IT was a particularly horrific crime.

And tomorrow it is exactly 100 years since the tragic murders of two men on the bleak moors at Buckstones, above Marsden.

The case of William Henry Uttley and Robert Kenyon, who were gamekeepers for local gentry, is still a mystery.

Despite extensive police inquiries at the time - and in subsequent years - no-one was ever convicted of the killings.

A man named Henry Buckley, of Moorside, Oldham, did stand trial six weeks after the murders.

But he was acquitted after a six-day hearing at the County Police Court in Huddersfield.

Although there was a reward of £300 - a fortune in those days - the crime has gone unpunished.

Marsden reader Andrew Pollard collated much archive material on the case, which hit the headlines in the Examiner and many other papers.

The case later attracted the attention of TV companies.

In the 1950s they came up with an early version of Crimewatch in a bid to shed light on the mystery. But nothing came of it.

And as local historian Lewis Buckley Whitehead recounted in his book, Bygone Marsden: "The mystery will, to all intents and purposes, remain one of the unsolved problems of all time."

The Examiner at the time reported on the case in detail:

"A gamekeeper and the son of a gamekeeper shot.

"The most gruesome murder which it has been our sad duty to record as having occurred in the district of Huddersfield took place on the moors above Marsden, on Wednesday, under circumstances of great mystery, and it is doubtful if ever the real facts will be made known, because two persons concerned in the matter have lost their lives in an inexplicable way.

"The persons who have been foully murdered are William Uttley, who has got beyond middle age, better known as "Bill O'Mark's", who lived on the moors, not far from Blake Lea, and Robert Kenyon, aged twenty-six, son of William Kenyon, gamekeeper (who lives at Buckstones), the former of whom was shot behind the left ear and the other through the neck in such a way as to leave no room for doubt that they were cruelly murdered, but whether by one person or more than one no-one can at present say.'

"To the north-west of Marsden there is a wide stretch of moors over which Mr Joe Crowther, of Woodfey, Huddersfield; Mr J E Crowther, Royds Mount, Paddock, Huddersfield, and Mr T H Ramsden, Golcar, have the right of shooting, and for the purpose of watching the game on the moors, employed William Kenyon and William Uttley as their keepers.

"One boundary of the moors is the moorland road which leads from Outlane to Junction, above Delph, and the moors stretch for a considerable distance.

"Anyone standing at the front door of the white house occupied at Buckstones by Wm Kenyon can, on a clear day, see to right and left and in front a very wide expanse of moor.

"In the valley immediately in front is a canal-feeding reservoir belonging to the London and North Western Railway Company; close to it on rising ground is what is called the White Cabin; to the left is the upper part of Blake Lea; beyond is Pule Hill, to the right of that again is the Great Western, and to the right of the Great Western the moors near Diggle.

"The tragedies were confined to the moors lying to the north-west of Marsden and almost within sight of Kenyon's residence (which has been used partly as a shooting-box by Messrs Crowther and Ramsden, as well as a residence for Kenyon and his wife and family), and within two or three miles of Buckstones.

"Information of a scanty nature was received in Huddersfield on Thursday morning about eleven o'clock, and as soon as possible Mr Superintendent Pickard and Mr T H Ramsden left in a motor-car driven by Mr Hilton Crowther, and they reached Buckstones in very quick time, and in the meantime Mr J E Crowther, who was at Marsden started via Delph in his small motor-car and reached Buckstones at the same time."