24 Dec 2025 lengthy article.
In Portishead, a dusty box of forgotten files led Jo Smith and her team to a criminal who had escaped justice for more than half a century. This was the longest-running cold case to be solved in the UK, and possibly the world
www.theguardian.com
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Louisa Dunne in Clevedon, Somerset, in 1933. Composite: Guardian Design; Avon and Somerset Police/PA
''In Portishead, a dusty box of forgotten files led Jo Smith and her team to a criminal who had escaped justice for more than half a century. This was the longest-running cold case to be solved in the UK, and possibly the world
In June 2023, Jo Smith, a major crime review officer for Avon and Somerset police, was asked by her sergeant to “take a look at the Louisa Dunne case”. Louisa Dunne was a 75-year-old woman who had been raped and murdered in her
Bristol home in June 1967. She was a mother of two, a grandmother, a woman whose first husband 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 well-known figure in her Easton neighbourhood.
There were no witnesses to her murder, and the police investigation unearthed little to go on apart from a palm print on a rear window.
Police knocked on 8,000 doors and took 19,000 palm prints, but no match was found. The case stayed unsolved.''
Ryland Headley was 92, widowed, and living in Ipswich. “When we realised how old he was, we didn’t have the luxury of time,” says Smith. “It was all hands on deck.” In the 11 weeks between the DNA match and Headley’s arrest, the team read every single one of the 1,300 statements and 8,000 house-to-house records to see if Headley had entered the inquiry (he hadn’t). Another colleague was deep in the 1967 archives at Bristol City Hall, searching for Headley’s name, road by road. (He found a record of him living in the area on the third day of searching.)''
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www.bbc.com
