Ryland Headley, 92, has been sentenced to a minimum of 20 years after what’s believed to be the oldest cold case solved in modern English policing, but a judge’s decision in an earlier case involving Headley continues to raise serious concerns about how justice was delivered.
The conviction of Ryland Headley for the 1967 rape and murder of Louisa Dunn in Bristol, has revealed the shocking culture of the British justice system. In the 70s there were two additional rape convictions that were blamed on Headleys “ambitious and demanding wife.”
Headley evaded justice for nearly 60 years before being arrested in 2024 after new DNA links were made. Ten years after the murder of Louisa Dunn, Headley was sentenced to life for raping two women. This life sentence was later dropped to two years after doctors appealed to the court claiming the rape arouse out of sexual frustration due to his “ambitious and demanding wife.”
These rape convictions formed part of the case against Headley in his 2025 conviction for the rape and murder of Louisa Dunn. These attacks in 1977 saw Headley break into the homes of two elderly women in Ipswitch and rape them. Prosecuting Barrister Anna Vigars KC told the court Headley said to one of the women during the attack: “If you do what I tell you, you will be all right, if not, I will kill you”.
These cases were important as they bared a resemblance to the rape and murder of Louisa Dunn, who was 75 at the time of her death. Headley, 34 at the time, forced his way into her Easton home through a window before attacking and killing her.
After his premature release from prison in the early 1980s, Headley lived his life as a free man, hiding a dark secret. In 2012, he was arrested for an offence which was later dropped. However, at the time, officers took a DNA cheek swab sample. It was this sample that officers were able to tie to the murder of Louisa Dunn in 2024.
The doctors’ appeal in 1980, blaming Headley’s wife for his offending behaviour, successfully made him a free man. More recently, a decision like this would be believed unlikely to pass in modern courts of today. However, less than 10 years ago across the Atlantic, the prolific case of the People vs Brock Turner saw a convicted rapist walk away with a lenient six month sentence. Turner would go on to serve three months of his sentence. The reason his sentence was so short? A plea from his father that his son’s life should not be altered for “20 minutes of action”.
Headley will now spend the rest of his life in prison; however, the fact remains that for nearly 60 years, justice was not served for Louisa Dunn or the two women he attacked in 1977.
