|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Barry George - Jill Dando.
Casebook Message Boards: Beyond Whitechapel - Other Crimes: Barry George - Jill Dando.
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 09 August 2002 - 11:15 am |        | Dear Mr Hinton,
I feel that I should caution you. Your latest post is already on the Commissioner's desk! As a past deft practitioner of the Black Art of Advocacy, a word of warning...we do not need a motive.
Lets hope he does'nt get freed on a future appeal,
Bob.
Rosey :-)
PS. Remember... alibi! |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 09 August 2002 - 07:03 pm | | Thanks for the information about the shot Garry !
I wonder if this is like the Hanratty case , certainly the prosecution was seriously flawed but does it mean that George didn't do it ?
He was perfectly capable of carrying out a ' hit ' on Ms Dando and disposing of the gun via the mail in the way described above. The fact that the weapon was a reactivated one suggests to my mind that the killer was an amateur , albeit an informed one. I agree the whole operation was planned in advance , I'd be suprised if it wasn't to be honest.
I thought the police established alibis for the smartly dressed man and the Landrover driver ; we need someone to write a book to sort all this out really !
The piece of fish is intriguing , also I think Jill Dando stopped off at a garage to buy something that morning - does anyone know what that was ? |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 09 August 2002 - 08:49 pm | | I discovered some information from the Guardian website , hopefully this is of some use :
1) Jill Dando was attacked from behind as she put her keys into one of the locks on her front door. Her assailant grabbed her right arm with his right hand and probably forced her arm behind her back ( a recent bruise was found on her right forearm by pathologist the late Iain West) and then forced her down on her knees , so her face was almost touching the tiled step of her porch.
The killer then put the gun ( held in his left hand ) to her left temple above her left ear and fired a single shot right through her head , killing her instantly. The bullet exited through her right temple and hit the door 22cm ( 9" ) above the step.
Its horrible to think of Jill Dando , a much loved and popular TV presenter , being manhandled and killed in such a fashion.
2) Barry George had some expertise with weapons , but apparently no resources to modify them , no car , little money , and no forensic evidence was found at his flat. He had no posters of Jill Dando on his wall , or photos to suggest any fixation with the TV presenter. And the two main witnesses failed to pick him out of a lineup.
3) The evidence against Barry George is slim , but it amounts to this :
* A fibre matching Jill Dando's coat was found on a pair of his trousers.
* The particle found in the pocket of the blue jacket he said he had been wearing on the 26th matched residue found on the back of Jill Dando's head.
* He walked past Jill Dando's house nearly every day at about the time of her killing.
* He had mental problems , a history of violence against women and a conviction for attempted rape.
* Barry George said he had never heard of Jill Dando , despite having many copies of the BBC's in-house magazine ' Ariel '.
* George told police he was worried he looked like the e-fit of the man they were looking for. Detectives, however, had not released an image of a man seen running away from the scene.
* George said he walked past Fulham football ground to the Hafad disability centre at 10.50am that day , wearing a bright yellow top. However cctv footage captured a man in a yellow top walking towards Hafad at about 12.50pm - nearly two hours later.
* He had been in the Territorial Army for 6 months in the 80s , had kept starting pistols and was reportedly fixated with the SAS. |
Author: Carl Dodd
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 12:35 am | | | The only thing that you all missed was that the residue in the suspect's pocket was not spectrographically analyzed and compared with a spectrograph of the burnt powder on the victim. This is pretty close to presenting something akin to DNA evidence for a chemical comparison. Know why that was not done? Probably not enough material in the coat to get the job done. Then, again, maybe they'll get around to doing that. To me, sounds like they nailed the right guy. No way was it a "professional hit." Professional hits aren't done in such a sloppy fashion with such shoddy gear. This sounds like what it was. A senseless killing done by a person with mental problems who had stalked his prey for several weeks, if not longer. We've had those over here several times. The John Lennon/Mark Chapman Case sounds almost exactly like this other one. Rebecca Schaefer and Robert Bardo is another case which sounds like the one in London. There are plenty of examples of celebrities being stalked and then killed by sick people. Until we learn to identify and properly treat such ill people we're going to have innocent people killed. With knifes and clubs if not with guns. |
Author: R Court
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 04:00 am | | Hi Carl,
Spectroscopic analysis, if correctly done, can indeed detect minute traces of elements and give a complete comparitive result of two specimen. Unlike DNA, however, it can't identify biological issues. It can only detect physical elements contained in a specimen and indicate the percent present. Bullets produced on the same line, in the same lot and in the same package would spectrally show little difference in powder residue.
