A 92-year-old guy on Monday used to be convicted of the rape and homicide of a girl in southwestern England in what’s considered the U.Okay.’s longest-running chilly case ever to be solved.
A jury at Bristol crown courtroom discovered Ryland Headley, then elderly 34, in charge of attacking 75-year-old Louisa Dunne in June 1967.
“Louisa Dunne died in a scary assault performed within the position the place she will have to have felt most secure — her own residence,” prosecutor Charlotte Ream stated. “For 58 years, this appalling crime went unsolved and Ryland Headley, the person we now know is accountable, have shyed away from justice.”
Dunne used to be discovered useless in her house by means of a neighbor on June 28, 1967. The evening of her loss of life, neighbors reported listening to a girl’s “horrifying scream,” the BBC reported.
The reason for her loss of life used to be discovered to be strangulation and asphyxiation. She had additionally been raped.
It’s “one of the vital oldest chilly circumstances to ever be solved within the U.Okay.,” stated the Crown Prosecution Carrier (CPS), which brings legal prosecutions.
Investigators retained Dunne’s clothes, together with a blue skirt, and different samples from her frame for additional exam. In addition they recovered a palm print from a window which Headley is assumed to have used to achieve access to her house.
Avon and Somerset Police 
Regardless of the efforts of police investigating Dunne’s loss of life 58 years in the past, no key suspect used to be known, the BBC reported. Police gathered about 19,000 prints from males and boys on the time without a luck.
In 2023, the case used to be reexamined and the skirt used to be despatched away for forensic trying out in Might final yr. DNA recovered from the thing of clothes connected Headley to the homicide scene after his DNA used to be added to the nationwide database in 2012 for an unrelated incident.
Forensic scientists concluded that DNA from the skirt matched Headley’s and the palm print used to be additionally his. Headley used to be arrested at his house in Suffolk in November.
Headley used to be convicted of 2 counts of rape within the past due Nineteen Seventies, after he attacked girls, elderly 79 and 84, in Ipswich. He pleaded in charge to the fees in 1978 and used to be jailed for seven years.
All however one of the vital trial witnesses within the case died, in keeping with the CPS, so the prosecution needed to depend on written accounts taken from witnesses on the time of the homicide.
Testimonies of the 2 girls have been learn all the way through Headley’s 2025 trial.
“Listening to the voices of the sufferers of his 1977 offences, is solely extremely robust and harrowing,” stated Detective Inspector Dave Marchant, senior investigating officer for the case. “I feel it provides us an perception into almost definitely what came about inside 58 Britannia Street (Dunne’s house) to a point.”
As a result of witnesses weren’t to be had to present proof in courtroom, and due to this fact may just now not be challenged on that proof, their statements needed to be handled as rumour proof as a substitute, the CPS famous.
Dunne’s granddaughter Mary Dainton stated she used to be shocked when she heard that Headley were arrested. “I permitted that some murders simply by no means get solved and a few folks need to reside with that vacancy and unhappiness,” she stated.
Marchant stated he’s operating with the Nationwide Crime Company to decide whether or not Headley is also liable for another unsolved offenses over time. “Crimes of this magnitude will have to by no means move unpunished and we can stay relentless in making sure we do the entirety we will to advance different unsolved homicide circumstances within the Avon and Somerset space,” he stated.
Headley can be sentenced on Tuesday.
Avon and Somerset Police 
