A GREAT-grandmother raped and murdered before her house was set on fire, a harmless soul attacked in his bed with a machete, and a feisty widow beaten to death with a sand-filled sock.
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Their combined ages totalled more than 220 years.
They deserved better than to be savagely murdered in their twilight years.
Rarely has a crime boiled the blood more than the horrific attack on Margaret "Peggy" Howlett in her Singleton home in 1994.
The 85-year-old was the matriarch of a well-respected valley family - mother of seven, grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother of seven.
But her legacy has been tainted by the savage intruders who broke into her Dunolly Street home she had shared with her husband, Alec "Snow" Howlett. Snow had died in 1962, but his widow stayed behind and watched the family grow.
Police believe she was attacked in the last hours of that Easter Saturday on April 2.
Mrs Howlett had spent the day surrounded by family before settling down to watch television with daughter, Patricia, who left about 8.30pm.
Bloodstains found inside her outdoor toilet told forensic experts that the initial attack occurred in the outhouse before she was dragged inside.
She was horrifically sexually assaulted before being bashed around the head - an autopsy was to show her skull had been fractured and there were five deep lacerations around her head.
Her house was set alight but four coalminers driving past the house on the way to a shift at the Bulga mine saw smoke and called for help.
The fire was extinguished before it took hold of the bedroom where Mrs Howlett's body lay naked and face down.
The autopsy also showed a lack of carbon monoxide in her lungs, telling pathologists that she was either dead or very close to death when the fire occurred.
But the smoke and water damage destroyed a lot of the forensic evidence and made the hunt for the killer even harder.
The violence inflicted on Mrs Howlett was not lost on the people of Weston and other Coalfields towns, who had endured news of a horrific attack on one of their elder statesmen only four years earlier.
George Woodcock was known to be a little on the cranky side. But he was still loveable to his drinking mates and others who knew the "harmless soul" and jack-of-all trades around the town.
The 66-year-old's body lay inside his miner's cottage for several days before someone made the discovery on November 1, 1990.
His body, still in pyjamas and with some savage injuries inflicted, was propped up against a blood-spattered bedroom wall.
Police believe Mr Woodcock was attacked in his bed, suffering five blows from a razor-sharp machete that had almost decapitated him.
And just like Mrs Howlett a few years later, there was rumour and theories about the identity of the killer.
But no one was ever brought to justice.
Police also believe that despite Mr Woodcock's house being ransacked, robbery was not the favoured motive.
And bank records were to later show that Mr Woodcock only had $60 in his account.
But it seems cash is the only motive in the murder of eccentric Stockton boarding house manager Rose Boulton more than 50 years ago.
The widowed 77-year-old was found dead on the floor of a tiny apartment in the Hereford Street boarding home she ran with an iron fist.
It was July, 1959, and Mrs Boulton had been beaten to death with a sand-filled sock.
It follows rumours that the old lady had come into a huge amount of cash.
Eagle-eyed housie players watched as she pulled pound notes from a wad she held in her hand.
She had always insisted in being paid in ?5 ($10) notes by the tenants.
And the rumours abounded that there were bags of cash secreted away in the cobwebbed back room where Mrs Boulton had lived by candlelight.
