Wild, a 24-year-old British freelance cameraman who was working in Baghdad, died after an unidentified assailant approached him and shot him in the head at close range on a street near the city’s Natural History Museum.
Wild, who had previously worked at Britain’s ITN as a picture researcher, went to Iraq with aspirations of being a war reporter. Some press reports stated that Wild was not carrying a camera or wearing any clothing that would have identified him as a journalist at the time of the shooting. One of Wild’s colleagues in Baghdad, British TV producer Michael Burke, told newspapers that Wild was working on a story about looting at the museum. While some speculated that he may have been mistaken for a member of the U.S. military, the motive for the murder remains unclear. CPJ considers that Wild was killed in action while working.