I Led the Manhunt for a Killer Who Lived Like a Hermit

Summary

Episode Summary: "I Led the Manhunt for a Killer Who Lived Like a Hermit"

Podcast: What It Was Like
Host: Julian Morgans
Guest: Former Detective Inspector Ricky Hennessey
Release Date: May 23, 2025

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of What It Was Like, host Julian Morgans delves into the harrowing seven-year manhunt for Malcolm Naden, one of Australia's most elusive criminals. Through an in-depth conversation with former Detective Inspector Ricky Hennessey—the lead investigator responsible for Naden’s capture—listeners gain an intimate understanding of the complexities involved in tracking a serial killer who chose to live as a hermit in the vast wilderness of New South Wales.

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Background on Malcolm Naden

Malcolm Naden became infamous in Australia between 2005 and 2012 for evading the police while suspected of the disappearance and murder of two young women. After the murder of his cousin, Leticia Nolan, in January 2005, and the subsequent killing of Christy Scholes six months later, Naden vanished into the bush, successfully avoiding detection for seven years by adopting a reclusive lifestyle.

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Ricky Hennessey’s Journey into Law Enforcement

Ricky Hennessey’s fascination with criminal psychology and forensic science began in his childhood, where he was captivated by stories of serial killers and investigative documentaries. "[09:44] Ricky Hennessey: I remember writing stories about serial killers when I was in second class and grew up watching documentaries and had a real, real interest in how the police catch criminals."

This early interest propelled him into a career in law enforcement, eventually leading him to the homicide squad where he would become instrumental in the pursuit of Malcolm Naden.

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The Elusiveness of Malcolm Naden

Naden’s ability to remain undetected stemmed from his meticulous efforts to disconnect from modern society. He avoided using phones, credit cards, and maintained minimal interactions with others. Living in primitive conditions, primarily scavenging for food and supplies, Naden managed to conceal his presence despite the expansive search efforts by the police.

"[15:32] Ricky Hennessey: Police use methods that rely a lot on humans being pretty normal, living a mainstream sort of life, an attachment to technology. With Malcolm, none of that applied. He didn't use a phone, he wasn't on the grid."

Naden’s decision to reside in the roof of the Dubbo Zoo provided him with access to food and shelter, allowing him to sustain his reclusive existence for years.

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Challenges of the Manhunt

The vastness of the New South Wales bush and Naden’s deliberate avoidance tactics posed significant challenges. Traditional police methodologies, which depend on tracing digital footprints and regular social interactions, were ineffective against someone who had severed all conventional ties.

"[16:50] Ricky Hennessey: He was underestimated a lot... No one expected someone to survive like that for so long."

Ricky Hennessey recounts the difficulty of searching an area "the size of a small European country," emphasizing the frustration and exhaustion experienced by the search teams.

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The Turning Point: December 7th Incident

The manhunt took a dramatic turn on December 7th when Naden spotted police officers approaching his campsite. Anticipating confrontation, he attempted to ambush the tactical team. A gunshot was fired, striking an officer in the shoulder. "[35:29] Ricky Hennessey: As soon as the shot rang out, they all dropped to the ground." This incident heightened the urgency and pressure on the investigation team to capture Naden swiftly.

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The Final Capture

Utilizing advanced surveillance technology and intelligence support, Hennessey and his team were able to narrow down Naden’s potential locations. On March 21st, a surveillance trigger at a property in Gloucester led to the tactical team surrounding Naden. "[43:17] Ricky Hennessey: He was terrified of the dog and what the dog could do... he sat there and blind him up and shot him from the campsite."

Naden attempted to flee but was cornered and ultimately subdued by the tactical unit. "[46:53] Ricky Hennessey: We got the radio call that he was... someone in custody and... that's it finally was."

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Psychological Insights and Motivation

Throughout the investigation and subsequent interrogation, Ricky Hennessey explored Naden’s psychological state. Naden admitted to his actions but exhibited a complex relationship with his crimes. "[54:39] Ricky Hennessey: He was trying to shock the reader... something like evil looks like."

Naden’s motivations appeared to be rooted in sexual compulsions rather than sheer desire to kill. His isolation was partly a coping mechanism to prevent further violence, illustrating the intricate balance between his mental health issues and criminal behavior.

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Impact on Ricky Hennessey

Investigating such a case profoundly affected Ricky Hennessey personally and professionally. He reflects on how exposure to the darker aspects of humanity has shaped his approach to parenting and his outlook on life.

"[66:51] Ricky Hennessey: It's a generation apart. I think everyone parents different now for obvious reasons."

His transition to working with the Children's Guardian in New South Wales underscores his commitment to preventing abuse and protecting vulnerable populations, a testament to his dedication forged through challenging investigations.

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Concluding Thoughts

The episode concludes with Ricky Hennessey expressing a sense of closure achieved through the successful capture of Malcolm Naden, despite the lingering challenges in providing complete closure to the victims’ families. "[67:20] Ricky Hennessey: Knowing the prevalence of offending, particularly sexual offending against children, makes me very, very cautious for my kids around anyone, literally anyone."

Julian Morgans wraps up the discussion by highlighting the resilience and relentless pursuit embodied by law enforcement professionals like Hennessey in bringing justice to complex and prolonged criminal cases.

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Notable Quotes

• Ricky Hennessey [09:44]: "I remember writing stories about serial killers when I was in second class and grew up watching documentaries and had a real, real interest in how the police catch criminals."

• Ricky Hennessey [16:50]: "He was underestimated a lot... No one expected someone to survive like that for so long."

• Ricky Hennessey [35:29]: "As soon as the shot rang out, they all dropped to the ground."

• Ricky Hennessey [54:39]: "If you read the letter in isolation, you would absolutely... it's designed to shock."

• Ricky Hennessey [66:51]: "I think everyone parents different now for obvious reasons."

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Conclusion

This episode of What It Was Like offers a compelling narrative of endurance, strategy, and psychological complexity in the pursuit of justice. Through Ricky Hennessey's firsthand account, listeners gain a profound appreciation for the challenges faced by law enforcement in tracking and apprehending elusive criminals, as well as the personal toll such cases can take on those involved.

