Man 92,found gulity of rape and murder nearly 60years ago

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.

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.

Image:The front of Louisa Dun­ne’s home. Pic: Avon and Som­er­set Con­stab­u­lary

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.

null

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.

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.

Image:Louisa Dun­ne’s skirt. Pic: Avon and Som­er­set Con­stab­u­lary

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.

Image:The back of Louisa Dun­ne’s house. Pic: Avon and Som­er­set Con­stab­u­lary

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.