UK UK - Jill Dando, 37, Fulham, London, 26 Apr 1999

[callmehenry]

just wanted to add my thoughts re: Barry George. He had previous for attempted rape etc so if he was the shooter, why shoot her? He, a well built man, was stood behind her with a gun and she had her keys in her hand. He could have easily forced her into the house, attacked her and left. So my question is why didn’t he? Why did he shoot her in the head and then leave? If he was obsessed with her then it makes no sense to just shoot and leave.

 

[WestLondoner]

just wanted to add my thoughts re: Barry George. He had previous for attempted rape etc so if he was the shooter, why shoot her? He, a well built man, was stood behind her with a gun and she had her keys in her hand. He could have easily forced her into the house, attacked her and left. So my question is why didn’t he? Why did he shoot her in the head and then leave? If he was obsessed with her then it makes no sense to just shoot and leave.

The flipside is surely why did he have a gun at all if he did not plan to shoot someone with it?

 

[callmehenry]

The flipside is surely why did he have a gun at all if he did not plan to shoot someone with it?

Good question! But I guess the answer would be intimidation. However, that also makes little to no sense does it. This case is so confusing and I doubt any of us will be solving it soon

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

I've never been convinced Jill's death was the intended outcome.

It's so easy to think it must have been planned and deliberate, but guns are regularly used for intimidation purposes during robberies and assaults; and they can be fired in a panic or even by accident, especially if you're using a poor-quality modified weapon with modified ammunition.

 

[WestLondoner]

Indeed. There is no evidence of BG having previously killed, but he was jailed for attempted rape, which makes one wonder why he only attempted it, and didn't carry it out. One would have to look up the facts of that case, but if it turned out he managed only to attempt it but did not succeed because he was fought off, it would explain why he armed himself for his next attack. You'd then have an explanation for the gun. Because he's inept he then managed to kill her by accident and then ran off in a panic (IMO).

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

Indeed. There is no evidence of BG having previously killed, but he was jailed for attempted rape, which makes one wonder why he only attempted it, and didn't carry it out. One would have to look up the facts of that case, but if it turned out he managed only to attempt it but did not succeed because he was fought off, it would explain why he armed himself for his next attack. You'd then have an explanation for the gun. Because he's inept he then managed to kill her by accident and then ran off in a panic (IMO).

This is one of the best articles covering BG's extensive record of abusing women. He was charged with rape, but pled guilty to attempted rape to avoid a trial:

Dando killer was an oddball loner

Barry George yearned to be Gary Glitter, posed as an SAS soldier and pretended to be a professional stuntman. He insisted he was the cousin of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of his favourite band, Queen.

www.theguardian.com

A handwritten note found in his messy groundfloor flat in Crookham Road may hint at the truth of what happened on April 26 1999. "I have difficulty handling rejection", George confessed. "I become angry ... it starts a chain of events which is beyond my control."

---

In February, 1982, George approached a 20-year-old languages student outside Turnham Green Tube station in west London. She thought he was a harmless eccentric. He walked with her and tried to impress her by saying "How are you?" in German.

In a dark stairwell outside her parent's flat in Acton, George attacked her. He clamped his hand over her mouth and pushed her arm behind her back. Terrified she was going to suffocate, she pleaded with him to let her go, but he con tinued, forcing her to the ground and pulling at her clothing.

The woman, who is now married with two children, claimed she was raped.

"She remembers the incident with clarity," said an officer from the Dando murder squad who went to see her. "She said Barry seemed to snap when she told him to 'eff off'. He couldn't understand why she was pushing him away." As he ran off, he shouted that he was "sorry".

George denied the rape allegation and the prosecution accepted a guilty plea to a lesser charge to avoid a trial.

He appeared at the Old Bailey in March 1983 under the name Steve Majors (Lee Majors played Steve Austin in the popular series the Six Million Dollar Man). The judge was told he assaulted her because he felt "lonely and rejected".

George was convicted of attempted rape and sentenced to 33 months. He served 23 before being released.

 

[Novosti]

She was shot with the gun pressed to her head. Why would they need to make sure?

Physically touching the victim is a very strong sign this wasn't a professional assassin. This is a beginner's mistake which creates forensic opportunities. And totally unnecessary for professional gunmen who would typically have reliable, well-practised aim at distance with high performance weapons.

