In 1999, Britain was rocked as a well-known and popular public figure was gunned down on her doorstep in what would become one of the country’s most notorious unsolved murders.
On the morning of April 26, Jill Dando was shot and killed outside her home in London, aged 37. The investigation that followed became the Metropolitan Police’s biggest murder inquiry to date and the largest criminal investigation since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.
One man was eventually jailed for the murder, before being acquitted and released years later. To this day, authorities have no definitive answers around the killing – though countless theories have circulated in the years since.
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A new Netflix documentary about Dando's murder is in production and is set for release later this year. It will use a mixture of archive footage, new research and revelatory interviews to revisit Dando’s life, career and death.
Who was Jill Dando?
Jill Dando was a journalist and television presenter, best known for hosting BBC News and Crimewatch. She had worked for the BBC throughout most of her career, and won the broadcaster’s Personality of the Year award in 1997.
What happened to her?
On April 26, 1999, at around 11.30am, Dando was killed by a single bullet to the head on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, south-west London. She is thought to have died instantly.
Her body was discovered by a neighbour 14 minutes later, her keys still in her hand. Dando was taken to nearby Charing Cross Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival at 1.03pm.
Her next-door neighbour reported seeing a man – described as tall and aged around 40 – walking away from the scene, which is thought to be the only sighting of her alleged killer. Police took thousands of statements and investigated around 2,000 possible suspects, but only one was ever put on trial.
Barry George
Barry George, who lived less than half a mile from Dando’s home was arrested for Dando’s murder on May 25, 2000, and charged on May 29.
A year later, on July 2, 2001, more than two years after Dando was gunned down outside her home, George was found guilty during a trial at the Old Bailey by a 10 to one majority verdict. He was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2007, George had his conviction quashed and a year later was cleared of the crime after a retrial, having spent eight years behind bars. George filed a claim of £1.4m compensation for “wrongful imprisonment,” a claim which he was denied.
Were there any other suspects?
There are several theories around who killed Jill Dando, with some having more credibility than others. One of the theories suggests she was the victim of a Serbian hitman, who killed the broadcaster in revenge for the West’s aiding of Kosovo in its war with Serbia.
Less than three weeks before she was killed, Dando fronted a BBC Kosovo appeal for those fleeing ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. The appeal raised more than £1m in 24 hours.
The method of Dando’s murder gave this theory credibility, as the execution-style killing by an assailant able to slip away unnoticed suggested the work of a professional. The prosecution in the 2001 trial dismissed the theory.
Other theories suggest she was killed by an obsessive fan or by a hitman from the London underworld as revenge for her involvement with Crimewatch. To this day, Jill Dando’s murder remains unsolved.
In June this year, a spokesman from the Met Police told The Mirror: “The investigation into the murder of Ms Dando remains open, as with all murder investigations. We will always explore any new information which may become available.”
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