The mystery of Jill Dando's murder

I may be having a madder than usual moment but I'm sure there were some postings earlier this morning, wondering if Jill may have been investigating child abuse at the BBC. Her friendship with Cliff Richard was also mentioned. I now can't find them anywhere; perhaps they were deleted as off topic.

So I thought that I'd set up a new topic for anyone who has any theories on the case. It appears that she didn't have an enemy in the world. Usually whenever someone dies (particularly when young and in tragic circumstances) everyone at first says how wonderful the person was but it doesn't take long for the dirt to be dished and unsavoury secrets come out.

There was never anything like that with Jill and it did seem as if she was exactly the way she appeared to be on TV.

I love conspiracy theories as most people will know but I don't think there was anything sinister about the arrest and conviction of Barry George. The police were anxious to solve such a high-profile case and mistakes were made.

Just for gossipy reasons, I'll add that Jill's then fiancé Alan Farthing will be delivering the Royal baby next month!

We have this thread.......

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t6803-police-give-up-all-hope-of-finding-jill-dando-s-killer-despite-600000-case-review?highlight=jill+dando

and this one.........

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t6354-barry-george-loses-compensation-case?highlight=Barry+George


Don't think anything deleted NFWTD was it in SY thread?

yes we did hear doctor farthing would be delivering new heir to throne ,but I read few days ago that another doctor was named to be doing it now,doc  s father I think it was ,was headmaster in our local high school ,years ago . joyce1938

No Fate Worse Than De'Ath wrote:I may be having a madder than usual moment but I'm sure there were some postings earlier this morning, wondering if Jill may have been investigating child abuse at the BBC. Her friendship with Cliff Richard was also mentioned. I now can't find them anywhere; perhaps they were deleted as off topic.

So I thought that I'd set up a new topic for anyone who has any theories on the case. It appears that she didn't have an enemy in the world. Usually whenever someone dies (particularly when young and in tragic circumstances) everyone at first says how wonderful the person was but it doesn't take long for the dirt to be dished and unsavoury secrets come out.

There was never anything like that with Jill and it did seem as if she was exactly the way she appeared to be on TV.

I love conspiracy theories as most people will know but I don't think there was anything sinister about the arrest and conviction of Barry George. The police were anxious to solve such a high-profile case and mistakes were made.

Just for gossipy reasons, I'll add that Jill's then fiancé Alan Farthing will be delivering the Royal baby next month!

On page 51 of this thread..

https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t7233p490-scotland-yard-takes-over-the-inquiry-into-maddie-s-disappearance-from-portuguese-plus-update-cps-lawyers-fly-to-portugal

I actually checked that one out! So I was having a mad moment but not because I hadn't seen the posts in the first place.

Please merge this topic with one of the others if you want to.

From what I can remember it was thought to be a 'contract killing' so it would be hard to find the murderer at the best of times. 

But it may equally well have been a psychopath with a fixation on her. Didn't she appear in a black leather outfit (photo shoot I think) shortly before her murder? 

£ 600,000.-- review and no more to be spent. Not so important as the McCann case then.

Yes, she was on the front page of the Radio Times for the week of her death.

It could have been an obsessed fan getting "revenge" for her about to marry someone else. There certainly was nothing to prove that Barry George came into that category.

I cant help thinking she was bumped off.

Well yes, she was definitely bumped off! I presume that you mean because she knew too much about something?

It's not pleasant reading, but it reads to me more like a contract killing. Only mystery is why not wait for her to enter and commit the murder in the house. 
This was very public - the killer may not have known if there were others people in the house? One would need to know the area. 11.30 must surely mean he had the opportunity to wait for some time unobserved? 
9mm is a very small caliber and not usually fatal unless fired at close quarters I understand. I think aiyoyo is right. This is too professional and passionless. 

From Wiki:

On the morning of 26 April 1999, Dando left the Chiswick home of her fiancé, Alan Farthing. She returned alone, by car, to the house she owned in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, West London. She had lived in the house, but by April 1999 was in the process of selling it and did not visit it frequently. As Dando reached her front door at about 11:32, she was shot once in the head.^[8] Her body was discovered about 14 minutes later by neighbour Helen Doble.^[9] Police were called at 11:47.^[6] Dando was taken to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at 13:03 BST.

