Where on earth is Malcolm Naden?

NEW SOUTH WALES: : Malcolm John Naden has been one of Australia’s most wanted men for six years. He holds the clues to what happened to two Aboriginal mothers in Dubbo in 2005. But despite a $100,000 bounty, police still can’t catch him. And the families of his alleged victims can’t move on. AMY MCQUIRE reports.

LOST IN TIME: Where on Earth is Malcolm Naden?

He’s almost an urban legend, a media myth who has terrorised regional New South Wales for six years.

He’s the man who roamed free amongst the uncaged animals of Dubbo’s Western Plains zoo, prompting a police stakeout followed by headlines that flashed around the world.

He’s the man who so alarmed the community of Bellbrook in Northern NSW that when its lone police officer took holidays, locals reportedly began taking their guns to bed.

He’s the man who lived in a roof at Barrington Tops.

He’s the man who incited a riot in West Kempsey, after he was apparently seen peering through a local’s window.

There are rumours he was dressed in female clothing at Redfern station. Claims have also surfaced that he worked as a public servant in Canberra.

In March this year, rumours surfaced he was seen at the Big W store in Inverell, in Northern NSW. The town has been talking about him ever since.

He is an elusive figure with a $100,000 bounty on his head, and the unenviable title of one Australia’s Most Wanted men.

He is Malcolm John Naden, wanted for one murder and the chief suspect in another.

Malcolm John Naden.

Some of the tales that surround Naden have been substantiated. Most of them have not. They are simply rumours that run as wild as the man himself, stoked by local gossip and fanned by an irresistible urge on the part of media to sensationalise.

Naden has been on the run for more than half a decade now, wanted over the June 22, 2005 murder of Kristy Scholes, a mother of two and the fiancé of his cousin.

He is also wanted for questioning over the disappearance of his first cousin, Lateesha Nolan, a mother of four who vanished about five months before Kristy’s body was discovered.

NSW police say there is no reason to believe Naden is dead. He can still, they believe, provide answers to the fates of two Aboriginal women who left behind six children between them. Why was Kristy’s body discovered in his bedroom? Why did Naden disappear at the same time?

And what happened to Lateesha, whose body has never been found?

It’s these unanswered questions that still haunt the families of Kristy and Lateesha, whose relatives stretch from Dubbo in the central west of the state, to Kempsey in the north, and even beyond the border into central Queensland.

While mums, dads, aunts, uncles and cousins struggle to cope with the loss, the pain of not knowing lingers. And with every new media report about an unsubstantiated sighting, it’s becoming harder and harder for them to separate fact from fiction.

Even now, the facts are hazy.

Margaret Walker is an aunty to both Malcolm and Lateesha, and is the grandmother of Kristy’s two children. She not only mourns the loss of her niece and future daughter-in-law, but also lives every day without knowing what has become of her nephew, a man she describes as quiet and nice, and who she once believed would never hurt a soul.

Margaret’s memories of Naden are inconsistent with his public profile, which pits him as a wild, dangerous man.

“The Malcolm we knew was nice,” says Margaret. “He would never hurt anybody.”

“…He used to read a lot. He used to read the bible and go to bible studies… but he wasn’t the sort who would preach.

“He was just very quiet.”

She says he had a strong connection to his grandparents, and would do anything to help them. He had lived with them since his mid-teens.

“He’d wash up for mum. He’d wipe up, clean the house, hang the clothes on the line. He wasn’t worried about what sort of job it was,” she recalls.

“He’d just do all of that.”

Not only was Naden quiet, but he was also painfully shy. He didn’t have many outside friends, but would hang around his male cousins, often visiting Margaret.