Transcript

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Super real.

[Julian Morgans]

Hey guys, before we dig into this week's episode, I want to talk about something. Subscriptions. Okay, so we didn't used to have them and now we do. Which is why a lot of our older episodes from around October last year and onwards, they're now locked. If you've seen the little padlocks, that's what's going on. It's all to do with subscriptions. And some of you are understandably not happy about it. And I know that because I've seen your comments and I've seen your reviews. So. So for example, I'll just read two out somebody recently wrote on one of our episodes.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Boo.

[Julian Morgans]

Unlock the old episodes. We already have to pay a subscription to Spotify. What is this? Someone else wrote no old episodes. That makes me sad. I can't afford your service. Content that was once free, now costs. Make it make sense. These are reasonable concerns. So I'm here to make it make sense. So I run a business with my business partner. It's called Super Real. And we're a startup and I run it full time with my producer and my friend Rachel Tuffery. And she actually works her full time job still because podcasting economics, well. Well, they're not great. So full transparency here. Ads cover about two thirds of what we need just to keep things running.

[Ricky Hennessey]

But.

[Julian Morgans]

But generally speaking, Rachel and I, we edit the show ourselves, find all of the guests, send out all the emails, and then. And then I do the interview and then we get it professionally mixed. So that's some of our costs. And what I'm suggesting here is that we're not like making a Mr. Beast size income here. And don't get me wrong, this isn't a sob story because we absolutely love this, making this show, but we think, honestly, the show could be better. I think right now we feature whatever guest replies to my emails first. But I would love to have the resources to respond to news events or to chase really big stories properly. And I find that frustrating. So, for example, when something breaks, like recently, you know the guy who assassinated the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, when that happened, I was like, let's get this story. Let's find someone who went to college with Luigi, or let's find one of his ex girlfriends or something. And I jumped in and I spent ages emailing all these people, but no one responded. Not a single person responded. So not only did we not get a newsy story out of that, but also we were just suddenly under the pump because we had to scramble and find a story for that week. And what I'm saying is that if we had the resources, we could put a whole team on it, we could find that story. We could be part of the news cycle, but in a really intimate, unique way. Like we could be talking to the people who know, the people that the headlines are all about. And that's the dream. That's the show that I want this to be. And that's why all of this is to. It's a long lead up to explain why we've added subscriptions. And really, truly, honestly, it's not about squeezing you. We love you. It's instead, it's just about building the kind of show that, that we want to make and I, and I think it's about building the kind of show that you want to listen to. And yes, just to address that little elephant in the room. Familiar. I know you pay for Spotify, but that, that money doesn't come to us. It goes to the platform. We don't see a cent of that. They host our content, but they don't fund it. And that is the why. Thanks for listening to my five minute explanation. And hey, if you want to subscribe. Thank you. Just hit subscribe on Apple or on Spotify. Follow the steps. Okay, let's get into today's episode.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Malcolm had spotted the police and so he went back to his little base camp. He knew that they were coming and he gave him time to get his rifle loaded and he watched the tactical guys come into the campsite and he basically sat there and lined him up and shot him from the campsite. I want to call it luck, but at the time that Malcolm fired at him, he actually moved. So as he's moved, he's being struck through the top of his shoulder by a.22 round. And as soon as the shot rang out, they all dropped to the ground. He basically grabbed what he could and took off. That's. Yeah, that's when everything changed.

[Julian Morgans]

Hey, I'm Julian Morgans and you're listening to what It Was like, the show that asks people who have lived through big dramatic events what it was like. Okay, so I was just talking about how I'd love this show to be a little more timely, a bit more new. But having said that, I must confess this episode is not that this isn't a current event, it's not a trending topic. But maybe it is timely for me personally, because I'm always daydreaming about escaping. I'm always fantasizing about getting off my phone, leaving social media behind. And the image that comes to my mind in these daydreams, it's always the same and it's. It's a bit ridiculous, honestly. It's. It's kind of me in the wilderness, Huckleberry Finn style, just camping, you know, living simply. So it's this fantasy that I think powers a few of my, my niche interests, which includes this story here. The question is, what's it like to just live in the forest? That brings us to the story of Malcolm Naden. If that name rings a bell, it's because Naden was once one of the most wanted men in Australia between 2005 and 2012. That's right. Seven years. He evaded police while Living deep in the New South Wales bush, he was a suspect in the disappearance and murder of two young women. And when suspicion turned on him, he vanished, he packed up, he went bush, and he stayed hidden for seven years. And today I'm speaking with former Detective Inspector Ricky Hennessey, the man who eventually tracked down Naden and arrested him. And it really wasn't easy. At one point, they were searching an area of bushland the size of a small European country. And Naden was really skilled at disappearing. He didn't use his phone, he didn't use credit cards. He didn't make any of the usual mistakes, and that made him very hard to find. So we're going to talk about the investigation and the psychology behind someone who can live like that. And ultimately we're going to explore why he did what he did. Why does someone kill two young women on the cusp of their lives? All right, let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Ricky Hennessey. Hey, Ricky, welcome to the show.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Thanks for having me, Julian.

[Julian Morgans]

Pleasure's all mine. Let's start with a bit of background on you. When you're a kid, did you always want to get into the police force.

[Ricky Hennessey]

From a pretty early age? I remember writing stories about serial killers when I was in, I think, second class and grew up watching documentaries and had a real, real interest in how the police catch criminals. So, yeah, it was definitely an interest from very early on.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, so what appealed to you? What did you find intriguing about the psychology of serial homicide even at a young age?