"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.

Forensic study indicated that Dando had been shot by a bullet from a 9 mm calibre automatic pistol, with the gun pressed against her head at the moment of the shot. Richard Hughes, her next door neighbour, heard a surprised cry from Dando "like someone greeting a friend" but heard no gunshot. Hughes looked out of his front window and, while not realising what had happened, made the only certain sighting of the killer—a 6 foot (1.80 metre) tall white man aged around 40 years old, seen walking away from Dando's house.^[6]

tigger wrote:It's not pleasant reading, but it reads to me more like a contract killing...

Exactly so. There is a credible line of evidence pointing to this being a contract killing ordered by major career criminal and drugs-dealer Kenneth Noye. 'Crimewatch' was IIRC instrumental in him being identified, captured and convicted.

With reference to Cliff Richard being questioned, that seems no more than the police trying to track down, with the help of 'close friends' like Cliff Richard, people who might have known Jill Dando or might have a grudge against her.

However, a police source did tell me once that there was much interest in a considerable number of DNA samples from various men found at her house

I know that someone arrested because of Crimewatch is a possibility but I find it unlikely. Why Jill in particular, not Nick Ross or any police officers involved in the hunt?

I certainly agree that there was nothing strange in a close friend like Cliff being interviewed.

I heard about some DNA samples being found but that they were no more than would be expected from someone living a normal life.

tigger wrote:
On the morning of 26 April 1999, Dando left the Chiswick home of her fiancé, Alan Farthing. She returned alone, by car, to the house she owned in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, West London. She had lived in the house, but by April 1999 was in the process of selling it and did not visit it frequently. 

Someone knew she was going to visit her house that morning, the house she hardly went to & was not living at during that time...........

I know that sounds as if the usual suspects - the closest friends or relatives - are most likely to be responsible but that could also apply to an obsessed fan.

tigger wrote:It's not pleasant reading, but it reads to me more like a contract killing. Only mystery is why not wait for her to enter and commit the murder in the house. 
This was very public - the killer may not have known if there were others people in the house? One would need to know the area. 11.30 must surely mean he had the opportunity to wait for some time unobserved? 
9mm is a very small caliber and not usually fatal unless fired at close quarters I understand. I think aiyoyo is right. This is too professional and passionless. 

From Wiki:

On the morning of 26 April 1999, Dando left the Chiswick home of her fiancé, Alan Farthing. She returned alone, by car, to the house she owned in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, West London. She had lived in the house, but by April 1999 was in the process of selling it and did not visit it frequently. As Dando reached her front door at about 11:32, she was shot once in the head.^[8] Her body was discovered about 14 minutes later by neighbour Helen Doble.^[9] Police were called at 11:47.^[6] Dando was taken to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at 13:03 BST.

"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.

Forensic study indicated that Dando had been shot by a bullet from a 9 mm calibre automatic pistol, with the gun pressed against her head at the moment of the shot. Richard Hughes, her next door neighbour, heard a surprised cry from Dando "like someone greeting a friend" but heard no gunshot. Hughes looked out of his front window and, while not realising what had happened, made the only certain sighting of the killer—a 6 foot (1.80 metre) tall white man aged around 40 years old, seen walking away from Dando's house.^[6]

It''s apparently not a crime of passion; and generally crime by stranger executed in this neat manner with knowledge of her every move is extremely rare.

It would appear her killer  might be known to her - going by her neighbour's remark that the sound he heard emitting from JD was "like someone greeting a friend".  Usually when a stranger springs up so suddenly in your face, taking you by surprise, your natural instinct is to scream.  But she did not scream.

He must have surveilled her for days, or had or been given inside info about her movement since her visit back to that apt was not regular habit.
Someone knew she was going back and that could only be very limited few limited to her inner circle of friends.  
Depending whether police investigated her inner circle of friends at that time or so we wont know whether her friends were eliminated.

