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One cousin dead, another missing and a third an outlaw suspected of their murders. Jordan Baker reports on a manhunt which has led police from opal fields to Dubbo zoo — and left a shattered family behind.
It was the most wholesome of childhoods: a loving extended family living in the mid-New South Wales town of Dubbo, with kindly aunties always ready with a hot meal and a boisterous group of cousins who swam in creeks, camped in the bush and revolved around their beloved grandparents like planets around a sun. Yet even the happiest families can raise a troubled child.
From age 12, when he moved in with his grandparents after repeated clashes with his father, it was obvious that in this clan, that child was likely to be Shirley's son, Malcolm Naden.
Yet, at that point, his problems were not too unusual and the family had no inkling of how much heartache he would cause.
It was just little things at first. He was always joking as a boy, but grew sullen as a teenager. He got work here and there as a shearer, and then as a skinner and boner at Dubbo abattoir, but it never seemed to last.
Increasingly, he bunkered in his room at the back of his grandparents' place, devouring books, such as karate manuals, bush survival guides and the memoirs of armed robber and standover man Chopper Read. He also read the Bible.
As years passed, Malcolm's obsession with religion grew more extreme. He was convinced the world would end. Unemployed, he shut himself in his room and left it only under the cover of darkness.
Some of his cousins put food though the window of his room, but no one ever knew whether he was in there or not, says Malcolm's aunt, Janette Lancaster.
"We didn't comment and I guess Mum and Dad didn't want to interfere in his life."
Then, in early 2005, there was a family tragedy. Malcolm's cousin, Lateesha Nolan, 24, a pretty, vivacious girl, popped into their grandparents' house and asked them to mind her four children while she went down to the shops. She was never seen again.
"We didn't link Malcolm with Lateesha," says their aunt, Janette. "We didn't even think about it. We thought someone had lured her out. She said she'd only be a little while and left her cigarettes and purse on the fridge back home."
In the following months, Malcolm, now 37, stripped his room of furniture, dumped his mattress outside the door and bolted it from the inside. He ripped up every photo of himself he could find.
He covered his windows with blankets and stuffed clothes in the gap under the door. He only left his room through the window at night and no one knew where he went. The food his grandfather left just sat there, rotting.
Six months after Lateesha disappeared, a cousin's wife, Kristy Scholes, 24, and her two children moved into the house that Malcolm shared with his grandparents, because her own house was being painted.
On June 22, Kristy's four-year-old daughter was found wandering in the front garden. Her mother could not be found.
The next day, Kristy's strangled body was discovered amid a pile of pillows and blankets in Malcolm's room. There was no sign of him; he had fled.
The abandoned room held more shocks for the family. "We found out he was up in the roof a lot of the time," Janette tells The Weekly. "There were holes in the roof where he could see into every room in the house — except Mum's — even the shower and the toilet.
"They also found a woman's shoe, size 10. We don't know who owned it. Apparently, there was a bloodstain on his floor. I don't think it was [Kristy's]. We won't know until we see him and find out."
A warrant was issued for Malcolm's arrest. He was on the run, with bush survival skills learned in his childhood, from the manuals he devoured and his time at the abattoir.
He was used to solitude. These skills would let him live off the land for as long as he needed to.
"We need to find this man," Detective Inspector Bryne Ruse said then. "Naden is very self-sufficient and disciplined."
The case had echoes of historic outback manhunts for Ned Kelly and mass murderer Jimmy Governor, a tale immortalised in Thomas Keneally's book, The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith.
"The Australian landscape lends itself to fugitives," says Professor Paul Wilson, chair of criminology at Queensland's Bond University.
"There are many people who disappear from crimes or bad marriages or whatever reason, and we don't know where they go. It's extremely difficult to catch people like [Malcolm], who know bush areas and who know how to survive. His record and his lifestyle over the five years would suggest that he's resourceful and very dangerous."
Back in Dubbo, six children were without mothers. Amid the grief, there was terror. Malcolm could return at any time — perhaps to see his shocked grandparents, whom he always adored.
