She was Britain’s best loved TV presenter who was shot dead in cold blood on her doorstep.
Jill Dando’s murder on April 26, 1999, shocked the nation and became one of the most high profile and complex police investigations in British history.
Now, a newly released trailer for an upcoming Netflix documentary series about the unsolved case reveals the fury of Barry George, the man who spent eight years in prison for Ms Dando’s murder before his conviction was quashed in 2008.
‘It makes me angry that they have taken eight years of my life,’ he says in the trailer.
The presenter was found by neighbours slumped against her front door in Fulham, West London, in a pool of blood after suffering a single gunshot wound to the head.
At the time of her death, she was best known for co-presenting the BBC One programme Crimewatch with Nick Ross.

She was Britain’s best loved TV presenter who was shot dead in cold blood on her doorstep. Jill Dando’s murder on April 26, 1999, shocked the nation and became one of the most high profile and complex police investigations in British history
The multi-part series will blend archive, new research and revelatory interviews, to revisit Dando’s life, career, legacy and her murder.
The documentary, which will launch globally on Netflix on September 26, is directed by Marcus Plowright (Fred and Rose West: Reopened) and executive produced by Emma Cooper (The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes).
Ms Dando’s murder prompted a huge investigation led by the Metropolitan Police and resulted in Mr George – a local loner and fantasist who had already served a prison sentence for attempted rape – being convicted of her murder in July 2001.
However, he was granted a retrial on appeal and was unanimously acquitted by a jury in August 2008.
It has long been suspected that Ms Dando was shot by a professional assassin.
A blue Range Rover that was parked illegally on the street where she lived, Gowan Avenue, was caught on CCTV driving away at speed from the area.
Speaking in 2019, Ms Dando’s neighbour Vida Saunders recalled the moment she discovered the presenter’s body.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘Jill’s body was lying at such an odd angle.
‘She looked like she had collapsed on the spot. The back of her head was against the front door and her chest was facing towards the pavement.
‘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.


A newly released trailer for an upcoming Netflix documentary series about the unsolved case reveals the fury of Barry George, the man who spent eight years in prison for Ms Dando’s murder before his conviction was quashed in 2008. Above: Mr George in the documentary, and right, before his original court appearance in 2001

Jill (pictured on holiday in the Seychelles) first got her big break in broadcasting in 1988 when she started presenting the BBC’s hourly national bulletins
‘She was still clutching a set of keys in one hand, probably her door keys or possibly her car keys.
‘The handles of her handbag were over the other arm and her mobile phone was inside, ringing constantly.
‘Normally, I think, if you saw someone collapsed like that, your instinct would be to reach out and touch them, to try to help them and see if they are all right.
‘But it was clear Jill wasn’t [all right].’
She added: ‘That image of Jill lying there. . . I would have visions, snapshots of it in my dreams and even when I was doing my laps when I went swimming. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
‘It has given me many sleepless nights. Of course, time moves on and memories start to fade.
‘But talking about it again now brings it all back so vividly. It was, it is, awful.’

At the time of her death, she was best known for co-presenting the BBC One programme Crimewatch with Nick Ross

Tragic: BBC Crimewatch presenter Jill was tragically shot in the head outside her west London home in 1999, prompting Britain’s biggest police investigation since the Yorkshire Ripper

Ms Dando is pictured with her fiancé Alan Farthing in 1999, months before she was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham
One line of inquiry looked into by police was that Ms Dando had been murdered on the orders of the Serbian warlord and underworld boss Željko Ražnatović, aka Arkan.
Earlier in April 1999, Ms Dando fronted a BBC1 broadcast appealing for funds to help refugees fleeing the ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serbian forces in the province of Kosovo.
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British warplanes were taking part in the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia to try to halt the massacre when Ms Dando was killed.
Despite her grave injuries and the fact she appeared to be dead, extensive efforts were made to resuscitate her both at the scene and at Charing Cross Hospital, where she was declared dead.

These are the haunting last images of Ms Dando, pictured just 40 minutes before she was assassinated outside her home

She was also spotted outside on the main High Street where she had been out shopping for the day

Another image shows her walking through the shopping centre with her raincoat and bag

Police pictured outside the home of Ms Dando in 1999 following her murder

Six distinctive marks were found on the cartridge case used by the gunman who killed Jill Dando

Police forensic officers at Gowan Avenue, Fulham, where TV presenter Jill Dando was murdered

One of the leaflets that was handed out in an effort to trace Ms Dando’s killer

Police search Gowan Avenue in Fulham after Ms Dando’s murder on her doorstep


The Daily Mail’s coverage of Ms Dando’s shocking murder, which gripped the nation
The Mail revealed that an official police report blamed resuscitation efforts for potentially destroying vital evidence that could have led officers to her killer.
Her clothes were ripped off to perform cardiac massage and the ground was ‘trampled’ by those who tried to save her.
In June last year, it emerged that Ms Dando’s killer may have mistaken her for another BBC journalist who was the real target of an assassination plot.
Prosecutors in a French court accused fashion boss Gérald Marie, 73, of using the Russian Mafia to try and kill Lisa Brinkworth after she exposed him as a sex abuser.
But their gunman may have assassinated Ms Dando by mistake.
Ms Brinkworth claimed Marie, former boss of the Elite agency, wanted her dead because she claimed he sexually assaulted her in 1998 while she was working undercover to expose crimes in the fashion industry.
She told the Mirror: ‘Even if there was a tiny possibility, I don’t know if I could live with that, so I’m hoping there’s nothing in that. I try not to think about it. I really, really don’t want it to be true.’