Jill Dando
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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In the late 90s, Jill Dando was the Princess Diana of television, London's most popular newscaster. Fame, money, love, she had it all.

until one unforgettable spring day at 11.30 a.m. Right in front of her front door, the unimaginable happens. She's shot and killed execution style in broad daylight. Who could possibly want someone like Jill Dando dead? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 212, The Murder of Jill Dando. ♪♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

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Thank you so much to Yareli, Sal, and Jay for becoming the show's newest supporters. Now, let's get to this week's episode. Throughout the 80s and 90s, the name Jill Dando became a household name in almost every home in England. With a nearly identical appearance to Princess Diana, Jill Dando became the country's newscasting sweetheart. She was even nicknamed the Princess Diana of television.

Although she came from a modest upbringing and had what many people described as an ordinary childhood, she grew up to become a superstar in broadcasting and journalism. After spending the first five years of her career with a newspaper, she landed a job with the BBC in 1985. After that, her career took off.

During her time with the BBC, she anchored shows like Breakfast Time, Breakfast News, the BBC One O'Clock News, and the Six O'Clock News. By the mid-1990s, Jill Dando had become one of BBC's highest profile on-screen presenters. But that kind of fame came with its own set of dangers and its threats. Just like her lookalike, Princess Diana, Jill Dando's life was also taken away far too early.

In April 1999, Jill was gunned down and killed execution style right there on her front door. And to this day, people don't know who murdered Jill Dando, and more importantly, why. In April 1999, Jill was on top of the world. She had become one of the country's most well-known TV presenters on BBC,

She was engaged to be married in a few months to her fiancé, a high-profile British doctor who would eventually become a doctor for the royal family. So everything in Jill's life was what many people would describe as picture-perfect. During the spring of 1999, Jill spent most of her time at her fiancé's home in Chiswick, but occasionally stopped by her own flat in Fulham.

Although she was in the process of selling that home, she still stopped by every few days to check the mail or pick something up. Otherwise, she spent most of her time at her fiancé's. But on the morning of April 26, 1999, Jill decided to stop by her place in Fulham. She hadn't been there in a few days, and she needed to go there to pick up a fax from her agent, John Roseman. He had sent over some contract information that she needed to review.

She had absolutely no idea that this decision to stop by her house that morning ultimately cost her her life. That morning, Jill made the 15-minute drive in her BMW from her fiancé's place in Chiswick to Fulham. She got to her place around 11.30 a.m., 29 Gowan Avenue in West London. After she parked her car out front, she walked toward the front door. But before she could even get her keys out, someone approached her from behind.

They ordered her to get down on the ground so that her face was almost touching it. The killer pulled out a gun and shot her once in the left temple, execution style. The gunman ran away, leaving Jill bleeding out right there on her front doorstep. One of Jill's neighbors walked by the place about 15 minutes later and spotted her. By that point, blood had begun pooling all around her body, so the neighbor immediately called for police and paramedics at 1147.

but too much time had passed. Since the single bullet entered through Jill's left temple and exited out the right side of her head, she was likely killed almost instantly. By the time first responders got there, Jill Danda was already dead. At only 37 years old, one of the country's highest profile TV personalities was murdered in cold blood. Jill's murder was no ordinary homicide investigation.

We're talking about a celebrity, a high-profile person, being gunned down on their own front doorstep in broad daylight. Whoever did this had to be extremely bold. Anyone could have been walking by on the sidewalk at the same exact time that Jill was stepping into her house. So that means that anyone really could have been a witness to the murder. But whoever did this wasn't afraid. They were simply focused on one thing—

to execute Jill. It became one of those historic moments where you remember exactly where you were or what you were doing when you found out what happened. The impact of her murder was just that way. When the news about her murder first broke to the media, a lot of her fellow news presenters had an extremely difficult time reporting on it. Most who worked in news broadcasting knew Jill personally, especially those with her at the BBC.

So when word came into the newsroom about the shooting, no one could quite believe it. Who would want Jill Dando dead? People also didn't believe that the investigation would last very long. No one out there thought that it would take more than just a few days to find the gunman responsible. Everyone simply assumed that this was going to be an open and shut type murder investigation. But it was far from it.