I agree with your observations about the matter, I too can only assume it to be the act of a sick mind. There are simply too many cases of such murders to ignore this solution.
Best regards,
Bob |
Author: Bob Hinton
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 02:43 pm | | Dear Carl
I'm afraid I must totally disagree with you here. You say "No way was it a professional hit, Professional hits aren't done in such a sloppy fashion with such shoddy gear" Really. Let me recap:
1. No one saw the killer
2. No one saw the crime
3. No one saw the killer arrive at the area or leave.
4. No forensic evidence was found at the crime or scene or later on the suspect.
5. No weapon was ever identified or found.
6. No suspect was arrested shortly afterwards.
7. No evidence was ever found linking anyone to the crime.
8. No vehicles, tools, weapons, ammunition or anything else was ever found linking anyone with the crime.
9. The crime was comitted in broad daylight.
10. The victim was killed with a single shot.
and finally
no one was ever convicted by twelve good men and true!
If this was an amateur hit I can't wait to see a professional one!
In the words of Major Peter Mead an army ballistics and terrorist expert (talking about the shooting)
"It is difficult to imagine how it could have been bettered"
as for the weapon being described as shoddy gear I don't understand. The weapon needed to be able to fire a single round into someones brain with the intention of killing them - it did just that! Where I come from things that do what they are supposed to are not shoddy!
Now let us look at the 'burnt powder' evidence. The residue found on the coat was not powder residue, but a microscopic flake of primer residue. Dont forget it was found after the coat had been photographed in the very studio where a few weeks before a firearm and ammunition seized in another crime had been photographed. The coat had been removed from its sealed package to be photographed BEFORE handing it to forensics who found the trace. There was also a gap of about 12 months between the crime being committed and the coat being examined.
The fact that the residue was primer residue, fulimnate of mercury, is very important. Not only is this the same substance found in some fireworks, but it comes from the interior of a FIRED case. In other words to get the residue on the inside of your pocket the fired cartridge case has to be placed in the pocket - but the fired case was found at the scene. So where did it come from?
Your comments about the John Lennon/ Rebecca Schaefer cases also bolster my case whilst weakening yours. Yes stalkers have been known to kill the people they are fixated on but they do so in a certain way. Usually they do so in the bloodiest fashion possible - usually using a knife or axe or some such instrument. When they use a firearm they usually empty the gun, Lennon was shot five times and Schaefer six I believe. But the most important thing is the mental state of the stalker.
The stalker is always right - the victim is always wrong. There is nothing wrong in killing the victim which is why most stalker/killers are arrested at the scene and make no attempt to hide their crime. Chapman sat down and waited to be arrested, Bardo made no attempt to escape. In the famous Stalking Laura case the killer after shooting down thirty odd people genuinely couldn't understand why he was being arrested.
Whoever shot Miss Dando certainly didn't wait around to be arrested.
all the best
Bob Hinton |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 03:04 pm | | It was definitely a ' hit ' , but I'm not convinced by suggestions it was carried out by Arkan or his Serbian terrorists.
Firstly , its a question of priority. Jill Dando may have been the top female presenter at the BBC , but apart from making a lot of fans feel upset and causing security to be tightened around other BBC presenters , what did this achieve ? Nothing , absolutely nothing as far as I can see.
Jill Dando's death brought no concrete gains to the Serbs. There were plenty of better targets who could have been killed.
