The Way a Disturbing Sexual Assault and Killing Case Was Resolved – Fifty-Eight Years After.

In the summer of 2023, an investigator, received a request by her team leader to “take a look at” a decades-old murder file. The victim was a 75-year-old woman who had been sexually assaulted and killed in her home city home in the month of June 1967. She was a mother, a grandparent, a woman whose first husband had been a prominent labor activist, and whose home had once been a focal point of political activity. By 1967, she was residing by herself, having lost two husbands but still a familiar figure in her Easton neighbourhood.

There were no witnesses to her murder, and the police investigation found few leads apart from a palm print on a rear window. Police canvassed eight thousand doors and took nineteen thousand palm prints, but no match was found. The case stayed open.

“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 evidence containers,” states the officer.

She found three. “I opened the first and put the lid back on again immediately. Most of our unsolved investigations are in forensically sealed bags with barcodes. These were not. They just had old paper tags indicating 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 initial 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 wasn’t met with a great deal of enthusiasm. Let’s just say there was some scepticism as to the value of submitting something so old to forensics. It wasn’t seen as a high-priority matter.”

It sounds like the opening chapter of a crime novel, or the premiere of a investigative series. The end result also seems the material for a story. In the following June, a 92-year-old man, Ryland Headley, was found guilty of Louisa Dunne’s rape and murder and given a sentence to life imprisonment.

An Unprecedented Case

Covering 58 years, this is believed to be the longest-running unsolved investigation closed in the United Kingdom, and perhaps the world. Later that year, the unit won an award for their work. The whole thing still feels extraordinary to her. “It just doesn’t feel real,” she says. “It’s forever giving me chills.”

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

Smith entered 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 distress.” Her previous experience in safeguarding involved grueling hours. When she saw a job advert for a crime review officer, she decided to pursue it. “It looked really engaging, it’s more of a regular hours role, so here I am.”

Revisiting the Evidence

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

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

Those containers, their contents now forensically bagged, returned to storage. Towards the end of 2023, a new senior investigating officer arrived to head up the team. DI Dave Marchant took a novel strategy. Once an aerospace engineer, Marchant had “taken a hard left” 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 absolute no-brainer. Why wouldn’t we give it a go?”

The Breakthrough

In television shows, once items are sent off to forensics, the results come back quickly. In real life, the testing procedure and testing take a long time. “The forensic team are interested, they want to do it, but our work is always slightly on the lower priority,” says Smith. “Current investigations 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 assailant 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 living!”

The suspect was ninety-two, widowed, and living in Ipswich. “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 accounts. The way they portray people. Today, it would typically be different. There are so many generational differences.”

Getting to Know the Victim

Smith felt she came to understand the victim, too. “She was such a prominent person,” 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 amiss.”

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 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 Pattern of Violence

Headley’s prior offenses 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 older women, again in their own homes. His victims’ disturbing statements from that earlier trial gave some idea into the victim’s last moments.

“He threatened to choke 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 a shorter term,” 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 compelling the proof was,” she says. The team feared that the arrest would trigger a health crisis. “We were uncovering the darkest secret he’d kept hidden for sixty years,” says Smith.

Yet everything was able to proceed. The court case took place, and the victim’s living relative had been identified and approached by family liaison. “Mary 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 often not reported now,” says Smith, “but in the mid-20th century, how many older women 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 Profound Effect

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 reactive. With this case you’re proactive, the urgency is only from yourself. It started with me trying to get someone to take some interest of that box – 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 approximately one hundred and thirty cold cases in the archives. “We’ve got so much more to do,” she says. “We have several murders that we’re reviewing – we’re constantly submitting evidence to forensics and pursuing other lines of inquiry. We’ll be forever unlocking the past.”