Man, 92, convicted by woman

A 92 -year -old man on Monday was convicted of the rape and murder of a woman in the southwest of England in what is believed to be the oldest cold case in the United Kingdom that has been resolved.

A jury in Bristol Crown Court found Ryland Headley, then 34, guilty of attacking Louisa Dunne, 75, in June 1967.

“Louisa Dunne died in a horrible attack carried out in the place where she should have felt safer, her own home,” said prosecutor Charlotte Ream. “For 58 years, this frightening crime was unsolved and Ryland Headley, the man we now know is responsible, avoided justice.”

Dunne was found dead at home by a neighbor on June 28, 1967. The night of her death, the neighbors reported having heard a woman’s “screaming”, the BBC reported.

It was discovered that the cause of his death was strangulation and suffocation. She had also been raped.

It is “one of the oldest cold cases that have been resolved in the United Kingdom,” said the Crown Prosecutor’s Office (CPS), which brings criminal prosecutions.

The researchers retained Dunne’s clothes, including a blue skirt and other samples of their body for a more detailed exam. They also recovered a palm print from a window that is believed that Headley used to have entered their home.

Despite the efforts of the police that investigates Dunne’s death 58 years ago, no key suspect was identified, BBC reported. Police collected around 19,000 prints of men and children at that time without success.

In 2023, the case was reexamined and the skirt was sent for forensic tests in May last year. The DNA recovered from the garment linked to Headley to the servant’s scene after his DNA was added to the national database in 2012 by an unrelated incident.

Forensic scientists concluded that the DNA of the skirt combined with Headley’s and the palm print was also his. Headley was arrested at his home in Suffolk in November.

Headley was convicted of two rape positions at the end of the 1970s, after he attacked women, 79 and 84, in Ipswich. He declared himself guilty of the charges in 1978 and was imprisoned for seven years.

All but one of the witnesses of trial in the case died, according to the CPS, so the Prosecutor’s Office had to trust written accounts taken from witnesses at the time of the murder.

Testimonies of the two women were read during the Headley 2025 trial.

“Listening to the voices of the victims of their crimes of 1977, is incredibly powerful and heartbreaking,” said Inspector Detective Dave Marchaont, a high -level investigator officer. “I think he gives us an idea of ​​what happened in 58 Britannia Road (Dunne’s house) to some extent.”

Because the witnesses were not available to give evidence in the courts and, therefore, could not be challenged in that evidence, their statements had to be treated as evidence of rumors, the CPS said.

Dunne’s granddaughter, Mary Dainton, said she was surprised when she heard that Headley had been arrested. “I accepted that some murders are never resolved and some people have to live with that void and sadness,” he said.

Marchant said he is working with the National Crime Agency to determine if Headley can be responsible for any other unresolved crime over the years. “The crimes of this magnitude should never be unpunished and we will continue to be implacable to ensure that we do our best to advance in other cases of unsolved murder in the Avon and Somerset area,” he said.

Headley will be sentenced on Tuesday.

• Cold case
• DNA
• Murder
• United Kingdom