Like Diana, she had an appeal that captivated Middle England

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The news seemed so unlikely that at first many assumed it was a sick joke. No one could quite accept that Jill Dando, the sunny, wholesome presenter of BBC1's Crimewatch, had been murdered.

What made it especially hard to accept was Ms Dando's public persona. Girl-next-door, English rose, fresh-faced, darling of Middle England – all such clichés were used to describe the pure, Julie Andrews-style image of a woman who idolised Cliff Richard as a teenager and became his good friend when she was famous.

And yet Ms Dando had been coldly and calculatingly dispatched. The flowers for the woman one fan called "the nation's sweetheart" began to pile up outside her home within hours of the first newsflashes, and people queued in their thousands to sign a book of condolences at the BBC's headquarters in west London. A record 11 million viewers watched the BBC Six O'Clock News on the evening she died, double the average audience.

With no obvious suspect or motive, the hunt for her killer was wide open. There were reports at the time that detectives found Ms Dando's image something of a hindrance. She was not some 17-year-old ingénue but a successful, worldly 37-year-old who before she became engaged to Alan Farthing, just eight months before her death, had done her fair share of searching for love.

Detectives faced the delicate task of investigating a private life probably no juicier than those of most attractive women of Ms Dando's age and circumstances, but about which she, perhaps with her image in mind, had been very discreet. Every boyfriend she had – from producer Bob Wheaton, with whom she was involved for six years in the early Nineties, to Simon Basil, the South African game ranger she dated before Mr Farthing – had to be checked out by police.

Jill Dando was born in Weston-super-Mare in 1961. She arrived with a hole in the heart and as a child went through surgery before a clean bill of health when she was 10. Perhaps she got her taste for journalism from her father Jack, now 83, who was a compositor on the Weston and Somerset Mercury. She and her brother Nigel, 10 years her senior, both joined the Mercury.

Ms Dando became a junior reporter after her A-levels. Then she moved to presenting on BBC Radio Devon before switching to television, first as a co-presenter on the BBC's Spotlight South West and in 1988 as co-presenter of BBC1 Breakfast News when she moved to London at the age of 26. Her profile increased as regular presenters Sally Magnusson and Kirsty Wark left the programme on maternity leave. Jill's mother, Jean, missed most of her rise. She died of leukaemia when Ms Dando was 24.

She was refreshingly blunt about her public appeal, having learnt the power of appearance early on. She said she was a "rather ugly little girl with canine teeth, glasses and an extremely old-fashioned dress sense". At school they called her "Dandelion" because she was so tall and skinny. But, at 17, she transformed herself with a perm and contact lenses, and was astounded when the "heart-throb" at the local church youth club (she was a lifelong committed Christian) asked her out.

When she became famous, she was voted the woman most men would like to have dinner with, or join on holiday. She described herself more as "girl-next-door" than "telly totty" (her sexy, leather-clad front cover for the Radio Times the week she died was atypical) and was surprised people put her on a pedestal. She summed up her place in the public's affections well when she said she thought most people would be happy to leave their door key with her if they went on holiday.

She was equally unimpressed by the fuss that surrounded her ever-increasing popularity with the British public. Asked what she made of the nation's appetite for her work, she said: "I sometimes wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and think 'Why me?'"

Nonetheless, success had its rewards. Having caught the eye of BBC executives with her work on BBC Breakfast Time and the corporation's Holiday programme, within six years of her move to London, the girl from Weston-super-Mare had hit the big time.

In 1994, she became a presenter on BBC1's main early evening news bulletin, the Six O'Clock News, propelling her into the nation's sitting rooms as never before.

By 1995, Dando had added the monthly Crimewatch on BBC1 to her portfolio of appearances, teaming up with Nick Ross after his co-presenter Sue Cook decided to quit. The new presenter, with her authoritative but compassionate air, proved a success with viewers. It was partly her association with dealing with "injustice" that led to her being chosen to front a television appeal for aid to Kosovan refugees in 1998 – an appearance which led police to investigate whether her murder had been ordered by the Serbian warlord Arkan.

Dando's numerous TV roles were sufficient to rapidly earn her a six-figure salary, estimated by some to be in excess of £500,000 over two years at the time of her death. Research by marketing agencies at the time showed her to be one of the best-known – and best-liked – faces on screen.

Speaking after her murder, Nick Ross, who has now presented Crimewatch for nearly 17 years, said: "People wanted to talk to me about her, but I see that as a stunning tribute to Jill.

"The sensitivity that most people showed was enormous. They all wanted to say just how sorry they were that she had been killed."

According to Ross and others who knew her, that is what shone out about Dando – the fact that most people felt they could approach her and not be overwhelmed by star quality.

One colleague who knew her both in the South-west and London said: "Most trainee reporters are given a piece of advice about how a journalist should tell a story – as if you were relating it to someone in a pub. Jill lived her life like that. She wouldn't take on airs and graces in anything much. She was always talking to that bloke down the pub."

Though she could not fail to have been more complicated than the woman who appeared on the TV screen, her colleagues say her public image was far closer to the real person than is the case with other celebrities.

In life, as on screen, they say, there was no side to her. Nigel Dando described his little sister as "an all-round good egg". The saddest thing for Jill Dando's friends and family is that she never got the chance to throw herself into her personal life the way she had planned to after marriage.

Meeting Alan Farthing had changed her. Her previous relationships had failed, at least in part, because of her hectic work schedule. When she and Mr Farthing, then separated from his wife, were introduced through a matchmaking friend, the relationship developed quickly. Their first dinner date was 23 November, 1997 and by December they were on holiday together in Australia. Their friends say it was clear very quickly that they had fallen in love. Mr Farthing was divorced in November 1998 and two months later the couple announced their engagement.

When Ms Dando died she had already given up presenting the Holiday programme to spend more time with Mr Farthing. She had always wanted children and she regarded the marriage as the "biggest milestone" of her life. She was killed five months before the planned September wedding.