Source : Perth Now news
For more than 20 hours, accused killer Beau Lamarre-Condon was grilled over allegations he developed an obsession with his ex-boyfriend and stalked the man before killing him and his new partner.
He was often argumentative and combative, clashing with Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC as he batted away accusations he murdered Jesse Baird and Luke Davies in the journalist’s Paddington home on February 19, 2024.
Mr Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty and is arguing self-defence in his trial before the NSW Supreme Court.
The former policeman was asked to stand up and re-enact his movements during what he says was the manslaughter of Mr Baird.
He was also asked to annotate a diagram of the TV presenter’s house and draw how far through a bedroom door he says the bullet that Mr Davies accidentally shot himself with went.
“Put your rosary beads down while you do that,” Mr Hatfield told him.
Mr Lamarre-Condon was asked to simply answer the question numerous times as he sat in the witness box for more than five days, frequently challenging the prosecutor and at one point accusing him of trying to “mislead” him.
Justice Natalie Adams asked the alleged killer not to comment on what Mr Hatfield was thinking and to refrain from telling him what to do at least twice.
“Mr Lamarre, please don’t comment about what the Crown must be thinking or doing, just answer the question,” Justice Adams told him.
Mr Lamarre-Condon also attacked the investigation brought against him in one of many clashes with Mr Hatfield.
He at one stage told the prosecutor if they “wanted to do a very fair and non-biased investigation”, they should have looked at records related to his mother’s phone, but they didn’t “because it doesn’t suit your case”.
“Stop making speeches, will you?” Mr Hatfield asked during a separate exchange.
Accused killer says first shot was ‘right call’
Mr Lamarre-Condon claims he went into Mr Baird’s home wearing an Uber Eats rider disguise — which he says he found on a neighbouring street — to collect his $25,000 Cartier ring and other belongings, including a $2000 Casablanca shirt he left at the house before their final break-up in November 2023.
The former officer says when the journalist confronted him with a knife, he — fearing for his life — shot him with his NSW Police pistol to disarm him before accidentally fatally shooting him.
He told the jury the first shot was the “right call”, saying: “If I didn’t, Mr Crown, you’d be sitting here today interrogating Mr Baird.”
“I never went there to cause Jesse any harm … It was my fault … I’ve said from the start I am guilty of manslaughter and I am responsible for his death, but it wasn’t intentional,” he said.
‘No one said it was a good plan’: Prosecutor on alleged murder plot
Mr Lamarre-Condon denied allegations he shot Mr Baird in the back as the TV presenter ran away from him, before again shooting him in the temple to “execute him”.
The jury was earlier told the two shots were just four seconds apart, according to CCTV from a neighbouring home that captured the sound.
“There’s not enough time between those two shots for the struggle you’ve described with him,” Mr Hatfield suggested.
“I disagree, it happened immediately,” Mr Lamarre-Condon said.
He also denied shooting Mr Davies through the bedroom door as the Qantas host tried to call for help because he “didn’t want any witnesses” to Mr Baird’s death, and rejected accusations he had been plotting the TV presenter’s murder for weeks.
Mr Lamarre-Condon had driven a car — hired under his mother’s name the night before — to Mr Baird’s home the morning he allegedly killed him.
The former police officer told the jury someone planning a murder would use a stolen car and not one “linked to your mum”.
“No one said it was a good plan, that’s why you’re sitting here,” Mr Hatfield replied.
Accused killer’s actions ‘inconsistent’ with ‘accidental killing’
Mr Lamarre-Condon stuffed the couple’s bodies in surfboard bags, drove around with them in the back of a hired van, and tried to sink them in a dam at Cella Farm in Bungonia in the days after their deaths.
He told the jury he poured concrete into the bag containing Mr Davies in an attempt to sink his body, but when this failed he ultimately dumped both of them outside the fence line of a Greek monastery about 20km away.
He denied his actions after the men’s deaths were “inconsistent with any sort of accidental killing”, but did say his conduct and treatment of their bodies was “not right”.
He also accepted he was “thinking strategically” when he drove back to near Mr Baird’s home, so the TV presenter’s phone would be pinging from Paddington as he sent a series of texts from it.
“That’s just common sense,” Mr Lamarre-Condon said.
“Common sense when you’re carrying out a murder, isn’t that right?” Mr Hatfield asked.
“I didn’t commit a murder, I’m guilty of a manslaughter,” the alleged killer replied.
It is alleged he sent messages from Mr Baird’s phone to make it appear as though he was still alive.
