Former police officer accused of shooting dead Jesse Baird and Luke Davies apologised to friend, acknowledging ‘you’re involved because of me’
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A covert recording captured Beau Lamarre-Condon telling a friend during a meeting in prison in December last year, “I fully take accountability that you’re involved because of me now,” a Sydney court has heard.
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 Lamarre-Condon allegedly confessed to killing the two men, and told his friend it was an “out-of-body experience”, before then attempting to play it off as a joke.
On Monday, the friend was back in the witness stand, while a recording was played to the court of a conversation the friend recorded on behalf of police when he visited Lamarre-Condon in prison.
At the beginning of the conversation, Lamarre-Condon asked the friend to turn around and show he was not wearing a wire.
“You’re so paranoid,” the friend said to Lamarre-Condon in the recording played to the jury. “Calm down.”
The friend said to Lamarre-Condon during the prison visit: “You put me in a scenario that’s very difficult for me.”
Lamarre-Condon apologised, stating, “I fully take accountability that you’re involved because of me now,” the court heard on Monday.
The friend, in the recording, said he was upset because Lamarre-Condon had said he was dumb. In response, Lamarre-Condon said “You’re not dumb OK,” before then telling his friend: “You’re not self aware in the way that I am.”
Lamarre-Condon accused his friend during the conversation of lying “about so much shit” in his statement to police. He said his friend was wrong to recollect that Lamarre-Condon had said Davies was killed to eliminate a witness and in fact he’d acted in self-defence.
“Don’t you dare switch up,” the friend responded during the prison visit.
Lamarre-Condon in the recording told his friend his entry into Baird’s home was not break and enter because Baird had got a key cut for him. He admitted that entering the Paddington terrace was trespass but claimed it was normal to return to a former partner’s home to retrieve belongings.
He said he did not knock on the door to get the belongings back because he didn’t want to be slapped with an apprehended violence order, but he did call out hello when he walked inside.
Lamarre-Condon, in the recording played to the jury, told his friend: “If I had planned to do this mate, I’d be cool, calm, collected.”
He said he would have had “cleaning ready to go” and he would not have used a police firearm.
“I can get [another gun] for $10,000, I could have done all these things,” he said in the recording played to court.
Lamarre-Condon told the friend he took him to the Royal national park before the murders in early 2024 and shot his gun to test how loud the gunshots were because he was planning to return there to take his own life.
He told the friend during the recording that he had been suffering from suicidality from trauma at work.
During the phone call, the friend can be heard threatening to leave multiple times.
“What you’re telling me mightn’t be the truth,” the friend said.
The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
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In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123.Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
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Source: www.theguardian.com
