Kennedy testifies Lamarre-Condon played Taylor Swift song on disposal trip

Friend describes blue tarp, lemony smell and two-hour drive to Bungonia

Elizabeth Kennedy, a friend of Lamarre-Condon known to the court under that pseudonym, told the jury on Wednesday that the accused officer put on Taylor Swift’s “No Body, No Crime” as they traveled in a white van on 21 February 2024. The testimony concerned the trip the defence says Lamarre-Condon took after the alleged deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, two days earlier.

Lamarre-Condon, 31, is accused of fatally shooting Baird and his partner, Luke Davies, with his police service weapon in Baird’s Paddington home on 19 February 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one count of aggravated break and enter. His defence team says the two men were accidentally shot as Lamarre-Condon acted in self-defence.

Kennedy said Lamarre-Condon arrived at her home in a white van at about 3pm on 21 February and that she thought they were going out for lunch. She said the van contained a blue tarp and had a lemony smell, like it had just been cleaned. The trip became a two-hour drive to Goulburn and Bungonia, about 150km away, as Lamarre-Condon took the wheel.

During the drive, Lamarre-Condon repeatedly told her they had “just 50 more minutes” to go, Kennedy testified. She said the van’s windows remained open while the air conditioning ran at full blast and the interior was freezing. Lamarre-Condon seemed “bubbly,” she said, and talked about Swift, who was touring Australia at the time, and a Europe trip the two had planned.

They stopped at Bunnings Goulburn. According to Kennedy, Lamarre-Condon asked her to pay for an angle grinder and padlock because he did not have cash. A statement read to the court on Wednesday said a Bunnings sales assistant was approached by two customers who claimed they were staying at a friend’s farm in nearby Bungonia and had locked themselves out; the worker suggested they use an angle grinder. Lamarre-Condon and Kennedy then drove to Cella Farm in Bungonia, where Lamarre-Condon said he knew the people who owned the property.

Kennedy said Lamarre-Condon asked her to cover the van’s number plates with garbage bags, but she refused, so he did it himself. He cut the padlock from the gate, cutting himself in the process, and told her to wait and not turn on her phone. She said he drove out of sight behind the house toward a larger dam and left her there. When he returned 30 or 40 minutes later, Kennedy had a panic attack; Lamarre-Condon told her to “shush” and asked whether she had called anyone or turned on her phone.

As they began the return journey to Sydney, Lamarre-Condon asked if they could go back to Bungonia, but Kennedy said she needed to be home. Kennedy described Lamarre-Condon as “weird and cryptic” on the trip back, the court heard.

“It seemed like something went wrong and he wouldn’t tell me about it,” Kennedy told the court.

At one point he almost ran over a bird and said, “you know I’d never hurt an animal, right?” Lamarre-Condon attempted to call another police officer friend during the drive. When the friend didn’t pick up, he said: “‘fuck fuck fuck’ and then he sort of panicked and that’s when he started saying, ‘if I’m quiet, I’m not angry, I’m just thinking’,” the court heard.

He told Kennedy he would have to return to Bungonia and that he would be up all night. She asked why and he said he could not tell her because he did not want to involve her, the court heard. He then asked if she could buy him a peach Lipton ice tea as he needed caffeine but didn’t drink coffee. As she entered the service station to purchase the beverage, he also asked her to fuel up the van, but she couldn’t do it because she didn’t know how to drive or fill up a vehicle. He was “visibly annoyed” before he swore and jumped out of the car. When asked why he did not want to do it, Kennedy told the court he said he did not want to be on camera. As they left, she noticed the blue tarp was no longer in the back of the van.

Defence lawyer John Stratton SC on Wednesday gave the jury a different account. He said Lamarre-Condon had lifted a tarpaulin from the back and shown Kennedy Baird’s head, and had told her Baird was dead. Stratton suggested Kennedy had responded, “this is like a Taylor Swift song, No Body, No Crime.” He also put to the jury that Lamarre-Condon had told her, “I’m not joking, if you don’t want to help me I completely understand and I won’t be mad.”

Kennedy denied Stratton’s suggestions, saying Lamarre-Condon did not show her Baird’s body and she did not choose the song. “He was the one that put that song on in the car … it’s a very niche song,” she told the court. She explained: “I asked him how he knew it and he said it was from the album, evermore.” She said she tried to play other songs from the album and he knew none of them, adding, “I tried to play a few more songs from the album, evermore, and he didn’t know any of them so it was very weird to me he knew that song.”

The defence said Lamarre-Condon cleaned up the scene and disposed of the bodies because he “panicked considerably” after the alleged shootings. NSW police searched Cella Farm in Bungonia in 2024. The bodies of Baird and Davies were later found in Bungonia, and the trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.