Jill Dando's last hours before being shot dead amid 'professional hit claims'
Jill Dando was horrifically shot outside her home 24 years ago, yet beloved TV presenter's murder remains unsolved.
The new three part Netflix series Who Killed Jill Dando? aims to explore the unanswered questions about her death as well as the chilling theory she was killed in a "professional hit". Jill was shot in 1999 on her doorstep in Fulham, West London and the documentary sees interviews from senior investigating officer Hamish Campbell and journalists.
Wrongly convicted Barry George’s original defence lawyer Michael Mansfield, also tells the show: “The file should still be open on this case. They should be looking.” There are many mysteries surrounding Jill's murder, including claims it was a professional hit.
Noel 'Razor' Smith, who was was in HMP Belmarsh when Barry George arrived after being charged, told the Netflix documentary cameras: “The way it was done was professional. In the 80s and 90s, the way every hit was carried out was in broad daylight out in the street.
“You want a place where people are not expecting you to do it. The chances of catching a professional who works in that way are slim to none.“
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Here, we take a look at the hours leading up to her shocking death.
Jill Dando was shot outside her home in London (Video Grab)37-year-old Jill Dando woke up at the home of her fiancé, Alan Farthing, in Chiswick, where she was spending the majority of her time in the run up to their wedding in five months time. She made him breakfast in bed before he left for work, and she was then planning on heading out to a charity lunch at a swanky hotel in Mayfair.
The CrimeWatch host left Alan's house around 10am and drove her blue BMW convertible to a garage on the A4, where she picked up petrol and milk. Jill drove on to Hammersmith in West London to park up and visit the Kings Mall shopping centre where she visited Ryman's, Dixons and The Link to pick up fax paper and other stationary bits before leaving at 11:01am.
Her car was then seen heading back towards Fulham, where she lived, and reports suggest that CCTV analysis of her vehicle showed no evidence to prove she was being followed. One of the last people to see the star alive was Customs and Excise surveillance expert Sarah Pusey, 53, who was out in her car and stopped at traffic lights next to Jill's BMW.
Sarah told the Daily Mail: "I was in a queue of traffic going towards Hammersmith. She was in a soft-top car coming the other way... I remember thinking 'That’s Jill Dando' and smiling across at her. She smiled back." Before heading to her house on Gowan Avenue, the TV star went to Copes fishmongers on Fulham Road to get the meal she was planning to cook for her fiancé that night.
Phone records showed she made four calls while she was out at the shops, dialling a friend, 192 directory inquiries and her agent's assistant. Jill also rang a West End theatre to confirm a booking for tickets to see the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, which she'd bought for her partner as a birthday present. The last call is said to have been placed at 11:23am, when she is believed to have been still in the fish shop and less than 10 minutes before her presumed time of death.
Jill was shot in the head on her doorstep at 11.32am. Jill's body was discovered 14 minutes later by a neighbour. Richard Hughes, Jill's neighbour, said he heard her scream outside her front door, but didn't hear a gunshot. He said he looked out of his window and saw a white man, about six foot tall, aged about 40, walking away from Jill's house. Vida Saunders also revealed she found the telly star slumped in a pool of blood still clutching her house keys in one hand.
She added that the disturbing scene was punctuated by the noise of Dando's mobile phone, which was going off "constantly" inside her bag. Saunders told Mail Online she was having tea at a neighbour's home when another friend, Helen Doble, knocked at the door and begged her to come with her to an address in the next street. Doble had walked past a disturbing scene and wanted someone else to see it too.
Saunders revealed she took her mug of tea with her as she walked over to the house on Gowan Avenue, where Jill's body was. She said: "I don’t think I fully grasped what I was going to see and it seems odd now, with hindsight, but I took my mug of tea with me... She was in a pool of blood, and I noticed her lips were blue and there were some small drips of blood running from her nose. I think we knew immediately that she was critically injured."
She said Jill was holding a set of keys in her hand. After calling 999 and running to a nearby GP's surgery to get help, Sarah said the doctor's receptionist explained that the woman on the doorstep was almost certainly dead and warned the neighbours not to touch anything.
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She added: "I just stood there staring at my cup of tea, which I had put down on top of the garden wall, and everything went into slow motion." Sarah then went into another resident's house, where she watched the body being taken away on a stretcher and says she saw Dando's face had "turned pink again" and she thought paramedics had managed to save her.
However, she later realised the change she'd witnessed was because emergency workers had pumped oxygen into Jill's body in a desperate attempt to save her. Jill reached Charing Cross Hospital around 12:30pm and resuscitation attempts continued until 1:05pm, when she was pronounced dead. Her friend and colleague BBC presenter Jennie Bond announced Jill's death on air.
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