[Ricky Hennessey]

There were two factors to me, I think, initially being interested in science and forensic science, the interest in criminal investigation was like catching people who committed serious violent crime. And I was very interested in how they did it, the processes to criminal investigation. But I was always fascinated by why people kill. And that for me ended up being a much bigger question and a much bigger interest. And what got me interested in homicide specifically and kept me there for quite some time.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, okay, well, let's fast forward a little bit. Do you remember the moment, do you remember what you were doing when you first heard the name Malcolm Naden?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, I think I just joined the robbery squad. This is going to sound a little off perhaps, but I remember seeing the manhunt for him at the Dubbo Zoo on the news, and that was the first time I knew of this fellow out there in Dubbo who was wanted by the police. Didn't know too much about the background at all, but I just remember thinking, I'm glad I'm not those cops, because that sounds like a shoot fight.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah.

[Ricky Hennessey]

So, yeah, maybe it was a bit of karma coming back to bite me later on for thinking that, but, yeah, it was like that was the first time I had any knowledge of it whatsoever. That would have been probably the end of 2005.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, well, can you give me a little bit of detail just on the case at that time? So Malcolm was wanted over the murder of two young women in Dubbo, and then he kind of just started sleeping out at the zoo, you know, eating fruit out of the bins and stuff like that. That's my understanding. Is that. Is that about right?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah. So Leticia Nolan, his cousin, disappeared in January 2005. She was last seen around the family home in Dubbo. And, you know, the police did quite a thorough investigation and response into that, but didn't really have any viable leads. And then six months later, Christy Scholes, another family member of Malcolm Naden, was found dead in Malcolm's bedroom. And it was pretty quickly determined that she'd been strangled to death. And there was a question mark around whether or not she'd been interfered with sexually or not at that time. So Malcolm went on the run from that point. Speaking to him later on, he said he knew he was gone, he had to go on a run. There was no way in the world he was going to get away with the second murder. So he took off and was living around Dubbo, like on the outskirts of Dubbo. He had a little dugout, a little hide not far from the golf course originally that he was living in. And we suspect that the family of Malcolm was still providing with some sort of supplies or sustenance. But apart from that, he was living primarily just by scavenging. And he did that for a while until he moved into the Dubo zoo.

[Julian Morgans]

Moving to the Dubbo zoo is a. Is a pretty rash decision, I reckon. What, do you know what that was about?

[Ricky Hennessey]

I have some thoughts. I think that type of lifestyle was always appealing to Malcolm, even when he. The original investigators did a lot of work around profiling Malcolm when he went on the run. Initially, they spoke to all of his family members at length and took detailed statements and really painted this picture to me. This fellow who, although he lived in his family home surrounded by a lot of family, he didn't want to be a part of it. He would isolate himself more often than not in his room and only come out to eat. But then there'd be other periods where he try and sort of involve himself back in society to the extent where he'd want to go out and get an education and do, you know, certain things. But ultimately, like living away from people in the zoo, you know, where no one knew of him or where he was. I think that's how ultimately ended up spending the next seven years. And I think it suited him down to the ground. It sounds strange to us, but I don't think it was really that strange to him.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. Yeah.

[Ricky Hennessey]

And there was plenty of food around in the zoo for him to support himself. He moved into one of the residences that are used by the staff and was living in the roof for a while. I can't recall off the top of my head how long he said he lived in the roof. But he was able to calm down, help himself to some food, clean up, do whatever he needed to, and then go back up into the roof. And he lived undetected like that for a while.

[Julian Morgans]

I mean, it sounds like a bad life to me, living in a roof, eating banana scraps. So Dubbo's not a big place. Why was he so hard to find? Can you just give me some sort of a couple of dot points on the challenges of a manhunt like this?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Police use methods is almost like a formula or routine defining people, and it relies a lot on humans being pretty normal, living a mainstream sort of life, an attachment to technology. You know, there are ways that police find people. And I think one thing I realized out of this was you can sort of get complacent. Like you rely on that to track people down. And with Malcolm, none of that applied. He didn't use a phone, he wasn't on the grid. He, you know, he wasn't interacting with anyone. No one could see him. Everything the cops would rely on to find someone just didn't apply to Malcolm. So even to the point where he would disguise or. He gave a lot of effort to hide the fact that he would. He. He had been anywhere, he wouldn't leave a trial, and he did that for many years later on and on the right in the bush as well. But it's a lot harder to catch someone who's just doing their best to stay off the radar as much as possible than people totally imagine.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, I can see that. There's just a few things that, that, yeah, really step outside the formula, as you say.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, well, he was underestimated a lot. Like, I, I have to admit, I, I underestimated him almost right up to the end. Um, it's just people just don't think someone would put themselves out like that and Live so rough. It's still, like, hard to believe. Looking back on it and talking about it the way that he did live. No one expected someone to survive like that for so long. So it was almost discounted by a lot of people.

[Julian Morgans]

Would you say that he was smart?

[Ricky Hennessey]

I'd say he was reasonably intelligent. Yeah. Yeah. I got the impression when I was speaking. He's very well spoken, although quietly spoken, and I think he could have gone on to do a lot of things if he wanted to, but he suffered from mental illness and some personality disorders. I think it really, really impacted his life.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, so at what point did you come to the case? What was happening?

[Ricky Hennessey]

I came to the case. It would have been around in 2010, I think. Okay, so it was my first year at the homicide squad initially, was just when I was put in charge of the investigation. Just spent a lot of time trying to catch up on. By then it would have been five years of background investigation records and handovers from staff who'd been involved in the investigation and the manhunt for all that time.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, so I guess, yeah, five years in, he's New South Wales most wanted man. And when you got involved, did you find a team that had been working on it for a long time who were feeling a bit jaded or a little bit cynical about your chances of finding him or like, sort of. What was the mood within the homicide squad at that time?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Well, that's on the. Frankly, the. The strike force for Strike Force Durkin, as it was called, was basically one guy, right, who was involved from the. The start, any investigation. And frankly, I felt sorry for him. I just remember watching this poor guy staring at maps on a computer screen of all of these rural areas. And I remember seeing some of the terrain and going, like, good luck, mate.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah.

