A 92 -year -old man was convicted in the oldest unused crime file in the UK. The case reopened after decades without any new hint

A 92 -year -old man was found guilty of rape and killing an elderly, in what is considered the oldest unresolved case in the UK who was eventually elucidated, The Independent reports on Tuesday.

Ryland Headley, who was 34 years old at the time of committing the facts, entered the house in Bristol of Louise Dunne, 75 years old, before attacking it in June 1967.

The woman's body was found by neighbors on the morning of June 28. A woman was heard screaming a few hours before Dunne, who had been widow twice and lived alone, was found dead.

Dunne, who used the front room as a bedroom, was found stretched over a lot of old clothes, and the police did not discover traces of violence in the house.

The case remained unresolved for more than 50 years, until the detectives of the Avon and Somerset police sent for DNA tests taken in the initial investigation.

The results provided a DNA match with Headley's, which in the meantime had moved to another region in the UK and had executed a prison sentence of two elderly women in 1977.

Jury found the man guilty after almost 10 hours of deliberations

Headley denied the new charges against him, but was found guilty by the jury at the crown court in Bristol on Monday afternoon, after 9 hours and 53 minutes of deliberations.

Judge Sweeting told the jury members that he would pronounce the sentence this week. “It was a case in the public's attention. He involved many details that were no doubt disturbing. If you will be summoned again to be part of a jury in the next 10 years, you have the right to refuse,” the Jurors Judge told them.

During the process, the conclusion of a forensic doctor was presented according to which Dunne died by asphyxiation, as a result of strangulation with a scarf and the pressure exerted on his mouth, a hand being held with force over it.

Samples were taken from the victim's body, which were positively tested for semen, but at that time the scientific analysis capacities were limited.

The police also recovered a fingerprint of the left hand on a window on the floor of its house, a fingerprint that was compared in 1967 to those of 19,000 men and boys, but there was no match.

Headley, who was a railway worker at that time, lived with his wife about 2.5 km from Dunne's home but, essentially, even outside the geographical perimeter in which men and boys were asked to provide fingerprints.

Shortly after the murder, he moved his family to London, then to Ipswich, without the Bristol police ever lecture his fingerprint. Finally, the police gathered all the materials in their investigation-including the clothes they wore when it was found-and sealed them for any further analysis.

The crime case was reopened two years ago

All samples, including Louise Dunne's clothes and other medical-legal elements, were packaged and kept by Avon and Somerset detectives while waiting for scientific progress.

The case was re -examined in 2023, and the blue skirt of the victim was sent in May of the year of Repsective for laboratory tests.

The DNA extracted from his skirt according to that of Headley, in a probability report that was a billion times more likely that the DNA is his than another person. Headley's DNA had been taken by the police and introduced in the national database following an offense committed in 2012, a crime that did not lead to the formulation of accusations.

When Headley was arrested at his home in November last year, under the suspicion that he had killed Dunne, he told the detectives: “I don't know what you are talking about. Very strange, very strange.”

During previous arrests, Headley had provided fingerprints, but not those of the palms. On the form completed in 2012, it was mentioned: “arthritis in both wrists, the palms are not flexible.”

This time, the fingerprints of the palms were taken, and a fingerprint expert identified over 25 features that matched the fingerprint taken in 1967.

Policemen suspect the man might be related to other non -healized cases

In the process he also mentioned that Headley had been convicted of the rape of two elderly women, in 1977, after entering their homes, threatening them with violence if they did not obey.

Jeremy Benson, Headley's lawyer, said his client “does not remember” his visited on the Danube or has maintained sexual intercourse.

“He certainly did not rape her and did not kill her,” Benson told the jurors in his final plea.

Speaking after the verdict, the Dave Marchant inspector of the AVON and Somerset police said that law enforcement forces are now examining whether Headley can be related to other unresolved crimes.

“Ryland Headley has now been convicted of three rapes on older women, committed in their homes, and in the case of Louise Dunne, and for killing it,” he told the PA news agency.

The British press expects Headley to receive the life imprisonment for the killing of Dunne.