Kenneth Giles, the 58-year-old man who allegedly shot his partner in the Western Australian town of Mullewa nearly two months ago, remains at large after police located his abandoned Nissan Patrol in bushland near Hackett Creek on Monday.
The vehicle, found about 40 kilometres northeast of Mullewa by a member of the public, had not moved for at least two weeks. WA Police confirmed the car was thoroughly searched, yielding alcohol and medication but no firearms.
Giles has been on the run since January 7, when he allegedly shot his partner Tanya Moran in the hand before fleeing armed with a rifle. The incident triggered a lockdown of Mullewa before police launched an extensive manhunt that continues to this day.
Superintendent Neil Vanderplank said officers recovered several items from the vehicle but nothing to suggest Giles had stocked up for a prolonged stay in the bush.
"There was a number of items that we've recovered but no specific supplies to prolong a period out there," Superintendent Vanderplank said.
Officers spent two days searching the area around Hackett Creek following the vehicle's discovery but found no trace of the fugitive. Any tracks in the area had been erased by heavy rainfall from ex-tropical cyclone Mitchell, which brought significant precipitation to the region in recent weeks.
Police have not ruled out that Giles is receiving assistance from a third party. Officers believe he could still be alive and are urging him to surrender.
The discovery raises serious questions about the capacity of the ongoing search. Seven weeks in, police have been unable to locate a man operating in a remote but not uninhabitable stretch of the WA Midwest, even as evidence emerged that his vehicle sat undisturbed for a fortnight or more before anyone found it.
For the residents of Mullewa, about 450 kilometres north of Perth, the uncertainty has been a source of real anxiety. The town sits in a region where sparse police coverage is a longstanding complaint, with officers routinely required to cover vast distances between settlements. Rural and remote communities across WA have long pushed for improved policing resources, and this case highlights those structural pressures acutely.
Critics of state policing budgets point to chronic under-resourcing across the Midwest and Gascoyne regions. When a wanted man can drive 40 kilometres from home, dump his vehicle in bushland, and remain undetected for weeks, it reflects both the scale of the terrain and the limits of available surveillance capacity.
Those challenges should not be understated. Tracking a single individual across thousands of square kilometres of remote bush is an immense operational task, and even well-resourced police forces in comparable jurisdictions have encountered similar difficulties. WA Police have maintained consistent public appeals for information throughout the investigation.
The case offers no easy resolution. If Giles is alive, every day he remains free represents a potential risk to the broader community. Officers are calling on him directly to hand himself in, and on anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact Crime Stoppers.