Beau Lamarre-Condon murder trial live: Prosecution picks up questioning of accused

He accepts he was taking advice from a “young, immature guy”.

“I was the one who thought about the farm, dumping them in the bushes … and [the friend] said what about the dam?

“The way I acted was not OK and I am very embarrassed by what I’ve done … and it’s not anyone else’s fault.”

Lamarre-Condon says his friends still had “input”.

Lamarre-Condon went to the sushi train about 7pm on February 20, 2024.

He says he was “trying to make things appear normal” at the venue and in his texts.

The accused says he can’t remember putting his phone on airplane mode while talking to a male friend he was with, and agrees he “did discuss” what to do with the bodies to him.

He tells the court the friend suggested concrete.

CCTV from 10:37am on February 20, 2024 shows a rental near the back of the property, near the backyard roller.

The accused accepts he used this time to move items from the chest of drawers into the vehicle.

“I had an operation on the 21st so I knew I had to return my gun before then,” Lamarre-Condon tells court.

Hatfield says he told Miranda Police Station he was going to return his gun on the 22nd.

He accepts he returned the gun there on this day.

Court is being shown forensic images of the door to Baird’s bedroom.

It includes a picture of the actual door next to a test shot.

Hatfield suggests he wanted to use a drill to make the hole bigger “to take away the small perforated holes” from stippling.

“No that is not correct,” he replies.

Hatfield suggests the logical thing to do would be to use pliers.

“I never said it was halfway out the very tip of it was out slightly,” the accused replies.

He says pliers wouldn’t be able to grip on the bullet.

CCTV at Bunnings from 9am on February 20 included high-vis tradie wear.

He agrees he had a conversation with a worker but “could not give you an accurate recollection of what I said”.

Hatfield suggests he asked how to drill a hole in a door.

“I have no idea of anything to do with that,” the accused replies.

About 6am he went to Balmain Police Station to get a “new battery” for a radio.

“I never brought my radio then [February 19, 2024], it was because I had a shift on the 18th and my battery was dead,” the accused testifies.

“At this point it was for listening to the police radio, but I didn’t end up needing to.” He’s talking about February 20 now.

Lamarre-Condon disagrees he shot through the bedroom door and the bullet hit Davies on the other side of it.

At 1:14am on February 20, 2024 a person on CCTV is seen “carrying a blue bucket”.

The accused disagrees he was walking back “relaxed” and tells court he “was stressed”.

He’s asked whether the bodies didn’t fit in the surfboard bags.

“I can’t tell you what I was thinking about at that time,” but he agrees he bought two more longboard covers.

A drawing depicting how far through the door the bullet went is being shown to the jury.

It’s on green paper and tendered to the court, but we won’t be able to see it at this specific point in time.

Hatfield asks why he didn’t buy a screwdriver to “bash” the bullet out the door.

“Because I did buy a drill … to drill it through,” Lamarre-Condon replies.

“I’m not good with hands on mechanical stuff like that.”

He says he ended up using a screwdriver he found in the house.

We’ll be back in about five minutes.

The next day, February 20, 2024, he bought a self-adhesive wall hook early in the morning from Kmart.

He says one of the bullets was lodged in Baird’s bedroom door.

Lamarre-Condon is being asked to draw a picture of how the bullet was lodged but a hole was still punctured through the door.

Lamarre-Condon says he remembers using a trolly to remove the bodies.

Hatfield puts to him he would have had to drag them one at a time, by himself.

“Yes, I agree,” he replies.

He drives the van to Virginia Street, turns his phone on, and sends a text saying “how was your Monday, Mr?” to a man he was seeing.

“I agree I was panicking and I was trying to make everything normal because I was freaking out.”

At 10:07pm, Tesla data shows the vehicle was parked for seven minutes.

“I don’t know where I parked,” he tells court.

“Can’t say or won’t say?” Hatfield asks.

“I honestly can’t remember.”

Hatfield suggests he was acting “quite calmly and methodically”.

“I’ve disagree in certain ways,” referring to his police experience.

