Who Killed Jill?
Jill Dando murder: cop says the single bullet used to kill her proves she WASN’T killed by organised crime gang or Serbian secret service
THE death of Jill Dando shocked the nation two decades ago, and remains one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in recent history.
The 37-year-old Crimewatch star, whose on-air appeals helped catch hundreds of criminals, was murdered as she returned to her Fulham home on the morning of April 26, 1999, after a night with her fiancé Alan Farthing in Chiswick.
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In 2001, local man Barry George was tried and convicted, only to be acquitted on appeal seven years later after his defence lawyers argued that his IQ was too low for him to have carried such a sophisticated killing.
Since then, various theories have surrounded the murder, including that it was an organised hit by a criminal gang, a contract killing ordered by a paedophile ring she was about to expose and a revenge attack for the UN bombing of a Serbian broadcasting station.
But in a new BBC documentary The Murder of Jill Dando, police inspector Hamish Campbell, who ran the investigation said he still believes that the killer was a lone stalker who will never be brought to justice.
He said: “She received thousands of letters and among them were some very odd letters, particularly from one individual who was clearly obsessed with her."
He added: "In most cases when a darker conspiracy is offered up the truth proves more boring and mundane."
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'Why would anyone target Jill?'
TV presenter Jill was at the height of her popularity in 1999, having presented the Six O’clock News, Holiday and Crimewatch.
But her fame did bring her some unwanted attention and her cousin Judith revealed she had mentioned several stalkers.
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“Jill was always very kind to people and you never saw a horrible side to her at all,” she said.
“She didn’t have any enemies. It’s so ridiculous. Why would anyone target Jill?
“She wanted to be nice to everybody but sometimes she found it difficult to be nice to everybody when they were making her life difficult.”
On the morning of 26 April, Jill made breakfast for her fiance before he went to work. She then went clothes shopping in Hammersmith before making her way to her home in Gowan Avenue.
At 11.30am, neighbour Richard Hughes heard a surprised cry from Jill “like someone greeting a friend” but no shot.
He also saw a man in a dark three-quarter length coat “calmly walking away” and, assuming he was a pal, thought nothing of it.
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But 15 minutes later another neighbour, Helen Doble, discovered Jill lying on the doorstep. In a distraught call to the emergency services, played on the programme, she tells the operator: “She doesn’t look like she’s breathing. Oh My God… I don’t think she’s alive.”
Jill was declared dead on arrival at Charing Cross Hospital at 1.03pm and her stunned colleagues were left to announce her death on BBC news, with Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross choking back tears as he appealed for information.
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Revenge for the death of the 'Jill Dando of Serbia'?
Opening the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell said: "It could either be a stalker or a hitman. However, there are many theories to be explored and nothing will be left untouched."
One theory that popped up was that the murder had been ordered by Serbian criminals or security officials in retaliation for a NATO attack on the Radio Television of Serbia HQ which killed 16 staff members on April 23 – just three days before Jill died.
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Cousin Judith Dando said: “My mother did tell me that when [NATO] bombed their broadcasting station we’d killed the ‘Jill Dando of Serbia’.
“The fact that it might have been a tit for tat reprisal and... the way Jill was killed made me think it represented something bigger than the act.”
But DCI Campbell said that international intelligence agencies contacted over the claims produced no leads.
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“Was it likely someone travelled from Serbia to kill Jill Dando? Very unlikely,” he said.
“Is it likely someone in Serbia contacted someone here to say she must be killed? If there was any information we would have been told but there wasn’t any.”
A professional hit ordered by a crime gang?
However, the theory that a criminal gang brought to justice through Crimewatch was initially investigated and was raised again in the wake of Barry George’s release in November 2017.
In an ITV documentary in 2017, policeman-turned-journalist Mark Williams-Thomas spoke to an anonymous hitman who claimed he knew the member of a criminal gang had pulled the trigger but was too frightened to name him.
Barry George - The man wrongly convicted of Jill Dando's murder
Barry George, who lived close to Jill’s home, quickly became a suspect because of past instances of stalking.
At 22, he had been convicted of attempted rape after following a young woman to her home and assaulting her on the doorstep.
He was also released without charge after being found in the grounds of Kensington Palace, then home to Princess Diana, with a 12-inch hunting knife and 50ft of rope.
Police found a stash of photos of female celebrities at his home along with a photo of a man – alleged to be George – holding a blank firing pistol.
They also claim to have found firearms discharge (FDR) residue in the pocket of his jacket, which appeared to match that found on the cartridge.
On July 2, 2001, George was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison but an appeal, in November 2007, quashed his conviction and a subsequent retrial found him not guilty.
Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke ruled George, now 59, was “not innocent enough” to receive a payout.
In 2013, the High Court backed decisions by successive governments to refuse him compensation for the eight years in prison because this is only paid when a new fact emerges to show beyond reasonable doubt that they did not commit the offence.
But DCI Campbell is convinced this theory is also wide of the mark.
“How was [revenge] to be served by some villain on Crimewatch saying ‘I’m so upset with this I’m going to kill Jill Dando.’ It makes no sense at all.
“Even if it was a contract there has to a fairly identifiable reason for somebody to want to pay someone else to kill another.
“We looked at all the cases she was involved in, and there was no evidence for it.”
Another theory was that Jill was about to expose a paedophile ring involving high profile names, and that they ordered a professional hitman to silence her.
But the single bullet casing recovered at the scene showed signs of tampering in six indentations and DCI Campbell believes that points to an obsessed amateur.
“There was something odd about it. Like it had been done by hand. There was no professionalism there.
“This individual or gang only had one bullet to fire and the one bullet they had to fire had to be put together.
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“In terms of a professional capacity, firing and then leaving the bullet behind... was in itself an odd feature.
“The post-mortem report, the injuries to her head, the markings (on the bullet) indicated a silencer couldn’t have been on the gun.”
All this, he said, led him to the conclusion that “the person responsible was more likely to be an individual than an organised planned hit.”
Although the trail has now gone cold, Jill’s older brother Nigel said he “lives in hope” of her killer being caught, although he admits it is now looking less likely.
“I would like to see somebody charged and convicted but I just want to know why someone would want to kill her,” he said.
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“I just want whoever did it to tell me, or a judge and jury, why he did it and that would put my mind at rest. That would be closure for me.
“I remain hopeful that will happen. We are 20 years on so the odds are against it, but I live in hope.”
But DCI Campbell doesn’t believe the tragic TV star will ever get justice.
“Do I think somebody will come back to court,” he said. “Probably not? No.”
The Murder of Jill Dando airs tonight on BBC at 9pm
Jill Dando murder - Brother Nigel Dando says 20 years on, he thinks 'it wasn't a professional hit' and killer likely to be a 'misguided individual'
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