The two-day search for further remains of Ms Nolan concluded on Wednesday, with the next step being to find out if the bones discovered match the femur bone found by a passer-by late last month.

Detective Superintendent Mick Willing has been part of the team looking to bring justice and closure to the family of Ms Nolan since she went missing from Dubbo in 2005.

Notorious fugitive Malcolm Naden has been convicted with her murder and that of Kristy Scholes, also in 2005, but prior to the past fortnight the search for any real closure has been in vain.

The DNA-matched femur and the subsequent discovery of bones and bone fragments during this week’s search has raised hopes that may finally happen, but the Dubbo born-and-bred officer said its too early for hopes to be raised.

“The items we found will be taken for examination by a forensic pathologist and an anthropologist, which will be followed by further analysis, including DNA testing. It’s going to take time,” Det Supt Willing said.

“We’re looking at somewhere in the vicinity of a couple of weeks, at least. There will be a number of processes we need to go through with the remains so while the discovery is promising we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves just yet.

“Firstly we need to ascertain they are human remains, then that they belong to a person of a certain age.

“Once that happens we need to work on a DNA match. Given the location of the other find in relation to these finds we’re hopeful but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves at this stage.

“It would be nice to be able to help bring closure to Lateesha’s family though. It’s been a long 11 years to get to this point.”

Over the two-day duration of this week’s search, detectives from the Homicide Squad’s Strike Force Durkin were assisted by police from Orana Local Area Command, Western Region Operations Support Group, Forensic Services Group and Volunteer Rescue Association.