Living with his wife in the Bristol suburb of Montpelier in 1967, Ryland Headley must have thought he had just got away with murder. For more than half-a-century, he did.
The railway worker had forced entry into the terraced home of Louisa Dunne, around a mile-and-a-half away, where he brutally raped and murdered the 75-year-old, who had been twice widowed and was living alone.
But despite a huge manhunt, Headley, then aged 34, slipped the net by living just outside the geographic area for a meticulous operation that saw 19,000 men and boys provide their palm prints after a left-hand print had been found on an upstairs window of Mrs Dunne’s house.
Possibly shaken by the close shave, Headley uprooted his family to London a short time later, then moved to Ipswich.
And with the case then declared cold by police in Bristol, it appeared Headley had escaped justice.
That was until in 2023, when a team of officers at Avon and Somerset Police achieved a major breakthrough in the unsolved murder when re-opening evidence that had been boxed away for decades in the hopes future advances in science could finally help crack the case.
First, using the latest technology now available, they re-examined Mrs Dunne’s blue skirt, creating a DNA profile that matched Headley, who had had his DNA uploaded to the national database for an unrelated offence in 2012.
Then last year, after his arrest, Headley provided handprints that an expert judged had more than 25 characteristics that matched with the original 1967 print.
During his arrest, Headley, now 92, told detectives: “I don’t know what you are talking about. Very strange, very strange.”
But by now the investigation was building up steam, with the harrowing testimonies of two other elderly women who had been raped by Headley also helping to show the chilling similarities between the cases and the murder of Mrs Dunne.
Headley had been convicted of raping the two victims in 1977 - 10 years after Mrs Dunne’s death - in Suffolk. He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment but this was reduced to just seven years on appeal.
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Speaking after Headley was found guilty of murdering and raping Mrs Dunne at Bristol Crown Court on Monday, Detective Inspector Dave Marchant, of Avon and Somerset Police, said Headley had escaped the initial murder investigation because he lived outside the area of house-to-house enquiries, meaning Mrs Dunne’s family had to an “extremely long wait for answers”.
But he added: “The extensive and meticulous work carried out by officers with the Bristol Constabulary in the 1960s has paved the way for the enquiries we’ve carried out today.
“It was a comprehensive police investigation which saw prints taken from more than 19,000 men in a bid to find Louisa’s killer. This was in addition to 1,300 statements taken and more than 8,000 house-to-house records.
“Ryland Headley has left a legacy of misery and pain through his offending and likely thought he’d got away with Louisa’s murder until officers knocked on his door last November.
“Crimes of this magnitude should never go unpunished, and we remain relentless in ensuring we do all we can to advance other unsolved murder cases in the Avon and Somerset area.”
For the family of Mrs Dunne, Monday’s jury verdict brought justice, which for some who knew her was unfortunately too late.
Her granddaughter, Mary Dainton, said: “It saddens me deeply that all the people who knew and loved Louisa are not here to see that justice is being done.”
Det Insp Marchant said forces across the country were now examining whether Headley could be linked to other unsolved crimes.