More generally, the gun was a very poor instrument. And the timing and location of the murder realistically couldn't have been planned - without a sophisticated surveillance team only at the disposal of state actors and elite organised crime - so that's seems far fetched.

So the case for it being a professional job seems very weak.

 

[NeroHolmes]

The below was an interesting article about the The killing method, the Serbian theory and Barry George's evidences.
The fact that the killing happened so fast outside her door to me could point only to either an execution style murder or an accident, as in any other circumstances they would have forced her inside her house first.

And I am still puzzled as to why BG never dispose of of the coat or the photos in his apartment if we say he was panicking and already disposed of the gun (and potentially all the ammunition or the tools to modify a gun which he must have had in the apartment)

Shadow of doubt?

"From the outset, there appeared to be two vital clues to the kind of crime this was: the method of killing and the ballistics evidence. As Dando was about to put her keys in the lock to open the front door of her home in Fulham, south-west London, she was grabbed from behind. (The late Iain West, then Britain's leading pathologist, identified a recent bruise to her right forearm.) With his right arm, the assailant held her and forced her to the ground, so that her face was almost touching the tiled step of the porch. Then, with his left hand, he fired a single shot at her left temple, killing her instantly. It was very close to 11.30am. The bullet entered her head just above her ear, parallel to the ground, and came out the right side of her head and into the door, leaving a mark that was a mere 22cm above the doorstep.

For the killer, there were three advantages to such a clinical, one-shot murder. The first was silence. The gases escaping as the gun was discharged, which normally cause the report, instead exploded inside the head, so there was virtually no noise: Richard Hughes, Dando's neighbour, was working at the front of the house and heard a brief, sudden cry, but no gunshot.

The second was that the assailant did not end up covered in flesh and blood. The third was speed - Hughes estimated a gap of only 30 seconds between hearing Dando get out of her car and the latch of the gate as the assailant, his job done, closed it behind him; the police estimated it happened even faster than that."

"But there was another possibility: that a custom-made, smooth-bore, short-range weapon had been used. If the killer planned to put the weapon against his victim's head, and was practised in doing so, there was no need for the long-distance accuracy provided by rifling in the barrel"

"It is conceivable that an armourer had prepared a weapon, bullet and cartridge for the specific task. Ash suggests that a smooth-bore, one-shot assassination weapon could have been fitted inside a mobile phone; in autumn 2000, just such a weapon, concealed in a mobile phone, was removed by German police from a Yugoslav gun dealer near the Swiss border. Dando's neighbour, Richard Hughes, had thought the killer carried a mobile phone; yet all mobile phone records for that area, painstakingly trawled through by police, yielded no relevant information"

"There were two reasons given by the prosecution for discounting the "Serb" theory. First, that too little time had elapsed between the Radio-Television Serbia bombing and Dando's death; three days was insufficient time in which to plan and execute an assassination. But if, as is more likely, the murder was conceived following Dando's television appeal on behalf of Kosovan Albanians, the murderers would have had three weeks, ample time for preparation. Second, Orlando Pownall QC, for the Crown, told the jury that it could not have been a Serbian assassin because Serbia had not claimed responsibility for the killing: had Milosevic wanted Dando's death to serve as a protest against Nato military action, he or his operatives would have publicised the fact. The most charitable thing to say about this assertion is that it demonstrates an ignorance of Balkan politics and, indeed, the history of the cold war. "Claims of responsibility" are made by groups such as the IRA or Eta. In 60 years, there has not once been a "claim of responsibility" for an assassination carried out by east European secret services."

"Ever the fantasist, Barry George may now be adapting to his notoriety (two tabloid newspapers have advertised tapes of prison "confessions"), but he should be a footnote in this story. Apart from that invisible speck of explosives residue found on his coat, the police found no evidence that he had possessed guns or ammunition in the past 15 years. He had neither expertise in weapons, nor the resources to modify them. He had no car, no money. There was no forensic evidence found in his flat: remarkably, police found no explosives residue there, even though it was assumed that he'd gone home to change straight after the shooting. The two squads of officers, 50 in all, who surveilled his movements for more than three weeks before his arrest gleaned no evidence to assist their case. Dando's neighbours, the only two eyewitnesses, failed to pick out George in an identity parade."

