Source : Perth Now news
Beau Lamarre-Condon’s legal team has suggested biological material could not travel through a hole in the door and into the barrel of a gun, as he fights allegations he shot Qantas host Luke Davies through a door while he tried to call for help.
The former police officer dressed up as an Uber Eats rider before allegedly murdering Jesse Baird and his new partner Mr Davies at the journalist’s Paddington home on February 19, 2024.
Mr Lamarre-Condon, 31, is arguing self-defence as he fights the murder allegations before a jury trial in the NSW Supreme Court. He has pleaded not guilty.
It is alleged he shot Mr Davies through the TV presenter’s bedroom door as he tried to call triple-zero, with the bullet hole only discovered months ago in July 2026 as it had been covered with a hook during the 2024 investigation.
Mr Lamarre-Condon’s friend, Ethan Lynch, is expected to tell the jury how the former officer told him he “killed two people” before making a hand gesture and saying “pew pew” when asked how he “did it” a little more than an hour after the couple’s deaths.
“The accused also said to Mr Lynch, ‘I waited out the front for the housemates to leave, I went into the house, and I shot the first person. Then I heard scuttling around the other side of the door and I heard (someone) trying to make a phone call to the police’,” Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield said during his opening address.
Mr Lamarre-Condon allegedly told his friend he did not want to shoot the second person but he couldn’t risk having a witness.
The former officer in turn argues that his police firearm “went off twice” and fatally wounded Mr Baird, and the gun was then flung into another room.
Mr Lamarre-Condon claims he was calling triple-zero when Mr Davies emerged with the gun and fatally shot himself during a second struggle.
A partial DNA profile recovered from the barrel of Mr Lamarre-Condon’s gun is a match for Mr Davies, the jury was previously told.
Mr Lamarre-Condon’s barrister, John Stratton SC, on Tuesday suggested there was nearly a “zero” chance of biological material travelling through a hole in the door and into the barrel of a gun during the cross examination of former Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Moon.
“The proposition that I’m putting to you is that the likelihood of that approaches zero,” Mr Stratton said.
“No, I disagree. I believe it still can happen,” Mr Moon told the jury.
Mr Davies was also unable to be excluded as a “major contributor”, and Mr Lamarre-Condon as a “minor contributor”, to DNA found on the grip and trigger on Mr Lamarre-Condon’s gun, the jury was previously told.
The jury was also told a person with an injury to the temple, such as the one Mr Baird allegedly suffered, would not have been able to fling a gun to the other side of a room.
Such a wound would instantly incapacitate a person, the jury was told during the evidence of the forensic pathologist who carried out the couple’s autopsies, Kendall Bailey.
Dr Bailey said someone with such an injury may have made some movements but they would not be “conscious movements” when asked by Mr Hatfield whether the person would have been able to fling a gun to the other side of the room.
“I don’t think that person’s making any conscious movements,” Dr Bailey said.
NSW Police ballistics expert Lucas Van Der Walt brought in a version of a glock pistol into court on Tuesday to explain to the jury how the firearm operates later in the day.
The weapon is permanently deactivated and cannot fire.
Mr Van Der Walt talked the jury through his observations of Mr Baird’s Paddington home when he examined the crime scene days after the couple’s deaths, including how his colleague found a bullet underneath the kitchen floor.
“There was bullet damage located in the floorboards of the kitchen,” he said.
“My colleague…went into the cavity floor… searched in that area…where he located a fired bullet.”
Mr Van Der Walt told the jury while he initially thought the bullet might have come in at an angle, he was “convinced” the bullet travelled in a more vertical trajectory after he observed a joist under the house which the bullet would have struck had it been at an angle.
Prosecutors have alleged Mr Lamarre-Condon shot Mr Baird “execution-style”, with the bullet later retrieved from under the floor.
The trial continues.