Lamarre-Condon agrees the holster didn’t “come back with me home”.

A CCTV screenshot is shown of Lamarre-Condon “holding something brown”. This is about 8pm on the day of the alleged murders.

Shown the vision, he says “that could be a jumper and I remember wrapping it around a [slashed T-shirt]”.

A later trip to Bunnings Alexandria included red paint and blue paint.

“I don’t know. I honestly did not realise I bought paint until, I don’t know,” he tells the court.

He says he believes he bought two tarps for a hire van.

A text from Baird’s phone read he was “flying out to Perth” about 4:31pm.

“It was your plan having Jesse disappear to Perth,” Hatfield puts to him.

The accused replies he tried to avoid any suspicion at this stage.

“After the fact of the manslaughter, that’s when I started to think what if this was real.”

He disagreed he tried to make it look like Baird had “disappeared”.

Hatfield asks if moving Baird’s body from the kitchen to the bedroom left a “trail of blood”.

“Yes, but not much,” the accused replies.

“This was something that was traumatic and I don’t remember all the details.”

He testifies he had a panic attack and “passed out” on the couch.

The accused used towels, bed sheets and doonas from the hallway boxes or bedroom to clean up, he says.

Using cash, Lamarre-Condon spent $146 at Bunnings Alexandria.

Hatfield asks why he bought double-sided mounting tape.

“I can’t tell you if I even used that,” the accused replies.

Just before 4pm on February 19, 2024 he accepts he put back on the high-vis delivery wear to “go back into the house”.

“You moved the bodies around in the morning … or this afternoon?” Hatfield asks.

“All I did was move Jesse into the bedroom,” the accused says of his movements in the morning.

He drove to Miranda Westfield to buy a second surfboard bag with cash, the accused agrees.

“I disagree, I didn’t bring the first surfboard bag into the house at all,” he says, asked if he intended to use the first one for Baird’s body.

He texts a friend while at Mascot after turning his phone back on.

The accused tells her he has to cancel plans because of an injury and says he’s not a “flake”.

Lamarre-Condon says he told his male friend he didn’t shoot the second person.

“Yes I said there was a second person [that was shot],” he tells the court, and he confirmed it wasn’t a housemate.

He tried to call a female friend about midday.

“I wanted to speak to someone who wasn’t going to judge in regards to feeling I was having an out-of-body experience,” he tells court.

Part of his concern, the accused says, was his safety as a police officer if he went to jail.

He says “people do get stabbed and killed” even in maximum security with protections.

Hatfield asks if the accused asked a male friend who can’t be identified would help him after the alleged murders.

“I thought he would help me figure it out if it was real or not,” he replies, about his testimony of having an “out-of-body experience”.

He says if this was planned, he would have cleaning products “ready to go”.

Lamarre-Condon testified he “believed he could still feel a pulse” with Baird but it became clear there were “no signs of life”.

He’s asked why there was no blood on his shoes, and he says he didn’t walk into any pools of blood.

“Everything you did was in order to, so you wouldn’t be held to account for what you’ve done,” Hatfield puts to him.

“That is not entirely true. At first, it was entirely for the housemates and as of Wednesday, it was definitely a guilty conscious about manslaughter.”

The accused agrees there was a “lot of blood”.

He says he used a bed sheet to cover the two men.

“I brought everything back into the bedroom so the housemates didn’t know anything,” he says.

He says blood on the mattress came “after the fact” when he brought it into Baird’s bedroom.

The accused moved all Baird’s belongings back into the bedroom so his housemates didn’t think “he wasn’t moving out” and look in.

Looking to 9:25am, he says the front door looked like it was not shut properly, and he thought he should “wait 20 minutes” to see if anyone else would leave.

Hatfield asks why he waited away from the house.

“That would mean I would be a lot closer … if I was standing at the top of the street, I could see [down],” he says.

He denies his gun being in a holster at this stage was a lie.

The prosecutor is asking the accused to clarify his evidence about an UberEats bag, which he previously testified was empty before and after the two deaths.

