The Way a Disturbing Rape and Murder Case Was Cracked – Fifty-Eight Years After.

In the summer of 2023, an investigator, received a request by her supervisor to review a decades-old murder file. The woman was a 75-year-old woman who had been raped and murdered in her home city home in the month of June 1967. She was a mother of two, a grandparent, a woman whose previous spouse had been a leading trade unionist, and whose home had once been a hub of political activity. By 1967, she was living alone, twice widowed but still a recognized presence in her local neighbourhood.

There were no one who saw anything to her murder, and the initial inquiry found little to go on apart from a handprint on a rear 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,” states Smith.

She found three. “I opened the first and closed it again immediately. Most of our cold cases are in forensically sealed 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 scientific testing.”

The rest of the day was spent with a colleague (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 nearly a year. Smith pauses and tries to be diplomatic. “I was very enthusiastic, but it did not generate a great deal of enthusiasm. Let’s just say there was some scepticism as to the worth of submitting something that aged to forensics. It wasn’t seen as a priority.”

It resembles the beginning of a mystery book, or the first episode of a investigative series. The end result also seems the material for a story. In the following June, a 92-year-old man, the defendant, was found guilty of the victim’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. Subsequently, the investigative team won an award for their work. The whole thing still feels extraordinary to her. “It just doesn’t feel tangible,” she says. “It’s forever giving me chills.”

For Smith, cases like this are proof that she made the right career choice. “My father believed policing was too risky,” she says, “but what could be better than solving a decades-old murder?”

Smith joined 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 grueling hours. When she saw a vacancy for a crime review officer, she decided to pursue it. “It looked really engaging, it’s more of a standard schedule role, so here I am.”

Examining the Clues

Smith’s job is a civilian role. The specialist unit is a small group set up to look at historical crimes – murders, rapes, long-term missing people – and also re-examine live cases with a new perspective. The original team was tasked with collecting all the old case files from around the region and moving them to a new secure storage facility.

“The Louisa Dunne files had originated in a precinct, then, in the years since 1967, they were transferred to multiple locations before finally arriving at the archive,” says Smith.

Those boxes, their contents now properly secured, returned to storage. Towards the end of 2023, a new lead detective arrived to lead the team. DI Dave Marchant took a different approach. 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 innovative manners,” he says. “When Jo told me about the evidence, it was an obvious decision. Why wouldn’t we give it a go?”

The Key Discovery

In television shows, once items are sent off to forensics, the results come back quickly. In actuality, the testing procedure and testing take a long time. “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 full DNA profile of the rapist from the victim’s clothing. A few hours later, she got another message. “They had a hit on the genetic registry – and it was someone who was still alive!”

Ryland Headley was ninety-two, a widower, and living in another city. “When we realised how old he was, we didn’t have the luxury of time,” says Smith. “It was a full team effort.” In the period between the DNA match and Headley’s arrest, the team read every single one of the thousands 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 portray people. Today, 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 outside her home every day. She was twice widowed, separated 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 analyzing documents. (“Vast quantities of paperwork. It wouldn’t make great TV.”) The team also spoke with the original GP, now eighty-nine, who had attended the 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 History of Violence

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 pleaded guilty to assaulting two elderly women, again in their own homes. His victims’ disturbing statements from that previous case gave some insight into the victim’s last moments.

“He threatened to strangle one and he threatened to smother the other with a cushion,” says Smith. Both women resisted. Though Headley was initially sentenced to life, he appealed, 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.

Securing Justice

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 were concerned that the arrest would trigger a medical incident. “We were uncovering the darkest secret he’d kept hidden for 60 years,” says Smith.

Yet everything was able to go ahead. The court case took place, and the victim’s granddaughter had been identified and approached by family liaison. “She had assumed it was never going to be solved,” says Smith. For the family, there had also been a sense of shame about the nature of the crime.

“Sexual assault is massively underreported 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 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 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 interest of that evidence – and I was able to see it through right until the conclusion.”

She is certain that it is not the last solved case. There are about one hundred and thirty cold cases 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 sending things to forensics and pursuing other leads. We’ll be forever opening boxes.”