Ex-cop accused of double murder allegedly dressed as Uber Eats rider, court hears

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.

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. His criminal trial in the NSW Supreme Court opened in Sydney’s historic King Street court complex on 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.

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.

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”.

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. Don’t worry about me though X. There’s no sign I’m doing 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.

He switched off his own mobile phone, the Crown alleges, and activated a burner phone he had recently bought under the name “Bob Ballard”.

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.

“He was wearing a motorcycle helmet, high-visibility clothing, and carrying an Uber Eats paper bag with something in it. He was carrying somewhere his NSW police service ... semi-automatic pistol.”

The Crown alleges he had replaced at least some of his police-issued bullets with another 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.

Lamarre-Condon is accused of using a key he had stolen from Baird or previously copied to enter the home.

The Crown alleges he killed Baird in the kitchen by shooting him twice, including an “execution-style shot” in the right temple. The bullet “went through the floor”, Hatfield said in his address.

Davies was in the bedroom and attempting to call Triple Zero, the Crown alleged. 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.

He left the home nearly an hour later, the Crown alleges. 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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

Fifteen jurors – nine men and six women – were empanelled in the trial on Monday afternoon. The trial is expected to run for up to 12 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.

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.

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.

The Crown alleged Baird did so after “he found out that the accused had accessed his phone and deleted his messages and blocked 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.

Hatfield said Lamarre-Condon had “indicated that he pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter of Jesse Baird”.

“He’s entitled to enter a plea in those terms, but it’s not accepted by the Crown.”

Hatfield’s opening address continues on Tuesday, followed by an address by defence barrister John Stratton, SC.

CROWN’S ALLEGED TIMELINE OF EVENTS

• Late 2022: The accused and Jesse Baird met and started a casual relationship.
• April 2023: Baird sent the accused a “sympathetic” message saying he wasn’t ready for a relationship.
• May 19, 2023: 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.
• June 24, 2023: The accused allegedly showed up uninvited to a meeting Baird had with two men.
• August 17, 2023: The accused allegedly breaks into Baird’s home and steals his mobile phone and wallet while Baird is home. Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to this charge.
• September 2023: The accused and Jesse Baird re-start their relationship.
• November 2023: The pair breaks up for the final time after Baird allegedly discovers the accused had allegedly accessed his phone to delete messages and block people; and had posted a photograph on Instagram that falsely gave the impression Baird had sent him flowers.
• New Year’s Eve 2023/January 2024: Jesse Baird meets Luke Davies and their relationship developed quickly. They post photos of themselves on social media, making their relationship “insta-official” around the end of January.
• February 17, 2024: Visits a sports store at Miranda Westfield with a friend to buy a surfboard cover. CCTV captures the accused examining the sizes of surfboard covers
• February 19, 2024: The accused allegedly shoots dead Jesse Baird and Luke Davies at Baird’s share-house.
• February 21: Groundskeeper finds items related to the alleged killings in bin at Cronulla Bowls Club.
• February 22: The accused becomes aware the police investigation into the double murder is “closing in on him”.
• February 23: The accused hands himself into Bondi police station. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.