Friend testifies former NSW officer sought photos with celebrities, including Kardashian

Beau Lamarre-Condon asked a friend he met through their shared interest in celebrity-chasing to dispose of a mobile phone after he allegedly murdered Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, a court has heard.

Lamarre-Condon, 31, is standing trial in the NSW Supreme Court on two counts of murder over the shooting deaths of Baird, 26, a former TV presenter, and Davies, 29, a Qantas flight attendant, on February 19, 2024. The former NSW police officer has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A West Australian woman told the court she met Lamarre-Condon in 2010 on a trip to Sydney while “celebrity hunting” outside the then CBD studio of Seven’s Sunrise program in Martin Place.

“We used to go to Sunrise and if there was a star on that day, we’d wait out the front, try to get a photo with them,” she said.

She and Lamarre-Condon “had a bit of a fascination” with celebrities and “used to try to get photos”.

She told the court the accused posted on social media after tracking down Kourtney Kardashian and her musician husband Travis Barker when they visited Sydney, and she messaged him about it on February 16, 2024.

“I always wondered how he got so close to them,” she said. “I commented on it the day it was posted.

“He was just walking with them in their circle.”

The woman said she and Lamarre-Condon also had similar views on COVID-19, and she was opposed to “the injections and whatnot”.

“I used to go to protests … I just asked him how police officers can stand there and push back against people who are just fighting for our freedoms,” she said.

“He just told me it was the devil’s work.”

The court heard Lamarre-Condon messaged her on Instagram on February 12, 2024, and said they should switch to the encrypted messaging app, Signal.

The woman said he messaged her on February 20, the day after the alleged murders, saying: “Are you free for a quick call?”

She said they subsequently spoke on the phone and he “asked me if I could do him a favour”.

“He told me that he’d stolen some police files from the commissioner to do with COVID and he wanted me to get rid of a phone.

“I agreed to do it. He told me that I had to be 30 to 40 kilometres away from my house, and then he wanted me to turn the phone on, turn it off, and then throw it into some sort of body of water. I agreed to do that.”

She said he asked for her address so that he could send the phone via express post to Western Australia, and told her to delete the Signal message. She said she was going to dispose of the phone, “not knowing what it was”.

Lamarre-Condon had asked her to turn on the phone for about 10 minutes “so it could ping, and then turn it back off” before throwing it away. She said he did not explain what that meant.

“He told me that it was to do with COVID and they [the files] were not to be released to the public,” she said.

They spoke on the phone again on February 22, the court heard.

“He told me that the detectives had been to his Mum’s place looking for him,” the woman said.

“He said that he was going to be set up for two guys that had gone missing, and then he … [asked] me again what I had to do with the phone.”

Lamarre-Condon told her he used to know one of the men, the witness said.

She said her plan was to pitch the phone off the Dawesville Bridge and “he just wanted to hear me say what I had to do”.

However, she said she became “very” concerned after reading a news article on February 23 “about two blokes being missing and Beau being wanted in questioning for it”.

The article said that “Jesse’s phone had sent messages … saying that he was going on a road trip to Perth or something”, she said.

The woman said she went “straight to the police” after reading that detail. She told the court that she did not receive a package from Lamarre-Condon and did not speak to him again after the February 22 call.

The Crown alleges Lamarre-Condon sent a series of text messages from Baird’s phone to the former Network Ten producer and presenter’s housemates’ group chat on February 20, the day after his death, to give the false impression he was still alive.

The housemates, dubbed Belinda Smith and Sarah King in the proceedings, had asked Baird to move out so that a friend of theirs could move into the Paddington terrace, and he was slated to move out on February 20.

The prosecution alleges Lamarre-Condon murdered Baird with his police-issued pistol after developing an “obsessive and jealous infatuation” with him that escalated when Baird ended their casual relationship in November 2023.

Davies, Baird’s new boyfriend, was killed to eliminate a witness to the crime, the Crown alleges.

The defence case is that Lamarre-Condon entered Baird’s share house disguised as a delivery rider to retrieve some of his belongings. According to the defence, a struggle ensued in which his police gun went off twice, killing Baird, and Davies shot himself accidentally in a second struggle.

The accused had his Glock pistol with him because he was trained not to leave it unattended, the defence has said. The Crown has said he should not have had the weapon because he was not rostered to work that day.

The trial continues.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.

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