It's too neat and precise an execution, the man knew exactly what he'd to do, then walked away calmly, suggesting a snipper - someone paid to execute and made a clean and neat job of it.  The snipper reportedly escaped on foot, had no car on standby, likely lives very close by, confident he can get out of public view pretty quickly by escaping into the sanctuary of his home.

The style of execution is not consistent with a lone stalker infatuated with her  - this kind usually think with heart than head and will leave a messy trail.
A governmental agent usually make it looks like an accident, so that's out too.

That leaves a few options: she'd enemy going back in history (not reported so). Or, she made enemy because of her job as crime-watch presenter (highly likely). Or an opportunistic loner who happened to have a gun on him when he's spotted Jill Dando and decided to kill her for kicks (unlikely because the rationale of a cold collected calm loner is lost on me as that's not typical characteristics of loner especially an opportunistic one we're talking about here).

Likely she stumbled onto something, became a threat, and was bumped off.
The Police, if revisiting her case should start with her close circle of friends, or high profile people she came in contact with before she met her fate.  
The professional snipper might be someone's unofficial bodyguard known to Jill Dando.  JMO.

No Fate Worse Than De'Ath wrote:I know that sounds as if the usual suspects - the closest friends or relatives - are most likely to be responsible but that could also apply to an obsessed fan.

How would an obsessed fan know her exact movements and that she would be arriving at her property that she no longer was living at? An obsessed fan would more likely go to where she was living, not hanging around for god knows how long in the hope she will arrive back one day. This was a total professional hit and they knew her exact movements

Jill Dando murder witness comes forward to claim detectives IGNORED his evidence

Barry Lindsey says he was driving past the Crimewatch presenter’s home when he saw her looking terrified as her killer confronted her

A vital witness believed to be the last person to see Jill Dando alive moments before her doorstep murder has come forward to claim that detectives IGNORED his evidence.

Barry Lindsey today reveals he was driving past the Crimewatch presenter’s home when he saw her looking terrified as her killer confronted her.

He considered intervening because she seemed so frightened, and hit his brakes. But he  drove on only to hear the shot that killed her as he turned out of her road.

But when Mr Lindsey – distressed by what had happened – gave police a detailed description of the man Jill, 37, had been arguing with, he says they brushed it aside because they were obsessed with nailing Barry George, later wrongly convicted of her 1999 murder.

Mr Lindsey, now a 61-year-old grandfather, says: “I told officers they needed to find a man with olive skin, dark hair and who looked like he was of Mediterranean origin.

“But straight off, they said, ‘We are looking at a local guy over this murder. He is called Barry George’. They asked if I knew him and described what he looked like. But I told them, ‘That’s not the man I saw – I am 100 per cent sure of it’.

“As soon as those words left my mouth I felt like the police didn’t want to listen any more. The way they acted really took me by surprise.”

After giving the officers a statement, Mr Lindsey never heard from the police again. Weeks later they arrested their prime suspect. Mr George, 53, was convicted of Jill’s murder and served eight years before being freed on appeal.

Barry Lindsey says he was driving past the Crimewatch presenter’s home when he saw her looking terrified as her killer confronted her


In an exclusive Sunday Mirror interview last week, he told how the turmoil of the case had left his life in tatters. And after reading the emotional account, Mr Lindsey decided to end his years of silence over a day he says will haunt him forever.

Yesterday he revisited the spot where the TV star was killed and relived what happened. It is the first time he has been back since the shooting on April 26, 1999.

That morning the father of five was driving down Gowan Avenue in Fulham, South West London, in a green Range Rover. The retired print worker, who lived locally, was heading to Wimbledon to drop off the vehicle for a friend.

He says: “As I was driving along I glanced to my left and saw a woman arguing with a man.

“I hit the brakes, stopped in the middle of the road and looked through the back window. I will never forget the look on her face. It was one of absolute terror – her face had gone as white as the coat she was wearing.

“I considered getting out of the car but something in my head said, ‘don’t do it Barry’. A few years before, I had got involved in a domestic in the street and ended up in a fight with the man ­involved. I wound up in court. I didn’t want that to happen again.

