Bristol cold case killer sentenced 60 years after murdering elderly widow

After more than half a century of unanswered questions, justice has finally caught up with Ryland Headley, a 92-year-old man who has been jailed for the rape and murder of 75-year-old Louise Dunne in 1967.

Headley was 34 when he broke into Mrs Dunne’s home in the Easton area of Bristol, where she lived alone. He assaulted her and strangled her to death in a crime that shocked the community in Easton and left her family devastated.

Ryland Headley was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court this week. The Honourable Mr Justice Sweeting imposed a life sentence with a minimum term of 20 years, ensuring that he will die behind bars.

The judge described Headley’s actions as a “pitiless and cruel act”, and condemned him for his utter disregard for human life and dignity, and for exploiting Mrs Dunne’s isolation and vulnerability. 

Ryland Headling via Avon and Somerset Police

The attack was not an isolated event. In 1977,  a decade after the murder of Mrs Dunne, he was convicted of the rapes of two other elderly women, aged 84 and 79, after he broke into their homes. At the time, there was no national computerised database or forensic link connecting him to the original murder, so nobody was able to link the crimes.

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The case is one of the oldest cold cases in the UK, taking 58 years to solve, and it wasn’t until 2023 that a significant breakthrough was made. Avon and Somerset Police’s Major Crime Review Team reopened the investigation and began combing through archival evidence. Among the preserved items was the skirt Louise Dunne had been wearing at the time of the attack.

Advanced forensic testing of the skirt resulted in a full DNA profile, matching Headley with a probability of “a billion to one.“ This led to his arrest in November 2024 at his home in Ipswich, nearly 60 years after the crime was committed. He was formally charged with the rape and murder of Louise Dunne on the same day.

The original investigation into Mrs Dunne’s death was one of the largest of its time. Between 1967 and 1968, police collected palm prints from nearly 19,000 men: those living within a 2.4 kilometre radius of the crime scene, convicted criminals, homeless men, and even soldiers on leave at the time of the crime.

Despite the scale of the operation, Headley evaded detection, living just a few hundred metres outside the boundary in the neighbouring area of Montpelier. The trail eventually went cold, and for decades, Mrs Dunne’s family was left without answers or closure. 

Mrs Dunne is survived by her grandchild, Mary Dainton, who was 20 when her grandmother was murdered. She spoke of the brutal impact the death had on her family, adding that she suspected her mother never recovered from it.

“It saddens me deeply that all the people who knew and loved Louisa are not here to see that justice is being done.”

The conviction is a landmark moment for cold case investigations in the UK. 

Featured image via Avon and Somerset Police