Time runs out for fugitive in millionaire murder case

The road to Paluma, a tiny collection of cabins, motels and camping rounds in the Mt Spec rainforest north of Townsville, runs through Hidden Valley.

It was there police early yesterday finally caught up with fugitive Cameron Mansell, a 38-year-old Perth nightclub manager on the run for more than two weeks after a bizarre murder that has gripped Australia.

Mansell was a colleague of millionaire businessman Craig Puddy, 45, who this month disappeared from his Perth mansion on the eve of his return to his native Sydney, leaving blood on the floor, his possessions ready for the removalists, and his car in the garage.

Despite intensive searches of nearby bushland and the waters of the Canning River, Puddy's body has still not been found.

Two days after Puddy was reported missing, the wreckage of Mansell's burnt-out Jeep Cherokee was found in a pine plantation. Police later located Mansell at an inner-city hotel, grilled him for 15 hours about Puddy's disappearance, then let him go.

As his lawyers issued a statement denying any involvement, Mansell shaved his head, altered his appearance and - with two detectives investigating the case coincidentally on the same plane - flew to Adelaide and vanished.

Yesterday's arrest in Queensland's tropical north will see Mansell extradited to Western Australia, where he will face a murder charge.

Even without a body, police say the evidence against Mansell is strong, although no details have been released.

Mansell has led a chequered life, banned from the securities industry by the corporate watchdog Australian Securities and Investments Commission for breaching company law, and acquitted of charges relating to the alleged possession and supply of cocaine and Ecstasy.

His friends included Australian rules legend Wayne Carey, considered to be one of the code's greatest-ever players, whose fame collapsed into scandals including violence and his confessions of alcohol and cocaine abuse.

In Perth Mansell managed the Basement on Broadway, a trendy nightclub in Nedlands one-third owned by Puddy. The club was struggling, and two of its staff were this year jailed for supplying Ecstasy to a Darwin dealer.

Puddy was well-liked, regarded as one of the boys and a man who never flaunted his wealth.

He was the son of Laurie Puddy, a former chairman of WA's Western Reds league club and a multi-millionaire who had made his fortune in the forklift industry.

Puddy followed his father's footsteps, setting up his own forklift business in Perth and later forming a joint venture with Italy's Merlo Group, running the business as managing director until his decision to move to Sydney's northern beaches.

His A$3.2 million home in Mt Pleasant - an exclusive suburb across the Canning River from Perth's central business district - was put on the market, Puddy farewelled his family two days before he was due to leave, and was never seen again.

Police at first treated the disappearance as a missing person, but with his possessions still in the house, his bank account and credit cards untouched, and blood in the kitchen later confirmed as Puddy's, the major crime squad began investigating it as homicide.

Mansell, meanwhile, was on the run. Police first lost him during round-the-clock surveillance after his initial questioning, and then were unable to arrest him when detectives flew to Adelaide on the same aircraft because a warrant had not yet been issued for his arrest.

Police questioned relatives and friends in South Australia, then tracked him north as he travelled by bus and trains, was filmed by a CCTV camera in Brisbane, and spotted in Townsville.