A former NSW police officer accused of murdering Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies allegedly disguised himself as an Uber Eats rider before shooting both men at Baird’s eastern suburbs home, his criminal trial has heard.
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trial → accuse → home
Beau Lamarre-Condon, a senior constable at the time of the killings on February 19, 2024, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder.
asserted
Condon → plead → murder
His criminal trial in the NSW Supreme Court opened in Sydney’s historic King Street court complex on Monday.
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trial → open → Monday
In his opening address to the jury, Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, alleged Lamarre-Condon had “formed an obsessive and jealous infatuation” with Jesse Baird after a brief relationship starting in late 2022 and ending in 2023.
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Condon → open → 2023
The relationship, which Hatfield alleged was “somewhat casual” from Baird’s perspective, was “firmly and irretrievably ended” by Baird in November 2023 after an earlier break-up in April.
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Hatfield → allege → April
Hatfield alleged the murder of 26-year-old Baird, a former Network Ten presenter, was premeditated, while Davies, a 29-year-old Qantas flight attendant, was killed by Lamarre-Condon to “eliminate him as a witness”.
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Davies → allege → witness
The Crown foreshadowed the jury would hear evidence that Lamarre-Condon set his alarm for 4.30am on February 19, 2024, and messaged a friend at 4.49am: “I’ll try to call you tonight and update you X.
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I → foreshadow → you
There’s no sign I’m doing it.”
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I → ’ → it
The prosecution alleges Lamarre-Condon left his home in Balmain in Sydney’s inner west shortly after 5am in his Tesla, but switched to a rented Mazda at a “staging point” in Kensington.
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Condon → allege → Kensington
He switched off his own mobile phone, the Crown alleges, and activated a burner phone he had recently bought under the name “Bob Ballard”.
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he → switch → name
He arrived at Baird’s Paddington home shortly after 6am and “waited there for over three hours”, observing the terrace as Baird’s housemates left, Hatfield said in his opening address.
“He can be seen walking [on Baird’s street] at around 9.10am, at that point disguised as an Uber Eats delivery driver,” Hatfield said.
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Hatfield → arrive → driver
“He was wearing a motorcycle helmet, high-visibility clothing, and carrying an Uber Eats paper bag with something in it.
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He → wear → it
He was carrying somewhere his NSW police service ... semi-automatic pistol.”
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He → carry → pistol
The Crown alleges he had replaced at least some of his police-issued bullets with another make.
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he → allege → make
Hatfield said the prosecution case is that Lamarre-Condon should not have had his firearm with him because he was not on duty that day, nor the next day.
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he → say → duty
Lamarre-Condon is accused of using a key he had stolen from Baird or previously copied to enter the home.
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he → accuse → home
The Crown alleges he killed Baird in the kitchen by shooting him twice, including an “execution-style shot” in the right temple.
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he → allege → temple
The bullet “went through the floor”, Hatfield said in his address.
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Hatfield → go → address
Davies was in the bedroom and attempting to call Triple Zero, the Crown alleged.
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Crown → attempt → Zero
To prevent Davies from calling for help and exposing his crime, Lamarre-Condon shot him in the head through the door of the bedroom, Hatfield told the jury.
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Hatfield → prevent → jury
He left the home nearly an hour later, the Crown alleges.
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Crown → leave → home
Hatfield foreshadowed that there would be evidence that Lamarre-Condon bought a surfboard cover at Westfield Miranda two days before the murders to conceal the body of Baird.
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Condon → foreshadow → Baird
But his efforts to clean up the crime scene were “complicated by the fact that he had two, rather than one body, to deal with”, the prosecution alleged.
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prosecution → clean → two
Lamarre-Condon would allegedly return to the home multiple times over the next four days and “engage in an elaborate series of acts seeking assistance from a number of his friends to clean up the crime scene, destroy evidence and dispose of the two men he had just killed”.
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he → return → men
Hatfield alleged Lamarre-Condon tried to “make it look like they had just disappeared”, including sending messages from Baird’s phone to give the impression he was alive and travelling to Perth.
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he → allege → Perth
He disposed of bloodied items in a skip bin at Cronulla Bowls Club, the Crown alleged, and attempted to sink the men’s bodies in a dam in Bungonia “but ultimately moved them to just outside the fence line of a Greek monastery about 20 kilometres away”.
“He eventually handed himself at the Bondi police station on the morning of 23 February,” Hatfield said.
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Hatfield → dispose → February
Lamarre-Condon has also pleaded not guilty to a separate charge of aggravated break and enter of Baird’s Paddington home and stealing his mobile phone and wallet in August 2023.
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Condon → plead → August
Fifteen jurors – nine men and six women – were empanelled in the trial on Monday afternoon.
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jurors → empanel → afternoon
The trial is expected to run for up to 12 weeks.
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trial → expect → weeks
If all 15 jurors remain at the end of the trial, a ballot will be conducted to reduce their number to 12, Justice Natalie Adams said.
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Adams → remain → 12
Hatfield told the jury there would be evidence that Lamarre-Condon engaged in a range of obsessive conduct including monitoring Baird’s relationship with other men by accessing his mobile phone, interfering with his social media accounts by blocking people, stalking him and breaking into his home more than once.
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Condon → tell → home
Baird sent Lamarre-Condon a “lengthy and sympathetic message” saying he was “not ready” for a relationship in April 2023, Hatfield said, but the relationship resumed briefly in September or October 2023 before Baird “firmly and irretrievably” ended it in mid-November 2023.
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Baird → send → November
The Crown alleged Baird did so after “he found out that the accused had accessed his phone and deleted his messages and blocked people”.
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accused → allege → people
Hatfield alleged Lamarre-Condon had posed as one of his friends by using her Instagram account to message Baird after their break-up, falsely claiming he had been diagnosed with cancer.
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he → allege → cancer
Hatfield said Lamarre-Condon had “indicated that he pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter of Jesse Baird”.
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he → say → Baird
“He’s entitled to enter a plea in those terms, but it’s not accepted by the Crown.”
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it → entitle → Crown
Hatfield’s opening address continues on Tuesday, followed by an address by defence barrister John Stratton, SC
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address → continue → Stratton
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CROWN’S ALLEGED TIMELINE OF EVENTS
- Late 2022: The accused and Jesse Baird met and started a casual relationship.
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accused → accuse → relationship
- April 2023: Baird sent the accused a “sympathetic” message saying he wasn’t ready for a relationship.
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he → send → relationship
The accused allegedly uses his authority as a police officer to obtain CCTV footage of Jesse Baird on a date with a man in Paddington.
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accused → accuse → Paddington
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
