NSW:Clock ticking in hunt for 'most wanted'

AAP General News (Australia)
12-18-2011
NSW:Clock ticking in hunt for 'most wanted'

By Vincent Morello, Police Reporter

SYDNEY, Dec 18 AAP - Police want to catch him and locals want him gone. But time is
ticking by in the search for alleged killer Malcolm Naden.

The team searching dense and rugged bushland near Nowendoc, in northern NSW, has been
expanded to more than 75 tactical ground and support crew, looking for the fugitive police
have labelled a "most wanted person".

Assistant Commissioner Carlene York heads the operation for Naden's capture.

"At some time it will have to be reduced," Ms York said of the scale of the operation.

"We can't keep these numbers up if we don't locate him.

"Over this next week we'll be looking at the plan."

Two PolAir helicopters, sniffer dogs and specialist officers equipped with high-tech
camouflage suits and assault rifles are searching an area locals say has a 30km radius.

Police consider Naden an expert bushman who has given them the slip on six previous
occasions in the past six years.

He disappeared from his grandparents' home in west Dubbo in 2005, days before his cousin,
24-year-old mother-of-two Kristy Scholes, was found strangled in his bedroom.

Naden is also suspected to have been involved in the disappearance of another of his
cousins, Lateesha Nolan, a few months earlier, and the rape of a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

On the morning of December 7, police were closing on him at a remote campsite near
Nowendoc when a shot rang out and an officer took a bullet in the shoulder.

No one saw the shooter, but days later police confirmed they had lifted a fingerprint
of Naden's from the hideout.

Some have compared Naden to notorious bushranger Ned Kelly, who killed three policemen
in the late 19th century before he was hanged and immortalised as an Australian icon.

Sydney University's Professor Richard Waterhouse, an expert in history of Australian
popular culture and rural Australia, says the comparison is a long shot, although Naden's
reputation as a survivalist will earn him some regard.

"There will be a sneaking admiration for his bushcraft, but it will also be recognised
that he's a cold-blooded killer," Prof Waterhouse told AAP.

If police locate Naden and even kill him, he would need another element to be remembered
as more than a fugitive.

"To really be turned into a martyr, he needs something a bit more than being a very
clever bushman," Prof Waterhouse said.

"He needs to be associated with some wider cause in the way that Ned Kelly was seen
as the hero of down-trodden selectors."

Jody, a local woman who works at the Nowendoc Trading Post, says Naden has been spotted
over the past 12 months.

He was seen on the road from Barrington, 75km to the south, and police raided a hut
about a year go but Naden had come and gone, she said.

One local resident had items stolen from his clothesline, and others have noticed food
missing that they reported to police only recently.

A woman on horseback about two months ago saw Naden run out of a hut and disappear
into the bush, Jody said.

Like Professor Waterhouse, she doesn't think Naden is a hero.

"I think everyone wants to see him caught because he's done some pretty terrible things,"

she said.

Locals estimate police are searching bushland within a 30km radius of where the officer
was wounded.

Paul Luckin, a doctor specialising in survival medicine, is often consulted by police
searching for people lost in remote areas.

He said police would have to block Naden's access to water and food that he steals
from properties or kills in the bush.

"People who have very little food to eat can still survive for quite extended periods,"

Dr Luckin told AAP from Queensland.

"He would eventually become weaker and less mobile and less able to flee."

Dr Michael Kennedy, of the University of Western Sydney, was a police detective for
18 years before he entered academia.

He says the pressure is on the police involved in the operation, which is likely to
be costing millions.

"You're either a winner or a loser," he says.

"You can't say, `We've almost found him. Isn't that good?'

"Naden will either disappear altogether or something will give."

AAP vpm/jjs/jl/wjf

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