So, who REALLY killed Jill Dando?

[Bob Hinton]

Jill Dandos house

Here's some photographs of the front of Jill Dandos flat.

The three locks can quite clearly be seen.

The distance from her gate to the front door can be seen in the second.

[Mike Covell]

An intresting theory Bob, were any family, friends or lovers ever looked at?

[Bob Hinton]

I really don't know. It seemed that the police thrashed around for a year and then decided they had got their man.

[dougie]

The police thought they had the 'right man' when they locked up Stefan Kisko. He suffered 16 years in jail for a crime he could not possibly have committed. It's easy to look around and look for a 'local nutter' who fits the frame. God knows, we saw that with the Ripper investigation. Terrible crime, killer must be off his head, look for a gibbering eccentric. I thought we'd moved on a bit since 1888 though.

Nothing to do with "moving on"...its about guilt or innocence.....Im not sure if this is a case of "not proven" rather than plain innocence.There is always a n amount of evidence that is not admissable,there are always points of law that need to be argued.Remember george davis, imprisoned for a bank robbery...public outcry ..Davis was released...few weeks or month later he was involved in another bank robbery,not sure if he was arrested or shot dead at the scene of the crime. Im not sure if its been proved george couldnt possible y have been the culprit,or if there isnt enough evidence to prove his guilt conclusively..there is a difference.....maybe the verdict is technically correct in the eyes of the law,but whether he is innocent might be,and I emphasise might be a different thing.
And of course he wasnt just a "local nutter" he was a "local nutter" who had, as I understand it, been identified as a person "hanging around" the crime scene for four hours before the crime,plus of course the evidence of his fantasies and gun issues and stalking issues and attempted rape history etc etc etc

[String]

What really bugs me about these cases is that once the Police think they have their culprit they tend to stop looking and focus most if not all the resources on this person. It's only human nature but 8 years down the line it's very difficult to re-open the case.

I don't know if Barry George did kill her, although at the time it certainly looked very professional which would tend rule George out.

[Limehouse]

The reason I don't think this was a political murder is as already mentioned no-one claimed responsibility for it. If you look at political murders in practically every case someone claims they did it - even if they didn't!

That's one of the many reasons I believe the Birmingham Six were actually guilty. If they were innocent the IRA would have paraded the real bombers in front of the TV cameras in some country with no extradition to show how doubly clever they had been.

Renting a flat question. Good point but he wouldn't necessarily disappear suddenly. He rents the flat for one month, murders Jill in the middle of the period, goes abroad, mails the keys back at the end of the period, nothing suspicious.

Barry George has been described as a ‘stalker’. I certainly wouldn’t use that description for him. A stalker fixates on one person and not on a crowd. His behaviour is more in keeping with a slightly weird bloke who tries to talk to strange women. (by strange I mean of course women unknown to him – not weird) I would be interested to hear Jean Ritchie’s view of this mater. Jean Ritchie wrote an excellent book about stalkers.

Look at the case against George.

1. No real forensics.
2. No witnesses
3. No motive
4. No weapon
5. No means

And all this adds up to No Case!

Hi Bob,

According to yesterday's Daily Telegraph, a few days after the murder, a man with an eastern European accent telephoned the BBC news centre and claimed that Miss Dando was shot in revenge for the bombing of the Belgrade media centre by British planes in which 16 employees died.

[caz]

Hi All,

It's a very odd case, considering how common it is for attractive female tv celebrities like Jill Dando to attract obsessed fans with screws loose, and how rare it is for them to be murdered because of something they may have said or done in the course of earning their living. Lucky for the latter type of killer that their target wasn't a hairy old tv presenter who would not pass for a stalker's victim in a million years.

I have no doubt about the lack of any evidence to tie Barry George to the scene of crime, and once again it seems that it was a case of needing someone to pay for a high profile murder.

On Sunday, in the Pride of Spitalfields, I was leafing through a freebie copy of the News of the World left for customers to read while enjoying their drinks, and read that Jill Dando's known male friends had been traced and all had alibis which cleared them of any suspicion. But during the interview given to the paper by Barry George himself, a curious bit of info emerged which I hadn't heard before and I wonder if anyone can shed any more light on it. George gave the information that a man who had apparently gone to an estate agent to ask for details about Jill's house (presumably before she was murdered in front of it) and had given his name as 'Barry Bulsara', wasn't him (ie George), implying that the name was simply a very odd coincidence.

