In the UK one of the most famous murder cases of the last decade was the shooting of Scorpio television personality Jill Dando. Pretty and popular, she presented a number of TV programs, including Crimewatch – a program where the public can help the police solve crimes. On April 26 1999 someone accosted her outside the front door of her house, made her kneel down, and shot her in the head. The bullet had been modified, and it seemed to be a professional killing.
A year later, the police made an arrest. The man in question was an Aries called Barry George. He was by all accounts a fantasist, who was obsessed with celebrity and had a track record of stalking and sometimes assaulting women. He also had fantasies about the military, and was once found by police hiding in a London park, close to a royal residence, wearing camouflage and carrying a knife.
It would appear that after Jill Dando’s murder, the police went on a fishing trip, and found someone whose profile had a good enough fit. They were helped by the fact that he lived very close to the victim.
His conviction for murder was strange. He didn’t seem to have the capability to commit the crime he was accused of, and I think that most people in Britain thought a mistake had been made. Justice wasn’t done, and neither was it seen to be done. So it was hardly surprising that after a retrial he was exonerated. A good thing that we don’t have the death penalty in Britain – I think if it had been the good old days of the 1950s he would have been hanged within a couple of months of his conviction.
Looking at Jill Dando’s horoscope – she was born on November 9 1961 – she has the Sun in Scorpio. Apologies for the jargon, but I would regard her Sun as being unaspected – except for a wide conjunction to Neptune. This means that the Sun, the powerhouse of the horoscope, was poorly integrated. So the Sun, symbol of the male principle, was brooding in the background, while on the surface things appeared very nice and very uncomplicated.
The sign Scorpio is often associated with crime – many Scorpios find criminality and the underworld fascinating. So at an unconscious level, Jill Dando’s presenting of Crimewatch might have been an attempt to get in touch with her Scorpio Sun. Yet she was potentially dealing with dark, chthonic forces, that were a far cry from her sunny, uncomplicated image. And one of the most popular theories for her killing was that a criminal, caught as a result of the Crimewatch program, wanted revenge. But whatever the motive, it would appear that the Sun in Scorpio manifested in the real world, as the assassin.
Interestingly, at the time of Jill Dando’s death there was a close conjunction between the Sun and Saturn, in Taurus; also Mars, the planet of aggression, was in Scorpio. Taurus and Scorpio are signs which are opposite to each other, so from the point of view of Sun-sign astrology this would have been a dangerous period for Scorpios.
Moving on to Barry George’s horoscope, and he was an Aries, born on April 15 1960. Like Jill Dando, his Aries Sun is unaspected. The Sun is a male planet, in a male horoscope, so Barry George wasn’t going to sweep its symbolism under the carpet. The typical Aries is looking for action, but sometimes this desire for action can be channelled into inappropriate areas. His past behaviour towards women, for example. Or the ‘action man’ image that he sometimes liked to cultivate. And the fact that his Sun is unaspected meant that he often found it difficult to direct his desire for action into anything wholesome or realistic.
The Sun aside, Barry George has Mars in Pisces, making an 120-degree aspect to Neptune in Scorpio. It’s probably this aspect that most points to a fantasist. Mars is the planet of assertion, and Neptune is the planet of make-belief. So it’s relatively easy for Barry George to slip into fantasy roles.
I think the closest aspect in his horoscope is another 120-degree aspect, between Jupiter and Pluto. This aspect often manifests as a powerful desire for self-improvement. And perhaps this was part of what motivated him. Aspiring to celebrity, fantasising about heroic roles. At one stage, he even changed his name to Paul Gadd, the real name of Gary Glitter; and he had claimed to be a relative of Freddie Mercury. Not to mention a claim that he had served with the SAS, Britain’s elite special forces regiment.
Yet the Jupiter-Pluto isn’t just about self-improvement. The astrologer Reinhold Ebertin described some of its negative manifestations as follows:
Loss of social standing and of one’s wealth, conflicts with the authorities and the executors of governmental power (arrest). The misfortune to lose everything.
Nonetheless fate has a strange way of working, and as a result of his arrest, conviction and acquittal Barry George has become a real-life celebrity.
(Note for experts: the question of aspects and orbs is a controversial one, and I tend to use a five degree orb. Jill Dando’s Sun-Neptune conjunction is well over this five-degree orb, likewise Barry George’s Sun-Saturn square. For conjunctions and oppositions between the traditional planets I tend to use a wider orb).
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