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4 min read
Man convicted of raping and murdering woman in 1967 gets life sentence
By Ivana Kottasová, CNN
Updated:
11:18 AM EDT, Tue July 1, 2025
Source: CNN
A 92-year-old British man convicted of the 1967 rape and murder of a
woman in her home has been sentenced to life in prison.
Ryland Headley was found guilty by Bristol Crown Court in southern
England of the rape and murder of Louisa Dunne, who was 75 years old
when Headley killed her nearly six decades ago.
Headley was convicted on Monday and the verdict brought an end to a
cold case that remained unsolved for 58 years. He was sentenced on
Tuesday.
He was told during sentencing that he had committed a “pitiless and
cruel act,” according to PA Media news agency.
The judge, Derek Sweeting, sentenced Headley to life in prison, setting
a minimum term of 20 years.
“You broke into her home, you sexually assaulted her and in doing so,
you caused her death,” Sweeting said, per PA Media.
“You may not have intended to kill, but you planned to rape her, and
you brutally attacked her. When you did so, you met her screams and
struggles in a force sufficient to kill. The nature of these offenses
demonstrates a complete disregard for human life and dignity,” the
judge added.
“Mrs Dunne was vulnerable. She was a small, elderly woman living
alone. You exploited that vulnerability. You treated her as a means to
an end. The violation of her home, her body, and ultimately, her life,
was a pitiless and cruel act by a depraved man.”
The judge added that, given Headley’s age, he will “never be
released” and will “die in prison.”
DNA profile
Dunne was found dead in her home in Easton, in the suburbs of Bristol,
in June 1967. The police determined at the time that she had been raped
and died of strangulation and asphyxiation.
The local constabulary launched a major investigation: they took
palmprints from 19,000 men, collected 1,300 statements and made more
than 8,000 house-to-house calls, the Avon and Somerset Police said in a
statement on Monday.
Yet none of it led anywhere, and the case went cold.
It wasn’t until the police began reviewing the case in 2023 that
investigators were able to get a full DNA profile of Dunne’s killer
from the skirt she was wearing when she died – using technology that
was not available at the time of the crime.
That DNA profile was then matched with samples taken from Headley
following his arrest for two rapes in 1977, leading to his arrest in
November 2024.
“For 58 years, this appalling crime went unsolved and Ryland Headley,
the man we now know is responsible, avoided justice,” crown
prosecuting solicitor Charlotte Ream said in a statement by the Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS).
Headley denied committing the offences, according to the CPS.
20 boxes of evidence reviewed
A partial handprint found at the scene was also re-examined as part of
the case review, the CPS said. The print of a part of a palm, between
the wrist and the base of the little finger, was discovered on a window
at the back of Dunne’s house and was matched to Headley’s hand by
four experts.
“Headley never featured in (the) original investigation as he lived
outside the area where the house-to-house enquiries were carried
out,” senior investigating officer with the Avon and Somerset police,
Detective Inspector Dave Marchant, said in a statement.
Marchant said the “extensive and meticulous work” that was done by
the officers in the initial investigation paved the way for the police
to solve the crime. He said that as part of the re-investigation, 20
boxes of original material were reviewed by the police.
The CPS said that all but one witness in the case have died over the
nearly six decades since the crime was committed, but that old
statements were read in court as part of the trial.
The CPS said that Headley’s other offenses were also considered
during the trial. While earlier convictions are not automatically
admissible in courts in England, the CPS said that the similarities
between the Dunne murder and rape and Headley’s two previous
convictions for rape were “too great to ignore.”
The CPS said Headley was convicted after pleading guilty of breaking
into the homes of two elderly women in Ipswich and raping them. One of
the women was in her seventies and the other in her eighties. Their
accounts of the attacks to the police at the time were read out to the
court.
He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but this was reduced
following an appeal to a seven-year jail term.
Ream said the verdict on Monday was a “demonstration of the
commitment of the CPS, and our partners in the police, to relentlessly
pursue justice for the victims of crime, no matter how many years –
or decades – have passed.”
But advocacy groups say rape convictions remain low in the UK and the
justice process is incredibly slow.
The says 71,227 rapes were recorded by police in 2024. According to , a
UK charity, just 2.7% of these cases resulted in charges being brought
by the end of 2024.
Official shows that it currently takes on average 344 days for the
police to charge the suspected offender, 30 days for the CPS to
authorise the charge, and 336 days for the court to complete the case.
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