From PEOPLE Magazine
Click to enlarge
Her sudden, violent death left all Britain stunned. Buckingham Palace let it be known that Queen Elizabeth was "shocked and saddened"; Prime Minister Tony Blair was "deeply shocked." The horror was all the more keen, given the seeming parallels between Dando and the late Princess Diana: her apparent modesty, her dazzling looks, her caring hospital-ward visits to comfort the ill, and an about-to-be realized opportunity for romantic happiness.
Within hours, mourners began visiting tree-lined Gowan Avenue to lay flowers and notes near her white-and cream-colored house. "In memory of a nation's sweetheart," read one message. "We have lost another English rose," read another. "Jill was a princess among ordinary people," declared her former BBC producer and onetime boyfriend, Bob Wheaton. "Wherever she went, she left the same impression—a warm, kind and gentle person who cared." Fiancé Farthing, who had the task of identifying her body, also issued a statement before retreating to mourn in silence: "I am totally devastated and unable to comprehend what has happened."
Desperate for answers, police and fans grappled with various theories that might explain why the assassin would fire at Dando with a semiautomatic pistol—one that may have been fitted with a silencer, since neighbors heard no shot, only a scream. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a suit-clad man, perhaps in his late 30s, fleeing the scene with a mobile phone in hand. Police quickly discounted the possibility that Dando had been shot by John Hole, 62, a retired civil servant who admitted last year to stalking her. Hole, who was working in his garden at the time of the slaying, told reporters, "I was fond of Jill and can't understand any violence towards her."
Two other theories stemmed from Dando's work. Could the attack have been a response to one of her profiles on the long-running Crimewatch, which prompts tips from viewers that sometimes lead to arrests? Dando had once said of the show, "I was aware that standing up in public doing this job could mean I was putting myself in the firing line." Or had a Serbian nationalist taken issue with her TV appeal to aid Kosovo refugees?
For the down-to-earth Dando, such intrigue would have seemed as improbable as her meteoric rise. Born in seaside Weston-super-Mare, she was the younger of two children of a newspaper typesetter and his homemaker wife. When she was 3, she had surgery for a hole in her heart, and it left its mark—a scar running from ear to navel. A good but unremarkable student, Dando was often reduced to tears by her gawky looks, which earned her the nickname "Dandelion." But a perm and pair of contacts transformed the duckling into a swan at 16. Two years later, she joined the reporting staff of her father's paper, and success followed quickly in radio, regional television and, finally, the BBC.
For a time, Dando appeared less fortunate in matters of love. Her five-year relationship with Wheaton ended in 1996, followed by a short-lived romance with a South African game warden. But when she met Farthing in October 1997, Dando seemed to find Mr. Right. Says Farthing's father, John, 65: "I've never seen a couple so genuinely happy." Recently, Dando had given up her Holiday job to spend more time with Farthing. "For the first time, all her professional and private ambitions were being fulfilled," says colleague Martyn Lewis. "She had everything to go for."
Jill Smolowe
Nina Biddle, Simon Perry Paul Berthold and Matthew Beard in London
