A 92-year-old man has been found guilty of the rape and murder of a Bristol woman in a case that remained unsolved for nearly six decades. DNA helped crack the rape case.
Louisa Dunne, 75, was found strangled on her living room floor by a neighbour on Britannia Road in Easton, Bristol, on 28 June 1967.
Convicted rapist Ryland Headley, of Clarence Road in Ipswich, has now been found guilty of Mrs Dunne’s murder following a trial at Bristol Crown Court.
Senior investigating officer Det Insp Dave Marchant said Headley, who was in his 30s when he killed Mrs Dunne, had left “a legacy of misery and pain”.
Despite the efforts of police investigating Mrs Dunne’s death 58 years ago, no key suspect was identified.
Police collected about 19,000 prints from men and boys at the time with no success. They also made about 8,000 house-to-house inquiries and took 2,000 statements.
It was only when the case was re-examined by Avon and Somerset Police decades later, that DNA testing of a swab that contained semen was linked to Headley.
Det Insp Marchant called him a “dangerous serial offender” with a “shocking and abhorrent history” and said there was a sense of “gravity” when police were told of the positive result.
“This is a marrying of old school and new school policing techniques,” he said.
Det Insp Marchant added it was believed to be the oldest cold case solved in the UK.
After Headley’s arrest, fingerprint experts compared his palm print to one collected from the rear window of Mrs Dunne’s home, which matched Headley’s.
He previously admitted breaking into the homes of two widows, aged 84 and 79, and raping them in Suffolk in October 1977,in crimes police described as “eerily similar”.
Headley had denied both the rape and murder of Mrs Dunne after being charged in November 2024. He is set to be sentenced for both crimes on Tuesday.
BBC
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