Jill Dando homicide witness says ‘I locked eyes with killer and noticed him on CCTV’
The witness said this week that, although she was pleased police would now review CCTV footage from Jill Dando’s murder, she felt investigators ‘should have done it in the first place’
A witness who remains certain she spotted Jill Dando’s killer fleeing the scene has praised the Met’s choice to examine CCTV footage of a potential suspect.
She’s adamant she made eye contact with Serbian assassin Milorad Ulemek close to where the Crimewatch presenter, 37, was gunned down outside her residence in 1999. The witness insists she would identify him again, declaring: “I’m not good with names but I’m really good with faces.”
The woman, now working as a carer in her 40s, informed officers the day following the fatal attack that the individual, dressed in a suit, shirt and tie, appeared visibly shocked.
A month afterwards, she identified him from CCTV material. This suspect, who remains at large, bears a striking resemblance to Ulemek, who was photographed sporting a tie identical to the one worn by “Man X” in the footage.
Responding to reports that the Met is reviewing our discoveries, she commented: “It is good that they are but they should have done it in the first place. They’ve had it the entire time. I’m positive the man I saw in the CCTV was the man I saw running, they were definitely one and the same person.”
The CCTV was captured at Putney Bridge tube station in South West London, roughly a mile from Jill’s Fulham residence, around midday on April 26, 1999 – thirty minutes following Jill’s shooting, reports the Mirror. It’s located near Putney Bridge bus stop, where an individual matching a police e-fit dubbed “sweating man” was last observed.
However, the Met never made the CCTV image public. The woman was one of four witnesses who reported seeing a man in a suit sprinting down Fulham Palace Road towards the tube station.
Detectives noted that he matched the description of the “sweating man” who disembarked from the 74 bus at Putney Bridge. Jill’s neighbour, Richard Hughes, who spotted the gunman possibly holding a mobile phone, said he “looked like” an e-fit produced by the female motorist.
Geoffrey Upfillbrown, who resided across the road from Jill and also witnessed the killer, stated it looked “similar”. The woman was heading north on Fulham Palace Road when she noticed a man running: “He was really motoring, nobody would have caught him.
“He looked straight at me. He seemed startled.”
She described his dark brown hair as being about 2in long with a parting on the left, he was slim, in his 30s, “quite good looking”, and about 5ft 11in. Ulemek, who was 31 at the time, had a similar height and build.
The woman was asked to examine CCTV stills from Putney Bridge tube station taken on May 24, 1999, showing passengers passing through the ticket barriers. She recalled: “The guy looked like he had a travel card or something, put it in, walked through the barrier, walked about three steps maybe, stopped dead, looked straight up at the CCTV camera and walked straight back out of the tube station.”
She described it as: “Very strange behaviour. Why would you do that?
“It was very unusual behaviour that made him stand out. I was virtually jumping up and down saying to the officer: ‘Oh my God, did you see that?’
“But there was no response, he didn’t seem interested.”
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