This unemotional, professional murder

A CAR crash, a cancer, even suicide would seem more believable than the actual way in which Jill Dando met her end. Yet its precise manner may help to identify the perpetrator. It leads me to the reluctant supposition that sex will ultimately prove to be at the heart of the matter.

How many murders would you say there were in England and Wales in 1996?

How many of the victims were female? What proportion of these women were shot? The answers are surprising. Just 637 people were recorded as having been the victims of homicide. Of these, a mere 217 were female of whom only four per cent were shot. In short, Dando's death was an incredibly rare event in every particular. An even closer look at the facts helps us to zero in still further. Only 14 per cent of female homicides are done by people the woman has never met. This makes it unlikely that Dando simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What is more, only six per cent of homicides are done for profit - botched muggings or ruthless armed robbers going about their business. She would have been terribly unlucky to have wandered into the path of such a desperado at lunchtime in affluent West London. So what does the method tell us, if it was not to do with robbery? A quarter of homicides of females are done by knives, another quarter by strangling. A further 10 per cent each entail bludgeoning with a blunt instrument or hitting and kicking. That it entailed the almost unheard of use of a gun and that only one bullet was fired, seemingly aimed with knowing care at the back of the head, suggests this is no wild shooting. It implies fore- planning and a cool execution - an act driven by passion would entail several angry shots. All this suggests a professional. Yet the killing took place in the middle of the day in broad daylight in the street. What kind of a hit man chooses such a risky procedure? Wait for dark at least, surely do it in the home or from a moving car. WHAT is more, only three per cent of homicides are the result of gang w a r f a r e , feuds and suchlike and anyway, why on earth would a hoodlum decide to have Dando killed? It has been proposed that her role in presenting BBC1's Crimewatch programme could have been instrumental in the imprisonment of a criminal who bore her a grudge. But as someone who has interviewed over 150 men convicted of violence, I find this frankly implausible. Yes, some violent men are malicious and thoroughly unpleasant (although by no means all - one third of men convicted of homicide are so filled with remorse that they subsequently kill themselves) but if they have been sent to prison, they are not mad. I have not met one who I could imagine seriously arranging the killing of a TV personality just for making an appeal for the information which led to their arrest. Violent men tend to be paranoid, impulsive and angry but they are not so stupid that they would plan the death of Dando rather than the man who grassed them up. The other main theory, also on the assumption that the killer was a stranger, is that he was a stalker. This seems plausible until you ask yourself when such a thing last happened. The answer is that in this country, it did not, has never done. No public figure in Britain has been stalked and then murdered. You have to go to the United States to find examples of that and even then the surprising fact is that there has been just one: John Lennon. Apart from him (excluding presidents) there was Andy Warhol but he survived the attack. After that you are clutching at obscure cases, like the stabbing of the actress Theresa Soldana and the shooting of the father of the actor who played Bobby Ewing in Dallas. In short, even in the most violent developed nation on earth there is only one real example of a major figure being the object of a stalker killing. In this country, if it has happened to Dando, it is the first time. So, if it was not a passing mugger or bank robber, not a revengeful imprisoned victim of a Crimewatch appeal and not a stalker, who on earth could it have been? The statistics of murder provide another powerful clue, one that the police usually take as their starting point where murdered attractive women are concerned: l'amour. Fully 44 per cent of murdered females are killed by a former lover or by a spouse: a sexual relationship that has gone wrong is by far the greatest reason why women get murdered. Just how powerful a motive this is for men becomes clear when you consider the reverse, the proportion of men murdered by their female spouse or lover: a mere six per cent. When it comes to murder, far and away the greatest risk to a woman is any man she has had a sexual relationship with. We know that Dando's killer was smartly dressed probably of her class, the kind she might have had a relationship with in the past. Was he a man who had courted her unsuccessfully? Her forthcoming and highly publicised marriage could have flipped him over the edge: "If I cannot have her then no one will" is a common thought process in such circumstances. If so, there is a high probability that the man will have killed himself because homicide and suicide are closely linked. The aggression directed outwards can so easily be turned against the self. THAT it was someone who yearned to be romantically involved is, I believe, the most likely explanation. But there is one fact which contradicts this interpretation: the murder seems to have been done unemotionally and professionally. A man who was filled with pain and anger would be unlikely to be so detached (although it is not inconceivable - sometimes violent acts against self or other are preceded by a depersonalised calm). Is it possible that this was a professional hit after all, but that it was commissioned not as a revenge for a Crime-watch programme but by a man who felt an obsessive need to have her attentions? Whatever the reasons for this tragedy, it has brought home to us all just how much we appreciated the breezy innocence of Jill Dando. P Oliver James`s psychoanalysis of New Britain on the Couch can be seen on Channel 4 on the weekend of 8 and 9 May at 8pm

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