Fresh probe launched into unsolved murder of TV presenter Jill Dando
Detectives have launched a fresh investigation into the unsolved murder of British TV presenter Jill Dando, with original CCTV being re-examined.
The Metropolitan Police is revisiting footage of an unidentified man captured at Putney Bridge station shortly after Dando was shot dead outside her London home in 1999, The Mirror reports.
English television presenter Jill Dando was shot dead outside her London home in 1999. Getty
Cold-case officers are understood to have spent the past 10 months locating and digitising the original footage, which had been stored among 223 boxes of material.
“In the 27 years since Jill Dando’s murder, the investigation has been subject to numerous reviews, aiming to identify whether matters could be progressed with advances in technology and forensics,” the Met said.
“Recent advancements in CCTV enhancement technology have provided investigators with the opportunity to re-examine original footage from Putney Bridge train station. This remains ongoing.”
The man in the footage, known as “Man X”, was captured about a mile from Dando’s home roughly 20 minutes after the 37-year-old was killed. The Mirror
The man in the footage, known as “Man X”, was captured about a mile from Dando’s Fulham home roughly 20 minutes after the 37-year-old was killed on April 26, 1999.
The Mirror has previously reported possible similarities between Man X and Milorad Ulemek, a notorious Serbian paramilitary commander known as Legija who is serving a 40-year prison sentence in Serbia.
Ulemek, a former French Foreign Legionnaire, led a unit involved in assassinations during the rule of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
The house in Fulham, west London, where Jill Dando was shot. PA/AAP
Forensic video analyst Emi Polito told The Mirror in 2024 that Ulemek and Man X appeared to have similarities in their mouths, chins, hairlines and right sideburns, as well as the general shape and size of their noses and right ears.
The newspaper also reported two witnesses had identified similarities between Ulemek and men they saw near the scene on the day Dando was killed.
One woman told investigators she was driving along Fulham Palace Road around the time of the shooting when she saw a man in a suit “running for his life”.
A month later, she identified Man X in CCTV footage as the person she believed she had seen, although detectives at the time concluded her original description did not match him.
A second witness later told The Mirror he was “80 per cent” sure Ulemek was the man who nearly ran in front of his van on the same stretch of road.
Dando presented major BBC programs, including Crimewatch and Holiday. AAP
Dando was one of Britain’s best-known television presenters when she was ambushed outside her home in Gowan Avenue and killed by a single bullet to her left temple.
She had presented major BBC programs, including Crimewatch and Holiday, and had fronted a charity appeal for Kosovan refugees just 20 days before her death.
Britain was taking part in NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia at the time, and the BBC received a call within hours of Dando’s murder claiming the killing was connected to an attack on a television station in Belgrade.
Nearly a year after Dando’s death, detectives focused their investigation on local man Barry George.
George was convicted of her murder and spent eight years behind bars before being acquitted following a retrial in 2008.
The murder remains unsolved.
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