The only rational explanation that comes to mind is that someone suggested to George that such an incident had been reported, just to see how he would react, or maybe to obtain exactly this kind of dubious sounding denial from him. Anyone with a higher IQ who had not made any such inquiries about Jill's house would surely have seen through a bluff like that. It would be quite dreadful if this was someone's attempt to make him look guilty despite the official outcome.

Any thoughts?

Love,

Caz
X

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi All,

It's a very odd case, considering how common it is for attractive female tv celebrities like Jill Dando to attract obsessed fans with screws loose, and how rare it is for them to be murdered because of something they may have said or done in the course of earning their living. Lucky for the latter type of killer that their target wasn't a hairy old tv presenter who would not pass for a stalker's victim in a million years.

I have no doubt about the lack of any evidence to tie Barry George to the scene of crime, and once again it seems that it was a case of needing someone to pay for a high profile murder.

On Sunday, in the Pride of Spitalfields, I was leafing through a freebie copy of the News of the World left for customers to read while enjoying their drinks, and read that Jill Dando's known male friends had been traced and all had alibis which cleared them of any suspicion. But during the interview given to the paper by Barry George himself, a curious bit of info emerged which I hadn't heard before and I wonder if anyone can shed any more light on it. George gave the information that a man who had apparently gone to an estate agent to ask for details about Jill's house (presumably before she was murdered in front of it) and had given his name as 'Barry Bulsara', wasn't him (ie George), implying that the name was simply a very odd coincidence.

The only rational explanation that comes to mind is that someone suggested to George that such an incident had been reported, just to see how he would react, or maybe to obtain exactly this kind of dubious sounding denial from him. Anyone with a higher IQ who had not made any such inquiries about Jill's house would surely have seen through a bluff like that. It would be quite dreadful if this was someone's attempt to make him look guilty despite the official outcome.

Any thoughts?

Love, Caz X

I just cant help wondering if George was ever in a mental state to stand trial?

He cearly believes he didn't do it..

Yours Jeff

[Limehouse]

Hi All,

It's a very odd case, considering how common it is for attractive female tv celebrities like Jill Dando to attract obsessed fans with screws loose, and how rare it is for them to be murdered because of something they may have said or done in the course of earning their living. Lucky for the latter type of killer that their target wasn't a hairy old tv presenter who would not pass for a stalker's victim in a million years.

I have no doubt about the lack of any evidence to tie Barry George to the scene of crime, and once again it seems that it was a case of needing someone to pay for a high profile murder.

On Sunday, in the Pride of Spitalfields, I was leafing through a freebie copy of the News of the World left for customers to read while enjoying their drinks, and read that Jill Dando's known male friends had been traced and all had alibis which cleared them of any suspicion. But during the interview given to the paper by Barry George himself, a curious bit of info emerged which I hadn't heard before and I wonder if anyone can shed any more light on it. George gave the information that a man who had apparently gone to an estate agent to ask for details about Jill's house (presumably before she was murdered in front of it) and had given his name as 'Barry Bulsara', wasn't him (ie George), implying that the name was simply a very odd coincidence.

The only rational explanation that comes to mind is that someone suggested to George that such an incident had been reported, just to see how he would react, or maybe to obtain exactly this kind of dubious sounding denial from him. Anyone with a higher IQ who had not made any such inquiries about Jill's house would surely have seen through a bluff like that. It would be quite dreadful if this was someone's attempt to make him look guilty despite the official outcome.

Any thoughts?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

I don't remember the exact details, but during Barry George's original trail, the prosecution produced evidence that a man fitting George's description had visited somewhere (I can't remember whether it was an estate agents, but I thought it was some sort of help centre) and had a conversation with staff (it seemed her was known there). Before he left, he asked several times what the time was. The staff particularly remembered this. Shortly afterwards, Jill Dando was shot. The police seemed to think George was trying to establish an alibi (i.e. heavily suggest to witnesses that he was somewhere else at the approximate time of the shooting). Could this be the incident referred to?