[Ricky Hennessey]

That fellow had to leave the homicide squad and I would. He handed over to me. I remember my initial thought was, like, oh, I'm never going to catch this guy. There's no way the world. Like, what am I going to do? Yeah, I'm looking at all these maps and these things and like, I think the last time I'd been camping was at school. I couldn't read a topographical map, but using a compass, like, I wouldn't know. I honestly didn't know where to start. But one thing that did strike me was that the. There was a common theme in the operations, that they were trying to go out and catch him. And it just didn't make sense to me that you would think that a team of cops could Go run out into the bush and actually just catch this guy. Like it's a game of hide and go seek. Like it's not, to me, just didn't seem feasible. So I thought ultimately an operation that would be successful in catching him was one that lured him to the police where he was basically surrounded and captured.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. And Malcolm, at this time, he was living like a hermit out in the bush and stealing food from houses, from farms and sort of gorging himself. Yeah, just fill in the gaps there.

[Ricky Hennessey]

So that the original investigators had worked out that he stuck roughly along the bicentennial trail of New South Wales, which goes, you know, all the way down the New South Wales, almost to the. From the Queensland border down. And he would move roughly seasonally, so, you know, trying to stay a little bit warmer. He move, you know, up and down, depending on the temperatures, basically. But his favorite area was around the Barrington Tops area, the Barrington Tops National Park. And I can see why. It's stunning countryside. It's absolutely beautiful, but it gets very cold. It's very, very cold most of the year. But in the first few years, he was meticulous in trying to stay undetected. He was really impressive. He would break into these rural huts or houses in the middle of nowhere. Most of them not even on the, you know, don't have power. And he would disguise his entry and exit. He would only steal as much food as he absolutely needed. So if there was, you know, if there's four cans of baked beans on, baked beans on someone's shelf, he'd take the one from the back and only one, he'd take a little, little bit of meat or whatever else. So people would come in and they'd be like, swear I had four cans of baked beans.

[Julian Morgans]

But yeah.

[Ricky Hennessey]

So, you know, for years and years, people, people didn't realize he was even around.

[Julian Morgans]

Hey, we're just going to stop here for a quick ad break, but stick around. We'll be right back with more what it was like.

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[Ricky Hennessey]

The place that no anywhere he was until someone finally called the police when they were convinced that they had a broken error on their rural property. And the police found his fingerprints on a. I think it was a windowsill from memory. But this, this is years. Like this is years after Dubbo Zoo. I think it's 2007, 2008, where he's, he's the friends of evidence started to turn up on some of these places and police realized he was still on and still active and obviously keeping a very low profile.

[Julian Morgans]

To me, I mean, to me it's amazing that he was still in New South Wales. I mean, I would have thought just go to Perth. I mean, I don't know how connected sort of interstate police forces are these days, but it feels to me like the person working that case is most likely to be in New South Wales and to sort of hang around not too far from Sydney. Maybe that was an oversight.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, absolutely. But he just, he didn't think that big, frankly. And I don't mean that as a criticism, but he, at least according to Malcolm, he deliberately chose this lifestyle to partly suffer, but partly also to focus himself on survival. And according to him, part of the motivation of that was to stop himself from killing again. He was concerned that he would do it again and so he found the need to constantly focus on where your next meal is coming from and where you're going to put your shelter. He found that helpful.

[Julian Morgans]

That is interesting. So you're suggesting that for him it was this sort of sexual compulsion to kill and he was actively trying to not do that.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Malcolm never admitted to being sexually motivated. That that's my opinion. He was quite coy about the sexual aspects of his crimes. But in terms of the killing, he said, you know, it's like knocking down a brick wall. Once you knock it down, you Just, let's go. You can't, you can't stop. Like, you can't just put the ball back together again. But they, that was, they were the words he used to describe, you know, how he looked at it. Okay.

[Julian Morgans]

And what led you to believe that it was sexual if he didn't admit that it was?

[Ricky Hennessey]

We had evidence that Letitia Nolan, when she was abducted, there was a sighting of a. Her car in an area that was known what, frequented for, you know, kids or whoever who want to go and park and play around in cars. Sure. And Malcolm didn't notice, but there were kids that went down there, probably for that very reason, who cited Leticia Nolan's car with the. The windows all fogged up. And Malcolm admitted to. To being in that area initially, but then moving on to where he finally disposed of her remains. So based on that, and then his admission that he did sexually assault Christy after he killed her, that there were. There was definitely a sexual motive, he was motivated, you know, by sexual interests rather than just a desire to kill. But he was. Had also been accused of the indecent assault of a 12 year old girl. All this as well, so.

[Julian Morgans]

Right, okay.

[Ricky Hennessey]

You know, putting all that together, it was my, certainly my opinion that he was motivated by his sexual interests. The other thing which we only found out later during the manhunt, was his interest in incest. So he. When he broke into a particular property, we had a look at the search history on the computer that he'd accessed, and I think virtually all of the searches were incest related searches, like he'd specifically gone in looking for that pornography.

[Julian Morgans]

Wow, that is a creepy little detail.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah. And as I said, the original investigators did a terrific job of the profiling of Malcolm immediately after he went on the run. And he had made repeated sexual advances to members of his own family through writing letters and, you know, very awkward sort of advances. But another aspect too, which I've forgotten to mention, was that the police also found holes that were small holes drilled in the roof and the walls of the family home back in Dubbo that they believe he'd used to spy on his family members while they were either in the shower or, you know, in another end.

[Julian Morgans]

Oh, man, that's. That's twisted. Do we know anything about his background? I mean, I don't know. It seems to me that when we sort of look at someone's background, we find examples where they're fallen victim to other sexual predators or they've sort of been groomed or like. Or was he someone who Just sort of trained himself in this kind of thinking independently.

[Ricky Hennessey]

The investigators were quite successful in getting the immediate family members to talk about his activities sort of around the home. But there was a reluctance to speak in any great detail. And so we never really found out a lot about his early years. So we don't know if there's a history of trauma there. You know, as you rightly pointed out, it's quite often the case. But, yeah, they're not. Certainly not enough is known for me to make comment on that.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, all right, so you get aside this case. He's out in the bush. You're not an outdoorsman. But now you need to find this needle in haystack. So what do you start doing?

