A 92-year-old man has been convicted for the rape and murder of a woman in southwestern England in what is believed to be the oldest cold case ever resolved in the United Kingdom.
On Monday, a jury at Bristol Crown Court found Ryland Headley, who was 34 at the time of the crime, guilty of sexually assaulting and killing 75-year-old Louisa Dunne in June 1967.
“Louisa Dunne died in a horrifying attack carried out in the place where she should have felt safest, her own home,” said prosecutor Charlotte Ream. “For 58 years, this appalling crime went unsolved and Ryland Headley, the man we now know is responsible, avoided justice.”
Dunne’s body was discovered in her home on June 28, 1967, by a neighbor. On the night of her death, local residents recalled hearing a woman’s “frightening scream,” according to the BBC.
She had been raped, strangled, and asphyxiated. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, which oversees criminal prosecutions in England and Wales, this is “one of the oldest cold cases to ever be solved in the U.K.”
Police preserved key evidence from the original investigation, including Dunne’s blue skirt and forensic samples from her body.
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Investigators also lifted a palm print from a window believed to be Headley’s point of entry.
Despite the large-scale investigation at the time, which included the collection of some 19,000 prints from males in the area, no suspect was identified.
The case was reopened in 2023, and forensic experts reexamined the preserved evidence. In May of that year, Dunne’s skirt was submitted for DNA analysis.
The results linked Headley to the scene, with his DNA having been entered into the national database in 2012 following a separate incident.
Forensic teams concluded that both the DNA found on the skirt and the palm print matched Headley’s. He was arrested at his Suffolk residence in November.
Further investigation revealed that Headley had a violent history. He was convicted in the late 1970s for raping two elderly women, ages 79 and 84, in Ipswich. He pleaded guilty in 1978 and served a seven-year prison sentence.
Due to the passage of time, nearly all original witnesses had died, according to the CPS.
As a result, prosecutors had to rely on historical witness statements from the 1967 investigation.
Statements from the two surviving victims of Headley’s 1977 attacks were read in court during his 2025 trial.
“Hearing the voices of the victims of his 1977 offences, is just incredibly powerful and harrowing,” said Detective Inspector Dave Marchant, who led the investigation. “I think it gives us an insight into probably what happened within 58 Britannia Road (Dunne’s home) to some degree.”
Because those witnesses were unavailable to testify in person and undergo cross-examination, their statements were admitted as hearsay, the CPS explained.
Dunne’s granddaughter, Mary Dainton, said she was shocked to learn of Headley’s arrest. “I accepted that some murders just never get solved and some people have to live with that emptiness and sadness,” she said.
Detective Marchant added that authorities are now collaborating with the National Crime Agency to investigate whether Headley could be linked to other unresolved crimes.
“Crimes of this magnitude should never go unpunished and we will remain relentless in ensuring we do everything we can to advance other unsolved murder cases in the Avon and Somerset area,” he said.
Headley is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday.