"The conviction hangs on that speck of explosives residue that might, as Mansfield argued in court, have come from almost anywhere. It might have been fireworks, or the coat could have become contaminated while in police custody (it was photographed before forensic analysis, so the possibilities for contamination were considerable)"

 

[Novosti]

The below was an interesting article about the The killing method, the Serbian theory and Barry George's evidences.
The fact that the killing happened so fast outside her door to me could point only to either an execution style murder or an accident, as in any other circumstances they would have forced her inside her house first.

And I am still puzzled as to why BG never dispose of of the coat or the photos in his apartment if we say he was panicking and already disposed of the gun (and potentially all the ammunition or the tools to modify a gun which he must have had in the apartment)

Shadow of doubt?

"From the outset, there appeared to be two vital clues to the kind of crime this was: the method of killing and the ballistics evidence. As Dando was about to put her keys in the lock to open the front door of her home in Fulham, south-west London, she was grabbed from behind. (The late Iain West, then Britain's leading pathologist, identified a recent bruise to her right forearm.) With his right arm, the assailant held her and forced her to the ground, so that her face was almost touching the tiled step of the porch. Then, with his left hand, he fired a single shot at her left temple, killing her instantly. It was very close to 11.30am. The bullet entered her head just above her ear, parallel to the ground, and came out the right side of her head and into the door, leaving a mark that was a mere 22cm above the doorstep.

For the killer, there were three advantages to such a clinical, one-shot murder. The first was silence. The gases escaping as the gun was discharged, which normally cause the report, instead exploded inside the head, so there was virtually no noise: Richard Hughes, Dando's neighbour, was working at the front of the house and heard a brief, sudden cry, but no gunshot.

The second was that the assailant did not end up covered in flesh and blood. The third was speed - Hughes estimated a gap of only 30 seconds between hearing Dando get out of her car and the latch of the gate as the assailant, his job done, closed it behind him; the police estimated it happened even faster than that."

"But there was another possibility: that a custom-made, smooth-bore, short-range weapon had been used. If the killer planned to put the weapon against his victim's head, and was practised in doing so, there was no need for the long-distance accuracy provided by rifling in the barrel"

"It is conceivable that an armourer had prepared a weapon, bullet and cartridge for the specific task. Ash suggests that a smooth-bore, one-shot assassination weapon could have been fitted inside a mobile phone; in autumn 2000, just such a weapon, concealed in a mobile phone, was removed by German police from a Yugoslav gun dealer near the Swiss border. Dando's neighbour, Richard Hughes, had thought the killer carried a mobile phone; yet all mobile phone records for that area, painstakingly trawled through by police, yielded no relevant information"

"There were two reasons given by the prosecution for discounting the "Serb" theory. First, that too little time had elapsed between the Radio-Television Serbia bombing and Dando's death; three days was insufficient time in which to plan and execute an assassination. But if, as is more likely, the murder was conceived following Dando's television appeal on behalf of Kosovan Albanians, the murderers would have had three weeks, ample time for preparation. Second, Orlando Pownall QC, for the Crown, told the jury that it could not have been a Serbian assassin because Serbia had not claimed responsibility for the killing: had Milosevic wanted Dando's death to serve as a protest against Nato military action, he or his operatives would have publicised the fact. The most charitable thing to say about this assertion is that it demonstrates an ignorance of Balkan politics and, indeed, the history of the cold war. "Claims of responsibility" are made by groups such as the IRA or Eta. In 60 years, there has not once been a "claim of responsibility" for an assassination carried out by east European secret services."

"Ever the fantasist, Barry George may now be adapting to his notoriety (two tabloid newspapers have advertised tapes of prison "confessions"), but he should be a footnote in this story. Apart from that invisible speck of explosives residue found on his coat, the police found no evidence that he had possessed guns or ammunition in the past 15 years. He had neither expertise in weapons, nor the resources to modify them. He had no car, no money. There was no forensic evidence found in his flat: remarkably, police found no explosives residue there, even though it was assumed that he'd gone home to change straight after the shooting. The two squads of officers, 50 in all, who surveilled his movements for more than three weeks before his arrest gleaned no evidence to assist their case. Dando's neighbours, the only two eyewitnesses, failed to pick out George in an identity parade."

