Was Jill Dando Killed Because Of Her Work With CrimeWatch?

"Don't have nightmares. Do Sleep well."

Jill Wendy Dando was a kind person and well liked. She was born on November 9th, 1961 in at Ashcombe House Maternity Home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset to Jack Dando and Winifred Mary Jean Hockey. Jill has a brother named Nigel.

Jill 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. As a result, she had heart surgery on January 12th, 1965.

She wanted to be on tv so bad she wrote Jimmy Savile to try to get on his show.

Jill went to Worle Infant School, Greenwood Junior School, Worle Comprehensive School, and Broadoak Sixth Form Centre, where she was head girl. She studied journalism at the South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education in Cardiff. Jill was a member of Weston-super-Mare Amateur Dramatic Society and Exeter Little Theatre Company. She appeared in plays at the Barnfield Theatre. In 1979 she was a volunteer at Sunshine Hospital Radio in Weston-super-Mare.

Jill's first job was as a trainee reporter for the Weston Mercury, a local newspaper company where her father and brother worked. After five years, she started to work for the BBC, becoming a newsreader for BBC Radio Devon in 1985. That year, she transferred to BBC South West, and 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, Jill moved to national television in London to present BBC television news, specifically the short on-the-hour bulletins that aired on both BBC1 and BBC2.

Jill presented the BBC television program Breakfast Time, Breakfast News, the BBC One O'Clock News, the Six O'Clock News, the travel program Holiday, the crime appeal series Crimewatch and occasionally Songs of Praise. She moved to Fulham in 1994.

From 1989 to 1996, Jill dated BBC executive Bob Wheaton. She then had a brief relationship with national park warden Simon Basil.

Jill was among those with the highest profile of the BBC's on-screen staff, and had been the 1997 BBC Personality of the Year.

In December of 1997, Jill went on a blind date with gynecologist Alan Farthing. The date went well and the two continued to see each other. Alan, who had been separated from his wife at the time, finalized his divorce a few months later.

On January 31st, 1999, Jill and Alan announced their engagement, which was set for September 25th, 1999.

On the April 25th, 1999, Jill 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. Jill was also booked to host the British Academy Television Awards 1999, alongside Michael Parkinson, at Grosvenor House Hotel on May 9th.

On the morning of April 26th,1999, 37-year-old Jill left her Alan's home in Chiswick. She drove to her house in Fulham, which was a little over 40 minutes away. She had lived in the house, but by April 1999 was in the process of selling it and did not visit it frequently. It was about 11:32 am and as Jill was about to put her keys in the lock to open the front door when she was grabbed from behind. With their 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 their left hand, they 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. This all happened within about 30 seconds of Jill getting out of her car and approaching her front door.

Jill had been shot by a bullet from a 9mm Short caliber semi-automatic pistol. The cartridge appeared to have been subject to workshop modification, possibly to reduce its charge.

According to a British intelligence expert, the gun was place so close to Jill's head that the gases escaping the barrel of the gun exploded inside her head and muffed the sounds of the gunshot. This also prevented blood splatter from getting on the murderer.

Richard Hughes, her next door neighbor, heard a surprised cry from Jill "like someone greeting a friend". Hughes looked out of his front window and, while not realizing what had happened, made the only certain sighting of the killer. A white man was walking away from Jill's house. He well dressed, with dark hair and a solid build. He was six-foot-tall, around 40 years old and wearing a dark Barbour jacket and possibly had a cell phone.

Jill's body was discovered about fourteen minutes after she was shot by neighbor Helen Doble. Police were called at 11:47 am. Jill was taken to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at 1:03pm. 

After the murder, an investigation by the Metropolitan Police, Operation Oxborough, began. Within six months, they had spoken to more than 2,500 people and taken more than 1,000 statements.

The possibility of Jill's murder being a contract killing was thought of first, but since she 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 her movements to have known at what time she was going to be there. CCTV evidence of Jill's last journey did not show any sign of her being followed.

It was also argued that a professional assassin would not use such a poor quality weapon. The police began to entertain the idea that the killing had been carried out by a crazed individual acting on an opportunist basis. This is what led them to Barry.

Little process was made within the first year, so the police concentrated their attention on Barry George. Barry lived about half a mile from Jill's house and had a history of stalking women and sexual offences. He was put under surveillance, arrested on May 25th, 2000 and charged with Jill's murder on May 28th.

Immediately after Jill's murder, a number of telephone calls were made to the BBC and other media outlets claiming responsibility for the killing on behalf of Serb groups. The callers spoke with central European accents and threatened further killings. These calls were mainly seen as hoaxes. However, Barry's defense barrister, Michael Mansfield QC, proposed that the Serbian warlord leader Arkan had ordered Jill's assassination in retaliation for the NATO bombing of Radio Television of Serbia's headquarters on April 23rd, 1999.

Mansfield suggested that Jill's earlier presentation of an appeal for aid for Kosovar Albanian refugees may have attracted the attention of Bosnian-Serb hardliners.

An opposition journalist was assassinated outside his home in Belgrade just a few days before Jill's murder and the method used in both cases was identical.

Barry was tried, convicted, and on July 2nd, 2001 was sentenced to life imprisonment. Barry appealed twice, both were unsuccessful, but after discredited forensics evidence was excluded from the prosecution's case, Barry's third appeal succeeded in November 2007. A second trial lasting eight weeks ended in Barry's acquittal on August 1st, 2008.

So if Barry didn't kill Jill... who did? 

Cold case reviews by the police after 2008 have concluded that Jill was killed by a professional assassin in a "hard contact execution". Conservative MP Patrick Mercer was reported as saying, "It [Jill's murder] had all the hallmarks of covert forces. The killer even used specially tailored ammunition, which was a Serbian assassination trademark and something I saw when I was over there."