Man, 92, convicted of woman’s 1967 murder, solving one of the U.K.’s longest-running cold cases

A 92-year-old man was found guilty of the rape and murder of a woman in the southwest of England in what is considered the oldest the cold affair to be resolved.

A jury in Bristol Crown Court revealed Ryland Headley, then 34, guilty of having attacked Louisa Dunne, 75, in June 1967.

“Louisa Dunne died in a horrible attack on where she should have felt the safest – her own house,” said prosecutor Charlotte Ream. “For 58 years, this appalling crime is not resolved and Ryland Headley, the man we now know is responsible, avoided justice.”

Dunne was found dead in her home by a neighbor on June 28, 1967. The night of his death, the neighbors said they heard a “scary cry” of a woman, the BBC reported.

The cause of his death has proven to be strangling and suffocated. She had also been raped.

It is “one of the oldest cold cases to solve in the United Kingdom” ” said the Crown prosecution service (CPS), which brings criminal proceedings.

Investigators kept Dunne’s clothes, including a blue skirtand other samples from his body for a more in -depth examination. They also recovered an impression of palm from a window that Headley would have used to enter his house.

Despite the efforts of the police investigating Dunne’s death 58 years ago, no key suspects have been identified, The BBC reported. Police collected around 19,000 impressions of men and boys at the time without success.

In 2023, the case was re-examined and the skirt was dismissed for forensic tests in May of last year. DNA recovered from the clothing element linked to Headley to the murder scene after its DNA was added to the national database in 2012 for an unrelated incident.

The forensic doctors concluded that the DNA of the skirt corresponded to Headley’s and the Palm Print was also his. Headley was arrested at his Suffolk home in November.

Headley was found guilty of two rape leaders in the late 1970s, after attacking women, aged 79 and 84, in Ipswich. He pleaded guilty to the accusations in 1978 and was imprisoned for seven years.

All witnesses of the trial except one in the case died, According to the CPSSo the accusation had to rely on written accounts from witnesses at the time of the murder.

The testimonies of the two women were read during the Headley trial in 2025.

“Hearing the voices of the victims of his 1977 offenses is simply incredibly powerful and painful,” said Inspector-Détective Dave Marchant, principal investigator for the case. “I think it probably gives us an overview of what happened in the 58 Britannia Road (Dunne’s house) to some extent.”

Since the witnesses were not available to testify in court and therefore could not be challenged on this evidence, their declarations had to be dealt with as evidence by hearsay, noted the CPS.

Dunne’s granddaughter Mary Dainton said she was amazed when she learned that Headley had been arrested. “I accepted that some murders are never resolved and that some people must live with this void and this sadness,” she said.

Marking said that he was working with the National Crime Agency to determine if Headley could be responsible for any other unresolved offense over the years. “Crimes of this magnitude should never remain unpunished and we will remain relentless to make sure to do everything possible to advance other cases of unresolved murder in the Avon and Somerset region,” he said.

Headley will be sentenced on Tuesday.