As soon as the police were called, Jill's murder became the biggest criminal investigation throughout the entire country. Every available police officer was called to the scene, and even Scotland Yard was called. But not even the best of the best would be good enough. Based on the autopsy, investigators learned that Jill had most likely been shot with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

The gun used to kill her had been pressed up directly against her skin on her left temple. Then after the bullet entered, it exited out the right side. But there was something unusual about the bullet cartridge itself. According to forensic firearm examiners, the cartridge looked like it had been modified, like someone had used a silencer.

Now, the use of a silencer sort of makes sense here, because when the police canvassed Jill's neighborhood, no one remembered hearing any gunshots. Remember, we're talking about the middle of the day when people are out and about. Jill was shot around 1130, but none of her neighbors heard anything. By the time the crime scene investigators got there, most of the scene had been contaminated.

You've got first responders, including paramedics, coming in and stepping on everything. You've got the police officers trying to secure the scene. So the crime scene was almost instantly compromised and inadvertently contaminated. But still, investigators did their best to collect any forensic or physical evidence, including dusting for fingerprints and looking for DNA samples. But there really wasn't much there.

Since Jill had been shot, there likely wasn't any type of transfer of DNA from the killer to the crime scene. He could have easily just walked up behind Jill, shot her, and then ran away. He didn't even need to touch Jill. He could have just ordered her to get down on the ground and that was it. So whoever did this could commit the murder and get away without leaving a trace of forensic evidence.

After going through hundreds of hours of CCT footage from her fiancé's place to her own place on Gowan Avenue, the police created a timeline of almost every one of her movements that morning. The police know Jill spent the night before at her fiancé's home, and when she woke up, she made him breakfast. Later that morning, she had plans to attend a charity lunch.

Jill left her fiancé's around 10 a.m. and drove her blue BMW to a garage on the A4, where she picked up petrol and milk. She then drove to Hammersmith in West London to park and visit the King's Mall shopping center, where she went into Ryman's, Dixon's, and The Link to pick up fax paper before leaving the shops at 11.01.

Her BMW was then seen heading back toward Fulham, where her place was on Gowan Avenue. Then the last known sighting of Jill before she got to her doorstep came from a woman who was stopped next to her at a red stoplight. After that, Jill completely disappeared from all the CCTV footage, and the shooting wasn't caught on tape.

Based on cell phone records, the police knew Jill made four phone calls while she was out running errands. She called a friend, her agent's assistant, and called the West End Theater to confirm her tickets to see the ABBA musical Mamma Mia. The tickets were a birthday gift to her fiancé. According to these records, Jill's last phone call was made at 11.23, about 10 minutes before the police believe she was shot and killed.

A high-profile celebrity gunned down. The Princess Diana of news, Jill Dando, lies dead. Executed on her front porch. Who wanted her gone? We'll be right back. Do you know what I don't miss at all? That vicious week before my period each month.

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That's happy mammoth.com and use code tails for 15% off today. The same day as Jill's murder, the police canvassed her neighborhood looking for any witnesses or at least anyone who might have seen or heard something. Luckily for them, they did find someone. One of her neighbors, Richard Hughes, told investigators that he heard a woman scream that morning, but according to him, he didn't hear any gunshots.

He said after he heard the scream, he looked out his window and saw a white man about six feet tall, around 40 years old, walking away from Jill's house. Another witness described seeing a man with thick black hair running away from the direction of her house. They described him as a little heavyset and wearing a dark colored jacket. The guy wasn't wearing a mask, gloves, or anything to conceal his identity.

Another witness claimed he saw a sweaty man running across the street and stopping at a bus stop, but the sightings didn't stop there. At 11.04 a.m., a man was spotted crouching by the railings in a nearby park talking on a cell phone. Ten minutes later, a motorist was forced to brake hard when a man ran across the street directly in front of Jill's house.

But none of these men could ever be identified. Not the six-foot-tall white man seen by Jill's neighbor. Not the sweaty man running to the bus stop. Not the guy in the parking lot talking on a cell phone. None of them. The police spoke with a traffic ticket officer who said she tried giving the driver of a blue Range Rover a ticket on the same street where Jill lived. But before she could, he drove away.

