How a Shocking Rape and Murder Case Was Solved – Fifty-Eight Decades Later.

In the summer of 2023, an investigator, was tasked by her team leader to “take a look at” a decades-old murder file. Louisa Dunne was a 75-year-old woman who had been sexually assaulted and killed in her home city home in June 1967. She was a mother, a grandparent, a woman whose first husband had been a leading labor activist, and whose home had once been a center of political activity. By 1967, she was living alone, having lost two husbands but still a well-known presence in her local neighbourhood.

There were no one who saw anything to her murder, and the initial inquiry found few leads apart from a handprint on a back window. Police knocked on 8,000 doors and took 19,000 palm prints, but no match was found. The case remained open.

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

She found three. “I opened the first and closed it again right away. Most of our unsolved investigations are in forensically sealed bags with barcodes. These weren’t. They just had old paper tags saying what they were. It meant they’d never been subject to modern scientific testing.”

The rest of the day was spent with a co-worker (it was his first day on the job), both wearing protective gloves, forensically bagging the items and cataloging what they had. And then there was no progress for another eight months. Smith pauses and tries to be tactful. “I was quite excited, but it did not generate a great deal of enthusiasm. Let’s just say there was some scepticism as to the value of submitting something that aged to forensics. It wasn’t seen as a priority.”

It sounds like the beginning of a crime novel, or the first episode of a cold case TV drama. The final outcome also seems the material for a story. In June, a nonagenarian, the defendant, was found guilty of the victim’s rape and murder and given a sentence to life.

A Record-Breaking Case

Covering 58 years, this is believed to be the longest-running unsolved investigation closed in the UK, and perhaps the world. Subsequently, the investigative team won recognition 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. “My father believed policing was too dangerous,” she says, “but what could be better than resolving a 58-year-old murder?”

Smith entered the police when she was in her twenties because, she says: “I’m nosy and I was interested in people, in assisting them when they were in distress.” Her previous experience in child protection involved demanding hours. When she saw a job advert for a crime review officer, she decided to apply. “It looked really engaging, it’s more of a regular hours role, so I took the position.”

Revisiting the Clues

Smith’s job is a civilian role. The major crime review team is a compact team set up to look at cold cases – murders, sexual assaults, disappearances – and also re-examine live cases with fresh eyes. The original team was tasked with collecting all the old case files from around the area and relocating them to a new central archive.

“The case documents had originated in a precinct, then, in the years since 1967, they were transferred to multiple locations before finally coming here,” says Smith.

Those boxes, their contents now forensically bagged, returned to storage. Towards the end of 2023, a new lead detective arrived to head up the team. The new officer took a novel strategy. 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 Breakthrough

In cold case crime dramas, once items are sent off to forensics, the results come back quickly. In actuality, the testing procedure and testing take a long time. “The forensic team are keen, they want to do it, but our work is always slightly on the back-burner,” says Smith. “Current investigations have to take precedence.”

It was the end of August 2024 when Smith received a message that forensics had a full DNA profile of the assailant from the victim’s clothing. A few hours later, she got another message. “They had a hit on the DNA database – 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 a full team effort.” In the weeks between the DNA match and Headley’s arrest, the team pored over every single one of the thousands original accounts and records.

For a while, it was like navigating two time periods. “Just looking at all the photographs, seeing an old lady’s house in 1967,” says Smith. “The witness statements. The way they portray people. Nowadays, it would typically be different. There are so many changes over time.”

Understanding the Victim

Smith felt she got to know the victim, too. “She 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 remained social. She had a group of women who used to meet and gossip – and those were the women who realised something was amiss.”

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 attended the scene. “He remembered every particular from that day,” says Smith. “He said: ‘In my career all my life and seen a lot of dead bodies but that’s the only one that had been murdered. That haunts you.’”

A History of Violence

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

“He threatened to strangle one and he threatened to suffocate the other with a pillow,” says Smith. Both women fought back. 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 there for 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 were concerned that the arrest would trigger a medical incident. “We were uncovering the most hidden truth he’d kept hidden for sixty years,” says Smith.

Yet everything was able to go ahead. The trial took place, and the victim’s granddaughter had been identified and approached by specialist officers. “She 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.

“Rape is massively underreported now,” says Smith, “but in the 60s and 70s, how many elderly ladies would ever tell anyone this had happened?”

Headley was told at sentencing that, for all intents and purposes, he would never be released. He would spend his life behind bars.

A Profound Effect

For Smith, it has been a unique case. “It just feels distinct, I don’t know why,” she says. “With current investigations, the process is very reactive. With this case you’re proactive, the pressure is only from yourself. It started with me trying to get someone to take some interest of that evidence – and I was able to follow it right until the end.”

She is confident that it is not the last resolution. There are about one hundred and thirty unsolved investigations in the archives. “We’ve got so much more to do,” she says. “We have a number of murders that we’re re-examining – we’re constantly submitting evidence to forensics and pursuing other lines of inquiry. We’ll be forever opening boxes.”