Fugitive dad running out of options in LA

Nai Yin Xue's first night on the run was spent in a $70-a- night motel on the fringe of Los Angeles' Chinatown district.
Toddler may have witnessed attack on mother

But the fugitive wanted for questioning over his wife's death in New Zealand kept several days ahead of police by checking out of the one-and-a-half-star Royal Pagoda Motel the following morning, last Sunday.

It is understood an airport shuttle driver recalled a man matching Mr Xue's description leaving his bus at the motel.

Police have since confirmed he stayed one night.

The search widened yesterday to the San Gabriel Valley areas of Temple City and Monterey Park, which have large numbers of Mandarin-speaking Chinese residents.

But it was not under way in earnest till midweek when Los Angeles police received a "red notice" from Interpol.

"Once we got the red notice we were all over it," said Lieutenant Thomas Jones, commander of the LAPD fugitive warrant section.

"We hit about a dozen addresses in the Wilshire area and around the airport. We are pretty good at finding people."

Mr Xue, who abandoned his daughter last Saturday at a Melbourne railway station, is suspected of killing his wife, Anan Liu.

Her body was found in the boot of her car at home in Auckland.

His prospects of slipping unnoticed into Los Angeles dimmed when his daughter's abandonment, and the discovery of his wife's body, took the entire front page of the local Chinese-language newspaper, and featured on United States television.

Detective Fred Sicard said most leads in the case were coming from New Zealand's Chinese community.

Officers searching the San Gabriel Valley said residents there knew a lot about the case, but police said they were now running out of direct leads.

Mr Sicard said police had reason to believe Mr Xue was short of money and looking for work.

His airfare to the US cost more than $2800, almost half the cash he was believed to be carrying.

Mr Sicard said eight officers, including US marshals and LAPD investigators, were working on the case. Thousands more officers had been alerted.

"My opinion, he could have moved up north. There's a large Chinese community up in San Francisco, but there's no evidence yet he has gone there.

"They try to cover their tracks but we are always looking for that mistake, that thing we don't know what it is, but all of a sudden it just jumps at us.

"There's no safe place for him to go that his picture is not going to be captured somewhere, plus if he tries to hide in the Chinese community, they are aware of what's going on."

Under the Interpol criminal alert system a red notice signifies an individual is subject to an arrest warrant and will be subject to extradition.

In this case, if he is found he would be kept under observation till New Zealand police could issue a provisional arrest warrant for US marshals to act on, Mr Sicard said.

- © Fairfax NZ News