Ryland Headley, 92, was convicted today in the rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne, who he strangled in her home in Bristol. What makes the case remarkable is not his age now but the age of the investigation: it took 58 years to find, prosecute and convict him in the 1967 crime—the U.K.'s oldest cold case of all time to be solved.
Police collected about 19,000 prints from men and boys at the time with no success. They also made about 8,000 house-to-house inquiries and took 2,000 statements. It was only when the case was re-examined by Avon and Somerset Police decades later that DNA testing of a swab that contained semen was linked to Headley. Det Insp Marchant called him a "dangerous serial offender" with a "shocking and abhorrent history" and said there was a sense of "gravity" when police were told of the positive result.
The horrifying circumstances of Dunne's death notwithstanding, the cheerful tone with with police officers approached Headley at his home last November to bring him in for good is quite something. "Good morning!"