“I don’t remember putting anything in the bag,” Lamarre-Condon says.

Hatfield asks if he put the gun in the delivery bag.

“I did not,” he replies.

Lamarre-Condon says he contemplated sending Baird a message asking him to leave his stuff out from his second phone, but decided against it.

“It could be deemed harassment contacting him from another phone,” he tells court.

The accused says can’t tell if at 5am, the gun was on a holster or in a backpack.

He says he didn’t sleep and was up “all night” having conversations with his mum.

According to evidence, he turns his second phone on at 5:04am and his primary phone off at 5:07am.

He goes to Kensington to collect a hire vehicle about 5:19am.

“We parked it near my sister’s apartment,” he tells court of him and his mum.

We’re looking at the Crown timeline of events on the day of the alleged murders.

Just after 5am, he says in a screenshot of CCTV he’s holding a wetsuit and possibly a backpack.

“You had no plans to go surfing,” Hatfield says.

“I disagree,” he replies.

He says poor weather has better swell so “that’s when people usually surf”.

Court has broken for lunch.

We’ll be back about 2pm AEDT.

The accused denies telling this friend about “doing something bad to Jesse Baird”.

“That is not correct,” Lamarre-Condon says.

He says this friend knew he was going to get his belongings back from Baird’s home.

The next morning, an alarm goes off at 4:30am, Hatfield tells the court.

The accused texts a friend saying he’ll “try call you tonight and update you” on Signal.

He says a lot of messages between the night before to the morning of February 19, 2024 that have “disappeared”.

The accused says this friend encouraged him to fill out a form to take time off work and take care of his mental health.

“This is great news I’m going off work on stress leave,” he tells the court about the messages, getting agitated.

“This is clearly not about, ‘yay I’m on my way to commit a murder’.”

The accused denies asking two friends for a gun, saying he asked one of them if a man known to her had a gun under alleged DV circumstances.

He sends a friend a message saying he wanted to let her know he loved her “so much” in the event “I don’t get to talk to you again”.

“This was all in relation to suicide,” he tells court, crying in the witness box.

“Why would you message this about a plan to murder someone?”

He denies putting airplane mode to conceal the vehicle’s location.

“You wouldn’t bring a plan linked to your mum for a murder,” the accused says, saying he would opt for a stolen vehicle.

“No one’s saying that’s a good plan, that’s why we’re sitting here,” Hatfield replies.

When he got home, he says he was “not good” and opened up to his mum about his mental health, the court heard.

We’re still in discussion about the day before the alleged murders.

Hatfield says Lamarre-Condon didn’t want to be heard on the phone “because of the conversation you were having with your mum”.

The accused replies “in general, I don’t like to talk about anything personal” on his mobile phone.

He says he was “crying, sobbing and wailing” in his car alone later on.

His phone was put on airplane mode near to 8pm between Mascot and Kensington.

“My mum was finally not in the car so I could let it out a bit more,” he says.

“That was going to be the night I was going to end my life and it was very emotional.”

Hatfield asks if the accused’s mum didn’t want him to “drive alone” because she was concerned about his mental health.

“She left with you with a gun … while she went into Hertz,” Hatfield asks.

“My mum didn’t know I had my gun with me,” he replies.

He says he talked to her about “thoughts of suicide” but not “that I was thinking then and there” about killing myself.

Lamarre-Condon had the gun on an appointment belt when he took his mum to a Hertz on February 18, 2024.

“I couldn’t leave it at home, I didn’t have a safe,” he says.

He and his mum had a conversation about his suicide ideation when they got home, he tells court.

The accused says he put his phone on airplane mode on this drive because he didn’t want the device listening.

“I don’t like talking about personal issues … around my phone,” he says, adding it was back online at the Hertz store.

Lamarre-Condon can’t say if the gun was in his backpack or on his holster by the time he got home.

He denies getting “ready” for the alleged murders by moving the bullets in it.

“I was contemplating suicide that night,” he tells court.

