How a Appalling Sexual Assault and Killing Investigation Was Resolved – Fifty-Eight Years Later.

In June 2023, Jo Smith, received a request by her team leader to review a decades-old murder file. The woman was a elderly woman who had been sexually assaulted and killed in her home city home in June 1967. She was a parent of two children, a grandparent, a woman whose first husband had been a prominent trade unionist, and whose home had once been a hub of civic engagement. By 1967, she was living alone, having lost two husbands but still a familiar presence in her Easton neighbourhood.

There were no witnesses to her killing, and the initial inquiry unearthed little to go on 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 unsolved.

“Upon realizing 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 the officer.

She found three. “I opened the first and closed it again immediately. Most of our unsolved investigations are in sterile evidence bags with barcodes. These weren’t. They just had old paper tags 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 gloved up, securely packaging the items and cataloging what they had. And then nothing more happened for another eight months. Smith hesitates and tries to be tactful. “I was very enthusiastic, but it did not generate a great deal of enthusiasm. It’s fair to say there was some scepticism as to the value of submitting something so old to forensics. It was not considered a high-priority matter.”

It resembles the beginning of a crime novel, or the first episode of a investigative series. 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.

A Record-Breaking Case

Covering fifty-eight years, this is believed to be the oldest cold case closed in the UK, and perhaps the world. Subsequently, the unit won an award for their work. The whole thing still feels remarkable to her. “It just doesn’t feel tangible,” she says. “It’s forever giving me goose bumps.”

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

Smith joined the police when she was in her twenties because, she says: “I’m inquisitive and I was fascinated by people, in assisting them when they were in crisis.” Her previous role in child protection involved grueling hours. When she saw a vacancy for a cold case investigator, she decided to apply. “It looked really interesting, it’s more of a regular hours role, so here I am.”

Examining the Evidence

Smith’s job is a civilian role. The major crime review team is a small group set up to look at cold cases – murders, sexual assaults, long-term missing people – and also review active investigations with fresh eyes. The original team was tasked with gathering all the old case files from around the area and moving them to a new secure storage facility.

“The case documents had originated in a precinct, then, in the years since 1967, they moved to multiple locations before finally arriving at the archive,” says Smith.

Those boxes, their contents now forensically bagged, returned to storage. Towards the end of 2023, a new lead detective arrived to lead the team. DI Dave Marchant took a novel strategy. Once an aerospace engineer, Marchant had made a drastic change on his career path.

“Solving problems that are challenging – that’s my analytical approach – trying to think in new ways,” he says. “When Jo told me about the box, it was an absolute no-brainer. Why wouldn’t we try?”

The Breakthrough

In television shows, once items are sent off to forensics, the results come back in days. In real life, the testing procedure and testing take many months. “The laboratory scientists are interested, they want to do it, but our work is always slightly on the lower priority,” says Smith. “Live-time murders have to take precedence.”

It was the end of August 2024 when Smith received a notification 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 match 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 numerous original accounts and records.

For a while, it was like living in 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. Today, it would typically be different. There are so many changes over time.”

Understanding the Victim

Smith felt she came to understand the victim, too. “She was such a big character,” she says. “Lots of people were saying that they saw her outside her home every day. She was twice widowed, estranged from her family, but she wasn’t reclusive. She had a group 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 analyzing documents. (“Vast quantities of paperwork. It wouldn’t make compelling television.”) The team also spoke with the doctor, 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 stays with you.’”

A Pattern 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 assaulting 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 pillow,” says Smith. Both women fought back. Though Headley was initially sentenced to life, he challenged the verdict, supported by a psychiatrist who stated that Headley was acting out of character. “It went from a life sentence to less time,” says Smith.

Securing Justice

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 compelling the proof was,” she says. The team were concerned that the arrest would trigger a health crisis. “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 living relative had been contacted by specialist officers. “She had believed it was never going to be resolved,” says Smith. For the family, there had also been a sense of shame 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 report this had happened?”

Headley was told at sentencing that, for all practical 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 distinct, I don’t know why,” she says. “With current investigations, the process is very responsive. With this case you’re driving the inquiry, the urgency is only from yourself. It began with me trying to get someone to take some notice of that evidence – and I was able to see it through right until the end.”

She is certain that it won’t be the last solved case. There are about 130 unsolved investigations in the archives. “We’ve got so much more to do,” she says. “We have several murders that we’re re-examining – we’re constantly submitting evidence to forensics and pursuing other leads. We’ll be forever opening boxes.”