Murder of Jill Lando

Jill Wendy Dando (9 November 1961 – 26 April 1999) was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She spent most of her career at the BBC and was the corporation's Personality of the Year in 1997. At the time of her death, her television work included co-presenting the BBC One program Crimewatch with Nick Ross.

On the morning of 26 April 1999, Dando was shot dead outside her home in Fulham, south-west London, prompting the biggest murder inquiry conducted by the Metropolitan Police and the country's largest criminal investigation since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. A local man, Barry George, was convicted and imprisoned for the murder, but after eight years in prison, he was acquitted following an appeal and retrial. No other suspect has been charged with Dando's murder and the case remains unsolved.

Early life

Jill Wendy Dando was born at Ashcombe House Maternity Home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. She was the daughter of Jack Dando (February 1918 – February 2009) and Winifred Mary Jean Hockey (August 1928 – January 1986), who died of leukemia aged 57. Her only sibling, brother Nigel (born 1952), worked as a journalist for BBC Radio Bristol before retiring in 2017, having previously worked as a journalist in local newspapers since the 1970s. Dando was raised as a Baptist and remained a devout follower. When she was three years old, it was discovered that she had a hole in her heart and a blocked pulmonary artery. She had heart surgery on 12 January 1965.

Dando was educated at Worle Infant School, Greenwood Junior School, Worle Community School, and Broadoak Sixth Form Center, where she was head girl, and completed her A-levels. She then went on to study Journalism at the South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education.

Dando was a member of the Weston-super-Mare Amateur Dramatic Society and Exeter Little Theater Company, with who she appeared in plays at the Barnfield Theater. She was a volunteer at Sunshine Hospital Radio in Weston-super-Mare in 1979.

Career

Dando's first job was as a trainee reporter for the local weekly newspaper, the Weston Mercury, where her father and brother worked. After five years as a print journalist, she started to work for the BBC, becoming a newsreader for BBC Radio Devon in 1985. That year, she transferred to BBC South West, where she presented a regional news magazine program, Spotlight South West. In 1987, she worked for Television South West, then BBC Spotlight in Plymouth. In early 1988, Dando moved from regional to national television in London to present BBC television news, specifically the short on-the-hour bulletins that aired on both BBC1 and BBC2 from 1986 until the mid-1990s.

Dando presented the BBC television programs Breakfast Time, Breakfast News, the BBC One O'Clock News, the Six O'Clock News, the travel program Holiday, the crime appeal series Crimewatch (from 1995 until her death), and occasionally Songs of Praise. In 1994, she moved to Fulham. On 25 April 1999, Dando presented the first episode of Antiques Inspectors. She was scheduled to present the Six O'Clock News on the evening of the following day. She was featured on the cover of that week's Radio Times magazine (from 24 to 30 April). Dando was also booked to host the British Academy Television Awards 1999, alongside Michael Parkinson, at Grosvenor House Hotel on 9 May. On 5 September, BBC One resumed airing Antiques Inspectors, the final series to be recorded by Dando. The series made its debut on 25 April, with the filming of the final episode completed two days before that. The program was canceled following her death, but it was decided later in the year that it should be aired as a tribute to Dando. The final episode aired on 24 October.

At the time of her death, Dando was among those with the highest profile of the BBC's on-screen staffing and had been the 1997 BBC Personality of the Year. Crimewatch reconstructed her murder in an attempt to aid the police in the search for her killer. After Barry George was charged with the murder but acquitted, Crimewatch made no further appeals for information concerning the case.

Personal life

From 1989 to 1996, Dando engaged in a relationship with BBC executive Bob Wheaton. She then had a brief relationship with national park warden Simon Basil. In December 1997, Dando met gynecologist Alan Farthing, later Queen Elizabeth II's personal physician, on a blind date set up by a mutual friend. Farthing was separated from his wife at the time. A couple of months after Farthing's divorce was finalized, the couple announced that they were engaged on 31 January 1999. Their wedding was set to take place on 25 September.

Murder

On the morning of 26 April 1999, 37-year-old Dando left Farthing's home in Chiswick. She returned alone, by car, to the house she owned at 29 Gowan Avenue, Fulham. She had lived in the house, but by April 1999 was in the process of selling it and did not visit it frequently. The purpose of her visit was to collect contract documents that had been faxed to her there by her agent Jon Roseman. As Dando reached her front door at about 11:32 BST, she was shot once in the head. Her body was discovered about fourteen minutes later by neighbor Helen Doble. Police were called at 11:47. Dando was taken to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at 13:03.