[Ricky Hennessey]

I knew a fellow who was working at Tamworth Detectives. Very good fellow, very thorough, and very interested in Malcolm and the manhunt. And he called me, I think I was down in Goulburn, and he said, we think Malcolm's just broken into these two places at Naundock. And we wanted to put some. He was basically asking for permission to put some surveillance around those properties in the event that Malcolm came back. And I said, yeah, of course, but, you know, do what you got to do. And so he did that. And as you've said before, he. He had fallen into the habit of returning to properties where he had a successful haul. We learned later that he would set up a camp in an area, sort of, you know, a little base camp, and from there, he'd go out and hit these properties, and anyone, you know, that he was happy with, either food or clothing or whatever he needed to survive, he'd hang around and he'd wait for the owner to come back, restop, resupply, and then go back and hit it again. And then I got a call from this fellow again. It wasn't. Wasn't long after the original breaking enters, and he said, he's come back. A couple of guys from the homicide squad, myself, Paul, and the tactical operations unit were up there the next day. And now on Doc.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, do you know, walk me through it. Let's take it slow. What happened?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Well, the surveillance that we had was very limited. It only gave us an idea of where he might have gone. And for the first couple of days, it just felt like needle in a haystack. You know, the now and dock area is pretty remote and the bush is thick. The tactical guys are trying to go through this bushland with, you know, there's no. No fire trails, no footpaths. It's not like a bushwalking event. They're literally cutting their way through the terrain to get anywhere. And so it was, it was really hard going for them. And we, I could just see the, the morale dropping, you know, as the hours went by over the, the next couple of days. But little did they know Malcolm had spotted the police. So he saw them in a car going down a trail on the way. It was actually on the way back to the command post because we'd finished up that day. And he said he remembered seeing them, and he knew straight away they are there, the police, and they're here for me. And so he went back to his little base camp, which is probably only a few hundred meters from where he saw the police. And unfortunately, it probably made. It made him all the more alert the next morning. So the tactical guys went back to that same spot and started the search from there on the morning at the 7th of December, I think it was. And he heard him coming from a mile away. He said he knew that they were there, he knew that they were coming, and they gave him time to get his rifle loaded. And he watched the tactical guys come into the campsite. He saw the dog handler with the dog, and that really concerned him. He said he was terrified of the dog and what the dog could do. But he ended up choosing another officer who he thought was a bigger threat. And he basically sat there and blind him up and shot him from the campsite. Just as the police realized, the tactical guys had just realized that, you know, we're here, we've just found the campsite. You know, just as they're sort of like, this is it, we're seeing, we've got a campsite in front of us. He was black, bang. And the. They're getting shot at.

[Julian Morgans]

So what happened to the, to the guy who was shot at?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Well, I want to call it luck, but at the time that Malcolm fired at him, he actually moved to turn around to communicate to the, the other officers and say, like, that's the campsite. So as he's moved, he's being struck through the top of his shoulder by a.22 round. And that that round was actually caught in the back of his, his vest. And as soon as the shot rang out, they all dropped to the ground and did what they could to try and protect themselves. Unfortunately, although they'd seen the campsite and they'd heard the shot, they had absolutely no idea where he was at that exact point in time. So they didn't know if they're getting shot at from behind. They know if they can shot it from the campsite. It was terrifying.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, scary to be.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, so vulnerable. And fortunately, that was the right call for them. Hitting the ground was. Was the right thing to do, whether they, you know, realized it or not. Because Malcolm said if it had turned into a gunfight, he would have sat there and returned fire. But the fact that they dropped the ground and there's nothing more he could do, he basically grabbed what he could and took off.

[Julian Morgans]

Did they hear him legging it?

[Ricky Hennessey]

No.

[Julian Morgans]

So they were left just laying there on the ground for what, hours?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Well, the officer who was shot was tended to by the other officers in the team. We had communications at the command post that the shots had been fired. So from that point on, it was basically getting the other teams, the support teams in there to extract them as safely as possible. It felt like a very, very long time, those couple of hours to. To get them in and get them back.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, I can imagine. So when you got them back, you know, how did you feel about the. The status of the case at that point?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, frankly, it was, you know, I just felt so much for the officers that were involved. You know, one of them I'd known since the academy, and it was, you know, really hard to see them affected and see the officer that was shot the lowest. Yeah. Making jokes and making a lot of it at the time. All the ambos are doing their thing, but he. Yeah, just. It was really hard.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so. So I'm guessing you guys kind of regrouped and. And then what'd you do?

[Ricky Hennessey]

That's. Yeah, that's when everything changed. This was front page news. The commissioner was involved and making decisions. So we went from basically doing our best to trying to cope with suddenly having all of these resources and all of this pressure, all this scrutiny, you know, these expectations, you know, cops being shot. What are you going to do about it? This guy's on the run. He's been on the run for how long now? Like, you got to be joking. Like, what are your blokes dawned? So, you know, that was the sense. Oh, I was just pretty much felt at a complete loss, like, at that point, because I knew despite having hundreds and hundreds of police and whatever else, we were still faced with a guy who could hide right in front of you. And so out of sheer frustration, I started googling things that would work in this environment. And lo and behold, there were these types of devices that talk to satellites that can operate off batteries. And so myself and another fellow, you know, really pushed the idea of Trying to use these devices, adapt these devices as surveillance in these types of areas.

[Julian Morgans]

These things like motion detectors for deer hunting and that sort of thing.

[Ricky Hennessey]

No, the. I'm just mindful of giving away too much methodology.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, you don't want to give away the trade secrets, but.

[Ricky Hennessey]

We came up with a workaround that we thought may work to start putting some sort of surveillance around the places that we knew Malcolm would go to.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. And these are his favorite places to get a meal to restock. Yeah. Hey, we're just going to stop here for a quick ad break, but stick around. We'll be right back with more what it was like.

