Arm chair sleuths are in for a treat as This Morning has just launched a new true crime series.
The new regular feature is fronted by investigator Mark Williams-Thomas – the canny man who uncovered the Jimmy Savile scandal – who will look into unsolved cases and attempt to find new leads.
And today he kicked off the series by uncovering a series of brand new leads into the the shocking murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.
You may remember the popular TV personality was gunned down on her doorstep in Fulham in 1999.
Barry George was charged and imprisoned for her murder but was acquitted eight years later, leaving the case unsolved
But Mark has revealed that he has managed to speak to a key witness who actually stumbled across a lifeless Jill on her porch the day she died.
She told him: “I was walking up her road and I suddenly saw her car and made a point of deliberately looking at her door, and in one step everything changed… because I saw the most horrific scene. I realised it was Jill.
“She was lying in a very strange position, and there was blood, and at first I thought she’d been stabbed or attacked in some way.
“Her hands were very blue… and the way she looked I just knew she was dead.”
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Mark also pointed out that he was interested in the use of offender profiles at the time, which focus on types of offender rather than an individual to help police find the perpetrator.
Despite having two profiles commissioned before his arrest, police commissioned a third AFTER Barry George was arrested.
Mark is curious as to why a third offender profile was undertaken which solely focused on George. And why when his legal team asked to see the profiles, the CPS denied they existed.
He also reveals that six months before Barry George’s trial, police investigating the case received info naming two individuals thought to be linked to the murder and that the gun used to kill Jill Dando had been broken up and thrown into the local canal.
Mark wonders why this information was never followed up at the time.
He went on to reveal that during his review of the case, he has seen a list of over 100 potential suspects that were never followed up and actually tracked down one of the men on the list who agreed to chat to him anonymously for This Morning.
“Certainly someone professional killed her,” the man revealed, adding that one name stood out to him on the list, but he was too worried to identify him because “it’s very dangerous”.
He admitted that he was still fearful that the person or someone related to him would come after him.
Mark told Phil and Holly that he had never reviewed a case where so much information hadn’t been followed up.
“And the reason being is that the police prosecuted Barry George and the information came in prior to the trial after his arrest, and continued to come in afterwards, but none of that was followed up,” he explained.
“But what now needs to happen is that someone needs to look, in relation to that evidence, and start to investigate some of it.”
He added: “There are eleven unidentified people still unaccounted for in the locality, there are over 100 potential suspects, there is other information naming people and specifically information on how this crime was carried out.”
Mark revealed that he understands police are interested in reopening the case and offered them some canny advice.
“I would go back over the file, get a cold case team looking at it, start to do those inquiries that we’re never followed up,” he said.
“Crucially Barry George was fully acquitted – so it’s now an unsolved case, so let’s look at this again with a fresh pair of eyes.
“Dredge that canal, let’s look at it – and that’s one [piece of evidence], there are another five or six specific pieces of enquiry in there that should be closed down.”