A shocking photograph showing the blood-splattered doorway where TV presenter Jill Dando was gunned down 20 years ago has been released.
Beloved Crimewatch presenter Jill, 37, was shot once in the head on her doorstep in Fulham, London on April 26, 1999.
The horrific photo, aired on the BBC’s The Murder of Jill Dando, shows blood splattered on the door, with a trail over the path leading up to the house.
Random items are strewn around the scene and, most chillingly, her handbag sits by the foot of the door.
The horrific scene where Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando was gunned down 20 years ago, a crime that shocked the nation
Jill’s unsolved killing is one of the most infamous crimes of the last 20 years.
A man named Barry George was convicted of Jill’s murder in 2001 – but he was later acquitted after serving seven years in prison.
Dramatic witness accounts previously shed light on the horror of a crime that has gripped the nation.
The BBC documentary shown last night featured interviews with her family and some of the senior police officers involved in the investigation.
Presenter Jill Dando (pictured above outside her home in Fulham) was murdered in 1999
It heard from neighbour on Gowan Avenue who first discovered her body and played the harrowing 999 call made to police.
Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell, from the Metropolitan Police, who investigated the killing and helped convict George was also interviewed.
He told the documentary: ‘Sometimes I felt we were a day away from solving it and other times, I thought “no, we’re a long way away”.
‘Senior officers were asking “what are the likelihoods of this case being resolved?”
‘We had over 2,000 people named as potential suspects or responsible. Some actions to trace and eliminate one person might take a day. One action might take two weeks.
‘But there’s thousands of them and that’s the issue of managing stranger homicides.’
The new documentary revealed the decision-making happening behind the scenes of the inquiry into Miss Dando’s murder.
It showed how a particle of gunshot residue in the pocket of a coat police found in Barry George’s house became the key forensic evidence against him.
A step by step account of Jill Dando’s last moments as she embarked on a shopping trip in Hammersmith before driving home
Jill Dando (left) and her fiancé Alan Farthing (right). Mr Farthing said he had held Jill’s hand while she was still warm before confirming to doctors that it was the BBC presenter
The gunshot residue evidence was discredited at George‘s 2007 appeal, when his murder conviction was quashed. It was deemed inadmissible as evidence at his 2008 retrial, when he was cleared.
Miss Dando’s family still remain ‘hopeful’ her killer will be brought to justice one day.
Speaking during the documentary, her brother Nigel Dando, 66, said: ‘I would just like to know, why someone would want to kill her.’
The film will also show how BBC director general Tony Hall, then Head of News at the BBC, was targeted with threatening phone calls in the weeks after Jill Dando’s murder.
Twenty years on from the death of Jill Dando (pictured above) witnesses have revealed new testimonies
Police forensic officers at Gowan Avenue, Fulham, where TV presenter Jill Dando was murdered. Ms Dando died from a single gunshot wound to the head
A leaflet which was handed out on May 4 1999 which was given out to passers-by in an effort to jog their memories and uncover new information
‘We had three calls, as I recall, to the BBC switchboards in London and Belfast,’ he said.
‘I listened to the voice of one of them, which said basically, I was next. I mean they were threatening me. I have no idea what that amounted to, Was it a real threat? Was it not a threat?
‘You know there are often copycat things that happen after these sorts of events, and the police took it seriously, but I don’t know.’
Six distinctive marks were found on the cartridge case (pictured above) used by the gunman who killed Jill Dando
Police search Gowan Avenue, Fulham, south west London Monday April 26, 1999