Witness describes silencer search and police-weapon test

Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, is accused of fatally shooting Jesse Baird and Luke Davies with his police service weapon in Baird’s Paddington home on 19 February 2024. Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter. The New South Wales Supreme Court is trying the case before Justice Natalie Adams.

A friend whose identity is suppressed testified Friday that Lamarre-Condon arrived at the friend’s workplace on the day Baird and Davies were killed. The friend said Lamarre-Condon told him, “I’ve done something,” and then, when asked for an explanation, “I’ve killed someone.” “I said ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’, he said, ‘I wish I was’,” the friend told the court. He said “it just felt like an out-of-body experience and it just wasn’t him.” The friend said that when he asked how Lamarre-Condon did it, the officer said with a gun. Lamarre-Condon then made a gesture with his fingers indicating a firearm and said “pew pew,” the friend told the court.

When the friend asked how the shootings occurred, Lamarre-Condon allegedly said, “I shot the first one through the head and the second one through the door.” The friend said Lamarre-Condon added that the second person was not meant to be shot but that he “couldn’t leave any witnesses.”

The friend said Lamarre-Condon asked him to leave work and help clean up and move the bodies. The friend returned to his workplace and told his team lead about the request. The team lead instructed him to tell Lamarre-Condon that he had a meeting he could not miss.

Lamarre-Condon later sent the friend a message asking, “I should get an Oscar, hey?” He then began a video call in which he said, “Got you.” When the friend became upset, Lamarre-Condon allegedly said, “it’s not a fucking joke, you’re mentally fucking with me.” He then told the friend, “OK it is real but I just didn’t want you to tell anyone.”

The friend also recounted an overseas trip with Lamarre-Condon in late 2023. Lamarre-Condon allegedly said, “I need to find a spot … to purchase a silencer,” and explained that he was going hunting on a mate’s farm. The friend said they found what they believed was a gun store, but it had either closed or the advertisement was fake. The friend returned to Australia before Lamarre-Condon and soon after received a photograph from Lamarre-Condon showing multiple airsoft guns. Lamarre-Condon then said, “No, it was an airsoft gun shop, no suppressor there.”

Back in Sydney, the friend testified that Lamarre-Condon drove him to a national park, removed a police service weapon from a paper bag and handed him a police-issued radio. Lamarre-Condon allegedly asked the friend to listen for any reports of police movement towards them after the officer shot the firearm. “I said, ‘You can’t really shoot your police-issued firearm.’ He then told me that they were training bullets he had taken previously from a police shoot they do once a year,” the friend told the court.

The friend said Lamarre-Condon fired the weapon and asked how loud it was. Lamarre-Condon then fired into the bushland and asked, “does this make any difference on the sound?” He also asked whether the sound could be heard inside a house. The friend answered, “You could hear that anywhere, it was super loud.” On their way home, Lamarre-Condon allegedly told the friend, “you can’t tell anyone about this.”

The New South Wales Supreme Court also released CCTV of Lamarre-Condon this week.

The defense team claims Baird and Davies were accidentally shot when Lamarre-Condon acted in “self-defence.” Defense lawyer John Stratton SC said Lamarre-Condon then “panicked considerably,” cleaning up the scene and disposing of the bodies. The trial before Justice Natalie Adams is continuing.