Former Police Officer Denies Murdering Jesse Baird and Luke Davies as Sydney Trial Opens
Beau Lamarre-Condon pleaded not guilty to murdering Jesse Baird and Luke Davies as his trial opened in the Supreme Court in Sydney on 21 September 2026.
The 31-year-old former police officer also denied one count of aggravated break and enter, a charge that generally means entering a home without permission in serious circumstances. The Crown alleges he fatally shot Baird, 26, and Davies, 29, Baird's partner, with his police service weapon at Baird's home in Paddington in February 2024 The Guardian.
Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, the lawyer presenting the case for the state, told the court Lamarre-Condon had developed an infatuation and obsession with Baird that showed in compulsive behaviour. The court heard the two men were romantically involved from late 2022 into 2023. Baird ended all contact in November 2023.
The Crown alleged Lamarre-Condon began planning Baird's murder in early 2024. That planning led to a calculated entry, the prosecution said. On 19 February 2024, Lamarre-Condon wore a motorcycle helmet, dressed as an Uber Eats rider and used a previously obtained key to enter Baird's house.
Once inside, the Crown alleged, he shot Baird twice in the kitchen and then shot Davies in the bedroom. Both men died from their injuries. The prosecution presented the sequence as deliberate, with Davies killed after Baird.
What followed, according to the Crown, was an attempt to conceal the killings. The bodies were transported from Paddington to Bungonia, almost 200km away, where they were found eight days after the deaths. The prosecution alleged Lamarre-Condon had earlier tried unsuccessfully to sink the bodies in a nearby dam.
Lamarre-Condon offered to plead guilty to manslaughter as an alternative charge. Manslaughter is a related but less serious category, covering deaths where intent to kill is not shown. It is similar to the difference between acting with aim and causing death without that aim. The prosecution rejected that offer. The case will therefore proceed on murder, which requires proof of intent, alongside the aggravated break and enter count.
Jury selection took place before the opening addresses. The trial is expected to continue for another two to three months. In a separate development connected to the case, Coleen Lamarre, 63, the accused man's mother, was charged with perverting the course of justice The Guardian. Perverting the course of justice generally means interfering with a legal case. Police allege she attempted to influence a key witness in the double-murder trial. That charge stands apart from the murder allegations and will be dealt with on its own track.
The broader context here is what the next months will test. The Crown has laid out motive, preparation, disguise and concealment. The defence, by offering manslaughter while denying murder, has pointed to where it may contest the case, around state of mind rather than identity or the fact of death. Two threads will matter for questions about institutions. One is the alleged use of a service weapon and a retained key, which raises issues of access and control that the court will examine through evidence. The other is witness integrity, now sharpened by the charge against Coleen Lamarre. The court will hear competing accounts of the relationship, the breakup and the events of 19 February. What has been stated so far comes from the Crown opening. The defence has yet to lay out its full response. Verdicts will turn on how the jury assesses intent, planning and credibility after months of testimony.
