The Oldest Cold Case in DALSTON History Solved After 28 Years Using DNA

44 years ago, a grandmother arrived at her son’s home in northeast London with her four-year-old granddaughter. It was an ordinary family visit. Instead, it became the beginning of one of the area’s most disturbing murder investigations. Inside the house lay the body of 27-year-old Norma Richards. Upstairs, in a bathtub filled with water, were the bodies of her two daughters, 9-year-old Samantha and 7-year-old Serita.

 The crime scene revealed extraordinary violence, signs of sexual assault, and symbols seemingly intended to mislead investigators. Whoever had entered the house that weekend had not only taken three lives, but had also left behind a mystery that detectives would struggle to solve for decades. Police launched an extensive investigation, questioning people closest to Norma and examining every obvious lead.

 Yet, despite years of effort, the person responsible remained free. The greatest irony was that the answer had been much closer than investigators realized. After 27 years, an unexpected development breathed new life into a case that many believed had been forgotten. Modern forensic science uncovered what the original investigation could not.

 But before we dive deep into this story, please let us know where you are watching from. And if stories like this interest you, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. At the center of this story was Norma Richards, a 27-year-old mother raising three daughters. Samantha was 9 years old, Serita was seven, and the youngest, Rhoden, was four.

 Norma was living with her partner, Keith Cunningham, the father of her youngest child, Rhden. Keith’s brother, Lorie Cunningham, was one of England’s most recognizable footballers, making history as the first black player to represent an England team organized by the Football Association before later joining Real Madrid in Spain.

 While Lorie Cunningham’s career was attracting international attention, tragedy was quietly unfolding within his brother’s family. What began as the murder of a young mother and her children would become a cold case that remained unresolved for nearly three decades, raising difficult questions about the limits of investigations before the era of modern DNA analysis.

 Saturday, July 17th, 1982 began like many other summer weekends in Northeast London. That weekend, Rhden was staying with her paternal grandparents. It was an ordinary family arrangement that by chance would separate her from the events that followed. That evening, Norma went out to a nightclub. It was the last time anyone would knowingly see her alive.

 The person responsible either accompanied Norma home from the nightclub or followed her there. Exactly what happened after they reached the house remains unknown, but the evidence left behind painted a horrifying picture. 2 days later on July 19th, Rhoden returned to the family home with her grandmother. Instead of finding an ordinary household, they walked into a crime scene.

 Norma Richards was lying dead on the living room floor. Police were called immediately. As officers searched the house, they made an even more devastating discovery. Upstairs in a bathtub filled with water were the bodies of Samantha and Serita. The investigation quickly revealed that this was an exceptionally violent attack. Norma had been sexually assaulted before she was killed.

 Her underwear was found beside her body. She had been stabbed twice in the neck and twice in the chest. The force used during the attack was extraordinary. One wound passed through her breast bone and exited through her back. Investigators believed the murder weapon was an antique bayonet that had originally been hanging on the living room wall.

 The violence did not end with Norma. 9-year-old Samantha was found naked in the bathtub above her younger sister. She had suffered multiple stab wounds to her neck, chest, stomach, arms, and back. Like her mother’s injuries, the wounds suggested tremendous force. One stab passed completely through her body and into her arm, strengthening investigators belief that the same bayonet had been used.

7-year-old Serida had not been stabbed to death. She had been drowned. Despite the sexual assault on Norma, investigators found no signs that either of the girls had been sexually assaulted. As officers examined the house, they encountered another disturbing detail. On several doors, someone had drawn the emblem of the National Front, a far-right racist political organization active in Britain during that period.

 At first glance, the symbols could have suggested a racially motivated attack, but detectives were skeptical almost immediately. Nothing else at the scene supported that conclusion. Instead, investigators believed the markings had likely been added to mislead police and divert attention away from the true motive. The evidence pointed in a different direction.

 The attack on Norma appeared to have been sexually motivated. Investigators believed that after Norma was assaulted and killed, one or both of her daughters may have awakened or witnessed something inside the house. If that happened, they would have become witnesses capable of identifying the attacker. That possibility offered investigators a tragic explanation for why the children had also been killed.