Now, this was a really interesting tip because just minutes after the shooting, a blue Range Rover was seen on CCTV cameras speeding down Fulham Palace Road away from Jill's house. But despite spending countless hours trying to find this blue Range Rover or its driver, investigators couldn't. It's impossible to say whether it had any connection to the murder or not.

So all of that time spent looking for that Blue Range Rover may have been a complete waste. Within six months of Jill's murder, the London police had interviewed more than 2,500 people and taken more than 1,000 statements. To put that into perspective, this murder investigation quickly became the largest of the decade. Up until this point, there hadn't been a murder investigation that involved so many detectives, agencies, and manpower.

For many, Jill Dando was a household name. She was someone they watched every day on television. So the amount of pressure to catch this guy was insane. Fast forward to the first anniversary of Jill's murder. One of the most popular theories during the first year of the investigation was that this was some type of professional hit. Jill was murdered by a hired hitman. According to the bullet cartridge found at the crime scene,

The police believed that the type of gun used in the murder might have been altered. It could have had a silencer installed, which is extremely rare in London. In fact, gun violence alone in London was very low. But that also explains why none of her neighbors heard a gunshot that morning. So this idea that Jill might have been murdered by a professional hitman started to take hold. You've also got the crime itself, murdered in broad daylight.

That's not something many criminals can pull off without getting caught right away. It probably wasn't their first time, which also seems to point towards a professional hit. But to consider that theory, you have to wonder who wanted Jill murdered. Who would have had the means to hire a professional hitman? And the bigger question, why?

Well, not surprisingly, everyone who was close to Jill at the time of her murder were heavily questioned by the police. Her fiancé, her ex-boyfriends, her close family members and friends, even her agent was interviewed by detectives. But none of them had any motive. This seemed to be a much bigger plot. The execution-style murder also led some people to speculate whether Jill's role in the London media had something to do with it.

Her last assignment before her murder was a presenter position with the TV program Crime Watch. So Jill was reporting on some pretty serious crimes, including unsolved murders, almost every single day. Did one of her broadcasts lead to an arrest? And now that person was angry and decided to hire a hitman? Another popular theory was that it had something to do with her reporting of the conflict between Serbian groups and NATO.

Around the same time as Jill's murder, a NATO missile intentionally hit and bombed the radio television of Serbia headquarters, or RTS, in Belgrade. As a reporter for the BBC, Jill showed her support for NATO and their actions. So maybe a Serb was behind the assassination. But again, the police didn't find any evidence of that theory either.

Other possibilities include a deranged or obsessed fan killing her, or simply a case of mistaken identity. Whoever did this didn't actually intend to kill Jill, they intended to kill someone else. Or done by a professional rival or former business partner, someone who wanted Jill's job at the BBC, or maybe it was an ex-boyfriend or ex-lover.

About a year into the investigation, the London police shocked everyone with a major announcement. They finally might have a promising suspect. His name was Barry Michael George. Barry George came under the police's radar because he lived right down the street from Jill's house. He was only about a mile and a half away. He also had a criminal record the length of a phone book, including sexual assault and stalking charges.

Simply put, he was this loner type of guy who followed around women all day, talking and bugging them. One day after Jill's murder, the police received an anonymous tip that they should look into this Barry George guy. The caller described him as this mentally unstable creep who lived right down the street. So after that phone call, the police began following Barry's every move.

They also found out that he was using the alias Barry Balsara, telling people that he was the cousin of Queens frontman Freddie Mercury. But that was just a lie. His real name was actually Barry George. The police got a search warrant to go through George's entire place, which was a complete mess. But inside, they found a lot of what they believed was incriminating evidence.

One, they found thousands of images of women that he had allegedly stalked all throughout West London. And most of these women in these pictures had no idea their photo was being taken. Number two, although the police never found a similar 9mm handgun, they did find other evidence suggesting that he owned a gun. He had ammunition, a holster, and countless gun magazines.

Third, among all the photos of women, they found one that particularly stood out to them. And that was a photo of Barry himself wearing a gas mask, holding a very similar looking nine millimeter that was used in Jill's murder. Again, they never actually found a gun inside the apartment, but this photo seemed to suggest that he owned one in the past, at least at some point.

