Son speaks out on death
FOR 16 years Brodie Bailey has lived knowing the person who murdered his mother is still out there.
When he was six years old, his mum Tarmara Smith, 24, (pictured) was sexually assaulted, strangled and had her wrist cut on Easter Sunday 2002 while walking home from a night out in Toowoomba.
Brodie intends to write to the State Coroner requesting an inquest into his mother’s death.
FOR 16 years Brodie Bailey has lived knowing the person who murdered his mother is still out there.
When he was six years old, his mum Tarmara Smith, 24, was sexually assaulted with a beer bottle, strangled and had her wrist cut on Easter Sunday 2002 while walking home from a night out.
A resident who had heard screaming the night before found her body tied to a tree on Isabel St in Toowoomba’s west, metres from where she was last seen alive.
Her killing was described as a heinous public display of cruelty.
Tarmara’s ex-boyfriend, Paul Thomas Templeton, was charged with her murder and eventually convicted. But it was overturned on appeal in 2004.
For the first time, Brodie, 22, has revealed how Templeton threatened and attacked his mother multiple times in the weeks before her murder.
The Adelaide resident says he never gave the information to police at the time and believes a coronial inquest could give his family the answers they desperately seek.
“(Templeton) was incredibly aggressive,” Brodie said.
“Obviously, I didn’t have a say in court, but I have memories of having to leave home in the middle of the night because he was throwing chairs around the place at my mother.
“She pushed me in a pram with a cast on her wrist during the middle of the night to get away from him.”
Templeton died in 2016, but always maintained his innocence.
His first trial in November 2003 ended in a hung jury. His second trial took place in April 2004. He was convicted, but it was overturned on appeal in September that year due to a lack of evidence.
There was no DNA or footprint evidence linking Templeton to the murder.
Brodie’s recollection of his behaviour matches statements given to police by Tarmara’s property managers, who said they broke up an altercation between her and Templeton two weeks before she died.
Brodie believes Templeton holds the answers to all of his questions.
“The thing that gets to me the most is this idea that if it’s split pretty evenly down the middle, where people will either say he is 100 per cent guilty, or 100 per cent not guilty, surely that’s a pretty big red flag, right?” Brodie said.
“If roughly half the people are accusing him of it and saying that … he most certainly had aggressive, evil tendencies, then isn’t that enough to cause serious concern?”
Following Tarmara’s death, Brodie moved to Adelaide with his father.
Brodie intends to write to the State Coroner requesting an inquest into his mother’s death.