Beau Lamarre-Condon promised he “wasn’t doing anything illegal” when he asked a fellow officer whether hire cars and switched-off phones could be tracked, weeks before allegedly murdering two men, a court has heard.
Lamarre-Condon, 31, has been 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 charge of aggravated break and enter.
About three weeks before the alleged crime, Lamarre-Condon told his friend and fellow senior constable, Alex Scobie, he wanted to ask her a “work question”, the New South Wales supreme court heard.
On 27 January 2024, he drove to her home in a hire car and spent time with her before posing a question about call and mobile internet records, Scobie said.
“[He asked] if when we access them as police, if a phone is switched off, do those records still show up,” she told the court on Thursday.
“It was a weird question.”
He then asked whether hire cars could be tracked before saying, “Oh don’t freak out, I’m just asking”, Scobie said.
“He said something like, ‘Promise I’m not doing anything illegal’ and I was just like, ‘Beau, don’t do anything stupid’.”
That evening, she received a call from Lamarre-Condon, attempting to reassure her about the questions he had asked, the court heard.
“I was like, ‘this is weird he’s asked about a hire car, [call records], and now you’re calling me to tell me it’s all OK don’t stress’.”
The reassurances left her “feeling weird”.
Flatmate gives evidence
Earlier on Thursday, the jury heard from Baird’s housemate, known to the court under the pseudonym Belinda Smith.
She had seen the bags containing the dead bodies when she took a photo of oozing surfboard covers in their back courtyard on the evening of the alleged murders, without realising the bodies were inside.
On 19 February 2024, she returned home from work and went out to the courtyard to check on her washing as it had been raining heavily that day.
There, she saw “two surfboard bags with a blue tarp over the top of them and red liquid”, she told the trial.
Smith took a photo of the liquid and sent it to their other housemate, known to the court under the pseudonym Sarah King. The photo was shown to the jury on Thursday.
She believed the liquid was “rusted water from the outdoor furniture”.
Asked by crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC if Baird had ever spoken to her about surfing or if she had seen a surfboard in their house, she confirmed she had not.
“You had no reason to suspect there was anything else in those surfboard bags?” he asked.
Smith responded: “no”.
In early 2024, relations had soured between Baird and his two housemates after they asked him to move out so one of their friends could take his spot. Baird eventually agreed and told their house group chat he would be moving out on 20 February 2024 But when Smith left for work on the morning of the 20th and saw Baird’s belongings had not been packed up, Smith sent a message to King that read: “I’m genuinely scared this dude isn’t moving out today”.
The couple were shot on 19 February.
A message was then sent from Baird’s phone to their housemate group chat claiming he had hired someone to collect his things and that he “might be doing a road trip to Perth with my mates”.
Smith responded she was “confused” and asked him to have his room emptied because cleaners would be arriving the following day. A response from Baird’s phone asked what time the cleaners had been booked. Afterwards, a number of Baird’s items were removed from his room.
By 22 February, the surfboards had been cleared and the liquid was gone, Smith told the court.
Baird and Davies’ bodies were eventually found in two surfboard bags five days later on the fence line of a rural monastery in Bungonia.
The defence lawyer John Stratton SC said during his opening statement that Baird and Davies were fatally shot in “self-defence” after struggles with the policeman. Lamarre-Condon immediately began cleaning up the scene because he “panicked”, the jury was told.
During his cross-examination of crime scene officer Bronwyn Lansley on Thursday, the court heard DNA recovered from the trigger of Lamarre-Condon’s gun was a mixture from three individuals.
Davies could not be excluded as a “major contributor” to the mixture while Lamarre-Condon could not be excluded as a minor contributor, Lansley said.
Investigators did not find either a bullet or a mark indicating the impact of a fired bullet in Baird’s bedroom, Lansley confirmed.
The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
