SYDNEY, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Double murderer Malcolm Naden was sentenced to life in prison in the New South Wales (NSW) Supreme Court on Friday.
The man who evaded police by hiding out in the bush for seven years, robbing houses and shooting a police officer, was told he would never get out of jail.
The former abattoir worker, 39, pleaded guilty to killing two women, his cousin and neighbor, in 2005 in Dubbo in NSW's central west.
He also pleaded guilty to the indecent assault of a 12-year-old girl, and the attempted murder of a police officer.
Supreme Court Judge Derek Price described Naden as cold-blooded, cruel, merciless and brutal.
In June 2005 neighbor Kristy Scholes, 24, was found strangled in the bedroom of Naden's grandparents' house. She had been sexually assaulted.
Five months earlier in January, Naden's cousin Lateesha Nolan, also 24, was strangled and her body dismembered -- though her remains have never been found.
Justice Price said Naden should get nothing less than life imprisonment without parole for Schole's murder, and that he had a high-risk of committing violent offences in the future.
Naden has reportedly said many times that he wanted life in jail, and that his killing days were not over.
When told he would never be released, he said: "Thank you."
The capture of the "master bushman" last year in northern NSW' s Hunter Valley ended a multi-million dollar search operation -- one of the state's biggest and longest manhunts.
The Commander of Strike Force Durkin, Assistant Commissioner Carlene York, called it a "game of patience". Naden had spent so long in the bush, it had reportedly become difficult for police dogs to track his scent.
Police finally trapped the fugitive by installing covert sensors inside a house allegedly robbed by Naden -- after intelligence showed he had a tendency to return to previous break- ins.
Having tripped their sensors, officers surrounded the hut and captured the state's most wanted man when he emerged for a cigarette.
Today the victims' families breathed sighs of relief. As the sentence was delivered there was applause in the public gallery, and many broke down in tears.
Kristy Scholes' uncle said, "We are completely free of Malcolm Naden."
"He is going to be put in a place that he can never be released and that is what we wanted for our families and for the community."
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