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[Julian Morgans]

So what happened next?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Malcolm became very reckless. He. He thought his days were numbered. He thought after shooting the police officer that he would basically be hunted down and killed by the police. And so rather than trying to sort of hide him, hide his trail, or move about in his usual way, like just sort of slowly and calmly, he covered a lot of ground. And when he was breaking into places, he was very obvious. We obviously knew it was him each time. But the. The other support that we got for this manhunt was a lot of intelligence support. So with the benefit of the intelligence analysts that were brought up on site, we were able to have a list of all the places that he'd he been to, and we mapped those out. It was basically just a constant game of trying to get him, get. Get in front of him, getting, getting coverage in the right area so that when he did go into one of those places, we would immediately respond and we would catch him inside.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. Okay. So you're kind of just bugging all these houses hoping that he's going to just blunder into one of them?

[Ricky Hennessey]

In a manner of speaking, yeah.

[Julian Morgans]

My words, not yours. Okay. All right, so tell me about how you finally got him.

[Ricky Hennessey]

It was about 8 o' clock on the. I think it was the 21st of March. I got a message to say that one of the places that he had just hit not long ago, that our surveillance had been triggered around that property and I knew the owner and I called the owner and he said, it's not me, I'm not there. And so by the time the tactical guys were rolling out to that property, I was already starting to feel that, like, this is it, this is. We're finally. We're going to have a chance here. But yeah, it was. It was a long wait.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, so were you back in sort of HQ in Sydney and the tactical team were out there?

[Ricky Hennessey]

We were at the command post at Gloucester. Okay. That was. Gloucester was basically home for. For six months for us. Yeah. While we did this. So other homicide and other criminal investigators attacked him because all the support teams, logistics, like it was a. Was a big, big thing.

[Julian Morgans]

So as the tactical team closed in, what did they see?

[Ricky Hennessey]

They saw that he'd lit a fire. The first thing that I remember them reporting was that there was a fire going in the place. Probably, they thought probably the fireplace or something like he set up to cook. And then described a couple of movements. They saw someone coming in and out of the. One of the doors and just sort of some general, like, movement. I don't remember them being confident like 100% that it was Malcolm at that point, but there was clearly someone there who shouldn't be there. But after that long and so many false alarms and so many operations, so many places that we'd gone out and surrounded only to find that they were empty. I doubt if I was alone anyway, and sort of not wanting to hope too much that this is finally it. The. Unfortunately, somehow Malcolm detected the police. And mind you, this is the middle of the night. Complete pitch darkness. He still managed to see something that spooked him. He went running back through the house at another door to try and get away, but he'd already been surrounded by that point. So once the tactical team realised he was about to try and run, they initiated the response to arrest him.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, is that as just as simple as like, just chasing him down in the dark and, you know, spear tackling him?

[Ricky Hennessey]

That's almost what it boiled down to. Yeah. I mean, it was. As I said, it didn't go exactly according to plan because he, he, he basically ran into. Ran into the Police, which is always what I would hope have hoped for. Fortunately, he ran straight past a very high powered loaded rifle that he'd stolen not long ago from another property. So he didn't have a chance to, to sort of turn it into a shootout. Yeah, he basically just panicked and ran and there were tactical police and one with a general purpose dog who's, you know, trying to bring flank offenders down. And I. Yeah, but yeah, as you said, by basically tackling to the ground and that was it.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, so did you make the arrest personally?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah. So we got the radio call that he was. Well, there was someone in custody and I'll never forget the lecor was. He's just confirmed, he's said his name's Malcolm Naden. Everyone at command post just looked around and went like, wow, this is it. Like that's it finally was.

[Julian Morgans]

Did you sort of erupt into applause or like what was that feeling?

[Ricky Hennessey]

I think most people were feeling what I was almost like a sense of disbelief, like shock. You know, it'd been, at least for me, like it had been my whole life for months and months, you know, every day waking up, what am I doing today? I'm trying to catch Bar from Naden, you know, that, that was. There was wasn't anything else. And so to, for it to finally not just happen, but happen the way that we had always hoped it would go down, it was almost like clockwork, you know, in the end it was really impressive to me at least to see the tactical guys do their thing so well. Yeah, I was just part disbelief, but also just this flood of relief for me, like all that pressure, you know, finally it's just, that's over.

[Julian Morgans]

So when you arrived at the property, what did you find?

[Ricky Hennessey]

When we got there, Naden was seated on the ground, he was cable tied. And I just remember the filth. Like he was absolutely colored head to toe in, in dirt and grime. Not, you know, just from the arrest, but clearly that's just the way he'd been living. And I was struck immediately by how gaunt he was. Like he was emaciated. There's barely anything of him. He's like long straggly beard. Yeah, he looked terrible. I guess that made it all the more surprising when Paul and I went up to talk to him and he spoke so normally. No, it's not, not a descriptive word normally. But I was just struck by how well and calm he spoke. He started engaging with us straight away in just sort of the small talk. So as I'm having this conversation with him, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking this is the guy who hasn't had a conversation with a human being possibly for nearly seven years. This is someone who the psychologist said may not ever speak again. He may have lost either the ability or the inclination to speak, let alone engage with police. On top of that, he'd just been arrested by the tactical police, which is never fun. And here he was sitting in the mud, you know, talking about football and trying to dodge snakes while he's, you know, on the run. And it was a little bit surreal.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, yeah, it sounds surreal. And I understand that he said, oh, thank God when he was. When he was finally taken down, as though it was all a release.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, the tactical guys spoke to him a bit before we got out there, and one of the things that he said almost immediately was, thank God it's over. And he went into a lot more detail about that with me later when we got a chance to speak at length. And he said he thought he was going to die. He didn't think he had long left in him surviving like that. He thought he would just basically perish out there. It was really getting to him, and it made sense to me. I could certainly accept that, because, as I said, he'd become so complacent and so reckless. He'd gone from this guy who was meticulously breaking into places to leave absolutely no sign that he'd been there, even though these places weren't really frequented, to going in, kicking doors down, ransacking places, throwing food around, slashing things, looking at computers, drinking all their beer, vomiting on the floor. You know, it was. You could sort of see that, you know, looking back at his behavior, that it was sort of someone who'd probably given up a bit.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Couldn't. Couldn't really care as much. So I definitely accepted that. And I ended up going on to accept just about everything that Malcolm said to me.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like he was a loner, and he quite. He sort of embraced this life in the wilderness, but at the same time, seven years completely alone, just isolated from civilization. That's. That'd really weigh you down. You'd get sick of it.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, even. Yeah, even if you are a loner by nature and, you know, any other sort of factors on top of that. Humans just aren't built for that isolation at all, you know, not. Not for that long. Yeah.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah. Okay. So he was, you know, he was charged and he was convicted, and. And what happened to him after he was arrested?