Usually , an assassination is carried out against an enemy to prevent them causing you ( or your side ) harm , or to silence someone who knows too much : surely this doesn't apply in Jill's case ? I think we need to look much more closely at who had a motive for this crime , maybe some connection to her upcoming wedding. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 04:54 pm | | | Bob,In relation to the Dando murder you wrote that no one was convicted by twelve men good and true. As far as I am aware the suspect was found guilty by a jury. Am I wrong ? |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 05:10 pm | | "Cutting Edge", Channel Four, 9.00PM. Next Monday..."No Clue. No Evidence. No Proof :Barry George."
Should be interesting.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 05:16 pm | | I think it was a majority verdict , 11-1 Ivor.
Theres a Cutting Edge special on Channel 4 , Monday 19th August at 9pm , about the case asking whether Barry George really did kill Jill Dando.
If George did kill her , I feel its because he had a crush on her and her upcoming marriage would have made her inaccessible to him. He may have been a bit strange mentally , but I reckon he was capable of planning a hit SAS-style and executing it with a single bullet.
Having now seen a picture of what I think is Jill's house , the door was on the right hand side with a tan-coloured tiled step and a bay window to the left of it. The front garden was very small and it must have been only 3-4 feet from the garden gate to the door : anyone hiding in the front garden behind the hedge would have been seen as soon as someone opened the gate.
The killer had to come across to the gate , open it , walk up behind Miss Dando , and then force her to the ground. |
Author: Bob Hinton
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 06:47 pm | | Dear Ivor,
Perhaps I should have explained about the jury. The jury was originally twelve people, one dropped out through illness and the final verdict was a majority of 10 to 1.
Now I don't know how you feel about that but when you start getting down to a murder jury with only 10 votes for conviction I think we should start looking at a mis-trial.
I have some phots of Miss Dando's house from the investigation I carried out, I'll try and put them on.
Bob Hinton |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Monday, 12 August 2002 - 09:42 pm | | Simon,Rose, and Bob.
Thanks for the information. |
Author: R Court
Tuesday, 13 August 2002 - 06:25 am | | Hi all,
I know almost nothing about this case and therefore have almost nothing to add to it except the remark that if the modern police, with all their capability and forensic science, can't prove beyond any doubt about George, one way or the other, what chance did Abberline have in 1888?
Talking of SAS, as I was young there was a clown living not far away from us who liked dressing up in army-style dress and go strutting about doing he-man poses. He eventually got arrested and questioned. He claimed to be a member of the SAS but enquiries by that body were unfruitfull. He then claimed that he was a member of the SAS but so top-secret, nobody knew. Most releveant point about that is that he was evidently so top-secret, he didn't even know it himself.
Best regards,
Bob |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 13 August 2002 - 04:36 pm | | Good to see this discussion still alive, even if Jill Dando isn't.
I agree with virtually everything that Bob Hinton has had to say and I think that Bob Court makes a fair observation with his comparison between modern day forensic capabilities and those available to Abberline.
If I may direct this part of my post to Bob Court in particular - the part of the case that you have highlighted is what really worries me - that the police couldn't find forensic evidence.
I believe that the strand of fibre and the powder residue were only said to be similar - that proves nothing of course.
Doesn't the phrase "reasonable doubt" mean anything to anyone?
