Josephine Whitehouse lived above the shop with her husband, John, and agreed that she would walk with Mary to Ivy Dene and escort her to the front door, which was bolted from the inside because Mary did not have a key.

Margaret would meet her and make sure Mary was never alone. The back door of the house was also kept locked, but Mary often complained that Margaret would open the door when she heard a noise outside. Could this have caused their downfall?

On Saturday, May 5, 1956, Mrs. Whitehouse went on a day trip. south port with her husband. Taking a break from the usual routine, Mary Ormesher walked home alone, carrying with her a brown apache box containing her weekly earnings of £150 (about £3,500 in today’s money).

Mary Jane Sephton saw Mary walking home alone in the dimly lit street between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m., carrying the brown bag with her. Earlier that evening, a laborer named John Wright, who lived in Asmall Lane, had seen Mary enter Ivy Dene’s garden wearing a gray coat and hat, but did not see whether she was carrying anything. A few minutes later he heard the honk of a motor car and saw a merchant with whom Mary knew she sometimes did business. He thought nothing of this encounter.

Between 11pm and 11.30pm several neighbors in Brickmakers Arms Yard heard a commotion at the Ormeshers’ home. The sounds included moans, men’s and women’s voices, breaking glass and the rattling of trash cans. However, they ignored them as it was nothing serious and went back to bed.

When Mrs. Whitehouse returned from Southport the next morning, she took a cup of tea to the shop, as was her usual custom. Unusually, the building was locked from the outside. The shop was usually open at 10.30am.

At 11am he began to worry and walked the 15 minutes to Ivy Dene and knocked on the door. Again he failed to evoke a response. At 11.50am he was so distressed that he asked for help from Thomas Patrick Cummings, who was standing outside his house at 6 Asmall Lane, and the pair went to the back to investigate.

When they entered the garden, they encountered traces of blood. Mrs. Whitehouse screamed and held back as Mr. Cummings entered the back door of the Ormesher home. He later told The Lancashire Evening Post that the sight that awaited him was “horrific”.

Mary and Margaret were found still wearing their cardigans in a pool of their own blood. Their heads and upper bodies had been beaten, and a number of discarded objects, such as candlesticks, a wine bottle, and a pair of tongs, were left around them; these were disfigured by the brutality with which they were used.

Mary’s brown box was found open on the kitchen table and £100 was missing, along with a ring and watch. The only clue left by the killer at the scene was a single bloody fingerprint found on a piece of broken glass in the wine bottle.

News of the murder spread quickly and the next day the Liverpool ECHO published a front page story about the murder; reported that police had descended on Ormskirk and launched a large-scale manhunt for the killer.

Officers visited left-luggage counters and dry cleaners, hoping to find reports of bloody clothing. Doctors were asked if anyone had been treated for cuts or bruises, as it was possible the killer had sustained his own wounds during the violent confrontation. Liverpool Police even intervened, visiting hostels in the city and searching for the mysterious drifter who brutally murdered two women. However, all police investigations remained inconclusive.

The only real lead the police had to go on came from an 11-year-old boy who lived across the street from Ivy Dene. For three nights in a row, Barry Houghton had seen a man leaning on a blue racing bike with low handlebars and white fenders.

“I remember him very clearly,” the 11-year-old boy told the ECHO. “He seemed to be looking up and down the road all the time. I saw him for the first time around 10pm last Wednesday night. I was there for about half an hour. He saw him again on Thursday and Friday night.” “I saw it there, but it wasn’t there on Saturday.”

Barry told police the man appeared to be in his 30s, was about 6 feet tall, was wearing a trench coat and dark pants, was not wearing a hat, and had dark hair and a clean-shaven face. The 11-year-old appeared on the front pages of the ECHO and the Lancashire Evening Post.

The police were out of real information and within a few days more than 300 posters calling for information were put up all over the town. Initially police searched for the Ormeshs’ cousin, Mr Norman Light, who remained in the area at the time of the murders and was known to travel everywhere by bicycle, but there was no evidence linking Norman to the murders.

On May 11, it was revealed that the sisters were running a side business lending money from their homes. Loan receipts, some worth £100, were found at Ivy Dene. The police probably found a new motive for the killer.

It was an open secret that the frugal sisters had a small fortune and worked seven days a week with little expense. They made loans, did not deposit cash in the bank, and walked openly around town carrying the shop’s money in a leather bag. It was later revealed that they had not prepared a will.

The sisters had provided accommodation for evacuees from Liverpool during the war and the police began checking the names of children staying with them but their inquiries turned up nothing.

At the end of May, police began following leads once again. Lancashire Chief Constable Lindsay told the ECHO he received anonymous letters every day about the murder but had no new information. No arrests were made.

The elaborate fingerprint operation, in which police checked every male over the age of 18 in the town, led to more than 10,000 samples being taken. The technique was used eight years ago to ensure the conviction and subsequent hanging of a 19-year-old who raped and murdered a three-year-old boy in Blackburn. However, once again the police hit a dead end.

27 years later, the Manchester Evening News received an anonymous tip from a person who claimed to know the identity of the Ormeshers’ killer. The man, estimated to be in his 70s, said he regretted withholding vital information from the investigation and wanted to tell what he knew.

The newspaper passed the information to Lancashire Constabulary and the named killer was identified, but the information did not lead to an arrest.

To date, no one has been arrested for the murder of two good-hearted sisters who ran the candy store on Church Street. In 1957 their estate of £1,700 was divided among existing relatives and the shop was demolished.

The case remains one of Lancashire’s most chilling unsolved murders. Although the killer is most likely deceased, the case remains open as an unsolved case with Lancashire Police.