WHO KILLED JILL?
THE BBC PRESENTER WAS SHOT DEAD ON HER FRONT DOORSTEP
Crimewatch’s own cold case
She was one of Britain’s most beloved TV presenters, known for hosting a show that carried out reconstructions of unsolved crimes in an attempt to find the people responsible.
But tragically, Crimewatch host Jill Dando was murdered herself, and her death went on to become one of the country’s highest-profile unsolved cases.
Local man Barry George was found guilty of her killing, then acquitted on appeal seven years later. Many theories abound about who pulled the trigger, and why, but 20 years after she was shot dead on the doorstep of her London home, police still have no idea who killed Jill.
What they do know is that on the morning of April 26,
1999, Jill – who had started in journalism as a reporter on a weekly newspaper and gone on to become one of the BBC’s most popular newsreaders and presenters – left the home of her fiancé, gynaecologist Alan Farthing, in the upmarket suburb of Chiswick and drove to her house in Fulham.
Nobody saw what happened, but forsenic experts surmised that she was grabbed from behind as she walked up to the front door. They believe the assailant held her down with his right arm and shot her at point blank range with his left.
A neighbour heard Jill (37) cry out, but did not hear a gunshot. He then noticed a tall man walking away from Jill’s house. Several other people later reported seeing a well-dressed man with dark hair near her home.
News of her death left the country reeling. As well as fronting Crimewatch, Jill presented travel show Holiday and read the news on various bulletins. She’d been named the BBC’s Personality of the
Year two years earlier.
The ensuing murder investigation was the biggest inquiry carried out by London’s Metropolitan Police and the largest manhunt in the country since the search for the
Yorkshire Ripper in the 1970s and ’80s, with thousands of people interviewed.
The day after the murder, police received a tip-off about Barry George, who lived less than a kilometre from Jill’s home and was described as unstable. However, it took them 10 months to consider him a serious suspect. Once they found out he had a history of stalking women, sexual offences and anti-social behaviour, and had firearms experience due to time spent in the Territorial Army, they put him under surveillance.
He was arrested in May 2000 and after a trial at the Old Bailey, convicted of Jill’s murder in 2001.
George’s supporters maintained that his low IQ meant he was unlikely to be able to plan and carry out an execution-style killing. A neuropsychiatrist maintained that his ability to organise himself and carry out plans was very low. Doubts were also cast over forensic evidence that played a crucial part in the original trial. George’s conviction was quashed, and at a second trial in 2008 he was found not guilty.
The police had to go back to the drawing board. The theories included:
• Jill was murdered by a professional Serbian hitman in retaliation for UK and US forces bombing a TV station in Belgrade, killing 16 people. Three weeks before her death she had fronted a TV appeal for refugees from Kosovo, which raised more than $2 million for people fleeing ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
• She was the victim of an underworld hit, targeted by organised crime bosses because of her work on Crimewatch. TV investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas suggested her murder sent a message to others trying to take on organised crime. “Jill may have signed her own death warrant through her work on Crimewatch,” Mark said.
• Jill was silenced because she had tried to tell BBC bosses about a paedophile ring involving well-known people at the broadcasting company.
• She was killed by a deranged fan who had been stalking her.
The suggestion that she had been shot by a professional assassin was dismissed by some experts, who pointed out that the cartridge case left behind (which was sloppy for a contract killer) implied that the weapon had either been converted at some stage or decommissioned.
“Surely a professional wouldn’t use such a poor quality gun,” pointed out one firearms expert.
However, other people who looked into the case theorised that the ammunition was actually tailor-made, suggesting that the killing was the work of covert forces.
Detective Inspector Hamish Campbell, who led the investigation and is now retired, says the most likely theory is that she was killed by a stalker, probably somebody she didn’t even know existed. Her diaries did not include any mention of her being hassled or followed by a zealous fan.
Jill’s fiancé Alan Farthing has spoken very little about her death since giving an initial interview soon after she died. In that he said she never expressed any fears about her work being dangerous.
“I cannot understand why anyone would want to kill somebody as gentle, kind, well-meaning and as perfect a person as Jill,” he told.
Alan went on to become a gynaecologist and obstetrician to the royal family, and has delivered Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge’s three children. Now married to a doctor, he keeps in touch with Jill’s brother Nigel.
“They‘d never lose touch,” says a friend. “They will always share the same frustration, not only that her killer remains at large, but that they still don’t know why on earth somebody would want to kill her.”