England: Life prison for a crime committed in 1967

A 92 -year -old man was sentenced to life prison on Tuesday with a 20 -year security sentence for the rape and murder of a woman in 1967 in England, a case presented as the oldest “Cold Case” in the country.

On Monday, Ryland Headley was found guilty of having violated and killed Louisa Dunne, a 75-year-old widow, found strangled at home in Bristol, in southwest England, almost sixty years ago.

“You will never be released and you will die in prison,” said judge Derek Sweeting, of the Bristol court, announcing the sentence inflicted on the nonagenarian, who was 34 years old at the time of the facts. “Ms. Dunne was vulnerable. She was a little elderly woman living alone. You have exploited this vulnerability, “he added.

“You have broken down to her house, you assaulted her sexually and, in doing so, you caused her death,” he said. “You may not intend to kill, but you planned to rape it and you brutalized it,” continued the magistrate, adding that his actions demonstrated a “total contempt for human life and dignity”.

Ryland Headley had never been confused for this crime which had remained unresolved. On the other hand, he was sentenced in 1978 for the rape of two women, a septuagenarian and an octogenarian, committed in October 1977 in Ipswich, in the south-east of England. In both cases, he entered the home of his victims overnight, had threatened them before raping them.

For these crimes, justice had pronounced against him a perpetuity prison sentence, finally reduced to seven years’ imprisonment.

At the time of the death of Louisa Dunne, despite a vast police investigation during which the hands of 19,000 men had been collected, the murderer had been not found.

The case experienced a twist in 2023, when the police reopened the case by using DNA analysis technologies, which made it possible to find a genetic footprint corresponding to that of Ryland Headley.

Ryland Headley was charged in November 2024 and placed in detention. After his arrest, a hand footprint found on the bedroom window on the floor of Louisa’s house was compared to hers and, too, the two corresponded, the police said.

On the occasion of the trial, Mary Dainton, the granddaughter of Louisa Dunne, told the trauma caused by the death of her grandmother in her family. “I don’t think my mother never recovered. Anxiety has obscured the rest of her life, ”she said.

“I was only 20 years old when my grandmother died, and now I was almost the same age as she was when she was killed,” said the septuagenarian.

She also explained that the crime had the effect of keeping some people from the family, “including friends”. “There is a mark of infamy associated with rape and murder. So I have rarely talked about it to anyone so far, ”she said. “It makes me deeply sad that all the people who knew and loved Louisa were not there to see that justice is done,” she added.

The British Crime Agency (NCA) said they cooperate with Avon and Somerset police in an attempt to discover whether the nonagenarian had committed other crimes.