Lamarre-Condon Trial Turns to Bullet Paths and Shooting Distance

Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, is on trial accused of shooting Jesse Baird and Luke Davies dead with his police service weapon inside Baird's Paddington home on 19 February 2024. Jurors in the NSW Supreme Court were shown a computer-generated video setting out the prosecution's version of events as the trial proceeded before Justice Natalie Adams The Guardian.

Lamarre-Condon is a former police officer. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter. Baird was his ex-partner. Davies was Baird's new partner.

The prosecution alleges Lamarre-Condon shot Baird twice in the kitchen before shooting Davies through a bedroom door. The defence says both men were shot by accident in two separate struggles and that Lamarre-Condon acted in self-defence.

The 3D recreation walked the jury through Lamarre-Condon's alleged path through the terrace. It included photographs of bullet holes and marks and showed the possible trajectory, or bullet path. Justice Adams told jurors the prosecution says Baird was shot at close range, while the defence says from further away. She warned the kitchen in the reconstruction was not shown to scale.

Much of the evidence concerned muzzle-to-target distance, or how far the gun was from the target, and trajectory analysis. Firearms examiner Lucas Van Der Walt said he was more certain about the bedroom-door path because the bullet passed through 35mm-thick wood. He said stippling, small marks left by hot gunpowder, was found around a hole the prosecution says was covered with putty and a plastic hook.

The court was also shown police test-firing the same gun and ammunition allegedly used by Lamarre-Condon into the bedroom door taken from Baird's home. Van Der Walt said the original and test holes had a very similar spread of propellant particles, the tiny burnt bits released on firing. He estimated the muzzle was 10 to 20cm from Davies. Earlier evidence said Lamarre-Condon allegedly had access to police ammunition and had discussed training ammunition and policing responses before the deaths OutInPerth.

The broader context here is that distance and sequence are now central to the case. The prosecution asks jurors to read close-range kitchen shots and a shot through a closed door as intentional acts, while the defence asks them to read the same discharges as unintended outcomes of struggles. That testimony on stippling, propellant patterning and the 10 to 20cm estimate gives jurors a physical anchor for Davies's death, while the judge's warning on scale is a reminder the animation is an aid, not a measurement. What follows will likely turn on how the defence tests trajectory work inside a small terrace and whether jurors accept test-fire similarity as enough to fix firing position.