A woman confided in family and friends how her British house guest had become “clingy” and she didn’t want to pursue a relationship with him weeks before he allegedly murdered her and set her home alight.
Maree Vermont was found dead in her burnt-out home in the rural Victorian town of Goldie in the Macedon Ranges on August 5, 2023.
Timothy Loosemore, who had been staying as an Airbnb guest after arriving from the UK in 2022, has pleaded not guilty to her murder and arson.
Vermont’s mother Shirley Adams told a Supreme Court jury trial on Wednesday how her daughter had allowed Loosemore to stay and do odd jobs around the property in exchange for free accommodation and meals.
They struck up a friendship and became intimate on one instance.
“She was alone there … [and] she was trying to keep the property going on her own,” Adams said.
“She didn’t want a relationship with Tim.”
Vermont’s marriage to her husband Robert had broken down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and he moved out of the Goldie home while she continued to live there.
She wanted to buy her ex-husband’s half but couldn’t afford the amount he was asking for, so she put up the Airbnb advertisement.
Adams described the British traveller as nice, considerate and caring towards her daughter, but that Vermont didn’t want him to stay forever.
“She said to me she was finding him a little bit clingy,” Adams said.
“She was going to tell him he had to move on and leave.”
Before her death, Adams said her daughter had been looking forward to a holiday in Vietnam.
Vermont’s younger brother Paul Adams said she told him she didn’t have “any affection” for Loosemore.
“She was clear she wanted her own life and wanted to get on with her life,” Paul told the court.
Jacqueline Burns, who knew Vermont for more than 15 years and was her former sister-in-law, first saw Loosemore at Vermont’s property in March 2023.
Loosemore had stayed at the home for about six weeks before travelling to Cairns for two weeks and returning.
The pair had sex once before he went to Cairns, but Vermont told her friend it was “unsuccessful” and that she “didn’t like it”.
“She didn’t have any feelings towards him. It was just sex,” Burns told the court.
After his return from Queensland, Vermont confided in her friend about how the traveller was “always there” and that she “doesn’t get a break”.
Burns said Vermont had told Loosemore he was to leave by August but that he was always polite and never nasty.
Prosecutors allege Loosemore killed Vermont and then set fire to the house, or assaulted her and tried to conceal the assault by setting the house alight.
She was found with such severe burns that her legs and arms were reduced to fragments.
