Man, 92, guilty of murder in UK’s ‘oldest cold case’

A 92-year-old man has been found guilty of the rape and murder of an elderly widow in what is thought to be the UK’s longest-running cold case ever to be solved.

- ROD MINCHIN

Ryland Headley, then aged 34, forced entry into the home of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne in Bristol in June 1967 before attacking her. The mother-of-two’s body was found by neighbours inside her terraced home on Britannia Road in the Easton area of the city on the morning of 28 June.

A woman was heard screaming hours before Dunne, who had been twice widowed and lived alone, was discovered dead. Dunne, who was using the front room as a bedroom, was found lying on a pile of old clothes, and police found no evidence of any violent struggle in the house.

The case remained unsolved for more than 50 years until Avon and Somerset detectives sent off items from the original investigation for DNA testing. Those results provided a DNA match to Headley, who since the murder had moved to Suffolk, and had served a prison sentence for raping two elderly women in 1977.

Headley, of Clarence Road, Ipswich, denied both charges but was found guilty by the jury at Bristol Crown Court yesterday afternoon, following nine hours and 53 minutes of deliberations. He did not give evidence.

Mr Justice Sweeting told the jury of eight men and four women that he would sentence Headley for the two offences this morning.

He told them: “This was a case that has been in the public eye. It involved many details which are no doubt distressing. If you are summoned again in the next 10 years for jury service, you are entitled to refuse.”