She was the golden girl of British broadcasting, as bright as she was beautiful, as comfortable hosting the travel program Holiday as she was interviewing world leaders for the BBC. Her life was nearly perfect and after years of developing her career as a news woman and TV presenter she'd met the man of her dreams, via a blind date of all things, and was preparing to marry and settle down to a less demanding schedule. And then, suddenly, tragically, it all came to a horrifying end. On April 26th she was shot once in the head as she stood on the doorstep of her West London home in a crime as inconceivable and nation-shattering as was the sudden tragic death of Princess Diana.
Jill Dando worked her way up from local reporting in her hometown of Weston-super-Mare to regional work with BBC Radio to the BBC News national desk and finally to the presenter's chair for the BBC Breakfast News where she became a national favorite for her natural and unpretentious manner and bright, inviting personality. She then moved to the popular Holiday and more recently Crimewatch UK, increasing her national exposure and audience affection every step of the way. In investigating her activities prior to her death, police found what the public already knew, there were no skeletons in her closet, no secret revelations that might help to explain her violent end. Jill Dando was nearly perfect, a consummate professional, known as "one shot Dando", who never took herself so seriously that she distanced others. A young life extinguished before its time is tragic enough but, to a nation still coming to grips with life post-Diana, the death of such a good, innocent, caring and hard working woman has been almost to much to take.
It is not a subtle irony that the program she co-hosted with Nick Ross of Crimewatch UK, and which has helped solve numerous crimes, has had to feature her own, still unsolved, murder. There are few concrete leads - a neighbor hears a gunshot, sees a man running from Dando's front garden. Others report a speeding Range Rover; a man sighted sweating profusely boarding a nearby bus. Anonymous tips flood in; the killer was a Serbian terrorist, the killer was exacting revenge for a criminal snagged by Crimewatch, the killer was a deranged fan, a stalker, a hit man. A foto-fit composite sketch is released. Lead after lead but no real answers and still a nation mourns. Two sites on the Web have helped fans express their rage and sadness at Dando's senseless death. The BBC, whose news
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