Bristol man, 92, finally convicted of 1967 murder after DNA breakthrough

More than half a century after Louisa Dunne was found strangled on her living room floor, her killer has finally been brought to justice.

Ryland Headley, now 92, was convicted by a Bristol Crown court on Monday for the rape and murder of Dunne in 1967 — one of the city’s longest unsolved cases. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and told by the judge he would die in prison.

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Seventy-five-year-old Dunne was discovered dead on June 28, 1967, by a neighbour who entered her home on Britannia Road in Easton, Bristol. Despite an extensive investigation at the time — with police collecting nearly 19,000 fingerprints, knocking on 8,000 doors and taking 2,000 statements — no suspect was ever identified and the case went cold.

The breakthrough came 56 years later. In 2023, Avon and Somerset Police’s major and statutory crime review team reopened the case, re-examining exhibits that had been preserved for decades, including Dunne’s skirt and hair samples. Modern forensic testing revealed a DNA profile on the victim’s clothing. When uploaded to the national DNA database, it matched Headley.

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Headley was arrested at his Ipswich home in November 2024 and charged with rape and murder, which he denied. But a jury found him guilty this week.

During sentencing on Tuesday, presiding judge Derek Sweeting told Headley: “You will never be released — you will die in prison.”

The court heard that Headley had a violent history. In 1977, he raped two elderly women — aged 79 and 84 — in their own homes in Ipswich. Though originally sentenced to life imprisonment for those attacks, he served just two years after doctors claimed his crimes were driven by sexual frustration in a troubled marriage.

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Speaking after the sentencing, police praised the perseverance of investigators and advancements in forensic science for finally delivering justice for Louisa Dunne.