04 The Airbnb Guest | How this trial challenged two juries
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Jack McLennan was 27, fit and visibly strong. He was trained well. He knew how to hit and I was gobsmacked. He seemed ready for anything, but then he suddenly vanished. I was just talking to him last night, like, how the hell does that happen? I'm Rob Bergen. Join me as I investigate what became of Jack in the new season of Unravel.
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A jury decided that Airbnb guest Timothy Loosemore killed his host, Marie Vermont, but they settled on a conviction for manslaughter instead of murder. In this episode, we'll tell you why we think both juries who considered this case struggled to get all the way to murder. I'm Stephen Stockwell. This is episode four of The Case of the Airbnb Guest.
Mr Loosemore was a farmstay guest at the home in Goldie near Kilmore.
We didn't really expect to have something dangerous happen.
The prosecution alleges the 62-year-old from the UK killed Miss Vermont and lit a house fire to cover it up.
She was a very kind and caring person and we're very proud of who she was and how she brought us up.
This hand-built house was a labour of love. It's all been lost, alongside everything she owned and, her sons say, evidence of her final moments.
Throughout the trial of Timothy Loosemore, we heard two different versions of his relationship with Marie Vermont, a welcome help or a frustrated ex-lover who snapped. Ultimately, the jury decided that he killed her, but he was not guilty of murder, instead found guilty of manslaughter. And in this episode, myself and Anna McGuinness, an ABC reporter in Bendigo, will be unpacking that verdict and talking about some of the things that stood out to us. Welcome, Anna.
Hi, Stockie.
Before we get going any further than this, the question we always start with in these episodes was, were you surprised by the verdict?
So initially I was. I actually thought maybe the defense had put enough doubt, well, they'd put enough doubt into my mind that I was sort of leaning towards not guilty. But then going back through the evidence for the podcast and looking at kind of the big picture, I couldn't really see it any other way.
Yeah, right. Okay. I wasn't really. I mean, I was probably more leaning the other way than you, Anna, but I was thinking that murder is a pretty high bar for a jury to reach. And while the prosecution did paint a picture of a very strained relationship between Timothy Loosemore and Marie Vermont through her friends and through her children, it didn't feel like that was completely sealed. I feel like there was so little evidence after the fire that it seemed like there were gaps in what might've happened that night. And I've kind of actually been wondering if the deciding factor was whether the jury couldn't be sure that Timothy Loosemore intended to kill Marie Verma. That's one of the four elements of murder is that intent.
I mean, when you're reflecting on the verdict they landed on, is that something you found yourself thinking about, that kind of intention when it comes to that element?
Yeah, that kind of seems like the obvious point where the jury might have faltered on the kind of checklist for the elements of murder. You've got the same two at the start for manslaughter, which is that they carried out the acts that caused Marie's death and that they were carried out consciously, voluntarily and deliberately. And then this is where it changes is murder. The next one is the intention to kill or cause really serious injury. Whereas for manslaughter, it just goes to the acts were unlawful. So that's where kind of the intention comes out of it for the manslaughter charge.
Why did two juries struggle to reach a murder verdict in the Airbnb guest case?
And I think for me, the difficulty maybe the jury had for the intention might have also come from the fact that there was no cause of death and so little could be taken, so little evidence could be taken from Marie's body after the fire.
Yeah, totally. Interesting as well, talking about whether or not someone's conscious of their actions.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:54
2
Why did two juries struggle to reach a murder verdict in the Airbnb guest case?
3:54–15:12
3
Which element of murder—intent—might have stopped jurors from convicting Loosemore of murder?
15:12–20:06
4
How did evidence loss from the house fire affect the prosecution’s case?
20:06–25:05
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Case Of
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