IN the first of a series we look back at some of Bradford district's most notorious unsolved murders and ask: will the killer ever be brought to justice?

AN ELDERLY woman was killed in her own home when she was hit on the head several times with a hammer - just 20 yards away from a police station.

Police launched a massive murder hunt after Doris Kellett’s body was discovered by her home help, but almost 29 years later, the killer remains at large.

Detectives believe the 92-year-old frail woman died as a result of a bogus official con-trick which went wrong at her home in Wesley Street, in Cleckheaton.

She was hit on the head with a blunt instrument and died of a fractured skull and head injuries on January 17, 1990.

The pensioner lived yards away from the former Cleckheaton police station, in York Place.

Just 45 minutes before her body was found, a witness saw Mrs Kellett talking to two men on the doorstep of her home.

One man was holding a clipboard and they were both wearing casual clothes.

Detectives said they believed the two men were posing as officials in a bid to get into Mrs Kellett's home and then rob her.

The only things missing from her home when police searched it were her pension, which she had collected that day, a ring and an amber paperweight.

Mrs Kellett's last afternoon was spent chatting with close friends and doing simple exercises to music at Cleckheaton Day Centre’s luncheon club.

Mrs Kellett had been attending the club for nine months before she was killed and on the day of her death had enjoyed a three-course lunch with friends, listened to a lecture on current affairs and joined in with the exercise class.

“She was always very agile in her mind although she was frail in her body,” Mrs Martin, of Penn Grove, Liversedge, told the Telegraph & Argus in 1990.

“The people who come become very involved with one another and become friends very quickly.

“She will be very much missed by the others.”

Mrs Kellett was dropped off at her home by a volunteer driver, but Mrs Martin was unable to say whether she was accompanied into the house.

In the weeks following the murder, police enlisted the help of former police officer Annie Heaton, 70, to reconstruct the moments leading up to the killing for Crimewatch.

A year after her murder, neighbours on Wesley Street said they were still in shock and urged police to make the hunt for her killer a top priority.

One 69-year-old woman said she rarely stayed in her house, but when she did stay at home she borrowed two German Shepherd dogs from her brother.

Officers explored a number of theories surrounding the murder, but admitted just days after the killing that they were baffled by the motive.

Despite the TV bid and pleading for van drivers and door-to-door salesmen to come forward, it remains unclear to this day why Mrs Kellett was brutally murdered.

In 2016 a cold case team rexamined the case as part of a wider review to understand the outcomes of investigations into previous homicides but the case remains open.