Ryland Headley appeared at Bristol Crown Court this morning wearing a dark red jumper as he sat in the dock and pleaded not guilty to the rape and murder of Louisa Dunne in 1967
A 92-year-old man is on trial accused of raping and murdering a woman almost 58 years ago, in what is believed to be Britain’s longest ever cold case arrest..
Ryland Headley appeared at Bristol Crown Court this morning wearing a dark red jumper as he sat in the dock and pleaded not guilty to killing Louisa Dunne. She was aged 75 when she was found dead by a neighbour in her home in the Easton area of Bristol on June 28, 1967. Mrs Dunne was found fully dressed, but had her knickers round her ankles and a nylon type stocking lying across her neck. She had been strangled.
Ryland Headley, of Ipswich, Suffolk, is standing trial in a case expected to last up to three weeks. He was flanked by a madam intermediary who is there to help him through the trial due to his age.
The court heard how no breakthrough was ever made in the case despite police finding a semen sample and palm prints on an open sash window.
They knew her house had been broken into and knew she was last heard by neighbours at around 10pm, 58 years ago on June 27. But despite thousands of local men having their palm prints taken for analysis no suspect was ever found.
The case went cold until detectives from Avon & Somerset police once again went through the case file in 2023 and arrested Me Headley last year.
Prosecutor Anna Vigars KC, told the jury: “Why should you be particularly engaged with something that happened quite so long ago – the week after next we will be at the 58th anniversary of Mrs Dunne’s death.
“So, why now? Well, the first, and perhaps the most important, point is this – what we are talking about is the murder of an elderly and vulnerable lady in her own home. She was in no state to defend herself.
“Whether it happened 58 years ago or 58 days ago, the murder of any person, is, of course, a matter of concern to any of the rest of us. The fact that time has passed does not make the killing of any one of us any less significant.”
She went on to explain to the court how Avon & Somerset police kept the evidence for nearly 60 years and never gave up on it. She said: “The police have never given up on solving the case of Mrs Dunne’s murder.
“From time to time, the case has been re-examined. That involved, among other things, reviewing the material from the original investigation against the new and improving scientific techniques becoming available to the police.
“There was some limited work done on the case in 2009 and again in 2014 but there was nothing of substance that came out of that. So it was that Mrs Dunne’s murder remained unsolved.
She added: “The investigatory material was stored by the police. It was moved from one police station to another over the years, ending up in the major crime archives at Avon and Somerset police headquarters.
“But, stored inside the boxes were Mrs Dunne’s clothes and some of the original paperwork from that original investigation including the notes of the finding of semen on the vaginal swab taken from Mrs Dunne.
“In 2023 the police went back to the boxes and took everything out, examining what they had. For the first time in 2024 five of those original items were sent off for forensic examination.
“Those were Mrs Dunne’s scarf, her skirt, pubic hair – in two collections – both loose pubic hair and hair that had been plucked from her body during the autopsy, and hair from her head.
“Although the items had been in police possession for almost sixty years, they had never before been examined scientifically like this. The forensic scientist responsible for their examination is a man called Andrew Parry and you will hear evidence from him.
“He discovered that Mrs Dunne’s skirt contained a large quantity of semen. The scientists use a scale of 0 – 4 to describe the density of semen found where 0 is no semen and 4 is the highest level on the scale. In this case, Mr Parry found semen in a density at level 4, in other words, the highest level.
“By 2024, scientists were able to do what was impossible nearly sixty years earlier and examine the semen for DNA. Mr Parry discovered that the semen matched Mr Headley’s DNA with a match ratio that meant it was a billion times more likely to be Mr Headley’s DNA than that of someone else.”
The court also heard how twice-widowed Mrs Dunne had been living by herself since the death of her last husband about six years earlier.
She had been originally married to a man called Edward Parker who had been a senior figure in Bristol and heavily involved in local politics.
She then remarried a man called John Dunne who had been a night watchman in the city. Mr Dunne had also died in the early 1960s and Mrs Dunne found herself living alone once more.
The court heard how Mrs Dunne had enjoyed a drink with one of her friends the night of her death but that sadly her body was found in her dining room the next day by concerned neighbours who raised the alarm.
Prosecutor Vigars KC, said: “As I describe her, she will sound to you, as she very much was, like a person from a different age, a world that all of us, with our social media, flexible working, and cheap air travel, have very much moved beyond. But you’ll know exactly the type of person whom I’m describing.
“So now let me focus on the events towards the end of June 1967. Alice Clarke had seen Mrs Dunne on 27th June 1967 and the two women had had a talk and then Mrs Dunne had left Mrs Clarke’s house at about half past seven, saying that she was going to go back home to bed. She said nothing about expecting any visitors.”
Sadly her body was found in her front room the next day by concerned neighbours who raised the alarm when she was not seen that morning.
Avon and Somerset Police said the murder is the oldest cold case on its books – and this is the first time in the force’s history an arrest has been made almost 60 years after a crime.
Before the start of the trial, the judge also lifted a reporting restriction on two previous convictions for Headley of rape of elderly women back in the late 1970s.
Prosecutor Anna Vigars told the court: “We understand that Mr Headley’s position is simply that he has no recollection of ever having visited Mrs Dunne’s home, or of having sexual intercourse with Mrs Dunne, that he certainly did not rape her, and that he didn’t kill her.”
The jury was also told on October 1, 1977, just over 10 years after Mrs Dunne was killed, Headley broke into a different widow’s home at night. This time the victim was an 84-year-old woman and the defendant got in through a rear ground floor window
Later that same month, he also raped another woman, 79, after again breaking into her home through a window. He pleaded guilty to those two rapes and he also asked that the court should take into account a further 10 offences of overnight burglaries of homes where his fingerprints had also been found.
Those offences had taken place between 1973 and 1978.
Headley denies the charges. The trial continues.