EVERY spare bit of pocketmoney the Nolan children earn gets carefully stuck to a frame containing a picture of their missing mum.
Staring back at them from under the glass is Lateesha Nolan - one of the women wanted fugitive Malcolm Naden, 38, is alleged to have murdered before he began his life on the run.Her four children - Kiesha, 12, Erica, 11, Jayden, 10, and Shaqkaila, 8 -don't quite understand what police suspect happened to their mum.
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IT’S an eerie feeling peering into the bush surrounding the township of Nowendoc, knowing a killer is lurking somewhere in the hills.
They just hope that, between them, they will save enough coins to get her back.
"They say to me 'One day we will have enough to buy a ticket to get her home, Nan'," their grandmother Joan Nolan said.
Mrs Nolan, who has had full-time custody of the children since their mum vanished, wishes it was that easy.
She and the children have lived with the heartache of not knowing where Lateesha is, or what happened to her, after she disappeared on January 4, 2005, outside Naden's home. She was just 25.
Their pain is deepened by Naden's ability to elude capture for more than six years - and stories that residents who have sighted Naden in the bush around Barrington Tops and Nowendoc have not alerted police.
"If they knew what it was like to have four little faces that keep asking where Mum is, they might have spoken up," Mrs Nolan said.
"He is no Ned Kelly to us."
Her brother Chris added: "(Naden) needs to tell police where Teesh's body is so these kids can have some answers."
Six months after Lateesha went missing, the strangled body of Kristy Scholes was found in Naden's bedroom. Police believe Naden killed her during a cult-like ritual in his grandparents' Dubbo home, then fled.
He's been on the run ever since.
When police get close to Naden, the families of the allegedly murdered women go into emotional overdrive.
Just like they did last Wednesday when officers were within 20m of his bush hideout before he allegedly shot an officer, hitting him in the shoulder.
"You're hopeful, but you're nervous and worried too," Mr Nolan said.
NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione yesterday said police would continue scouring the Nowendoc region for Naden, until into the new year - if it takes that long to catch him.
In the meantime, the children closely guard the picture of their mum, and keep adding money to it, ever hopeful it brings them the "good luck" they long for.
"They sometimes borrow money from the frame, then pay it back. I guess it's like borrowing from your mum ... it keeps her alive to them," Mrs Nolan said.
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