Jill Dando was born in Weston-super-Mare, and was educated at Worle Comprehensive School and Broadoak Sixth Form Centre. She studied journalism at South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education in Wales.Dando's first job was as a trainee reporter for the local newspaper, the Weston Mercury. After five years as a print journalist, Dando began employment with the British Broadcasting Corporation when she became a newsreader for BBC Radio Devon in 1985. She transferred to BBC Television South West in 1985, where she presented a regional news magazine programme, Spotlight South West. In 1986, Dando made a move from regional to national television when she moved to London in 1986 to present the hourly, daytime, tv news summaries.Dando went on to present the BBC television programmes Breakfast News, the Six O'Clock News, the travel programme Holiday, and occasionally Songs of Praise. At the time of her death she was one of the highest-profile of the organisations on-screen staff; she had previously been BBC personality of the year. Another of the programmes she presented, Crimewatch, would later reconstruct her murder to aid the police in the search for her killer.At the time of her death, Dando had presented just one episode of her new project: Antiques Detectives, and was featured on the cover of that week's Radio Times. On the morning of April 26, 1999, Jill Dando left the home of her fiancé, Alan Farthing, and returned to her house in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, West London. As she reached her front door at about 11.30 a.m., she was shot in the side of the head at close range with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.Her body was discovered shortly afterwards by a friend, and she was taken to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at 13.03 BST. She was 37 years old .