WHO KILLED Jill Dando?

As a new true-crime documentary revisits the brutal 1999 murder in broad daylight of British TV's golden girl, we ask...

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It was BBC news anchor Jennie Bond who told the nation, live on air during the lunchtime news on 26 April 1999, that her friend, colleague and nation's sweetheart, Jill Dando, had been killed.

Speaking in a new Netflix documentary, Who Killed Jill Dando?, Jennie explains how she had no choice but to read the shocking news while keeping her own grief at bay.

The newsroom was cold with shock, real shock,' she remembers. 'We were people who were used to reporting on all sorts of deaths, disasters, wars. But to have one of your own killed in that manner on her own doorstep, was just too awful to believe.

The natural charm and girl-next-door quality of Jill, then 37, saw her quickly rise from the ranks as a local journalist on BBC Radio Devon to a national TV favourite, presenting BBC news programmes, then going on to front Crimewatch UK.

After news of her murder broke, everyone wanted her killer caught. But 24 years on we still don't know who was responsible.

Now, a new Netflix documentary, set to air this month, sheds some light on a crime that shocked the nation.

Horrific murder

Jill, who had been staying at her fiance Alan Farthing’s house, returned to her home in Fulham, West London, around 11.30am on 26 April to pick up some faxes. Only before she could put her key in the door, she was shot in the head at close range with a 9mm pistol.

Around 15 minutes later, her neighbour Helen Doble discovered the presenter slumped in a pool of blood on her doorstep.

‘There’s a lot of blood, she doesn’t look as if she’s breathing, she’s got blood coming out of her nose, her arms are blue,’ Helen told a call handler after phoning 999.