“I looked one final time and saw her standing with her back to her front door. He was in front of her with his back to the road. I could see he had dark hair and looked Mediterranean.”


Mr Lindsey drove on. Then, as he turned left out of Gowan Avenue, he heard a gunshot.

“It could not have been anything else,” he says. “It was louder than a firework or a car backfiring. Instinctively, my foot hit the accelerator and I drove forward as fast as I could.”

The incident preyed on his mind for the rest of the day.

“When I got home that night, I flicked on the TV and saw the story about Jill Dando. I don’t watch TV that often so I had no idea who she was. But straight away I said to my wife, ‘I saw that woman today’. As I looked at the picture of her on the screen my blood ran cold.”

A retired printer, Mr Lindsey contacted a journalist he knew who was ­reporting on the case to reveal what he had seen. A short time later he was visited at home by two detectives investigating the Dando murder.

“I told the officers everything I had seen,” he says. “Within a few minutes they mentioned the name Barry George to me.

“They said he was a local guy who they were looking at in connection with the murder. I had seen pictures of him in the newspapers and told the officer there was no way that was the person I saw. For a start Barry George looked two stone heavier than the man I saw that morning.”

Officers then took Mr Lindsey to the murder scene where he repeated his account. “They kept asking again and again about Barry George,” he says. “They seemed frustrated when I said they needed to be looking for someone else.”

Mr Lindsey was surprised he never heard from police again. And it is even more surprising given the account provided by one witness at Barry George’s first trial. Helen Scott told the Old Bailey she noticed a man also of ­Mediterranean appearance with slightly olive skin, looking down towards Gowan Avenue the night before Jill died. It raises the possibility that she saw the same man described by Mr Lindsey hanging around Jill Dando’s home ahead of the murder.

Mr Lindsey says: “I expected the police to at least call back to take a second statement after Barry George was arrested. But I heard nothing.

“Eventually Barry George was charged and one TV news report even mentioned a man in a Range Rover who had seen an altercation on the morning she died. Presumably they were referring to me, but I never heard from the police again so I can’t say for sure. In the end I did start to question myself and what I might have seen that day. But deep down I knew what I saw.”

Mr Lindsey, who now lives in Woodford Green, East London,  says he is ready to give police a new statement over the murder. “I’d be prepared to meet the police tomorrow,” he insisted.

“I don’t know what they could now do with my information but I can’t see how it would harm their chances of ­finding the person who killed that poor woman.

“It is such a tragic waste of a life. And it is really sad that Barry George has also ended up having his own life torn apart.”

In his first interview for five years last week, Mr George says police targeted him for the murder because his life was “disposable”.

Even when he was cleared at a 2008 retrial, he claims he was followed by officers around the clock and stopped and searched dozens of times before fleeing to Ireland with his sister in fear that he would be “fitted up” again.

He told us: “I hope it’s in my lifetime that the real killer is caught. Although I never met Jill Dando she was an innocent woman who was murdered and no person with any conscience could stand there and say they felt no compassion for her and her family.”

Despite a £587,000 forensic review, Scotland Yard did not find any new leads and the officers stopped investigating.

Mr George said: “The real killer is out there somewhere and the police aren’t looking for him. They needed someone to plug a hole and I was it. They victimised me and my life was disposable.”

Eye-witness Mr Lindsey also wants to see justice done and the killer caught.

He says: “I can’t help thinking that if the police had listened and looked at other suspects beyond Barry George then Jill Dando’s killer may now be in prison. They were clearly under pressure to get a result quickly because she was such a high profile victim. It was clear when I gave my statement that the officers had an idea in their mind of who they thought was responsible.

“I’m not saying what I told that day could have cracked the case but it might have helped lead officers in the right direction.

“I’d be happy to help them in the future in any way I can because I just want the person who did this brought to book.”

