A 92-year-old man has been found guilty of raping and murdering a woman born 133 years ago – in what’s thought to be the UK’s longest cold case to reach trial.
Ryland Headley was convicted at Bristol Crown Court of killing 75-year-old mother of two, Louisa Dunne, at her home back in June 1967.
Latest DNA technology – as well as matching palm prints taken at the scene more than 57 years ago – led a jury to find Headley guilty on both charges.
Detective Inspector Dave Marchant from Avon and Somerset Police said forces across the country are investigating whether Headley could be linked to other unsolved crimes.
“This investigation was a blend of new and old forensic techniques – DNA being the latest and greatest…but we were able to utilise that original investigative material,” he said.
On the morning of 28 June 1967, neighbours noticed that Louisa Dunne, born in 1892, wasn’t standing on her doorstep as usual.
They found her lying dead inside her home in the Easton area of Bristol – bruised, blood coming from one ear, vomit in her mouth and her underwear around her ankles.
Hainault sword rampage survivor recalls moment attacker told him: ‘I’m going to kill you’
Men guilty of plotting murder and running drugs empire on EncroChat
‘Loving father’ shot dead in suspected case of mistaken identity prompts appeal for information
The police investigation at the time found traces of semen on intimate swabs and on the skirt she was wearing, but it was around 20 years before DNA testing.
A palm print was also found on one of the rear windows inside the house.
“The original investigation was, by all accounts, massive,” DI Marchant told Sky News.
“Over 19,000 palm print eliminations were taken from men and boys in the Bristol area and beyond. Over 8,000 house-to-house records were completed and several thousand statements were taken,” he added.
But Headley – in his 30s at the time – lived just outside the ring of houses where palm prints were taken.
A post-mortem examination found she had “extensive abrasions” on her face and that the most likely explanation was that a hand had been pressed against her mouth.
Around 20 crates of evidence were stored in Avon and Somerset Police HQ for nearly six decades alongside other cold cases.
The case was reviewed in 2024, with new DNA testing on the sperm found on the skirt Ms Dunne had been wearing.
Investigating officers were told the results showed a DNA match on the national database that was “a billion times” more likely to belong to Headley than anyone else.
“I had to read that email several times to fully digest the content of it and believe what I was reading. Then it was, okay, game on, let’s get this investigation going,” said DI Marchant.
Headley was arrested at his home in Ipswich in November 2024 – he did not give evidence during the trial.
The jury heard that forensic experts had matched Headley’s palm print, taken on arrest, to that of the one found on Ms Dunne’s window at the time.
The judge allowed the prosecution to raise the fact that Headley had already spent time in jail for committing two other rapes, around a decade after Ms Dunne’s murder.
Both those cases involved attacks against elderly women in similar circumstances.
Prosecutor Anna Vigars KC told the jury these offences demonstrate to all of us that Headley “has a tendency” to act in exactly the same way that we say that he did back in 1967.
“In other words, to break into people’s homes at night and, in some cases, to target an elderly woman living alone, to have sex with her despite her attempts to fend him off, and to threaten violence,” she said.
Speaking before the verdict, Louisa Dunne’s granddaughter recalled the moment police told her of progress in the cold case, nearly six decades on: “She said, ‘this is about your grandmother’, and I said, ‘have they caught him?’ It came out, I never thought I’d say anything like that. Have you caught him? and she said, ‘we have a suspect’.”
She described the impact of the attack on her grandmother and that a conviction would bring relief:
“I accepted it. I accepted that some murders just never get solved. And some people just have to live with that emptiness and that sadness.
“I think it’s appalling, absolutely appalling. The poor woman – it must have been absolutely terrifying. And the reality of a rape, I don’t like thinking about, I don’t think anybody does,” she added.
Read more from Sky News:
Weight loss jabs linked to potentially fatal side effect
Reform would win most seats in general election, poll suggests
Follow our channel and never miss an update
The Crown Prosecution Service told Sky News that it was not aware of a cold case with a longer period between the offence and trial.
DI Marchant told Sky News it demonstrates the value of reviewing such cases: “I think this investigation shows you should never give up.
“You should never look at an investigation and say, ‘oh, it’s too old, it happened X number of years ago’ and have an arbitrary cut off point. At the time we re-instigated it in 2024… there was a chance a suspect could still be alive and as it turned out – he was.”