Now, number four, besides the photos of innocent women, they also found newspaper clippings of Jill Dando's murder case. It almost looked like he was closely following the story and saving any newspaper clippings about it. They also found maps of the neighborhood where both he and Jill lived, leading the police to wonder if he had used those maps to commit the murder.

Then finally, a guy like Barry George just fit the profile. He was a loner. He stalked women virtually every day in his free time. And he had a lot of it because he was unemployed. He had past convictions of sexual assault. And he was what many described as just a creepy guy. Plus, he even fits one of the physical descriptions provided by one of Jill's neighbors.

So according to the London police, he seemed to check every box of the person they were searching for. But before they could move in and arrest Barry for just being a creep, they needed something physical to tie him to the murder. They couldn't just use thousands of photos that he took of other women to charge him with first-degree murder. So they had to find something tangible, some type of forensic evidence. That's when they got their hands on one of Barry's jackets.

Inside a closet, the police found a long blue jacket that belonged to Barry. And when they sent the jacket off to the crime lab to be analyzed, they found something. A single particle consistent with gunshot residue. Not only was the particle significant because it seemed to prove that he had recently fired a gun, but when they looked at it closer, it seemed to match the kind found at the crime scene.

According to the lab, a forensic scientist found a tiny particle composed of barium, aluminum, and lead inside the left pocket of Barry's jacket, all particles consistent with GSR. Well, these identical particles were found in Jill's hair and on her coat. So this all seems to suggest that the same gun used to kill Jill had somehow come into contact with one of Barry's jackets.

It also proved, according to the London police, that he was lying. During one of their interviews, he denied owning a gun and said that it had been years since he had fired a gun at all. So there would be no explanation as to why gunshot residue should be found in one of his jackets. They believe the particle had to have gotten there after he shot and killed Jill. Now, this was all the London police needed to move in and make an arrest.

So on May 25th, 2000, the cops showed up on his front doorstep and arrested him. Then a few days later, on May 29th, he was officially charged with first-degree murder. And for many people, they finally thought this was over. The person responsible for killing Jill Dando was finally in custody. But it wasn't over. It was just the beginning.

After months of investigating, detectives finally make their move with a crucial arrest. Now the burning question, what drove Barry George to do this? We'll be right back. Before George was put on trial, he underwent several psychiatric evaluations. The first evaluation diagnosed him with Asperger's syndrome. Then later on, psychologists hired by the prosecution diagnosed him with several different personality disorders.

including antisocial and narcissistic personality. There was also evidence he suffered from attention deficit disorder and paranoia. He was said to have epilepsy and only had an IQ of 75. But beyond all the psychological testing, the court found that he was still able to stand trial, and he had the ability to participate in his own defense. So in 2001, the trial against him officially got underway.

Not surprisingly, the biggest part of the prosecution's case was the gunshot residue found inside the jacket. They didn't have much of a case against him without it. So if the prosecution was going to secure a conviction here, they needed the jury to believe that the gunshot residue placed him at the murder scene. But it wasn't that simple. They weren't dealing with a large amount of gunshot residue.

In fact, the lab only found one single particle with GSR inside the coat, not two, three, 20, or 50 particles. They only found one single unit. And it's impossible to say when or how long it's been inside that jacket pocket. The only thing the prosecution could say was that the same type of particle was found in Jill's hair and clothing.

But if George was the gunman, why did he only have a single particle on him? Wouldn't there be a lot more if he had fired a single shot from close range, like how Jill was murdered? Well, the prosecution didn't think so. They argued to the jury that one GSR particle was enough to say that he was the gunman, while the defense argued the exact opposite.

They even said the particle could have been transferred to the pocket some other way. And there were other explanations for those types of chemicals to be there, not just from firing a gun. Then there was the issue of the murder weapon itself. The police never were able to find that 9mm handgun. And there was no record of George ever owning that particular gun.

In fact, at the time of Jill's murder, George didn't have any guns registered under his name, and none were found during the search of his apartment. All the prosecution had was a photo of him wearing a gas mask holding a similar-looking 9mm. But according to the defense, that wasn't actually George in the photo. It was someone else. Another big question at trial was,

Could someone like Barry George commit a murder like this and almost get away with it? Let's not forget that the biggest theory, at least early on in the case, was that this was a professional hit. Barry George is anyone but a professional hitman. He simply doesn't fit that profile. If anything, he's a sexual predator who bugged and harassed innocent women all day.