The murders shocked the local community. Three members of the same family had been killed inside their own home. Yet, there were no immediate answers about who was responsible. The crime scene was carefully documented. Physical evidence was collected, and investigators began reconstructing Norma’s final hours.

 The obvious place to start was with the people who knew her best, who had seen Norma at the nightclub, who might have accompanied her home, who had reason to visit the house that night. The sexual assault suggested that she had been the intended victim, while the murders of Samantha and Serita appeared connected to what had happened afterward.

 With that theory in mind, investigators concentrated on the people in Norma’s life. Friends were interviewed. Acquaintances were questioned. Former and current romantic partners came under scrutiny. One name quickly attracted attention. Although Norma was living with Keith Cunningham, detectives learned that she had recently been having an affair with another man named Donovan Johnson.

 Johnson was questioned extensively over 3 days. He told investigators that he had met Norma at a mutual friend’s birthday party about 9 weeks before the murders. According to Johnson, they had been intimate twice. During one visit to Norma’s home, he noticed a photograph of Keith Cunningham and understood that Norma was in a relationship.

 Johnson also recounted a troubling conversation. He claimed that Norma had once asked whether he owned a black suit because, in her words, he might need one for her funeral after Keith found out about the affair. It was a striking statement, and investigators naturally took it seriously. But statements alone could not establish guilt. Johnson also had an alibi.

 He said he had been out with friends when the murders occurred and those friends confirmed his account. After checking the available evidence, police eliminated him as a suspect. Attention then shifted to Keith Cunningham. Given the affair, detectives considered whether Keith might have discovered the relationship and reacted violently, but once again, the evidence pointed elsewhere.

 At the time of the murders, Keith was nearly 1,000 m away in Spain with his brother, football star Lorie Cunningham. His whereabouts could be confirmed, providing an even stronger alibi than Johnson’s. With both men ruled out, investigators continued looking within Norma’s social circle. They questioned more people connected to her daily life, hoping someone had noticed unusual behavior or remembered an important detail from the days before the murders.

 But each lead ended the same way. No arrest, no breakthrough, no clear suspect. As the months passed, the investigation gradually lost momentum. The case eventually joined the growing list of unsolved murders waiting for new evidence that never seemed to arrive. Yet hidden within the investigation was an irony that would only become clear decades later.

 Detectives had concentrated almost entirely on people connected directly to Norma. But by following that path, they overlooked another circle of people who might also have deserved attention. That investigative choice would have lasting consequences. Years turned into decades. Public attention faded. New crimes replaced old headlines.

 And the murders of Norma Richards and her daughters slowly disappeared from public discussion. The tragedy, however, never truly disappeared for the surviving members of the family. Rhoden, who had escaped the murders only because she was staying with her grandparents that weekend, was raised by her father’s parents.

 She later said she had a good upbringing and many friends, but conversations about her mother and halfsisters were rare. Her grandparents never spoke about the murders. Members of her mother’s family also avoided the subject. According to Rhden, she believed it was simply too painful for them to discuss. The absence of those conversations meant she grew up with very little understanding of the family she had lost.

 She later recalled that every birthday became a reminder of her mother and sisters. When she became pregnant at the age of 18, she said she wanted her mother more than ever. By then, Norma had already been dead for 14 years. Time continued moving forward. Britain changed, technology changed, forensic science advanced in ways investigators in 1982 could scarcely have imagined.

 But the Richard’s case remained frozen in the past. For nearly 27 years, the killer remained unidentified, while crucial evidence sat waiting for the technology and perhaps the opportunity that could finally reveal what detectives had missed. By 2009, nearly 27 years had passed since the murders of Norma Richards, Samantha, and Serita.

 Then, unexpectedly, someone with no intention of solving the case helped change its course. Journalist Peter Law was researching the life of footballer Lorie Cunningham. As he worked on a biography, he learned that Lorie’s brother, Keith Cunningham, had once lost his partner and her two daughters in a notorious triple murder. Curious law tried to find out how the investigation had ended.

 He searched for the outcome but found no clear answer. In April 2009, he contacted police to ask a simple question. Had the case ever been solved? The answer was no. Even more surprising, very little had been done with the investigation in years. That inquiry prompted police to take another look at the murders. By 2009, forensic science had advanced dramatically since 1982.

