Chilling moment Jill Dando’s friend Jennie Bond discovered on live TV that she had been murdered
Topics: Crime, True Crime, UK News, Celebrity, TV And Film, BBC
Rhianna Benson
Featured Image Credit: BBC/Dave Benett/Getty Images
Topics: Crime, True Crime, UK News, Celebrity, TV And Film, BBC
The horrific killing of BBC reporter Jill Dando remains one of the longest unsolved murder cases in British history.
Now, 25 years later after she was fatally shot on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, London, her fellow journalist and close friend Jennie Bond has recalled the moment she'd learned of Jill's death whilst on presenting live television.
For those unfamiliar with the tragic killing in 1999 - which subsequently became the biggest murder inquiry ever conducted by the Metropolitan Police - the 37-year-old reporter was discovered outside of her home by a neighbour, having been shot in the head.
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After being rushed to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital, the newscaster was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Another neighbour who'd looked out of his front window at the time - not realising what had happened - gave investigating officers the only certain sighting of the killer.
He described the assailant as a six-foot-tall white man aged around 40.
In the years that followed, a local man named Barry George - who was known by police for previous cases of stalking - was convicted and imprisoned for her murder.
Following eight years behind bars, an appeal and a retrial, however, George was cleared of the charges and released in 2008.
Since then, no other suspect has been investigated, making Jill's murder the UK's largest criminal investigation since the 1970s hunt for 'Yorkshire Ripper', Peter Sutcliffe.
According to ITV, police are believed to have interviewed more than 2,500 people in relation to her death.
And in the 2019 BBC documentary, The Murder of Jill Dando, it shows the moment her former BBC colleague, Jennie Bond, had to report on her friend's death after it was declared.
In archived footage, news reader Jennie could be seen receiving the news of Jill's death.
Following an interview with an officer on the scene back in 1999, the broadcaster cut to the BBC studio, where a visibly heartbroken Jennie is awaiting instruction of what to tell viewers.
"What should I say?" she can be heard asking producers, before confirming the news of her friend's death in an official statement.
In the documentary, Jennie recalled that heartbreaking moment, saying: "It mattered so much to us to deliver the news accurately about one of our own.
"It was so dreadful, and is so dreadful, to have a personal friend murdered on her doorstep. It just makes my blood run cold, even now.
"It's just awful."