Twenty-six years after BBC presenter Jill Dando was shot dead on her doorstep, exclusive analysis of police files reveals three crucial sets of unidentified forensic evidence that could finally crack Britain's most notorious cold case.
The Unidentified Forensic Evidence
According to hundreds of pages of police documents and court papers examined by the Mirror, investigators are focusing on three categories of "priority marks" that remain unidentified more than two decades after the murder. The evidence forms part of a massive archive comprising 223 boxes of material, each containing approximately 1,000 pages of documents, photographs and exhibits stored in a Metropolitan Police warehouse.
The first crucial piece of evidence consists of two unidentified fingerprints discovered on the exterior of Jill's white, gloss-painted front door in Gowan Avenue, Fulham. Forensic officers removed the door for analysis after the 37-year-old Crimewatch presenter was ambushed from behind and forced to the ground before being shot once in the left temple at close range on April 26, 1999.
Police documents indicate the prints were found in an area "consistent" with someone entering or leaving the property, though investigators haven't ruled out the possibility they were left by the killer. A memo prepared for a Met Police management board meeting on May 9, 2000 - over a year after the murder - confirmed efforts to identify the fingerprints had failed.
The Mysterious Running Man
The second set of unidentified evidence involves palm and finger marks discovered on a traffic light post at the end of Jill's road in Fulham, southwest London. The marks were left by a sprinting man who grabbed the post to steady himself after darting in front of a moving car at approximately 11:38am - around the time of the murder.
Witness Ken Williams, then 57, told police he saw the "athletic" suspect spin off the bonnet of the vehicle while waiting at a pelican crossing with his black labrador Angie, approximately 300 metres from where Jill lay dead. The lifelong Mirror reader, now 83, recalled: "I thought that was the man that killed her because he came from Gowan Avenue. Why would he run across that road like that when the traffic was moving? I thought it was mad."
Fingerprint expert John Griffin noted in his statement that he found "marks in dirt" on the traffic light post five days after the murder. The prints were positioned three-and-a-half feet above ground, facing the road and pointing left towards Putney Bridge tube station - the direction the mysterious man was running. By March 21, 2000, a police memo confirmed these prints remained unidentified, a situation sources confirmed still applied last year.
Riverbank Suspicion and Unidentified Footprint
The third set of unidentified prints were taken from iron railings in Bishops Park, approximately half a mile from Jill's home, where a man was seen climbing down to the River Thames. A school caretaker reported seeing a white man in a blue windcheater descending to the river around 11:50am - roughly 13 minutes after the shooting.
The witness contacted police hours later when he realised the tide had been high, making the man's actions particularly suspicious. He stated: "It was very odd that the man had climbed over as the river would have probably covered most of the steps, so there wouldn't have been anything to see."
Another crucial piece of evidence that hasn't been ruled out as belonging to the killer is an unidentified footprint found next to Jill's body. Forensic scientist John Birkett noted in a June 2000 statement that while two sets of footwear marks matched paramedics who tried to save Jill, a third set didn't correspond to anyone known to have visited the house.
The mark had been made by a very wet shoe or boot - consistent with the showery conditions in Fulham that morning - though the brand couldn't be identified. Crucially, none of the priority marks from the three locations matched Barry George, the man wrongly convicted of the murder in 2001 before being acquitted at a retrial in 2008.
Serbian Connection and Scientific Advances
The Metropolitan Police confirmed they're examining potential links between Jill's murder and Serbian assassin Milorad Ulemek, following a Mirror investigation. Detectives are particularly interested in a newly unearthed photograph showing Ulemek wearing an unusual tie that appears similar to one worn by a man captured on CCTV after the murder.
Ulemek, convicted for the murders of Serbian ex-President Ivan Stambolic in 2000 and Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003, has a facial feature similar to an E-fit of a "sweating man" police have been seeking - a dent on the bridge of his nose. However, Ulemek's DNA and fingerprints are believed to be held by Serbian authorities and aren't currently available to British police.
Forensic scientist Angela Gallop, whose team helped solve the Stephen Lawrence murder, reviewed the case in 2009 for her firm LGC. Her 2013 concluding report stated: "We have made several suggestions about specific aspects which might usefully be pursued, especially with advances in scientific methodology and technology," though the redacted document doesn't specify what these were.
Modern DNA profiling could also be conducted on tapings taken from Jill's clothing, head and hair to compare against any new suspect not on UK databases. The killer is believed to have grabbed Jill's right arm, pulled her to the ground, then used his left hand to press the gun against her head just behind her ear.
With 26 years having passed since that fateful April morning, these unidentified forensic clues represent the best hope yet of finally delivering justice for Jill Dando and her family.