"The conviction hangs on that speck of explosives residue that might, as Mansfield argued in court, have come from almost anywhere. It might have been fireworks, or the coat could have become contaminated while in police custody (it was photographed before forensic analysis, so the possibilities for contamination were considerable)"

The ballistics stuff here seems very unconvincing. Very much doubt the gas release could be substantially controlled into the body itself. An actual silencer would obviously do the same job far better - and a professional would have no trouble accessing a silencer.

At the same time, physically grabbing the victim is an idiotic thing for a professional gunman to do. Potentially creates biological and fabrics forensics. And physical wrestles involving a firearm are always unpredictable to some extent no matter how strong and practised the attacker is - losing the weapon, misfiring, lost time, screams and noise are all risks.

By contrast a professional would have no problem aiming a handgun at short range with success. Using two or three silenced shots if necessary.

So grabbing from behind involves a whole lot of unnecessary risks for little gain.

It's also deeply unconvincing as to why a professional would choose to use such a poor, unreliable weapon. Soldiers flying in from Belgrade to leave a trail of evidence only to have the weapon jam and traipse back home seems a very odd plan!

 

[NeroHolmes]

The ballistics stuff here seems very unconvincing. Very much doubt the gas release could be substantially controlled into the body itself. An actual silencer would obviously do the same job far better - and a professional would have no trouble accessing a silencer.

At the same time, physically grabbing the victim is an idiotic thing for a professional gunman to do. Potentially creates biological and fabrics forensics. And physical wrestles involving a firearm are always unpredictable to some extent no matter how strong and practised the attacker is - losing the weapon, misfiring, lost time, screams and noise are all risks.

By contrast a professional would have no problem aiming a handgun at short range with success. Using two or three silenced shots if necessary.

So grabbing from behind involves a whole lot of unnecessary risks for little gain.

It's also deeply unconvincing as to why a professional would choose to use such a poor, unreliable weapon. Soldiers flying in from Belgrade to leave a trail of evidence only to have the weapon jam and traipse back home seems a very odd plan!

I see your point but I think we should consider the fact that we are not talking here of a top hitman with access to a fancy equipment and loads of money. It could have been someone with no access to silencers for example (which are actually not so used in real assassinations) which would have had to arrange with a replica gun. It could have been not an experienced hitman either. I think there are examples of such cases

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

It's BG's M.O. to follow women to their door, grab them, force them down, etc. Having a gun with him might (or might not) have been new, but we all know many offenders escalate their behavior. In every respect other than the fact that Jill ended up dead, what happened to her fits BG's pattern perfectly.

IMO it feels much more like a case where the gun was pointed at her and she was told, "Get down and do what say, or I'll shoot y--OH SH** THE GUN WENT OFF!"

A professional assassin would, in all probability, walk up and neatly shoot Jill before she had any idea what was happening. Forcing her down would seem to be a risky and completely unnecessary waste of time if killing her was the only goal.

 

[Novosti]

I see your point but I think we should consider the fact that we are not talking here of a top hitman with access to a fancy equipment and loads of money. It could have been someone with no access to silencers for example (which are actually not so used in real assassinations) which would have had to arrange with a replica gun. It could have been not an experienced hitman either. I think there are examples of such cases

You're obviously right that there's a spectrum between a local nutter at one end and special forces at the other, with everything inbetween in terms of professionalism. But if you're thinking about Serb nationalist football hooligan groups or ragtag paramilitaries, why bother trying something this difficult and dangerous with realistically little chance of success, and no obvious benefit? Her time and location was completely unpredictable, unless the attacker had a sophisticated surveillance operation behind him - an operation in which the surveillance set up was world class but the operative and weapon were bottom class makes no sense at all.

For me, whoever did it got 'lucky' that day. But if they were doing the same thing day-after-day, year-after-year, they were likely to get lucky at some point. That does sound like BG.

 

[WestLondoner]

The Grauniad article seems a bit far fetched to me for a number of reasons. There is no reason to assume BG was unfamiliar with weapons. He owned several, had attended TA weapon training, and had done two years inside (and hence made plenty of contacts) for attempted rape - which it appears was actual rape only they couldn't prove this. As IBC notes, the MO is exactly BG's in that rape and several previous instances of his threats to women.

