Jill Dando

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Jill Wendy Dando (born November 9, 1961 in Weston-super-Mare , † April 26, 1999 in Fulham , London ) was a British television presenter who was murdered in 1999.

Life

The daughter of a local journalist, she began her career after studying journalism in Cardiff as a local reporter for her hometown newspaper, where her father and older brother also worked. In 1985 she became a radio journalist for the BBC (Radio Devon) and for the BBC's regional television program in South West England. In 1988 she moved to London for the BBC and presented the news. From 1995 she presented the popular program Crimewatch , which is about the public search for criminals. In 1997 she was named BBC Personality of the Year. A few months before her death, she became engaged to gynecologist Alan Farthing.

On the morning of April 26, 1999, she left her fiancé's house and drove to her apartment in Fulham, where an assassin shot her head shot on her doorstep at eleven thirty in the morning. The murderer had previously forced her to kneel down and shot her from behind. A neighbor heard the victim scream and recognized a 1.80 m tall white man around 40 years of age as the perpetrator. The murder attracted a lot of attention and led to a large-scale police investigation. The murder weapon (not found) was a semi-automatic pistol with a caliber of 9 mm. At that time Dando was no longer living in Fulham, but with her fiancé and only came into the house to check the mail and the fax machine. Cameras previously recorded while shopping did not provide any indication of a pursuer.

In May 2000, Barry George was arrested as a suspect. He lived nearby and had a history of sexual assault, stalking, and imposture, all of which indicated psychological instability. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2001, but the evidence was thin and he was acquitted seven years later. The main indicator was a microscopic smoke particle in his coat, which, however, did not allow any clear identification. In addition, a witness claimed to have seen him at the scene several hours before the murder, and George became involved in contradictions during interrogation.

There were various hypotheses about possible perpetrators: a disappointed Stalker , revenge one in their mission of Crime Watch presented suspect or an act of revenge by the Serbian side, since shortly before the war in Kosovo , the Serbian TV channels RTS by NATO had been bombed, where 16 journalists died. Dando had reported on Albanian refugees before her death. The murder case remained unsolved.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dando murder: the weapon. BBC News , April 28, 1999
personal data
SURNAME Dando, Jill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dando, Jill Wendy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British television presenter
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Weston-super-Mare
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1999
Place of death Fulham