A spokesman for the Met said yesterday: “The case remains unsolved. As with all unsolved cases any evidence which we are presented with will be thoroughly examined by officers.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jill-dando-murder-witness-comes-2071046

Jill Dando warned me of ‘pervy’ Jimmy Savile, says BBC’s Sally Jones

BBC journalist Sally Jones has said that Jill Dando warned her of Jimmy Savile’s ‘perverted’ ways while comforting her after he made advances.

Ms Jones told how she had a ‘close encounter’ with the DJ after getting into a lift with him.

Writing in the Mail, the journalist said that she was acquainted with Savile when in her early thirties, but found him to be ‘a weird, self-conscious attention-seeker, even creepier than the rest of his fellow DJs’.

After finding herself alone in a lift with him, she reveals how he asked for a kiss before forcing his tongue into her mouth.

‘The acrid taste of cigar smoke almost made me retch and I froze, cringing, as he ran one hand up from my waist and fumbled for my breast,’ she said.

Ms Jones pushed him away and later confided what had happened in her friend Ms Dando, herself a new journalist at the BBC.

She recalls how Ms Dando said: ‘Of course you didn’t ask for it.’

‘He’s just a dirty old perv – half the DJs are like that.’

The TV presenter recalls how she decided to keep the incident to herself for the sake of her career, explaining that Savile was then one of the biggest names in showbiz.

‘I regarded myself as a serious reporter and I certainly didn’t want to be stereotyped as casting-couch fodder or a namby victim who could not stand up for herself,’ she said.

http://metro.co.uk/2012/10/28/jill-dando-warned-me-of-pervy-jimmy-savile-says-bbcs-sally-jones-608914/

I find the story of this supposed eye-witness extremely unlikely.

Barry George wasn't arrested until about a year after the murder. He couldn't have been considered as a suspect (or a patsy) right away.

This man heard what he was sure was a gunshot but then did nothing until he heard about the murder later that day?

PULL THE OTHER ONE!

Put it this way...Barry George was set up from the start

What makes you say that JD? As you know, you don't have to convince me when it comes to false flag exercises like 9/11 and 7/7 but, with this case, I can believe that, once Barry George had risen above the radar, the limited evidence was fitted around him but I just can't understand why a year would have been allowed to pass if he was set up from the start.

For starters, the fact that he was convicted because "he was not innocent enough" in a country where innocent until proven guilty...and not being allowed compensation for a crime he spent 8 years in jail for which there is no real evidence he committed it, speaks volumes and goes against what this country is said to be about

I don't think that the "not being innocent enough" applied to his being found guilty in the first place, only to his being refused compensation.

I can understand why he came under suspicion - his proximity to the crime scene and his history of inappropriate behaviour towards women - but it should have soon become clear that this crime was way out of his league.

"Olive man" fits one of the remaining theories very closely. Am ex-pat long term resident on the Med, with a perma-tan. Look at the history.

I hope you meant "An ex-pat...." rather than "Am ex-pat...." as it sounds as if you're on the list of suspects, Mr M!

JUSTICE DENIED
People persecuted for political reasons must be defended.
 
  
Sunday, 28 July 2013
 
Jill Dando murdered by the State to keep lid on elite paedophile Ring
 
We learn this month  that Barry George has been denied compensation for being falsely imprisoned for the murder of Jill Dando.
 
 Despite being innocent of all charges against him, and having almost certainly been framed by the British Establishment, the Courts have refused to allow George the right to appeal against the decision in what his sister calls a “travesty of justice”.
Why on earth aren’t the powers-that-be willing to acknowledge the distress and suffering caused to Barry George by being wrongly incarcerated for 8 years?
Why aren’t they awarding him an automatic compensation offer as they have done in other cases where a miscarriage of justice has taken place?
Why are they allowing us to think he is in someway still guilty despite being clearly innocent?
Is it because, in their desperation to keep a lid on Britain’s dirty secrets, they’re willing to sacrifice bloody well anything or anyone?
The answer to that is most certainly yes.
 
You see the brutal murder of Jill Dando was not carried out by a lone-stalker or Serbian warlord.
The brutal murder of Jill Dando was linked to a VIP paedophile ring which was operating within the BBC and beyond.
 