Peter. |
Author: Carl Dodd
Wednesday, 14 August 2002 - 01:24 am | | Dear Bob,
I still say that it was not a professional hit. I do think that there was a lot of luck on the suspect's part. Do you know if there will be any attempt to chemically test the residue found on the coat against any found on the victim to get a good spectrographic analysis comparison? That would clinch it for sure. The thing is the cost factors involved in running such tests. Can they afford it? Probably. As for residue being on clothing, I have no doubts that most of my regular clothing, even after repeated washings, has gunpowder residue on them. Actually, it would be modern firearms propellant residue. Gunpowder isn't really used any more. The new stuff is better. I go shooting, in the summertime, about 2 or 3 times a month. I went 2 times last week. I end up shooting all sorts of guns where I live. Pistols, rifles, carbines, shotguns and even some exotic stuff like H&K MP-5 submachineguns are things that I've shot in the last 2 years or so. There are, to my way of thinking, several very important items which tells me that this was not a professional hit. #1. Is it true that a "9mm short" was used to kill the victim? Over here that equates to a 9 by 17, a .380 acp cartridge, a 9mm kurtz or a 9mm short. If so, that has to be one of the lousiest rounds to even think about using in as an assassination tool. There are a whole range of .22 long rifle bullets and magnum bullets that would be more effective, quieter and easier to use. Over here, 9mm subsonic hollowpoint bullets are the best ones to use for killing more effectively. Using a 9mm short is the ballistic equivalent of trying to pull a hit and run on a mini-cycle. I guess that you could hit and kill a person with a mini-cycle but it has to be done just right. Maybe that is what happened here with Jill Dando. #2. An experienced killer or professional hit man will not leave a dead body laying around to be found. Such people tend to make their victims "disappear" for a variety of reasons. First, if a person completely disappears then their body can't be used for evidence purposes. Second, a decent attorney can create a scenario for trial purposes where the missing person MIGHT NOT be dead but went into hiding for any number of reasons. Reasonable doubt then forces a judge or jury to let the probable killer off. Third, by hiding the body you are actually reducing the chances of the murder being detected at all. If no murder was detected at the outset, then the police have no reason to investigate anything until it becomes a missing persons case. Fourth, by hiding the body you buy yourself more time to establish an alibi, get out of the area and to cause confusion about when the victim actually died. With this part, if you can lengthen the distance, in time from when the actual murder occurred, you create more confusion for the police investigators, any jury members and for your own attorney to use to your advantage. If you want examples of this, check out the cases involving Judge Crater of New York and Jimmy Hoffa. Those are excellent examples of PERFECT HITS...IF THEY ARE HITS. We still don't know for sure either way but those men are gone. #3. Professional killers don't have to ALWAYS use guns. Most killers analyze their targets, best location for the scene of the attack and their best choice of weapons. Using a firearm in daylight, in Britain, shows that it wasn't a really professional hit. It would be smarter to use a car with stolen license plates, in the daytime, to hit and run over somebody then use a firearm. Using such an attack would fit into the locale in a better fashion. If nothing else, it might not work, but you could claim that the death of the victim was a "tragic motor vehicle accident" and not a cold-blooded killing. Get back to me and let me know what you think, Bob. I'm very curious about this case and various opinions. |
Author: Bob Hinton
Wednesday, 14 August 2002 - 03:52 am | | Dear Carl,
The round used was a 9mm short, and to my way of thinking thats highly significant. I agree with what you say about the potency of such a round, I used to use as a back up weapon a Bernadelli VP70 .22. Firing a ultra hi velocity hollow nose .22lr the rounds used to trundle down the barrel faster than a .44 magnum and make a hole the size of a .38!
However you are missing the point. In England it is very difficult to get hold of firearms without leaving a trail. Sure you can go and buy one from the man in the pub but with someone offering million pound rewards for information how long is it likely Mr Pub man is going to stay silent?
The 9mm short was a perfect weapon. You can buy the particular type of pistol over the counter or mail order deactivated with absolutely no problems.
The ammunition can be made using reloading equipment which at the time required no licence to purchase. (yes folks Britsh gun laws means if you wish to buy a single round of 9mm ammuntion you need you need licences and permits - if you want to buy the equipment to make a million rounds of ammuntion - including powder, primer, cases and bullets you needed nothing! I believe they may have tightened up on that now)
It would have been easier for the killer to have manufactured his own 9mm short ammunition than try and buy a round of .22. The pistol had to be a 9mm short because that was the easiest to reactivate - all that was needed was a piece of tubing and bingo.
I really can't agree with you about professional killers always hiding the bodies - I have filing cabinets full of photographs of mafia dons slumped in barber chairs, behind the wheel of their cars or at restaurant tables - you're not suggesting that these were all fatal and messy heart attacks are your?
