92-year-old convicted in UK’s 1967 rape-murder case: How 'DNA match' cracked the historic cold case

Convict Ryland Headley (L), Deceased Louisa Dunne (R)

A 92-year-old British man was convicted on Monday for a rape and murder committed nearly 60 years ago, in one of the UK's longest-running cold cases.

Ryland Headley was found guilty by a UK court for raping and killing 75-year-old Louisa Dunne after breaking into her house in Bristol, southwest England in June 1967, when he was 34 years old.

Headley’s conviction comes 58 years after the brutal attack in Bristol, where Dunne was found strangled and sexually assaulted in her own home. The case lay dormant for decades until police reopened it as part of a cold‑case review in 2023, spurred by advancements in DNA forensics.

At the heart of the prosecution’s case was a “billion‑to‑one” DNA match, linking semen found on Dunne’s preserved blue skirt and pubic hair to Headley. That forensic breakthrough, combined with a palm print lifted from a rear window of Dunne’s house, was enough to finally tie the elderly suspect to the crime.

Despite extensive fingerprint matches conducted in 1967, Headley narrowly escaped detection—he and his then-wife lived just outside the radius of early suspect canvassing . Decades later, a palm print taken in November 2024 from Headley, now living quietly in Suffolk, confirmed investigators’ suspicions.

Born in 1932 in Jamaica, Headley arrived in Britain during the Windrush era, settling in Bristol before later moving to Ipswich. Neighbors knew him as “Riley,” a seemingly unassuming family man who even worked on his own garden well into his 90s.

However, his criminal past was far darker. In 1977, Headley had pleaded guilty to the rape of two elderly women aged 79 and 84, alongside a string of burglaries. Yet, he served only about two years after an appeal reduced his sentence.

During his trial at Bristol Crown Court, the jury unanimously found him guilty of rape and, by a 10–2 majority, guilty of murder following a two-week hearing.

Court testimony painted a chilling portrait of the night Dunne died. Prosecutor Anna Vigars KC recounted how neighbors discovered Dunne’s body after noticing an open sash window and no sign of the typically social widow, described as a familiar local figure, on her usual doorstep.

The postmortem revealed signs of strangulation and sexual assault. Detectives preserved key items, including Dunne’s clothing and the blue skirt—from that night, though they lay unexamined until modern DNA analysis was possible.