[Ricky Hennessey]

He was placed in Supermax. And that was where Paul and I had our conversations with him. We did interview him at Tari police station the night that he was arrested. And he was relatively forthcoming about some of his behavior. He was happy to talk about how he lived life on the run and admitted that he'd been breaking into places and stealing things. But he didn't want to talk about shooting the police officer. He didn't want to talk about the homicides, and he definitely didn't want to talk about the indecent assault that he'd been accused of. And so that was quite tricky. We had to really be patient with him and develop that relationship with him to make him comfortable to want to talk about those offenses and those events. And as you can imagine, you know, people don't confess often as it is, but they certainly don't confess to crimes of that nature unless they think that they're, you know, there's some sort of bragging rights or some other sort of factor at play. And there was none of that with. With Malcolm. We did. We did try one of the tactics that one of the psychologists had suggested, and that was to sort of praise him and play up to his ability to survive on the run and become sort of this romantic fugitive Ned Kelly type figure that the media had quite helped him. But it was one of the few times where he. His voice changed and he just had such disdain in his voice. He's like anyone who thinks well of me because of that's a fool. He didn't want to buy into the ego part at all. He shot that down straight away.

[Julian Morgans]

That's unique. I think that ego is such a small component of his motivation here.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, he's. As he said, his motivation in living the way he did was describe it as a distraction from wanting to offend again. And no doubt there were other things to it. It as well. Like, as I said, he did have mental health issues and he did have personality issues that would have contributed to that. But, yeah, I did find it interesting too, the lack of ego.

[Julian Morgans]

So I understand that eventually he wrote you a letter. Can you tell me about that?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, we prompted that because when I. When I read all the material that the original investigators had put together, I worked out that he was quite happy to communicate in writing. Like I said, there were these awkward advances to people in the house and he started to resort to leaving letters. So it became clear to me that when he wasn't comfortable to talk face to face with someone, he was comfortable to talk about things in written communication. So that was the strategy. We thought, well, let's encourage him to write if he's not comfortable to talk about these things and we understand why, perhaps he would be happy to write. So I provided him with things that we were. That we wanted to know that we do want to talk to him about. And he took those things away and he ended up writing a 25 page letter. Wow. In response along with specific answers to some of the things that we prompted him on. And the 25 page letter was graphic. It was. It graphically detailed the murder of Letitia and Christy.

[Julian Morgans]

Why do you think it was graphic? What was he trying to prove with that?

[Ricky Hennessey]

He was definitely trying to shock.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah.

[Ricky Hennessey]

You can't read the letters and not. Not think that, like, it was. It was designed to shock the reader. Why? I don't know. In speaking to him later, in other conversations, he was sort of testing us, I think, and certainly at one point he admitted to testing me when he started talking about the murder of Letitia. We were up there trying to locate her remains in Dubbo at the time when he spoke to me. And I can't repeat what he said, but it was obviously designed to try and shock me. And I just remember the look in his eye, like when he turned around and looked at me and I was like, that's what evil looks like. That's why people, when they see killers or they see people, there's this sense of evil or some other, you know, something else at play within a hearing. The way he deliberately turned to me with that look in his eye as he said it. Yeah. I'll never forget that.

[Julian Morgans]

Wow. Okay, So, I mean, you say that there wasn't much ego associated with his skills as a survivalist out in the bush, but it sounds to me like there's some sense of pride about his crimes as almost like a sort of twisted career. Like, it's. I mean, I don't know. I'm reading into this, but it sounds to me that he's sort of like, sees himself as this sort of evil character and he's somewhat proud of that. He's like, look what I can, you know, can you. Can you face the kind of darkness that I've seen? Like, it sounds like there's some sort of bragging there a little bit.

[Ricky Hennessey]

If you read the letter in isolation, you would absolutely. I think just about anyone would reach that conclusion. It does sound like he's bragging, like he's trying to shock. He's trying to brag. It's. But in every other aspect, in all the Other conversations there just wasn't, it wasn't a feature for him. I can't reconcile it myself. Like he, he would talk about what he had done and the type of character he was, as if he was repulsed by it. In other conversations, like he knew what he did was wrong, he knew he was a monster. Like it was. That wasn't lost on him. But yeah, then you've got these letters where there's definitely that, hey, look at me. This is what I've done. You know, this is how bad I can be. There's certainly, you know, that that was in the letters. So yeah, as I said, I can't reconcile it. I'm not a psychologist, but yeah, it's makes it a little more complex.

[Julian Morgans]

Do you think that Malcolm Layden is evil?

[Ricky Hennessey]

For the most part, no, I don't. And I guess this goes right back to where we started with the conversation. The why do people do what they do? You would have seen Malcolm Nate on the street and not looked at him twice. You'd had a conversation with him and dismissed him. He was nobody. But for what he did, what motivated him to do it? You know, as I said, I think it was sexually motivated. But why he would, why that then went on to be him brutally killing two of his family members is really hard for me to reconcile. Having spent enough time with him to get a sense of who he would, who he would beat. Anyone else, like just this normal guy, his normal unassuming guy who would try and blend in the background, but who I think did ultimately want some sort of validation and human connection. Like he, he at one point said to Paul, I, you know, geez, I wish I met you under different circumstances. I would love to just had a beer at the pub with you. You know, this is in the middle of him graphically describing two murders. So yeah, it's, it's surreal. It's hard to sort of get your head wrapped around it.

[Julian Morgans]

God, these characters seem to have so many inconsistencies. They're just sort of at war with their own personalities. But yeah, that's, that's a bizarre, it's a bizarre medley of characteristics. So. So did you get closure for the victims families with, with the sentencing of Malcolm Naden?