The brutal murder of Jill Dando was ordered by the highest echelons of British society once it became clear that she had evidence of the ring and was about to expose it.
 
Jill Dando was shot at point-blank range in the head to silence her and also to serve as a warning to other journalists to keep their mouths shut.
 
We now know that child-rapist DJ Jimmy Savile had been abusing and procuring children at the BBC for decades.
 
Nobody said a word because of Savile’s links to the royals and government. Jill Dando must have known about these rumours and would not have kept quiet.
 
Her close friend and confidante, Cliff Richard, has himself been named as a visitor to the notorious boy-brothel Elm Guest House, where vulnerable children were trafficked from local care homes to be abused by filthy VIPs.
 
Cliff was interviewed at length by detectives investigating the murder of Jill on several occasions.
Why was he such an important ‘ witness’ ?
 
Jill’s fiance, Alan Farthing, came face-to-face with Jill’s killer but conveniently forgot to tell the police.
 
Alan has since risen through the ranks of the medical profession and is now the doctor responsible for the birth of Kate and William’s new baby. Was his promotion linked to Jill’s murder?
 
Jill’s colleague on Crimewatch, Nick Ross, has recently said he’d watch child-porn given half the chance.
Nick is married to Sarah Caplan the cousin of Esther Rantzen, who is also implicated in the Savile scandal.
Caplan and Rantzen founded Childline which appears to be a ‘front’ organisation used to filter out callers who may have been the victims of VIP child-abuse.
Nick Ross founded the ‘front’ Crimestopper’s helpline.
This helpline conveniently stopped working following an appeal for witnesses to Jill’s murder.
There were many procedural ‘mistakes‘ made by the Met Police during their investigations.
Officers conveniently forgot to question Jill’s neighbours and also botched the e-fit photo of the suspect by making his hair brown when it was actually blond.
Were these mistakes made deliberately to ensure the real killer would never be caught?
 
In a most sinister development Hamish Campbell, who was in charge of the investigation, was then put in charge of Operation Yewtree.
 
Are these mere coincidences or is there much more to the murder of Jill Dando than meets the eye?
Are the Met Police, the Judiciary, the BBC and the Government implicated in one of the biggest cover-ups this country has ever seen?
 
It’s no wonder the Establishment won’t give Barry George the justice and compensation he deserves.
If they did, their sordid child-abusing secrets would finally be exposed.
Britain really is a filthy nation.
Curtesy of Daemon Hunter 
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/09/barry-george-jill-dando-murder-compensation-appeal_n_3566579.html?utm_hp_ref=tw


http://google-law.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/jill-dando-murdered-by-state-to-keep.html?spref=tw

My God! - that is really scary stuff.

I'd like to know what proof there is to back this up.

Particularly the bit that says that Alan Farthing "came face to face with the killer but did not tell the police".

Yes I noticed that, not heard that before, does anyone know what that refers to?

No Fate Worse Than De'Ath wrote:I'd like to know what proof there is to back this up.

Particularly the bit that says that Alan Farthing "came face to face with the killer but did not tell the police".

Quite right, NFWTD, this article is more than a tad short of real hard evidence, especially as you say in what is said about Alan Farthing.

The rival theory that it was serial criminal Kenneth Noye who organised, from prison, the killing of JIll Dando out of revenge for being identified as a result of a 'CrimeWatch' special probably has more going for it in terms of hard fact.

However, following on from the above thesis in the Huffington Post, it might be worth recalling that, at the time of Dando's killing...

Clarence Mitchell was employed by the BBC in a senior reporting capacity, about which Margolis wrote in the Independent in 2009, in an article titled 'The Angel of Death':

QUOTE:

“Mitchell was closely involved with the Fred and Rosemary West case, where a murderous couple had killed young girls and buried the bodies under their patio in Gloucester. He was one of the first reporters to arrive at Gowan Avenue, Fulham in south west London, when the immensely popular BBC TV presenter Jill Dando was shot dead in a murder many feel has never been satisfactorily explained”.

UNQUOTE