Court told Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly confessed to killings and asked friend to move bodies

Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, allegedly confessed to killing two men and asked a friend for help moving the bodies, the New South Wales supreme court heard on Friday. He is accused of fatally shooting Jesse Baird and Luke Davies with his police service weapon at Baird's home in Paddington, Sydney, on 19 February 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter.

Friend describes alleged confession

The friend, whose identity is suppressed, told the jury that Lamarre-Condon arrived at his workplace on the day of the killings and said he had done something. When the friend asked what he meant, Lamarre-Condon said he had killed someone, the court was told.

The friend said he asked whether he was joking, and Lamarre-Condon replied that he wished he were, describing the experience as feeling like an out-of-body experience that "just wasn't him".

According to the friend, Lamarre-Condon said he used a gun, made a gesture with his fingers indicating a firearm and said "pew pew". Asked for more detail, he allegedly said he shot the first person through the head and the second through the door, and that the second person was not meant to be shot but he "couldn't leave any witnesses".

The court heard Lamarre-Condon asked his friend to leave work to help clean up and move the bodies. The friend returned to his workplace and told his team lead, who advised him to say he had a meeting he could not miss.

Lamarre-Condon later messaged the friend asking whether he should get an Oscar, then said "got you" on a video call, the jury was told. When the friend became upset, Lamarre-Condon said it was not a joke and that the friend was mentally messing with him, before saying it was real but that he had not wanted the friend to tell anyone.

Earlier overseas trip and a shooting exercise

The friend also told the court he had travelled overseas with Lamarre-Condon in late 2023. He said Lamarre-Condon told him he needed to find a place to purchase a silencer, explaining he was going hunting on a friend's farm. The two found what they believed to be a gun store, but it had closed or the advertisement was fake, the friend said.

The friend returned to Australia first and soon received a photo from Lamarre-Condon showing multiple airsoft guns. Asked whether he had found what he was looking for, Lamarre-Condon said it was an airsoft gun shop with no suppressor.

Back in Sydney, the friend said, Lamarre-Condon drove him to a national park and took a police service weapon out of a paper bag. He gave the friend a police-issued radio and asked him to listen for reports of police movement after he fired. Lamarre-Condon said the bullets were training rounds taken from an annual police shoot, the friend told the court.

He fired the weapon and asked how loud it was, then shot a bullet into the bushland and asked whether that made any difference to the sound, and whether it would be heard in a house. The friend said he told him it was "super loud" and could be heard anywhere. On the way home, Lamarre-Condon said he could not tell anyone about it, the court heard.

Defence case

Defence lawyer John Stratton SC told the court that Baird and Davies were accidentally shot when Lamarre-Condon acted in self-defence, and that he then "panicked considerably", cleaned the scene and disposed of the bodies. The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.

Source: The Guardian.