Summary
”, the jury heard. “He’s asked me whether it would be louder or would you hear this in a house?
Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly confessed to killing two men, telling his friend it was an “out-of-body experience”, before attempting to play it off as a joke, a court has been told.
Lamarre-Condon, 31, is accused of fatally shooting couple Jesse Baird and 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 charge of aggravated break and enter.
Lamarre-Condon’s friend, whose identity is suppressed, told the New South Wales supreme court on Friday that the officer arrived at his workplace the day Baird and Davies were killed.
Lamarre-Condon told him “I’ve done something”, and when the friend asked for an explanation, the policeman said “I’ve killed someone”, the jury was told.
“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 when he asked how Lamarre-Condon did it, the officer said with a gun.
He then made a gesture with his fingers indicating a firearm and said “pew pew”, the friend told the court.
When asked for more details, Lamarre-Condon allegedly said: “I shot the first one through the head and the second one through the door.”
Lamarre-Condon then said the second person wasn’t meant to be shot but he “couldn’t leave any witnesses”, the friend told the jury.
The officer asked his friend to leave work to help clean up and move the bodies, the court heard.
The friend then returned to his workplace and explained the situation to his team lead, who told him to tell Lamarre-Condon he had a meeting he couldn’t miss.
Lamarre-Condon later messaged the friend and asked “I should get an Oscar, hey?” before going on video call and saying “got you”.
When the friend got upset, Lamarre-Condon said “it’s not a fucking joke, you’re mentally fucking with me”, the court was told.
The policeman responded: “OK it is real but I just didn’t want you to tell anyone.”
Earlier on Friday, the friend revealed he had travelled overseas in late 2023 for a trip with Lamarre-Condon.
He said that while overseas, Lamarre-Condon told the friend: “I need to find a spot … to purchase a silencer.”
The officer explained he was going hunting on a mate’s farm, the jury was told.
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The two found what they believed to be a gun store, but it had either closed down or there had been a fake ad, the friend said.
The friend returned to Australia before Lamarre-Condon and soon after received a photo from the officer showing multiple airsoft guns.
The witness on Friday said he asked if Lamarre-Condon had found what he was looking for and the officer said: “No, it was an airsoft gun shop, no suppressor there.”
Back in Sydney, Lamarre-Condon drove his friend to a national park and took a police service weapon out of a paper bag, the jury was told.
Lamarre-Condon gave his friend a police-issued radio and asked him 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.
He said Lamarre-Condon then fired the weapon and asked his friend how loud it was.
He tried again, shooting a bullet into the bushland before asking “does this make any difference on the sound?”, the jury heard.
“He’s asked me whether it would be louder or would you hear this in a house?” the friend said on Friday. “I proceeded to say ‘you could hear that anywhere, it was super loud’.”
On their way home, Lamarre-Condon then allegedly said “you can’t tell anyone about this”, the court heard.
The defence team claims Baird and Davies were accidentally shot when the accused acted in “self-defence”.
Lamarre-Condon then “panicked considerably”, cleaning up the scene and disposing of the bodies, the defence lawyer John Stratton SC said.
The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
Source: Guardian Australia
