A 92-year-old man who raped and murdered an elderly widow in the 1960s has been jailed for life in what is thought to be the UK’s longest-running cold case ever to be solved.
“Depraved” Ryland Headley was 34 when he forced open a window at the home of Louisa Dunne, 75, in the Easton area of Bristol in June 1967 before attacking her.
Nearly six decades later, Headley, now 92, has finally been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years after he was found guilty of both charges by a jury at Bristol Crown Court on Monday afternoon.
Mrs Dunne’s grandaughter told the sentencing hearing on Tuesday how Headley’s evasion from justice had a devastating effect on her family, including her mother and aunt.
Mary Dainton, who was a 20-year-old student when her grandmother was murdered, told the court: “I don’t think my mother ever recovered from it. The anxiety caused by her mother’s brutal rape and murder clouded the rest of her life. The fact the offender wasn’t caught caused my mother to become and remain very ill.”
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Sweeting told Headley, of Clarence Road, Ipswich: “The nature of these offences demonstrates a complete disregard for human life and dignity. Mrs Dunne was vulnerable, she was a small elderly woman living alone. You treated her as a means to an end. The violation of her home, her body and ultimately her life was a pitiless and cruel act by a depraved man.”
He added: “You will never be released, you will die in prison.”
Mrs Dunne, a mother-of-two, was found dead by neighbours in the front room of her terraced home in Britannia Road on the morning of 28 June 1967.
A pathologist concluded that Mrs Dunne died from asphyxia due to strangulation and pressure on her mouth, probably from a hand being held over it.
Bristol Constabulary, as the force was then known, launched a huge investigation, taking the palm prints of 19,000 men and boys in an attempt to find a match to one left on an upstairs window.
But the case remained unsolved for more than 50 years until Avon and Somerset Police detectives sent items from the original investigation for DNA testing for the first time.
Semen recovered from a blue skirt worn by Mrs Dunne matched Headley’s DNA to a ratio that meant it was a billion times more likely to be from him than anybody else.
When his left palm print was finally taken, in November last year, it matched the print left at the scene.
Since Mrs Dunne’s murder, Headley had moved his family to Ipswich, where he was jailed for raping two elderly women after forcing open windows at their homes in October 1977.
On Tuesday, the judge told Headley he had displayed a “chilling pattern of behaviour”, while he had appeared to have “shown no remorse or shame” for any of his offending.
Mr Justice Sweeting told the defendant the “enduring generational impact” on Mrs Dunne’s family shows “the true measure of harm you inflicted”.
More follows on this breaking news story…