 Evidence collected at the original crime scene could now be examined using DNA technology that simply did not exist when Norma and her daughters were killed. Investigators submitted preserved evidence for modern testing. The results produced a DNA profile. That profile was entered into the United Kingdom’s national DNA database.

 This time, the search produced something detectives had never had before, a match. The DNA belonged to Wilbert Dice, a man commonly known as Tony Dice. At the time of the murders, Dice had been 26 years old. By 2009, he was 53. As detectives began investigating him, another startling detail emerged. Dice’s mother had lived only a few hundred feet from the Richards family home in July 1982.

 He was not a stranger to the neighborhood. Investigators also learned that Dice was considered a passing acquaintance of Keith Cunningham. The original investigation had concentrated on people connected to Norma. Detectives had not looked closely at Keith Cunningham’s friends and acquaintances. As a result, Tony Dice had never become a suspect.

 His name had escaped the investigation altogether. Police also discovered that Dice had a lengthy criminal record dating back to the mid 1970s. His previous convictions included burglary, assault, carrying knives, and possessing a shotgun. In October 2009, 27 years after the murders, detectives arrested the now 54year-old Tony Dice.

During questioning, he denied any involvement. He initially claimed that he had done nothing to Norma and described her as being like a sister, but investigators confronted him with the DNA evidence. His explanation immediately changed. Dice now claimed that he had met Norma at the nightclub on the night of the murders and that the two had consensual sex in the women’s restroom. There was more.

 Detectives had another piece of evidence linking him to the crime scene. His fingerprints had been found on the living room wall near the place where the antique bayonet had originally been hanging. Investigators believe that the same bayonet had been used to kill both Norma and Samantha. Unfortunately, one important piece of evidence could no longer be re-examined.

When the case was reopened, police discovered that the bayonet itself had been destroyed in 1989, 7 years after the murders. any opportunity to recover new forensic evidence from the suspected murder weapon had been lost. Even without it, prosecutors believed they had assembled a compelling case. For the first time in nearly three decades, the investigation was no longer searching for an unknown killer.

 It was preparing to present its evidence before a jury. Tony Dice’s trial began in November 2010. The prosecution argued that he had encountered Norma at the nightclub on the night of July 17th, 1982. According to their case, he either accompanied her home or followed her there. Once inside the house, he attempted to have sex with her.

 When she rejected him, prosecutors argued the attack turned deadly. They alleged that Dice raped and murdered Norma before killing Samantha and Serita to eliminate the only witnesses. The physical evidence formed the foundation of the prosecution’s case. His DNA linked him to the crime scene. His fingerprint placed him inside the house near the location of the suspected murder weapon.

 But prosecutors also presented testimony intended to show a pattern of violent behavior. Dice’s former wife described years of abuse during their 18-year marriage. She testified that he had attacked her with knives on multiple occasions and assaulted her with objects including a hammer, dumbbells, and a bicycle chain. She also recalled an incident that bore disturbing similarities to the Richard’s murders.

 After she had drawn a bath, an argument broke out. According to her testimony, Dice forced her head under the water until she believed she would die. After pulling her from the bath, he cut her with a knife. The prosecution also called another woman who described an encounter from 1982. Like Norma, she had gone to a nightclub while her live-in partner was away.

 She testified that Dice followed her home and attempted to force her into having sex. When she resisted, he threw her across the living room. She later told her boyfriend, who confronted Dice. According to her testimony, Dice apologized repeatedly and did not deny what had happened. A third woman described an attack that occurred in 1986 while she was pregnant with her second child.

 She testified that Dice came to her home looking for her partner, who was his friend. After asking to use the bathroom, he entered the house. She later stated that he approached her with a knife while wearing only black gloves. Fearing for both herself and her young child, she complied with his demands. She also described another encounter months later in which Dice allegedly threatened her with a knife and sexually humiliated her. The trial lasted three weeks.

 After hearing the evidence, the jury found Tony Dice guilty of the murders of Norma Richards, Samantha, and Serita. He received three whole life sentences, ensuring he would never be released from prison. At the sentencing hearing, Norma’s brother, Dalton Richards, spoke on behalf of the family. He said, “A light went out in our lives when Norma and the girls were murdered.

 Dice’s imprisonment brings us some closure.” After 27 years, the case had finally reached its conclusion.