The family was divided and Malcolm's parents became estranged from the others.
"It was a really close family," Janette says. "That's hurt us as well. With Kristy,
we do know what happened and we had a body to bury. With Lateesha, it's still an unknown. It's a bit frightening, knowing that Malcolm's out there. A lot of the family still have nightmares about him coming back."
Malcolm first surfaced in the tiny opal-mining town of Grawin, near Lightning Ridge, NSW, six months after Kristy's death. The opal fields are suited to a runaway — empty camps, deserted mines the size of ballrooms and furtive "noodlers" (those who scavenge through dumps for riches the miners missed), many of whom are on the run from the law.
There were reported sightings of Malcolm prospecting on an opal dump, but an operation by police failed to snare him.
A week later, parents taking their children on an overnight camping trip
at Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo were told it was to be cut short. They were not told why, but later learned that only the day before, a worker had alerted park authorities to a man living in the roof of an animal enclosure.
A major operation was launched. Officers sealed off the park, blocked roads and brought 60 police, sniffer dogs and a helicopter. They found expertly butchered kangaroo carcasses, but despite the massive police operation, Malcolm had slipped away.
In the years since, there have been many sightings of Malcolm across country NSW, but he remains on the run.
Police have struggled. It's tough enough to track down a criminal in a city. Finding a fugitive skilled in survival amid vast tracts of bush is almost impossible — especially if, as police suspected, he was being helped by sympathisers.
Homicide detectives were said to tease those on the Naden case. "Found Malcolm?" they'd joke. Many people wondered if he was dead.
In 2007, the NSW government offered a $50,000 reward for his arrest. It was the first time a reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of a known person since Ned Kelly (usually they are offered when there is no suspect).
Recently, there have been firmer leads. Blood left after a break-in on a remote property, about 40kms west of the NSW town of Scone, in 2008, matched Malcolm's DNA.
The next year, he was spotted breaking into homes and terrorising locals around Kempsey.
One woman said she woke to find him standing over her wearing a mask and camouflage gear. News of his presence prompted a near riot, with locals hunting him with knives, golf clubs and wood.
Later, his fingerprints were matched to crime scenes. More break-ins on the NSW North Coast were linked to Naden. One property was targeted in May this year and again in August, when pasta, rice, porridge, Weet-Bix, corn chips and gravy sachets were stolen. He also took a wet-weather jacket, binoculars, shorts and boots.
The residents, Chris Bebber and Jo-Anne Phillips, believe he had been watching them. "It has put the wind up all of us," Jo-Anne told the Newcastle Herald.
"What do we do? Do we fill up all the cupboards again and say, 'Merry Christmas, Malcolm. Come and help yourself?'"
Last year, a pig hunter found a campsite that may have been Malcolm's, in the remote Barrington Tops wilderness. There are fears he may also be hiding in roofs.
The manhunt took another dramatic turn last week when a police officer was shot when detectives stumbled upon one of Malcolm's remote campsites in Nowendoc in northern NSW.
Authorities tracked Malcolm to an isolated patch of bushland and sent specialist police teams to apprehend him.
As police closed in, one officer was shot in the shoulder by a man suspected to be Malcolm. Fingerprints found at the campsite have since proved the fugitive was there.
Police have now poured more resources into the manhunt, but fear bad weather will let Malcolm slip through their fingers again.
Hundreds of extra officers have joined the search and the reward for information leading to the capture of Malcolm has been increased to $250,000, as residents of the NSW mid-North Coast become increasingly nervous.
Still, no one is more nervous than Malcolm's family — they have lived like this for five years. Janette is not surprised Malcolm is still alive. "Goodness knows what he'll be like now psychologically. He's been on his own so long."
Meanwhile, six children are growing up without their mothers. Kristy's children have a grave to visit, but Lateesha's don't even have that. They have a picture of their mother in the hallway to keep their memories alive.
Kiesha, now 11, remembers her mum's favourite blue top and her pretty brown hair. Yet thoughts of their mother trigger fear of their distant cousin, Malcolm. "It's scary. It gives me the shivers sometimes," says Kiesha.
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