As Dando was about to put her keys in the lock to open the front door of her home in Fulham, she was grabbed from behind. With his right arm, the assailant held her and forced her to the ground, so that her face was almost touching the tiled step of the porch. Then, with his left hand, he fired a single shot at her left temple, killing her instantly. The bullet entered her head just above her ear, parallel to the ground, and came out the right side of her head.— Bob Woffinden, The Guardian (July 2002)

A forensic study indicated that Dando had been shot by a bullet from a 9mm Short caliber semi-automatic pistol, with the gun pressed against her head at the moment of the shot. The cartridge appeared to have been subject to workshop modification, possibly to reduce its charge. Richard Hughes, her next-door neighbor, heard a scream from Dando ("I thought it was someone surprising somebody") but heard no gunshot. Hughes looked out of his front window and, while not realizing what had happened, made the only certain sighting of the killer — a six-foot-tall (183 cm) white man aged around 40, walking away from Dando's house.

Investigation

After the murder, there was intense media coverage. An investigation by the Metropolitan Police, named Operation Oxborough, proved fruitless for over a year. Dando's status as a well-known public figure had brought her into contact with thousands of people, and she was known to millions. There was huge speculation regarding the motive for her murder.

Within six months, the Murder Investigation Team had spoken to more than 2,500 people and taken more than 1,000 statements. With little progress after a year, the police concentrated their attention on Barry George, who lived about half a mile from Dando's house. He had a history of stalking women, sexual offenses, and other antisocial and attention-seeking behavior. George was put under surveillance, arrested on 25 May 2000, and charged with Dando's murder on 28 May.

George was tried at the Old Bailey, convicted, and on 2 July 2001 was sentenced to life imprisonment. Concern about this conviction was widespread on the basis that the case against George appeared thin. Two appeals were unsuccessful, but after discredited forensic evidence was excluded from the prosecution's case, George's third appeal succeeded in November 2007. The original conviction was quashed and a second trial lasting eight weeks ended in George's acquittal on 1 August 2008.

After George's acquittal, some newspapers published articles that appeared to suggest that he was guilty of the Dando murder and other offenses against women. In December 2009, George accepted substantial damages from News Group Newspapers over articles in The Sun and the News of the World, following a libel action in the High Court.

Lines of inquiry

Lines of inquiry explored in the police investigation included:

Theories that a jealous ex-boyfriend or an unknown lover had killed Dando. This was quickly ruled out by the detectives who interviewed all Dando's friends and acquaintances and checked her phone calls.

A belief that somebody had hired an assassin to murder Dando as revenge for their being convicted as a result of evidence garnered by Crimewatch viewers. After exhaustive inquiries, this was also ruled out by detectives.

Various theories relating to Bosnian-Serb or Yugoslav groups in retaliation for NATO actions against media outlets and her appeals for aid during the Yugoslav Wars.

The possibility that a deranged fan may have killed Dando after she had rejected his approaches. Dando's brother, Nigel, informed detectives that she had become concerned that “some guy was pestering her” in the few days before her death, but this was ruled out by detectives.

A case of mistaken identity. This was judged unlikely, given that the killing took place on the doorstep of Dando's own home.

Following the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal a claim was made that Dando had investigated a pedophile ring at the BBC during the mid-1990s and had handed a dossier containing her findings to BBC management, purportedly prompting a revenge attack. The BBC said it had seen no evidence to support the claim.

Actions taken by a professional rival or business partner also had to be considered. Her agent Jon Roseman stated that he had been interviewed as a suspect by police.

The original police investigation had explored the possibility of a contract killing, but since Dando was living with her fiancé and was only rarely visiting her Fulham residence, it was considered unlikely that a professional assassin would have been sufficiently well informed about Dando's movements to have known at what time she was going to be there. CCTV evidence of Dando's last journey (mainly security video recordings from a shopping center in Hammersmith, which she visited on her way to Fulham) did not show any sign of her being followed.

Initial investigations focused on Dando's personal circle since only a few people knew of her intention to visit her Gowan Avenue house on the day. Her agent Jon Roseman was an initial suspect since he knew Dando was going there to collect faxes he had sent her. But Roseman convinced detectives of his innocence. Bob Wheaton also attracted attention since he was a jilted lover and Dando had transferred £35,000 to him towards the end of their relationship. Wheaton stated that this transfer was a gift and not a loan. He also convinced detectives of his innocence.

