Beau Lamarre-Condon asked a friend, “What would you do if I told you I killed somebody?” nine months before allegedly murdering Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, a Sydney court has heard.
The New South Wales police officer then assured the friend he hadn’t killed anyone, before admitting he had entered Baird’s house while he was away, stealing a Polaroid camera and eating an Easter egg.
Alleged murders and charges
Lamarre-Condon has been accused of fatally shooting Baird, 26, and his partner, Davies, 29, with a police service weapon in Baird’s Paddington home on 19 February 2024. It’s alleged he hid the bodies in surfboard bags when removing them from the house. CCTV footage of Lamarre-Condon buying a bag was released by the court on Friday.
The 31-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter.
Friend’s testimony
Georgia Cook, a close friend of Lamarre-Condon, told the NSW supreme court on Friday that the policeman had become “infatuated” with Baird during their brief relationship. When the relationship ended in April 2023, Cook said Lamarre-Condon continued to speak about Baird.
He asked her a concerning question when they went to dinner a month later, Cook told the jury. “One of the first things he said was, ‘What would you do if I told you I killed somebody? Would you help me hide the body?’” she told the jury. Cook told Lamarre-Condon she wouldn’t help as she didn’t want a ghost haunting her, the court was told.
Lamarre-Condon laughed it off and said: “Don’t worry I didn’t do that, but I did do something crazy.” Cook told the court the policeman said he had been watching Baird from outside his home, including on one occasion when he had friends over. Lamarre-Condon saw Baird and his friends take photos using a Polaroid camera the officer had given him as a gift, Cook said.
When the group left Baird’s home, Lamarre-Condon had seen where the house key had been placed, Cook said. “He had got the key, unlocked the door, stole the Polaroid camera and ate Jesse’s Easter egg,” she said on Friday. Lamarre-Condon would travel to Baird’s home in his mother’s car and wear a black hoodie so he wouldn’t be recognised, the court was told.
Relationship and messages
The policeman and Baird began seeing each other again briefly a few months later. But Baird ended the relationship in November 2023 after the accused went through his phone and deleted messages from other men. Lamarre-Condon was “really upset”, according to another one of the officer’s friends, Shae Davison.
Lamarre-Condon asked to stay at her house because he did not want to be alone, Davison told the jury. The police officer arrived at her home with a backpack the next day and asked to send a message from her Instagram to Baird as “one last try to win Jesse back”, she told the court. But Lamarre-Condon did not want her to read the message, claiming there were medical details he did not want her to know.
She didn’t want to do it initially but said: “He put a lot of pressure on me, he said he never asked anything of me, he’s so upset, can I help.” “He wore me down,” Davison said on Friday. “It felt like guilt-tripping to me and using my friendship to get what he wanted.”
She agreed, on the condition Lamarre-Condon read out the text to her, while leaving out the medical details. When he read out the message, she asked him to delete parts that weren’t true, and it looked like he was typing and actioning her edits, she told the court. He then sent the note in a series of messages, and told her she was allowed to read it after 4 December 2023, when he told her he was set to undergo surgery. He left her home about an hour after he arrived.
The 1,600-word Instagram note claimed Davison had gone to Westmead hospital with Lamarre-Condon. “He was told he had a cancerous tumour growing in his left shoulder joint/ligament area,” the text read out in court stated. “Worst-case scenario, it could result in … possibly having his arm amputated. He was then immediately subscribed [sic] numerous medications … everyone knows these medications are some of the strongest you can be subscribed, which throw off your hormones massively, which throws off how a person can act in their day to day life.”
The friend told the jury she had not attended the hospital with Lamarre-Condon, nor did he clear this part of the text with her. The messages tried to justify the officer going through Baird’s phone and stated “this is very out of character for him”. “There is real love there, trust can be built back on that,” the note purportedly from Davison stated. “Even if you guys never hang out again, I know Beau wants to make things right.”
Planning and defence
The friend was unsure if Baird read the messages but said it was possible he had seen them through Instagram’s preview function. Lamarre-Condon later asked her to unsend the messages. She obliged and tried to ask him about the content of the messages but he did not want to talk about them. “He was quite annoyed, I could tell in his voice he was frustrated that I had [read them],” she said.
It’s alleged Lamarre-Condon began planning to murder Baird in early 2024. The defence team has claimed the police officer was acting in self-defence after he disguised himself as an Uber Eats driver and entered Baird’s home on the day of the shootings. The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
