The Surfboard Bag Evidence in the Lamarre-Condon Trial, Explained
Jurors in the trial of Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, were shown security camera footage on Thursday, 24 September 2026, from two days before the alleged killings. The footage, from 17 February 2024, was taken at Miranda Westfield in Sydney's south.
It depicts Lamarre-Condon's grey Tesla passing the shopping centre before he and a friend entered a Decathlon store. Inside, Lamarre-Condon went to the surfboard bag section, handled several options, selected a bag and held it up against his friend's height.
Lamarre-Condon, a former Sydney police officer, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter, meaning entering a property without permission in serious circumstances. The charges relate to the deaths of Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29.
Prosecutors allege Lamarre-Condon fatally shot both men with his police service weapon at Baird's Paddington home on 19 February 2024, according to proceedings reported by The Guardian. Davies was Baird's partner, as reported by BBC. He will argue he acted in self-defence, meaning he says he used force to protect himself, ABC reported. The case is set down for a three-month trial in the NSW Supreme Court.
Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC, the lawyer acting for the state, alleged Lamarre-Condon asked his friend whether he would fit inside the bag. Receipts tendered to the court indicated Lamarre-Condon paid $90 in cash for the item.
The Crown alleges that purchase was preparatory. It alleges Baird was placed in the surfboard bag bought from Westfield two days earlier, and that Lamarre-Condon returned to the same store after the shooting to buy a second surfboard bag to conceal Davies' body. The Sydney Morning Herald described the purchase as one of the steps the Crown says formed part of planning for Baird's murder.
Detective in charge Sasha Pinazza told the court the investigation obtained more than 14,000 hours of CCTV footage from 200 locations. Jurors have now been shown several excerpts assembled as a timeline around the alleged murders, like links in a chain the Crown wants to connect.
Other videos played to the jury depicted Lamarre-Condon collecting the alleged murder weapon from a police gun locker the day before the shootings. Separate footage depicted his mother picking up a rental car allegedly later used to drive to Baird's house. CCTV from a neighbouring house captured the sound of three gunshots on the morning of the alleged crime.
The Crown has also pointed to earlier conduct to support premeditation, meaning planning beforehand. The trial heard Lamarre-Condon asked a friend over a video call months earlier to help obtain something and then made a gun gesture with his hand. The jury was told separately that Lamarre-Condon asked a friend for a gun, Nine reported. Hatfield alleged CCTV footage of Baird with another man at the Royal Hotel in Paddington in May 2023 was found on Lamarre-Condon's personal devices.
The court was previously told Lamarre-Condon had developed an "obsessive and jealous infatuation" with Baird, ABC reported. Friends of Baird have given evidence in the trial, ABC reported.
The broader context here is the collision between two narratives the jury will have to weigh over the coming weeks. The Crown is building a sequence of procurement, surveillance and concealment, with the surfboard bags, service pistol, rental car and audio of gunfire presented as linked elements. The defence does not dispute that deaths occurred but contends the legal character of the acts was self-defence.
In my view, that framing places unusual weight on the pre-incident footage. If jurors accept the bags, weapon collection and vehicle hire as a planned course, the self-defence claim becomes harder to sustain. If they harbour doubt about intent behind those acts, the Crown's structure loosens. With extensive CCTV still to be tested and cross-examination to come, the evidentiary fight will turn less on what the cameras recorded than on what inference the jury draws from it.