On the night of her death, Dando's BBC colleague Nick Ross said on Newsnight that retaliatory attacks by criminals against police, lawyers, and judges were almost unknown in the UK. Forensic examination of the cartridge case and bullet recovered from the scene of the attack suggested that the weapon used had been the result of a workshop conversion of a replica or decommissioned gun. It was argued that a professional assassin would not use such a poor-quality weapon. The police therefore soon began to favor the idea that the killing had been opportunistically carried out by a crazed individual. This assumed profile of the perpetrator led to the focus on George.

Cold case reviews by the police after 2008 concluded that Dando was killed by a professional assassin in a "hard contact execution". Pressing the gun against her head would have acted as a suppressor — muffling the sound of the shot and preventing the killer from being splattered with blood.

Yugoslav connection

In early 1999, the UK and NATO were involved in the Kosovo War, opposing Serbia. Immediately after the Dando killing, several telephone calls were made to the BBC and other media outlets claiming responsibility for the killing on behalf of Serb groups. These calls stated that the murder was revenge for the NATO bombing campaign in Serbia, and threatened further killings. These calls were not judged wholly credible and may have been hoaxes. Nevertheless, at George's first trial, his defense barrister, Michael Mansfield, proposed that the Serbian warlord Arkan had ordered Dando's assassination in retaliation for the NATO bombing of the RTS headquarters. Mansfield suggested that Dando's earlier presentation of an appeal for aid for Kosovar Albanian refugees may have attracted the attention of Bosnian-Serb hardliners. Dando's appeal for aid for the Kosovar Albanian refugees had been shown on television three weeks before her murder.

In 2019, it was reported that the British National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) had given an intelligence report to the Dando murder inquiry claiming that the murder was in retaliation for the RTS bombing and Arkan had ordered the killing. The report highlighted a possible connection between the bullets used to kill Dando and bullets used in assassinations in Germany, namely handmade markings found on them. An opposition journalist, Slavko Ćuruvija, was assassinated outside his home in Belgrade just a few days before Dando's murder and the method used in both cases was identical. In 2019, four men of the Serbian Secret Service were convicted of this murder. However, the verdicts were reversed on appeal in 2024, which led to a widely criticized acquittal of the four. In 2002, journalist Bob Woffinden advanced the view that a Yugoslav group was behind the Dando killing and, in various newspaper articles, contested all the grounds on which the police had dismissed this possibility.

Legacy

Dando's funeral took place on 21 May 1999 at Clarence Park Baptist Church in Weston-super-Mare. She was buried next to her mother in the town's Ebdon Road Cemetery. Her father inherited all of her estate, valued at £607,000 after debts and taxes because she died intestate.

Dando's co-presenter Nick Ross proposed the formation of an academic institute in her name and, together with her fiancé Alan Farthing, raised almost £1.5 million. The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science was founded at University College London on 26 April 2001, the second anniversary of her murder.

A memorial garden designed and realized by the BBC Television Ground Force team in Dando's memory, using plants and colors that were special to her, is located within Grove Park, Weston-super-Mare, and was opened on 2 August 2001. The BBC set up a bursary award in Dando's memory, which enables one student each year to study broadcast journalism at University College Falmouth. Sophie Long, who was then a postgraduate who had grown up in Weston-super-Mare and is now a presenter on BBC News, gained the first bursary award in 2000.

In 2007, Weston College opened a new university campus on the site of the former Broadoak Sixth Form Centre where Dando studied. The sixth-form building has been dedicated to her and named the Jill Dando Center.

The life, death, and subsequent police investigation of Jill Dando was the subject of a true crime Netflix miniseries titled Who Killed Jill Dando? released in 2023 and running for a total of three 44-minute-long episodes. The miniseries received mixed reviews from critics, citing pacing issues, although the documentary's usage of vintage archive footage from Dando's career and early childhood was also noted as a point of interest. Critic Lucy Mangan drew attention to the details shared by Dando's brother, Nigel, of the two siblings "eating sand-blown lettuce sandwiches" on the beach together and how this added to the thoroughness of the story presented. The miniseries also interviewed Barry George, who was 63 and living with his sister in Ireland at the time of filming. George stated, "I live in Ireland now. It's quiet here. You're treated like a scab in London, but you're not here."