Man, 92, jailed for rape and murder of 75-year-old woman in ‘UK's longest-running cold case'
Ryland Headley was 34 when he forced open a window at the home of Louisa Dunne, 75, in the Easton area of Bristol in June 1967 before attacking her.
Nearly six decades later, Headley, now 92, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years after he was found guilty of both charges by a jury at Bristol Crown Court on Monday afternoon.
Mrs Dunne's grandaughter told the sentencing hearing on Tuesday how Headley's evasion from justice had a devastating effect on her family.
Mary Dainton, who was a 20-year-old student when her grandmother was murdered, told the court: 'Her death had a big impact on my mother, my aunt and her family.
'I don't think my mother ever recovered from it. The anxiety caused by her mother's brutal rape and murder clouded the rest of her life. The fact the offender wasn't caught caused my mother to become and remain very ill.'
Mrs Dunne, a mother-of-two, was found dead by neighbours in the front room of her terraced home in Britannia Road on the morning of 28 June 1967.
A pathologist concluded that Mrs Dunne died from asphyxia due to strangulation and pressure on her mouth, probably from a hand being held over it.
Bristol Constabulary, as the force was then known, launched a huge investigation, taking the palm prints of 19,000 men and boys in an attempt to find a match to one left on an upstairs window.
But the case remained unsolved for more than 50 years until Avon and Somerset Police detectives sent items from the original investigation for DNA testing for the first time.
Semen recovered from a blue skirt worn by Mrs Dunne matched Headley's DNA to a ratio that meant it was a billion times more likely to be from him than anybody else.
When his left palm print was finally taken, in November last year, it matched the print left at the scene.
Since Mrs Dunne's murder, Headley had moved his family to Ipswich, where he was jailed for raping two elderly women after forcing open windows at their homes in October 1977.
Headley, of Clarence Road, Ipswich, denied Mrs Dunne's rape and murder but was found guilty by a jury after nine hours and 53 minutes of deliberations.
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