As for running someone over with a car, I'm sorry but that's ludicrous. First of all you have to steal the car, which entails the chance of you being stopped, then you have to avoid all the cctv cameras springing up all over the place, then you have to get your victim in the middle of the road and so on . A more amateurish method of killing someone I can't concieve.
The fact is this murder was carried out with all the points I have previously mentioned - and like I say if thats sloppy I cant wait to see professional!
all the best
Bob Hinton |
Author: Caroline Morris
Wednesday, 14 August 2002 - 11:48 am | | Hi All,
If it was a professional hit, whether people think it was sloppy or otherwise, it worked just fine. It would have been a bonus that the victim was a beautiful woman in the media spotlight - almost inevitable, in the absence of anything else turning up, that the police would eventually find and focus on some highly unsavoury character with a past, who could be said to be obsessed with Jill, a man the public would be relieved to see locked away. And that, after all, is exactly what happened. What some would like to be more confident about, despite the verdict of jury and appeal, is that the person who wanted Jill dead is not still at liberty.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 14 August 2002 - 01:03 pm | | If it was a hit , as it almost certainly was , who did the hit then ? 
Surely not Serbian terrorists in revenge for their TV station being blown up ? |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Wednesday, 14 August 2002 - 06:44 pm | | Dear Caroline,
How frightening! You begin to sound like a gangster's moll, sweetheart. Can I be in your gang?
Rosey :-) |
Author: Carl Dodd
Thursday, 15 August 2002 - 02:28 am | | Bob,
Over here vehicles are often used to kill other people. Right now a woman in Texas, a doctor, is charged with murdering her husband. She caught the husband cheating on her with another woman, confronted him and then used her car to run him down after the confrontation in front of numerous people. She ran over him 3 times and claims that it was "an accident." Hmmm. Sound familiar? The only trouble she's really going to have in court is the fact that she ran over him 3 times and it was all caught on videotape... I agree with you. Using a vehicle to kill a person is totally ludicrous. Couldn't happen in a million years. But then again, there is woman doctor in Texas facing the death penalty for being ludicrous...Think of a car as a giant impact weapon, like a baton, truncheon or stick, but it's mounted on wheels and has more force behind it. By the way, the woman doctor had to WAIT for her husband to come out of a hotel before she could "accidentally" run him over. Sort of like a hasty ambush with a car.
As for the cctv's, how good did they work to help identify or catch Jill Dando's killer? Were there even any in the area where she was killed? How about private security cameras in the area?
As to photos of dead mobsters in barbers' chairs, that is all old news. As a nation, we're getting serial killers and professional killers who are making their victims totally disappear.
Henry Lee Lucas admitted to killing hundreds of people and then hiding their bodies. Granted, Lucas was probably lying and inflating his kill number but it had to be looked at which tied up all sorts of police officers and gave Lucas a stall for time.
In the area where I live we've had 3 men arrested, tried and convicted for murder. It is thought that there are over a dozen of their victims, among the 3 killers, that still have NOT been found. The stats of murders involving these guys read like the back of a baseball card.
Grand total of known dead: 4 people. Suspected of killing: at least 18. That means there are at least 14 people, all women, who have disappeared and can't be located. Some of these women were older and left families behind who still agonize over their missing relatives.
I don't know, Bob. Maybe I'm becoming too jaded about modern killers. I guess I expect them to do certain or more things than other people.
As to the police picking a convenient scapegoat, if that was true why didn't the police do that for Jack the Ripper? There are so many murders which remain unsolved for one reason or another. To just pick a suspect and then charge him is not the way honest cops work. Sure, there are some cases where bad cops do that but most cops work with what's in front of them.