The entire 'Serbians done it' narrative is speculative. It requires a Serbian warlord to be watching British TV, to decide that killing JD is a great idea, that some special weapon was needed as opposed to just a standard illicit firearm, that a wholly unidentified gunman killed her in a forensically inept way, and that he was able to do this at a place there was scant reason to expect her to be.

As I have noted before, there was no point doing this if it were left unclear who had done it. When the KGB murdered Georgy Markov they did it with an umbrella gun that clearly only a state could concoct. He was a defector so it's obvious which state. When Putin had Litvinenko murdered he had him poisoned with polonium, a controlled nuclear substance only a state could access. Again, it was thus obvious which state. When he tried to have the ex KGB colonel murdered in Salisbury he used a neuropoison only a state could have accessed. Inside Russia, his enemies often fall from high windows. All of these methods constructively say "the Russian state did this", so opponents know what happens to Putin's opponents. JD dying in such a way that it's not obvious who did it makes it pointless to kill her at all.

Finally, the case against BG did not depend on the residue. There was a pattern of behaviour - of sexual criminality, macho posturing and of pathological lying - that pointed to him. This is why when he was freed, he was not compensated. You get compensation if it's clear you should never have been convicted in the first place, but in BG's case this wasn't so, as there was ample reason to convict him even without the gunshot residue.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

SM: The man was mid-to-late thirties, 5ft 9in tall, slightly overweight and Mediterranean looking - dark hair and slightly olive skin. Black suit with white shirt open at the neck.

SM saw the man standing next to a burgundy-coloured car parked in the middle of the road (?). She thought the car belonged to the man as he wiped the passenger side of the windscreen as she passed him.

RSBM

The part about SM seeing the man (BG?) polishing a car stood out to me after reading the Guardian article:

Another woman claimed George began following her in 1991 and tried to kiss her when she was walking down the street.

She brushed him off but George persisted. Sometime later, he approached her again as she tried to unlock her frontdoor and said "Now I know where you live". Three years later, he asked to clean her car, and when she refused he left a note which said: "I like blondes."

Dando killer was an oddball loner

Barry George yearned to be Gary Glitter, posed as an SAS soldier and pretended to be a professional stuntman. He insisted he was the cousin of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of his favourite band, Queen.

www.theguardian.com

Cleaning cars and accosting women at their door are all part of BG's pattern of behaviour.

 

[NeroHolmes]

If we assume BG is the murderer:

He shoots, but could not be premeditated as he would have pushed her in the house before so as to be sure not to be seen. Plus I would not believe that being him more the rapist kind, he would just go there to execute JD without attempting anything else. So let's say it shoots by accident. He put his gun in the coat's pocket and walks away but he doesn't run, and this is point is already interesting. He would not have known that nobody saw him, he must have panicked but still so cold blooded to just walk away. He goes to his house, change his clothes and goes to the help centre to get an alibi where he mess up and starts drawing attention because of his attitude, when just a moment before was perfectly cold blooded. Plus he is able to think about getting an alibi and execute his alibi plan right after the murder, taking around 20 minutes to walk the distance to the help centre which would require 30 minutes.
Then he gets home and decide to get rid of the gun, all the ammunition and/or tools used to modify the gun but he doesn't get rid of the coat, all the photographs of JD and other famous women he has been collecting which would make him appear suspect.

All of it still doesn't add up to me. Curios to see what people think

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

If we assume BG is the murderer:

He shoots, but could not be premeditated as he would have pushed her in the house before so as to be sure not to be seen. Plus I would not believe that being him more the rapist kind, he would just go there to execute JD without attempting anything else. So let's say it shoots by accident. He put his gun in the coat's pocket and walks away but he doesn't run, and this is point is already interesting. He would not have known that nobody saw him, he must have panicked but still so cold blooded to just walk away. He goes to his house, change his clothes and goes to the help centre to get an alibi where he mess up and starts drawing attention because of his attitude, when just a moment before was perfectly cold blooded. Plus he is able to think about getting an alibi and execute his alibi plan right after the murder, taking around 20 minutes to walk the distance to the help centre which would require 30 minutes.
Then he gets home and decide to get rid of the gun, all the ammunition and/or tools used to modify the gun but he doesn't get rid of the coat, all the photographs of JD and other famous women he has been collecting which would make him appear suspect.

