'Strangler' goes bush as six kids lose two mums
By John Kidman Police ReporterAugust 21, 2005The Sun-Herald
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Police have launched a statewide hunt for a man whom they believe has murdered one woman and may have vital information about another who is missing, presumed dead.
Malcolm John Naden is thought to have gone bush after disappearing in the state's west two months ago.
Homicide detectives have spent weeks searching sheds and abandoned farmhouses for the 31-year-old fugitive, but their efforts have proved fruitless. They have now publicly named Naden as a key suspect in the strangulation killing of 24-year-old Kristy Scholes, a mother of two from Dubbo, on June 23.
Police have also described him as someone they believe could help with their investigation into the whereabouts of 24-year-old mother of four Lateesha Nolan, who vanished from the same Dubbo address in January.
Naden is a cousin of the two women and was a long-term resident of the house.
"There are so many people who have been affected, not in the least six little kids under the age of six, who have lost two mums," the women's uncle Ted Lancaster said."It's been just horrendous.
"Kristy's children have at least had a funeral service to attend and a place to go and visit their mummy.
"But Lateesha's little ones are still asking where she is, whether she still loves them and if they can go and look for her.
"This is what we're going through and it is absolutely horrible. It's been one long nightmare."
A week before Ms Scholes's death, she and her two children moved into the East Dubbo home of her partner's grandparents while their own home was being repainted.
Homicide squad Detective Sergeant Shane Conant said her four-year-old daughter, Libby, was found wandering in the front yard of the house, having escaped through a window, on June 22.
Relatives searched immediately but Ms Scholes's body was not found until the following morning, when police entered Naden's bedroom.
Sergeant Conant said Ms Nolan vanished after leaving her two youngest children, 19-month-old Shaqkaila and three-year-old Jayden, with their grandmother Florence Nolan on January 4.
Naden is Aboriginal, 177 centimetres tall, weighs 85 kilograms and is of medium build. He has an olive complexion, brown eyes, a shaved head and possibly a moustache and/or beard.