meals. When his food supply was cut off Naden tore the head off a Galapagos tortoise and dined on its insides.
Zoo management first realised they had an intruder when bananas began disappearing from the elephant house. Uneaten and out-of-date food was being taken from a dumpster behind the zoo’s restaurant.
Feed bags for the elephant were located behind the rhino enclosure, forming a bed. Chocolate milk containers and pie wrappers were found around the bedding.
A private contractor hired to flush out the intruder began camping in the zoo grounds, dressed in a camouflage ghillie suit and armed with a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun.
From his observations, it appeared the intruder – who he soon believed to be Naden – had been splitting the sites where he cooked, ate and slept so if one were found it would not blow his whole cover.
CCTV footage of Malcolm Naden captured while he was on the run, wanted for two murders
Naden is pictured walking through bushland as the police net closed around him
The contractor patrolled perimeter fences, followed footpads and left a can of Coke near a culvert he believed Naden was using as an access route. The next morning the can was opened and half full.
Ten days into the hunt staff found bacon and sausage cooking on a barbecue hotplate about 5am, along with a toasting bread bun.
That afternoon, the contractor was confronted at Dubbo’s Commercial Hotel by a group of Aboriginal men who accused them of harassing their relative ‘Mal’.
Days after Naden’s fingerprints were identified in the manager’s hut, heavily armed police descended on Dubbo. Regular patrols of the zoo began but the fugitive escaped the cordon.
In 2008, Naden’s DNA was found at a property east of Scone in the Hunter Valley. In the following years, there were reported sightings of Naden at Lightning Ridge in far north-west NSW and at Kempsey on the mid-north coast.
In 2009, Naden was believed to have broken into about a dozen homes at Bellbrook, west of Kempsey, where one woman said she woke to find him standing over her in camouflage clothing and a mask.
In October 2010, a pig hunter stumbled upon what was believed to be a campsite Naden was using about 120km north of Newcastle in the Barrington Tops near Gloucester.
Hints as to Naden’s whereabouts continued with thefts of food and supplies from remote properties. During at least one of those break-ins the lonesome traveller took time to drink beers from the fridge and trawl the internet for pornography.
Heavily-armed police hunt for fugitive killer Malcolm Naden during his seven years on the run
Malcolm Naden after his capture near Gloucester, north of Newcastle, on March 22, 2012
Malcolm Naden is escorted by police at Manning Base Hospital on the mid-north NSW coast
At another home Naden reportedly stole a rifle and replaced it with another.
Detectives would learn Naden’s habit was to break into a premises and gorge himself on as much food as he could physically eat until he could not swallow another mouthful.
The original $50,000 reward offered for Naden’s arrest in January 2007 was doubled in February 2011 and raised again to $250,000 in December that year when he shot a policeman.
A specialist team had been conducting an operation after the discovery of another Naden campsite at Nowendoc in the same mountain range when he put a bullet into the shoulder of Senior Constable Brad McFadden.
Sightings of Naden in the area increased and police set up secret cameras which filmed him walking through bushland. By December 2011 they had brought fixed-wing aircraft with thermal imaging equipment and helicopters.
Naden was finally caught on March 22, 2012 when 20 police surrounded a cabin at Rawdon Vale, about 30km west of Gloucester. He was bitten by a police dog and taken to hospital.
Naden told police that after the failed attempt to apprehend him in Dubbo he had set out walking 350km east to Barrington Tops and remained at large for so long by making the most of the available resources.
According to Willing, Naden said he had ‘just thought day-to-day, about surviving’ and always been meticulous about hygiene.
Malcolm Naden was sentenced to life for murdering Lateesha Nolan and Kristy Scholes
‘He actually brushed his teeth,’ Willing said. ‘He knew that a minor ailment could be the end of him.’
Naden denied a police theory – also promoted in the search for Freeman – that he had community help to remain in hiding.
Willing said: ‘He told us, “I couldn’t trust anyone”.’
Naden ultimately pleaded guilty to the murders of Lateesha Nolan and Kristy Scholes and the attempted murder of Senior Constable McFadden. He was sentenced to life in jail and remains in jail.
A thigh bone belonging to Ms Scholes was found on the banks of the Macquarie River south of Dubbo in November 2016, near where Naden told police he had buried her remains.