All of it still doesn't add up to me. Curios to see what people think

A witness did describe seeing the killer running away from the scene, though he couldn't be certain it was BG:

Another neighbour Geoffrey Uphill-Brown said he was in the street when he saw a man running away on the opposite side of Gowan Avenue.

'Not only was he the only person in the immediate vicinity, I felt immediately he was acting in a furtive and suspicious manner,' he said in a statement.

'The man was running very quickly.

'I watched as he continued to run for between 20 and 30 yards. Then all of a sudden he looked over his right shoulder in my direction and changed his pace of running, slowing down from running fast to fast walking or jogging pace.'

'Jill Dando was lying in a pool of blood while her mobile rang,' says

Murdered TV presenter Jill Dando's mobile rang continually as neighbours found her slumped against her front door in a pool of blood, a court heard yesterday.

www.standard.co.uk

It's also not clear exactly when BG was at the HAFAD building. He claims it was at 11:50AM, which would make it difficult if not impossible for him to have killed Jill. But the staff at HAFAD only appear to have gone along with what he said because they weren't sure what time it was. Apparently staff originally said it could have been any time between 11:00AM and 2:00PM, and only agreed it was around lunchtime after BG insisted.

I highly recommend reading the following articles in full. They contain much more information than I'm posting here.

Mr Pownall said the evidence of staff members put the time of his visit between 11am and 2pm.

BBC NEWS | UK | Witnesses 'saw agitated suspect'

Despite not wearing a watch, he insists he was there at 11.50am - 20 minutes after Jill Dando was gunned down on the doorstep of her Fulham home.

Dando murder police to launch cold case review of 2,100 original

Police have today confirmed that they are to launch a cold case review of the Jill Dando murder inquiry after the acquittal last week of Barry George.

www.standard.co.uk

Miss Hutton said he went back to the centre on Wednesday, April 28.

He was again highly agitated, she said. 'He wanted to know exactly what time he had been at HAFAD on the Monday morning.

'I said I wasn't clear but he wasn't going to go away with that answer so I said it was about 11 o'clock.

'He made it quite clear he wasn't happy with that estimate and needed to know an exact time.

Susan Bicknell gave a conflicting account of when George attended the centre, claiming he left at 11.50am.

How Jill suspect 'tried to build up an alibi'

The full extent of Barry George's apparent attempt to create a false alibi after Jill Dando's murder was outlined to a jury yesterday

www.dailymail.co.uk

When Mr George was interviewed in May last year, he said he had been at home until around 12.30pm. But months later, he made "significant" changes to his alibi, the court heard, claiming he had left home at 10.30am to walk to a nearby community centre, Hammersmith and Fulham Action for Disability (Hafad).

The quickest route to Hafad would have taken him towards, or down, Gowan Avenue, but Mr George said he went another way, doubling the length of the journey. Mr Pownall said: "Why did he choose to take the longer route? The answer is plain. He had just shot Jill Dando and did not want to risk recognition."

The prosecution alleges that shortly before 1pm, Mr George arrived at a minicab office two minutes walk from Hafad. Working backwards, Mr Pownall said, he would have left Hafad at about 12.50-12.55pm. He must have arrived at the centre at about 12.35pm - an hour after Miss Dando was shot.

Court hears of Dando's last day

Jill Dando was "excited and bubbly" that Monday morning, the Old Bailey heard. She was looking forward to marrying Dr Alan Farthing, cutting back her numerous television commitments and, perhaps, starting a family.

www.theguardian.com

 

[WiseOwl]

Thank you for posting this.

The discrepancies are notable, but even within the witness statements there appear to be contradictions. For example, TN is quoted as saying "collar-length hair," but then later, "None of the 4 witnesses described a mop of hair...they spoke of shortish hair."

To me, collar-length isn't particularly short. And how thick or long would it have to be to qualify as a "mop"? There aren't any pictures (at least that I've seen) of BG from April 26 1999, but the pictures of him from around that time period mostly show him with kind of mid-length hair, not really short or particularly long. How such a hairstyle would be described is probably very dependent on the person describing it.