[Ricky Hennessey]

I don't really want to answer that for them. He's in, he's in jail for life. Like life meaning life. He'll never get out. There isn't a penalty, a harsher penalty available in New South Wales. So I was at least satisfied with that in terms of the outcome, work as an investigator, you know, I think anyone who knew the circumstances of the case thought he should get life, and Annie did. So certainly that aspect, I think there would. You know, for me, there was closure at least, but I was always motivated right from the time I took on that investigation in trying to find the remains of Letitia. That was a massive, massive part of it for me to try and at least provide some element of closure to the Nolan family. And unfortunately, that was probably the most unsuccessful part for the investigation. We were never able to recolor all the remains.

[Julian Morgans]

So he detailed her murder, but he didn't fess up to where the. Where the body was?

[Ricky Hennessey]

No, he gave us an exact location, and he. He did everything in everything he could to try and get us to. To find her remains, to the. The point that we. We had him up there on the riverbank walking around, trying to direct us to where she was. But unfortunately, when he had committed the murder, the Dubbo area was in severe drought in early 2005, and the landscape between January 2005 and April 2012 had changed significantly to the point where the riverbanks weren't even the same location. There were trees that were there that weren't there. The trees have fallen down. Right. He's. Even his landmark, his recollection, his ability to navigate all of that had changed. And so one of the complications with the latter part of the investigation was not being able to find her remains, especially after he'd gone to such lengths to describe where she was, it started to call into question whether or not his confession was even real or true. You know, if this part isn't real, if she's not where he said she is, what else is he lying about? You know, these are the questions that I had to ask. Ultimately, although we didn't find her remains immediately after we arrested him, when we conducted the first search, several years later, we did another search in exactly the same location and found some of her remains. So, you know how to describe this. But I think a lot of people didn't want certain details of Letitia's murder to be true because of the nature of them. But for me, unfortunately, I think, you know, that was the only piece of information that we weren't really able to verify, and that turned out to be true. So, yeah, as I said, in the end, I tended to accept just about everything that Malcolm told me. The only parts of his versions that I don't accept are around his motivations.

[Julian Morgans]

Right. Okay. Can I ask a personal question? And that is that after working cases like this and glimpsing this sort of aspect of humanity, you know, how do you. How does it affect your own parenting? You got kids, you do you. Would you say that you're more cautious than you would be as a parent had you never worked in the homicide squad?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Every place I was sees horrendous things and unfortunately sees a side to humanity that we don't probably don't really want to. Looking back on it, it's definitely made me a different parent than I would have been. Absolutely. In a lot of ways. A lot of negative ways, I think. But that protective aspect. Yeah, absolutely.

[Julian Morgans]

Do you have any advice? I mean, I got a little kid and, you know, I'm sort of. She's a little girl and I'm listening to this story being like, oh, man, I just can't ever let her outside. But like, you know, where did you land with this kind of stuff?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Depends on the day, Julian.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah.

[Ricky Hennessey]

And, you know, what things are on my mind and what things aren't. I try to balance what I see. Well, have seen with my own childhood and how I lived as a child and, you know, I try and provide my kids with the same type of freedom I did as a kid. But, yeah, I mean, it's a generation apart. I think everyone parents different now for obvious reasons. But, yeah, knowing the prevalence of offending, particularly sexual offending against children, makes me very, very cautious for my kids around anyone, literally anyone.

[Julian Morgans]

So for you, it's not like a social media thing, it's just around just everyone pretty much.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, unfortunately. And I know that's, you know, when I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous, but. Yeah, I think being. Being in a police force or a similar line of work, not just the police, it does. Does have that effect on you. Absolutely.

[Julian Morgans]

So would it be fair to say that working in the police force has. Has, I don't know, maybe. Maybe affected your optimism for humanity?

[Ricky Hennessey]

Yeah, definitely. But at the same time, I can accept that that's not actually fair and probably it's not a healthy or the correct way of looking at things, but unfortunately it's the instinctive reaction most of the time.

[Julian Morgans]

So where do. So. So what do you. I mean, we're. We're pretty much at the end here, but I just want a little snapshot of, like, what you're doing these days and where this case fits in the broader landscape of your career and just your life generally.

[Ricky Hennessey]

So now I'm working for the Children's Guardian in New South Wales and it's basically child protection. So child abuse allegations, oversight of organizations with child related employment. So for me, the motive for that is not linked to the Naden case, but definitely a lot of other cases where at the homicide squad particularly I had to investigate the murders of children or juveniles. And, you know, those, some of those deaths at least were preventable. And so, you know, that, that's my motivation now in, in a role where, you know, I'm able to continue to, to do that sort of work to, to work towards child protection. So, yeah, I've been doing that now for about 18 months.

[Julian Morgans]

Well, I'm glad, I'm glad. Yeah, we're very lucky to live in a world or live in a country where, you know, organizations like that exist. People like you are working hard at keeping kids safe. That's positive. That is absolutely a silver lining. This has been amazing. Ricky, thank you so much for walking me through this journey.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Thanks. Chilling. Yeah, it's a very interesting story. There's a lot, there's a lot to it, A lot of aspects.

[Julian Morgans]

Today's episode was produced by, by Rachel Tuffrey. It was mixed by Jimmy Saunders, who also did our theme music. A big thanks to Ellie Dickey and Nina Fussel on our research team. And this whole thing has been a super real production. Hey, Tinsley, why don't we use Ezkater to order food for staff lunches?

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[Julian Morgans]

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That's supposed to be simple.

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[Julian Morgans]

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Well, if you ever feel like it's.

[Julian Morgans]

Hard to keep up though, don't worry.

[Ricky Hennessey]

We're here to help.

[Julian Morgans]

Monday through Friday, Daily Music Headlines gets you the top happenings in music from chart toppers, news releases, concert announcements and more, all in less than five minutes. Don't miss out. Get the show at dailymusicheadlines.com Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

[Ricky Hennessey]

Acast.com.