Brodie Bailey renews push for answers over mum Tarmara June Smith’s murder

Brodie Bailey was just six when his mum was brutally murdered and found tied to a tree near the caravan park they lived in.

Tarmara June Smith and son Brodie Bailey. Picture: David Martinelli

An Adelaide man whose mother was brutally murdered in a Queensland city when he was just six years old is renewing a push to catch a killer.

Brodie Bailey’s mother Tarmara Smith was found tied to a tree on Easter Sunday in 2002 in Toowoomba, close to the caravan park where the pair was living.

The man once convicted at trial for killing Ms Smith was later freed when the Queensland Court of Appeal overturned that conviction against Paul Templeton – a man Mr Bailey knew and still remembers.

Now 28 and living in Adelaide’s outer suburbs, Mr Bailey has written to the Queensland coroner in an effort to shed new light on the case and find the person responsible for his mother’s murder.

Mr Bailey considers the case unsolved.

Brodie Bailey and his mother Tarmara June Smith who was murdered on Easter Sunday in Toowoomba, Queensland, in 2002. Picture: Supplied/Brodie Bailey

“The problem is that ... Paul Templeton, they were quick to prosecute him and he was convicted,” Mr Bailey said.

“He made it out (of prison) and (the Court of Appeal) found there wasn’t enough evidence to have a proper conviction for him.”

Ms Smith was brutally raped with a beer bottle and left to die while tied to a tree in the Toowoomba CBD by the strap of her handbag that was wrapped around her neck.

DNA found on her did not match Mr Templeton.

Witnesses at the Supreme Court trial, which ultimately convicted Mr Templeton, told of a man in a white dress shirt and black pants in the vicinity of Isabel St where the horrific crime unfolded.

Mr Templeton always protested his innocence and his trial resulted in a hung jury. Convicted at the second, he was set free after the three Court of Appeal justices overturned the verdict.

The unnamed man identified by witnesses at trial is believed to have fled Toowoomba the day after the murder, and is living in the UK.

He has never returned to Australia.

Mr Bailey wants the coroner to explore that and the unidentified DNA as well as witness statements.

Tarmara June Smith. Photo: Contributed

Brodie Bailey was 6 when his mum, Tamara June Smith, was murdered on a Toowoomba street. Picture: Dean Martin

“With this inquest, if this is the guy who has done it, he should be put away because it’s not fair for the people living in the town,” he said.

“And he might do it again.

“It’s not fair for the single mums who don’t feel safe walking alone at night because they hear stories like this.

“So it’s for so much more than me and my family.

“I don’t feel I am on some moral high-ground and going to change the world, but it would be nice that when people do these things, they’re held accountable.”

Mr Bailey grew up angry at the justice system.

The possibility the wrong man was convicted has not sat easy with him.

“I was never put into the trials or anything like that, because I was so young,” Mr Bailey said.

“Growing up, I didn’t know much about it and in my mind, it was kind of like, ‘okay he’s the one that did it, it’s what the public agreed to, that’s what the courts agreed to’.

“When he got out of prison, it was in my mind unjust and for a long time, I was very resentful of the Australian legal system.”

Queensland Police said the case was not listed as closed, and urged anyone with information to come forward.

Originally published as Brodie Bailey renews push for answers over mum Tarmara June Smith’s murder