The defense argued that's a far stretch from a professional hitman. Then there were also no eyewitnesses who placed George in front of Jill's apartment. Yes, he lived in an apartment about a half mile away from hers, but none of the eyewitnesses recalled seeing him on that particular part of the neighborhood on that particular morning.

Of course, a lot of other people were identified, like the driver of that blue Range Rover, but none of them were Barry George. Also, what could have been the motive? According to the defense, he didn't even know who Jill was before the murder. So what motive would he have to do something like this?

Well, that's a little bit problematic here because when the police searched his apartment, they did find several newspaper clippings about Jill Dando. So did he really not know who she was? Plus, we're talking about Jill Dando, one of the most popular faces in London at the time. Was it really possible or even plausible that he had never heard of her before? Or was that all part of his defense strategy?

The piece of evidence that the trial boiled down to was the single piece of gunshot residue. It didn't come down to whether this was just a case of a loner guy or his strange obsession with women. It all came down to the forensic evidence. According to the prosecution, that evidence proved he was the gunman.

On July 2, 2001, Barry George was found guilty of Jill's murder and sentenced to life in prison, the harshest sentence possible. For some people, this conviction meant justice. The person responsible for taking the Princess Diana of television was going to be spending the rest of his life behind bars.

But for other people, this conviction was the exact opposite of justice. In fact, to them, it was a huge miscarriage of justice. Not only did Barry George lack the mental or physical capacity to commit a murder like this, but the forensic evidence against him was also lacking. They believed the jury convicted him based on a single piece of gunshot residue that could be explained in a million other ways.

So right after his conviction, his defense team launched an appeal. Their argument was that Barry George was innocent and the prosecution's case against him was too weak to secure a conviction like this. One gunshot residue particle inside a jacket pocket shouldn't be enough to send someone to prison for the rest of their life. But movement in the case was slow, to say the least.

Most of his early appeals were all denied, and for the next eight years, he remained in prison as a convicted murderer. But all of that was about to change. While Barry George was in prison, the credibility behind gunshot residue, especially in criminal cases, was being highly scrutinized.

Many experts in the forensic science field were starting to question if criminal cases should be solely based on this type of evidence, because there had been so many problems with it over the years. Too many innocent people were being convicted of crimes they didn't commit based mainly on faulty gunshot residue evidence. And for George's defense team, he was one of them.

So after spending almost eight years in prison, George's defense was able to use this new information about gunshot residue evidence to get him a new trial. In August 2008, they got what they hoped for. Barry George was acquitted of Jill's murder after the jury in the second trial was unable to convict him. The prosecution wasn't allowed to talk about the single gunshot particle found in his jacket.

because that piece of evidence was deemed inadmissible. And so, Barry George was once again a free man, and Jill Dando's murder case went back to being unsolved. Right after the acquittal, George left London and permanently relocated to Ireland, where he's originally from. Jill's family and fans were left absolutely devastated. Not only did they have to go through the murder itself, but

But for almost eight years, they believed the person responsible had finally been arrested. But instead of staying in prison, he was released and is now considered a free and innocent man. But if you ask many police officers who worked on Jill's case, they'll tell you it is solved. Most of them believe that Barry George was the gunman, despite what the court or the forensic experts say.

They thought the right person was arrested and charged. As it stands today, 25 years later, Jill Dando's murder is unsolved. And since Barry George, no other suspects have been arrested in the case. There's some question about how much or how little the London police are still actively working the case since Barry George's acquittal. Not only is this one of London's most infamous unsolved murders, but

But it's also a case that brings into question the credibility of gunshot residue evidence. Is gunshot residue as credible as, let's say, DNA or fingerprints? And when it comes to the amount of GSR, should there be a threshold for what can be used as evidence against someone?

Is the presence of one single particle enough to say someone fired a gun and is ultimately responsible for a crime? In Jill Dando's case, a lot more than a single particle was needed to say that. Beyond any reasonable doubt, the right person was in custody. To share your thoughts on this story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.

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