The Way a Disturbing Sexual Assault and Killing Investigation Was Solved – 58 Years After.

In the summer of 2023, a major crime review officer, was asked by her sergeant to review a cold case from 1967. The victim was a 75-year-old woman who had been raped and murdered in her Bristol home in June 1967. She was a parent of two children, a grandparent, a woman whose previous spouse had been a prominent labor activist, and whose home had once been a center of civic engagement. By 1967, she was residing by herself, twice widowed but still a well-known figure in her Easton neighbourhood.

There were no one who saw anything to her killing, and the initial inquiry unearthed few leads apart from a handprint on a back window. Investigators knocked on eight thousand doors and took 19,000 palm prints, but no match was found. The case stayed open.

“When I saw that it was dated 1967, I knew we were only going to solve this through forensics, so I went to the archive to look at the exhibits boxes,” says Smith.

She found a trio. “I opened the first and closed it again right away. Most of our cold cases are in sterile evidence bags with barcodes. These weren’t. They just had brown cardboard luggage labels indicating what they were. It meant they’d never been subject to modern forensic examinations.”

The rest of the day was spent with a colleague (it was his first day on the job), both wearing protective gloves, securely packaging the items and cataloging what they had. And then there was no progress for another eight months. Smith pauses and tries to be diplomatic. “I was very enthusiastic, but it did not generate a huge amount of enthusiasm. Let’s just say there was some doubt as to the value of submitting something that aged to forensics. It wasn’t seen as a priority.”

It resembles the beginning of a mystery book, or the premiere of a cold case TV drama. The final outcome also seems the material for a story. In June, a 92-year-old man, Ryland Headley, was found culpable of Louisa Dunne’s rape and murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A Record-Breaking Case

Covering 58 years, this is believed to be the oldest cold case closed in the United Kingdom, and perhaps the world. Later that year, the unit won an award for their work. The whole thing still feels extraordinary to her. “It just doesn’t feel real,” she says. “It’s forever giving me goose bumps.”

For Smith, cases like this are confirmation that she made the correct professional decision. “He thought policing was too dangerous,” she says, “but what could be better than solving a 58-year-old murder?”

Smith joined the police when she was 24 because, she says: “I’m nosy and I was interested in people, in helping them when they were in crisis.” Her previous role in safeguarding involved demanding hours. When she saw a job advert for a cold case investigator, she decided to apply. “It looked really engaging, it’s more of a regular hours role, so I took the position.”

Examining the Evidence

Smith’s job is a civilian role. The major crime review team is a compact team set up to look at historical crimes – homicides, rapes, long-term missing people – and also review live cases with fresh eyes. The original team was tasked with collecting all the old case files from around the region and moving them to a new central archive.

“The case documents had originated in a local police station, then, in the years since 1967, they were transferred several times before finally coming here,” says Smith.

Those boxes, their contents now properly secured, returned to storage. Towards the end of 2023, a new lead detective arrived to head up the team. DI Dave Marchant took a different approach. Once an aerospace engineer, Marchant had “taken a hard left” on his professional journey.

“Solving problems that are hard to solve – that’s my analytical approach – trying to think in innovative manners,” he says. “When Jo told me about the evidence, it was an obvious decision. Why wouldn’t we try?”

The Key Discovery

In television shows, once items are sent off to forensics, the results come back quickly. In actuality, the submission process and testing take many months. “The laboratory scientists are keen, they want to do it, but our work is always slightly on the lower priority,” says Smith. “Live-time murders have to take priority.”

It was the end of August 2024 when Smith received a notification that forensics had a complete genetic fingerprint of the rapist from the victim’s clothing. A few hours later, she got another message. “They had a match on the genetic registry – and it was someone who was still alive!”

Ryland Headley was 92, widowed, and living in another city. “When we realised how old he was, we didn’t have the time to waste,” says Smith. “It was all hands on deck.” In the weeks between the DNA match and Headley’s arrest, the team pored over every single one of the numerous original accounts and records.

For a while, it was like living in two time periods. “Just looking at all the photos, seeing an old lady’s house in 1967,” says Smith. “The witness statements. The way they describe people. Today, it would usually be different. There are so many generational differences.”

Understanding the Victim

Smith felt she got to know the victim, too. “Louisa was such a big character,” she says. “Lots of people were saying that they saw her on the doorstep every day. She was widowed twice, estranged from her family, but she wasn’t reclusive. She had a gaggle of women who used to meet and gossip – and those were the women who realised something was very wrong.”

Most of the team’s days were spent reading and summarising. (“Vast quantities of paperwork. It wouldn’t make compelling television.”) The team also spoke with the original GP, now 89, who had been at the crime scene. “He remembered every particular from that day,” says Smith. “He said: ‘I’ve been a doctor all my life and seen a lot of dead bodies but that’s the only one that had been murdered. That haunts you.’”

A Pattern of Crimes

Headley’s prior offenses seemed to leave little question of his guilt. After the 1967 murder, he had moved, and in the late 1970s he had admitted to raping two older women, again in their own homes. His victims’ harrowing statements from that earlier trial gave some idea into the victim’s last moments.

“He menaced to choke one and he threatened to smother the other with a cushion,” says Smith. Both women resisted. Though Headley was initially sentenced to life, he challenged the verdict, supported by a mental health professional who stated that Headley was acting out of character. “It went from a life sentence to less time,” says Smith.

Closing the Case

Smith was present at Headley’s arrest. “I knew what he looked like, I knew he was going to be 92, and I also knew how strong the evidence was,” she says. The team feared that the arrest would trigger a health crisis. “We were uncovering the darkest secret he’d kept hidden for 60 years,” says Smith.

Yet everything was able to go ahead. The trial took place, and the victim’s granddaughter had been contacted by specialist officers. “Mary had assumed it was never going to be resolved,” says Smith. For the family, there had also been a stigma about the nature of the crime.

“Sexual assault is often not reported now,” says Smith, “but in the mid-20th century, how many elderly ladies would ever tell anyone this had happened?”

Headley was told at sentencing that, for all intents and purposes, he would remain incarcerated. He would spend his life behind bars.

A Lasting Impact

For Smith, it has been a special case. “It just feels different, I don’t know why,” she says. “In a live case, the process is very reactive. With this case you’re driving the inquiry, the pressure is only from yourself. It started with me trying to get someone to take some notice of that box – and I was able to see it through right until the end.”

She is certain that it is not the last solved case. There are approximately 130 cold cases in the archives. “We’ve got so much more to do,” she says. “We have a number of murders that we’re reviewing – we’re constantly submitting evidence to forensics and pursuing other leads. We’ll be forever unlocking the past.”