Source : Perth Now news
It’s summer, December 2023.
Beau Lamarre-Condon would have been gearing up for a New Year’s holiday in Bali with TV presenter Jesse Baird, had he not been dumped by the journalist the month prior after, a jury has been told, he was caught going through his phone and blocking contacts.
Living in Balmain at the time, the then-28-year-old took a colleague for a drive to show off his new Tesla.
NSW Police officer Rhys Dombkins says at some point during the trip, Mr Lamarre-Condon drove towards Paddington to “check” if Mr Baird was there.
“(He said) he knew people that could get rid of Jesse’s car, and that he’d been a cop for five years and knew what they would look for,” Mr Dombkins told the jury.
Just weeks later, Mr Lamarre-Condon was apparently “super shocked” to discover that bullets can be traced back to guns, a court was told.
The topic arose during a work shift on February 4, 2024, when he allegedly asked his friend, Senior Constable Nicole Harvell, “If there was a shoot out … how would you know who shot who?”
When she replied that rounds can be tracked back to the firearm, she said Mr Lamarre-Condon was “quite shocked”.
“He was like ‘what, really?’” Ms Harvell told the jury.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, have you not seen a crime show?’”
Fast-forward to February 18 that year, Mr Lamarre-Condon allegedly told colleague Ben Higginson he thought Lily James’ killer was “stupid” for getting caught carrying out the murder on CCTV.
The jury has heard that the very next day, Mr Lamarre-Condon was captured on CCTV wearing an Uber Eats rider disguise on Mr Baird’s street. Prosecutors allege he then entered the journalist’s Paddington home and murdered him and his new partner, Luke Davies.
Newly-released footage shown to a murder trial jury shows the moment an ex-cop approached his alleged victim’s home disguised as an Uber Eats driver.
CCTV of the sound of gunshots was also played in court, along with footage of the former police officer purchasing surfboard bags he is accused of later stuffing the couple’s bodies in.
He was also captured carrying cleaning gear on Mr Baird’s street in the hours after the alleged killings, according to footage shown in court.
Footage of Beau Lamarre-Condon purchasing a second surfboard bag in the hours after allegedly murdering a Sydney couple has been released.
Details of how the former police officer allegedly “monitored” Mr Baird, who he briefly dated throughout 2023, have been revealed during Mr Lamarre-Condon’s jury trial before the NSW Supreme Court.
Mr Lamarre-Condon had previously told a friend, known for legal reasons as Elizabeth Kennedy, that he had broken into Mr Baird’s home twice, Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC told the jury.
He allegedly told Ms Kennedy that the first time, he tampered with Mr Baird’s phone by blocking people, deleting messages from the journalist’s phone, unblocking his own account, and turning on location services on the social media application Snapchat so he could “monitor” him.
On the next occasion, he told her that he was chased out of the home by Mr Baird, who was unaware of the alleged intruder’s identity.
Mr Lamarre-Condon allegedly admitted to Ms Kennedy that he used a key he obtained during their relationship and jammed a bobby pin into the door to make it look like a common burglary, with the jury earlier shown pictures of a bobby pin in Mr Baird’s door following an alleged break-in in August 2023.
Ms Harvell also told the jury the former officer was “monitoring” Mr Baird’s Spotify account following their first break-up in April 2023.
“I think (Mr Baird) must have been going through it this week … his Spotify playlist is very depresso (sic),” Mr Lamarre-Condon allegedly told Ms Harvell.
Mr Lamarre-Condon has admitted he “did some stupid things” such as going through Mr Baird’s phone, his barrister John Stratton SC said. He also does not dispute he went into the journalist’s home one evening in August 2023, but claims Mr Baird gave him a key.
Cop’s ‘mood’ change
Details of how police were “closing in” on Mr Lamarre-Condon in the days after he allegedly murdered the couple were aired during the first three weeks of the trial.
Prosecutors allege he knew he was a suspect in the couple’s disappearance when he handed himself in to police on February 23, but the bodies of the men were not found until four days later — more than a week after their deaths.
Ms Kennedy sparked a major breakthrough in the search for the couple’s bodies after she approached police and told them she had driven to Cella Farm with Mr Lamarre-Condon two days earlier on February 21.
The jury was told he left Ms Kennedy at the farm gate and allegedly cut the padlock.
While Mr Lamarre-Condon appeared normal and talkative on the drive to the farm with Ms Kennedy, his “mood was different” on the way back, Mr Hatfield earlier told the jury.
He allegedly kept repeating, “F**k, now I have to come back”.
It is alleged he mixed concrete he’d bought at Bunnings Rockdale earlier that day and poured it into the surfboard bags he had put the bodies in, along with weights he’d bought in a failed attempt to sink the couple’s bodies in a dam at the farm.
Suspecting the couple’s bodies had been at the farm following Ms Kennedy’s information, investigators launched a days-long search involving police divers searching dams at the property.
Police later found large blocks of cement and weights at the property as well as a cut padlock, the jury was told, but the bodies were not found until Detective Senior Constable Christina Abela was given further information that led her to a Greek monastery about 20km away on February 27.
Ms Kennedy made a statement to police under the promise that what she disclosed would not be used against her in any criminal proceedings, the jury was told.
‘Strong smell’
Constable Abela recalled a “strong smell as soon as (she) got out of the car” at the monastery, which got stronger as she approached two surfboard bags covered with sticks and rocks.
The detective confirmed in court that she recognised the scent from her police work as that of “a decomposing body”.
Mr Lamarre-Condon showed no emotion as images of the bags, which the jury was told contained the couple’s bodies, were shown.
The couple’s bodies were so decomposed that Constable Abela needed to use Instagram photos of the men to match jewellery they wore in order to identify them, the jury was told.
Two keys were also found near the bodies that matched the front doors at Mr Baird’s home, with footage shown to the jury of Constable Abela removing flowers that had been placed on the journalist’s door in order to test the keys.
Alleged ‘elaborate’ cover-up
Prosecutors allege Mr Lamarre-Condon took “elaborate steps to conceal what he had done” in the days after the couple’s deaths.
The allegations include cleaning the home, dumping the couple’s bloodied things in a skip bin in Cronulla, using Mr Baird’s phone to make it seem as though he was still alive, and hiring a van to move the couple’s bodies.
Newly released CCTV has revealed the moment a Beau Lamarre-Condon walks down a TV presenter’s street with cleaning gear in the hours after he allegedly killed the man.
Mr Lamarre-Condon is accused of using paint to cover bloodstains in the van, with the jury shown a series of photos of bloodstains on the vehicle and told the couple’s DNA was found on it.
Mr Lamarre-Condon in turn claims he did not plan to kill and acted in self-defence when he entered Mr Baird’s home, intending to collect some of his belongings.
Mr Stratton told the jury his client’s gun went off twice and fatally wounded Mr Baird, while Mr Davies shot himself during a struggle.
Mr Lamarre-Condon “panicked” because he “knew that this looked bad”, Mr Stratton told the jury.
But Mr Hatfield alleged the former officer’s actions after the deaths were “calculated” and reflect that of a person “who had intentionally killed, rather than a panicked reaction by a man who had done something unintentionally”.
The trial continues.