Besides typical witness variance, the descriptions all seem fairly similar to me: they all roughly match BG's age, height, build and hair colour, and describe a smartly-dressed man in dark clothing. It's not like one witness described a skinny man with dark dreadlocks wearing a tie-dye t-shirt, and another described a large man with a blond crew cut who was wearing Gucci. The discrepancies, such as they are, aren't huge, glaring red flags in my opinion.

Polishing a car might be the action of someone who owned the car, but it could equally be the action of a stalker/loiterer who was trying to avoid looking suspicious as they stood around in the street. Without someone coming forward to say it was them, I'm not sure anything can be gleaned from that sighting one way or the other. I also don't think it necessarily matters much that one sighting was at 7:00AM and another at 9:50AM. A person who randomly wandered the streets, as BG was known to do, could presumably be anywhere at any time.

It's not uncommon for witnesses to fail to identify people in a line-up, so I don't think that proves *or* disproves anything. Particularly as the line-ups must have been 12+ months after the killing, and the witnesses who saw the killer leaving didn't get a really good, close look at him. If I remember correctly, one was looking down from an upstairs window and the other watching from across the street?

BG lived close by, so I similarly don't think anything can be taken from the killer wearing a coat. If anything, if the sightings *were* of the same man, returning later with a coat would strongly suggest the killer had that coat easily accessible in the vicinity.

I find it hard to believe that the 4 witnesses were correct in identifying BG as the man they saw that morning between 7.00 & 9.50am. They all said the man they saw was wearing a suit (2 said Black, 2 said Grey). In all the pictures i've seen at the time of his arrest, BG was always shown to be wearing casual clothing, including a studded leather jacket, a denim jacket, a shell-suit. I never saw a pictures of him in a smart suit except when he was in court. Even when he turned up at Hafad, EH said he was wearing a casual jacket with a yellow shirt.

All 4 witnesses plus the 2 neighbours who saw the man leaving Jill's garden said he was a 'well-dressed' man (like an estate agent according to one of the witnesses), this doesn't sound like BG at all.

In reality, what is the likelihood that BG would don a suit at 7.00 in the morning, hang around Gowan Avenue for nearly 3 hours, go home, get changed, this time wearing a dark waxed jacket (like a Barbour), go back to Gowan Avenue just in time to catch Jill arriving home, commit the murder, leave and go home yet again, this time to change into a yellow shirt and put on a casual jacket over it.

And, to boot, he decides to pop over to the Hammersmith And Fulham Action for Disability centre just to get himself an alibi.

It just seems so unlikely to me.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

I find it hard to believe that the 4 witnesses were correct in identifying BG as the man they saw that morning between 7.00 & 9.50am. They all said the man they saw was wearing a suit (2 said Black, 2 said Grey). In all the pictures i've seen at the time of his arrest, BG was always shown to be wearing casual clothing, including a studded leather jacket, a denim jacket, a shell-suit. I never saw a pictures of him in a smart suit except when he was in court. Even when he turned up at Hafad, EH said he was wearing a casual jacket with a yellow shirt.

All 4 witnesses plus the 2 neighbours who saw the man leaving Jill's garden said he was a 'well-dressed' man (like an estate agent according to one of the witnesses), this doesn't sound like BG at all.

In reality, what is the likelihood that BG would don a suit at 7.00 in the morning, hang around Gowan Avenue for nearly 3 hours, go home, get changed, this time wearing a dark waxed jacket (like a Barbour), go back to Gowan Avenue just in time to catch Jill arriving home, commit the murder, leave and go home yet again, this time to change into a yellow shirt and put on a casual jacket over it.

And, to boot, he decides to pop over to the Hammersmith And Fulham Action for Disability centre just to get himself an alibi.

It just seems so unlikely to me.

There aren't a huge number of published pictures of BG from that or any other time, prior to his being arrested. It seems like a bit of a reach to say it couldn't have been him because he wouldn't have been dressed smartly.

In the images from his interrogation, before he was put into a forensic suit, BG was wearing a smart white shirt with no tie and the top button undone--very similar to descriptions by some witnesses. He can clearly make himself look very smart when he wants to. If he was stalking a particular target (such as Jill) he may very well have wanted to look good.