I think the case against Barry George is very weak because, as everyone has pointed out, the crime was much too slick and well organised for him to have carried out and in any case, why would he want her dead when his objective always seemed to be close to the women and celebrities he stalked?

[Bob Hinton]

Claiming responsibility

Hi Bob,

According to yesterday's Daily Telegraph, a few days after the murder, a man with an eastern European accent telephoned the BBC news centre and claimed that Miss Dando was shot in revenge for the bombing of the Belgrade media centre by British planes in which 16 employees died.

Yes I agree that this did happen. However the bombing took place only three days before Jill's murder, hardly enough time to get a hit man arranged, briefed, and flown over. Also his time to stake out the place would be extremely curtailed.

The phone call wasn't made until the following day, I would have thought any real attempt at claiming responsibility would have been done within hours. Also there was no such claim made in Belgrade where you would would have thought that the news would have been welcomed.

However there is no doubting that at first the police did take it seriously by placing Tony Hall (CEO of the BBC) and his family under protection for the next six weeks.

[Limehouse]

Yes, the murder did happen very soon after the bombing, I thought that too.

Whoever killed her, they did a very professional job and it seems so unlikely that poor old Barry could have managed it. At least, he does a very good job of appearing to be inacapable of such a crime.

[caz]

Hi Caz,

I don't remember the exact details, but during Barry George's original trail, the prosecution produced evidence that a man fitting George's description had visited somewhere (I can't remember whether it was an estate agents, but I thought it was some sort of help centre) and had a conversation with staff (it seemed her was known there). Before he left, he asked several times what the time was. The staff particularly remembered this. Shortly afterwards, Jill Dando was shot. The police seemed to think George was trying to establish an alibi (i.e. heavily suggest to witnesses that he was somewhere else at the approximate time of the shooting). Could this be the incident referred to?

I think the case against Barry George is very weak because, as everyone has pointed out, the crime was much too slick and well organised for him to have carried out and in any case, why would he want her dead when his objective always seemed to be close to the women and celebrities he stalked?

Hi Limehouse,

The case against Barry George is not 'very weak': it's now non-existent.

I recall the incident you describe above, but it doesn't fit with what George was reported to have told the News of the World.

It's very different indeed if someone giving his name as 'Barry Bulsara' was really asking an estate agent for details of Jill's property before she was killed.

That's why I wondered a) who told George that such an incident had taken place, and b) what made him volunteer the info to the newspaper, only to deny it was him and claim that someone else must have coincidentally been asking about the house and calling himself by that name.

Something's just not adding up here.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

It seems odd that a Serb hitman should kill the person who merely publicised the appeal for Kosovan victims - surely the Serbs would have gone for whoever was actually organising the appeal. Unless, of course, they were looking for a high-profile 'hit', but in which case surely they'd have issued some kind of statement claiming responsibility. Weird.

For what it matters, I always thought that Barry George had been set up by someone, and that the poor bloke hadn't the wherewithal to offer any kind of defence.

The police do tend to become a little blinkered when they think they've got their man - witness Stephen Downing and the murder of Wendy Sewell in Bakewell. To this day, even though through the huge efforts of Don Hale and other of Downing's long-time supporters his innocence has been proven, the police have closed their files on this case - i.e., they still think they had the right man.

I was on hols when George was cleared, but can anyone tell me if the police have made any statement as to whether they've closed their files on the Dando Case?

Cheers,

Graham

[Steve]

I believe they are reviewing their options at the moment!

[Maria]

Hi all:

My gut instict in all this, is that her murder had something to do with the programme she was presenting, maybe unwittingly she mentioned someone from the underworld or a relaltive of the underworld.

Or... another one of my pet theories is that Jill Dando does bear a striking resemblance to Suzi Lampugh, the real estate agent. That case, as far as I know has also remained a mystery another unsolved case. There were rumors that someone may have been caught, I canīt recall too well.

There are murderers who kill someone just for one feature, like the murderer who had a fetchism with red stilleto shoes, so after he murdered a woman wearing that kind and colour of shoes, he made a collection of all the victims shoes.

Maria