I don't see any group of cops opening the phone book to a random page, picking out a name and then making a murder case against that guy they've picked. If they did that, then anybody with their names listed in the book could get hurt. Let's go to the letter "H" and pick somebody. Looks like we have a winner named... Hard to read... Hmmm. Hinton. Anybody know a Bob Hinton? That sort of thing in a high profile case wouldn't be a smart thing to do. |
Author: Bob Hinton
Thursday, 15 August 2002 - 03:34 am | | Dear Carl,
Again you make my point for me better than I could. The case you describe, The Texas doctor, was not a professional hit was it? Judging by the amount of times she ran over the victim it could almost be called a crime of passion - and she was quickly caught wasn't she? and there were plenty of witnesses and forensics wasn't there?
The point about cctv cameras is this. If you pick up a man on cctv how can you tie that in to the crime? If you pick up a stolen car (identified by plates) and then match your forensic with that car then you have your link.
If you are stopped for some traffic violation driving a stolen car what is your excuse? You see when you tie yourself to something readily identifiable as a car you are leaving a trail. Killers don't like leaving trails.
And as for police picking on someone well.. I personally don't believe it's down to wickedness - just plain incompetence.
We have a case at the moment involving two missing girls - the police seem ( I say seem) to be spending more time at press conferences than doing their job!
Bob |
Author: Caroline Morris
Tuesday, 20 August 2002 - 07:49 am | | Hi All,
Did anyone see the Ch4 documentary last night?
I did, and I have to say Barry George's conviction was made to look very shaky indeed.
According to the medics who examined him, and people who know him or have had dealings with him, George is a slow man with learning difficulties and poor co-ordination, lacking in manual dexterity and basic mechanical know-how. He used to call on 'Bicycle Repair Man' for simple jobs like fixing a rear light or dealing with a puncture.
George is not thought to have had the capability to re-activate a de-activated weapon, or the social skills and contacts to get someone else to do it for him, let alone be organised and cool enough to plan and execute Jill's murder and then remain at large for so long after the event. One acquaintance imagined that if George had done anything like that he would probably have loitered at the scene then gone off casually to the pub afterwards, not even realising his shirt might be covered in blood and would need to be changed and quickly!
On top of that, the eyewitness who managed to pick George out of a line-up well over a year after the murder (and on whose identification the prosecution leaned heavily) had described the man she saw near the crime scene as having long hair. Yet George's barber for five years said he came in regularly to have his short hair kept that way in the style of his idol, Freddie Mercury. Others, when asked, laughed and confirmed emphatically that George had short hair. Whoever the witness had seen, it couldn't have been George, unless she made a pretty glaring error in her initial description of him. Either way, this detail should have rendered her later identification unreliable if not worthless.
On the basis of last night's programme, I'd say there's not much to choose between the likelihood of Barry George being solely responsible for the murder of Jill Dando, and Mike Barrett for forging the Maybrick Diary!
But then, since when have people worried about loose ends just so long as they have at least one suspicious character to play with?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Bob Hinton
Tuesday, 20 August 2002 - 08:48 am | | Dear Caz,
I watched the programme last night as I have an interest in the case. I must admit it echoed my feelings pretty accurately.
I still cannot understand upon what evidence he was convicted. I spoke to a crime correspondent of one of the major newspapers and he said he was so sure he would be acquitted he was down the pub when the verdict came in!
I do think that the programme last night did make a major error in insisting on showing (repeatedly) a pistol which was totally the wrong
type. I think this blunder that was created during the initial enquiry did irreperable harm to the chances of getting anywhere.
Anyone who might have had information about the real type of murder weapon would not have come forward.
Bob Hinton |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 20 August 2002 - 11:23 am | | Dear Caroline and Bob,
Do I sense a collaborative book effort here? Now he must appeal to the House of Lords, then to Europe...it could be some years before the truth is known. Mr Hinton is a keen sleuth...ask the editor of the Bakewell Courier/Gazette, the Case of the Graveyard Killer.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Ashleah Skinner
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 03:01 pm | | | In my opinion Barry is innocent but 2 days after the crime Barry became under the attention of Police, a year later a witness and another year a convicted murderer |
|
|
|
|