I also wouldn't consider going back to his flat to put a jacket on to be "get(ting) changed." Jill herself was wearing a long coat. It was only around 12C outside that morning and it appears there was light rain:

London April 26, 1999 Historical Weather (United Kingdom) - Weather Spark

weatherspark.com

I don't think the scenario is improbable at all: that he would go out early, loiter around for a few hours, pop back home to put on a jacket, go back out, kill Jill, rush home to change into a completely different outfit, and then try to form an alibi for himself.

We also don't know that he "go(t) back to Gowan Avenue just in time to catch Jill arriving home." We have no idea how long the killer (BG or otherwise) might have been there.

 

[WiseOwl]

There aren't a huge number of published pictures of BG from that or any other time, prior to his being arrested. It seems like a bit of a reach to say it couldn't have been him because he wouldn't have been dressed smartly.

In the images from his interrogation, before he was put into a forensic suit, BG was wearing a smart white shirt with no tie and the top button undone--very similar to descriptions by some witnesses. He can clearly make himself look very smart when he wants to. If he was stalking a particular target (such as Jill) he may very well have wanted to look good.

I also wouldn't consider going back to his flat to put a jacket on to be "get(ting) changed." Jill herself was wearing a long coat. It was only around 12C outside that morning and it appears there was light rain:

London April 26, 1999 Historical Weather (United Kingdom) - Weather Spark

weatherspark.com

I don't think the scenario is improbable at all: that he would go out early, loiter around for a few hours, pop back home to put on a jacket, go back out, kill Jill, rush home to change into a completely different outfit, and then try to form an alibi for himself.

We also don't know that he "go(t) back to Gowan Avenue just in time to catch Jill arriving home." We have no idea how long the killer (BG or otherwise) might have been there.

I would imagine hundreds of thousands of men in London would say they have worn a white shirt, no tie, with a button undone - how can you say its BG because of this? And many a person has turned up dressed smartly to be interviewed by the police, i see nothing odd about that.

If BG was waiting around dressed in a suit to look good (for Jill), why did he then at some point go home to put on a coat? He would of risked the possibility of missing her when she came home.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

I would imagine hundreds of thousands of men in London would say they have worn a white shirt, no tie, with a button undone - how can you say its BG because of this? And many a person has turned up dressed smartly to be interviewed by the police, i see nothing odd about that.

If BG was waiting around dressed in a suit to look good (for Jill), why did he then at some point go home to put on a coat? He would of risked the possibility of missing her when she came home.

I imagine many men would be dressed similarly. But would they be identified as BG by witnesses, or be known to have owned the rare weapon used to murder Jill? Hundreds of thousands of men could be ruled out on those two facts alone.

First you posted the witness statements and seemed to be suggesting they were talking about different people. I responded that taking into account typical witness variance, they all fit the general description of BG's height, build, age and appearance. Then you moved the goalposts and claimed it couldn't be BG because he didn't dress smartly. I responded that BG's outfit during his police interview was similar to the one described by witnesses, proving he would wear clothes like that. Now you've moved the goalposts again.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but that's because my argument, and the evidence used to support it (circumstantial though it may be) doesn't change.

A man was seen loitering around Gowan Avenue; he was identified as BG. I can say it was BG because he was identified as BG. Could those witnesses have been mistaken? Sure, of course they could. But your claim that it wasn't BG absolutely *requires* those witnesses to be wrong. Even if not all of the sightings were of BG, some of them almost certainly were. Which would still prove he was on Gowan Avenue that morning.

You may point out that the witnesses who saw the killer running away couldn't identify him as BG. It's a fair point. But it's important to note that both witnesses who saw the killer running away saw him from some distance (one from an upstairs window, the other from across the street), and that both mostly saw the back of him.

The witnesses who saw the killer described a coat very similar to one owned by BG--a coat which may have had GSR in the pocket. Going home to put on a jacket when it was cold and wet wouldn't be a big deal, yet you're making it seem like it is one--because your argument appears to rest on assumptions about what someone like BG would or wouldn't do.

My view is that we can't say with any certainty what a person like BG would or wouldn't do. He could have done absolutely anything. It doesn't need to make sense to us, it only needed to make sense to him. Investigators waste a lot of time trying to make sense of the senseless.