Jill Dando: Life and death of the perfect girl next door

LONDON - It took a murder story to knock the Kosovo crisis of British front pages this week. Not just any type of murder, but that of the BBC's favourite presenter, Jill Dando, a woman who somehow managed to personify Britain's ideal of the girl next door, even at the age of 37.

By any standard it was an extraordinary story with many nuances that served to highlight the tragedy and push the gravest international crisis for years into the background.

For example Dando, who was to have married London gynaecologist Alan Farthing in September, tried on her wedding dress for the first time on the day she died.

But nothing added interest to the story more than the ease with which parallels could be spotted between Dando and Diana, Princess of Wales. Everything from their looks to the timing and circumstances of their deaths were cause for comment.

"Uncanny" was the only word one breathless writer could find to capture the similarities.

"Both were blond, both embodied something quintessentially English and both met violent deaths in their mid-thirties, at a time when they had just found love and had everything to look forward to," wrote Kathy Marks in the Independent.

Given the eagerness with which so many people sought points of comparison between Dando and Diana, it was hardly surprising that Britain experienced a minor aftershock of the emotional outpouring that characterised the week of Diana's death.

They queued to sign condolence books and brought flowers to the scene of the murder. While the numbers where nowhere near as great, the sentiments expressed were the same. Among the flowers was a note which read, "We have lost another English Rose."

And, as in Diana's case, the grief was accompanied by conspiracy theories.

Astonishing as the comparisons seemed to many people, there were also very great differences between the two women.

Dando was no glamour queen nor, indeed, an aspiring queen of hearts. She was content to be the middle-class girl next door, albeit a rather extraordinary one.

By all accounts she had lived a life of well-adjusted equilibrium, in stark contrast to her famous lookalike.

In her chosen career she was untroubled as she went from success to success. She presented Crimewatch , the news, a top-rating holiday programme and, ironically, the broadcast of Diana's funeral.

Despite winning more than her share of success there was never any hint that it went to her head and, in an industry renowned for its bitchiness, no sign of jealousy from either friends of colleagues.

"She was a lovely person - unspoiled, sunny and perfectly genuine in every way," said Gaye Shepherd, 38, a friend from schooldays.

Her colleagues were just as unstinting in their praise.
"We all agreed the news was best when read by Jill,"
said a fellow BBC presenter.

The stark contrasts between the lives of Diana and Dando extended to the way they died. Dando's death was not a banal accident but a cold-blooded killing.

She was shot through the head on her own doorstep, apparently by a man in a smart dark suit who was seen coolly walking from the scene of the crime.

Dando's home is up for sale and the police believe he may have used an open day to case it before committing himself to the fatal attack.

It was so slickly done and well prepared that most people, including the police, immediately assumed that it was a professional hit.

But why would somebody want to kill a blameless English Rose?

In the absence of any hard evidence three theories crystallised in the British papers.

First was the Crimewatch theory, according to which Dando was killed at the behest of a villain who had been caught as a result of the programme and was out for revenge.

Then came the theory that a crazed stalker was the culprit.

Finally, there was the Serb theory. Dando had been killed, according to its proponents, in revenge for the Nato attack on Serbian television and because she had presented a special programme on Kosovo refugees.

Like all good conspiracy theories, each of these had just enough to keep the rumour mill turning and not enough to resolve anything.

By the end of the week the theory that was causing the most excitement was the one that said the Serbs did it.
This fitted in nicely with many people's prejudices, but did it fit the known facts?

The evidence was limited to two phone calls, one to the BBC and the other to the Guardian newspaper, in which the callers claimed to represent a Serb death squad which not only killed Dando but was planning to kill BBC news chief Tony Hall as well.

The police, taking no chances, immediately shifted Hall and his family to a safe house.

But there was good reason to doubt the authenticity of the phone calls, if only because the killers would hardly be likely to warn Hall if their intention was to kill him.

At the end of the week bewildered Britons were still none the wiser about who had killed their English Rose or why.

Their state of mind was best summed up by the man most deeply affected by the tragedy, Alan Farthing: "I cannot believe what has happened, I cannot understand what has happened.

"I cannot think for one moment what can go through someone's mind when they do such a thing to such a beautiful, caring and perfect person as Jill."