‘Nothing moral about your dilemma’: Prosecutor
Mr Lamarre-Condon claims he wanted to “do the right thing” and go to police after the couple’s deaths, but had a “moral dilemma” as he feared he would be killed in jail “because of the uniform that I wear”.
“There was nothing moral about your dilemma, was there?” Mr Hatfield asked.
“There was,” he replied.
He also denied being “quite relaxed” and “laughing” in the days after the couple’s deaths, with the alleged killer adamant he was “panicking” and “not having a good time”.
“There’s family members that are sad and upset … but Jesse was someone that I did care about as well,” he said, prompting some of the man’s loved ones to shake their heads.
Alleged killer, aspiring actor’s ‘murder’ film comment
The 31-year-old says he was able to afford the Cartier ring he was hoping to find on the morning of the couple’s deaths from a combination of “user pay” shifts — where police officers nominate themselves to work events — and his side hustles running a swimwear line and reselling Hermes Birkin bags from Paris.
Apparently an aspiring actor, Mr Lamarre-Condon asked his friend to watch the film Saltburn days before the alleged murders and said he saw himself playing the “lead role of the nerd”.
Mr Hatfield suggested the former police officer was planning to murder Mr Baird by this point, asking him: “The movie that you were referring to … was about a murder, is that right?”
Mr Lamarre-Condon said it was the “number one movie at the time”, and denied it “strongly resonated” with him.
He claimed he was gearing up to take acting classes around this time, and told the jury this week he used to be an “entertainment reporter” when he was a teenager.
He was quick to correct Mr Hatfield when he referred to him as a “celebrity chaser”, telling the prosecutor, “You don’t just waltz onto the Golden Globes red carpet, you get invited”.
The accused killer denied suggestions it was “quite important” to him that Mr Baird was a TV presenter.
“Jesse Baird could have been a garbage cleaner … I like (him) as a person,” he said.
Ex-cop denies ‘malevolent acts’
He denied his “unrequited love turned into obsession”, and that he couldn’t handle the TV presenter not liking him “anywhere near as much as you liked him”.
Mr Lamarre-Condon also rejected accusations he started to perform “malevolent acts” towards Mr Baird by the end of 2023.
“All I did was pour water in his petrol tank,” he replied when asked whether he had someone slash Mr Baird’s tyres.
‘You weren’t suicidal, you were homicidal’: prosecutor
The 31-year-old’s voice wavered at several points in the past week as he recounted alleged bullying and homophobia he experienced in the police force, which he says which drove him to be suicidal.
“You weren’t suicidal, you were homicidal, weren’t you?” Mr Hatfield asked.
Mr Lamarre-Condon denied the suggestion and other allegations he was “trying to get sympathy” by speaking about his bullying claims and attempted suicide.
“This isn’t something for sympathy, this was the real life I was living,” he said.
Cop says he ‘didn’t want to inflict trauma on anyone’
“Trauma” was a constant theme through the accused killer’s evidence.
He told the jury he used stolen training rounds to fire two shots in a national park weeks before the couple’s deaths – not to experiment with muffling the sound of gunfire, as the Crown alleges, but to ensure no one would hear gunshots when he took his own life at a later point.
Mr Lamarre-Condon said he wanted to take his life in a “secluded place”, as he “did not want to inflict trauma on anyone”, and that his family would not be as “traumatised” if they just thought he was missing.
He also claimed he was planning to go to police after the couple’s deaths, but wanted to “get the bodies out of the house” so Mr Baird’s flatmates weren’t “traumatised” if they got home and found the pair.
On his way to turn himself in on February 23, Mr Lamarre-Condon called a police helpline and claimed bullying and “psychological abuse” had caused him to develop symptoms of schizophrenia.
“All this death and trauma and psychological abuse and trauma — did I say trauma already? — has caused me to not sleep, get anxious. It’s caused me to have some symptoms of schizophrenia,” he says in the call played to the jury.
Accused killer Beau Lamarre-Condon asked a friend to “just f**king hear me out” in a covert police recording made while he was in custody and played to a jury.
He disagreed when Mr Hatfield accused him of trying to “explain or excuse” what happened on the day of the couple’s deaths in the call.
Mr Hatfield concluded his cross-examination by suggesting to Mr Lamarre-Condon: “It was murder, plain and simple – you murdered Jesse Baird … then you murdered Luke Davies.”
“I did not,” the man replied.
The accused killer will return to the witness box on Monday afternoon to answer questions from his barrister, John Stratton SC, during re-examination.