“The bullets were already in the magazine, I didn’t need to prepare it for anything.”

Hatfield asks about the possibility of the gun being audited after he shot two bullets in the National Park on February 1, 2024 and February 18.

He accepts supervisor checks on police firearms were “lax”.

Lamarre-Condon says he didn’t foresee he was going to an ATM, which is why the gun was in his backpack.

“I thought about it while I drove by,” he says about getting cash out.

“Sometimes you would take it off and put it in a backpack … so it wouldn’t stick on the seat.”

He went home after this to drive his mum to Mascot.

“I had it [the gun] on an appointment belt,” which is found on a plain clothes holster.

There’s debate about what day he signed out his gun until.

Lamarre-Condon says he signed it out on February 18, 2024 but the evidence is not clear if it was until the 20th or the 22nd as a date has been scribbled over.

In the vision, he leaves the station out of uniform.

At an ATM in Balmain, he tells court his gun was on him in a plain-clothes holster.

He says it’s “not correct” when Hatfield asks if that’s a “blatant lie” and suggests he left it in the car.

Hatfield asks him to point out where the gun would be on his body from the CCTV.

“You can’t see on this footage,” Lamarre-Condon replies, saying that’s why he was in the car for a while because he was putting it into the holster.

“It was never stuck down my pants and I would have moved it to my hip.”

In this CCTV, he’s in the gun room at Balmain Police Station.

He opens a storage locker and puts his bag behind the door.

Lamarre-Condon accepts he took his gun off his hip, into his left hand, and says he put it in his bag.

He says he got his padlock and put it into his bag as well.

Hatfield suggests he concealed himself using the locker door and pretended to put his gun back.

Lamarre-Condon disagrees.

“If I wanted to pretend to put my gun back I’d go to Miranda Police Station where there’s no CCTV at all,” he says.

He says it’s possible the colleague could have discussed murder investigations and use of cash.

“I was asking very general conversations I never went out of my way to ask, ‘Hey, tell me about a murder investigation’.

“He started the conversation.”

We’re now looking at CCTV after the Operation Shelter user pays shift of Lamarre-Condon returning to Balmain Police Station.

He says he was retrieving a padlock, not returning his gun back.

Hatfield puts it to the accused that his colleague told him: “If you were to leave your phone at home and commit a murder, the phone would show up in the vicinity of the residence.”

Lamarre-Condon replies he didn’t ask any specific questions “in relation to that”.

He denies asking “what avenues detectives look for in suspicious deaths”, saying he was asking about suicide.

“I was a police officer talking about what police officers talk about.”

Hatfield asks about the traceability of cash, and the accused says it’s in regards to “dial-a-dealer and drug supply”.

February 18, 2024 is now being discussed.

The accused says was on a user-pays shift at The Domain, and that he didn’t “have any conversations about Jesse Baird” on this day.

On shift, he talks to a colleague about the murder of Lilie James and the perpetrator’s phone use.

He’s asked if he said he thought the perpetrator was “stupid” for being filmed on CCTV with a hammer prior to the murder.

“I thought it was strange someone was allegedly planning a murder and were happy to do it on CCTV,” he tells court.

“He was talking abut the guy was messaging the dad to come to the school [where she was murdered].

“I said why would he do that if it was a planned murder?”

He says it was a “very normal conversation for police to have”.

Lamarre-Condon agrees he took $90 in cash out on February 16, 2024 for a date.

He disagrees he used the cash to buy a surfboard bag for Baird.

On February 17, he’s asked if he was depressed on that day.

“I don’t believe I was,” he says.

He says his mum asked how much his police discount would be on a hire vehicle on this day.

Lamarre-Condon says he went to Decathlon and bought a surfboard bag about 3pm.

He went to a party and introduced a man he was recently seeing.

“I was not depressed on this night … I remember that night very vividly,” he says.

Lamarre-Condon says he would send influencers samples of his product at his swimwear brand.

He can’t say who he individually sent them to, but included people from shows like Love Island and Below Deck.

The accused says he wasn’t looking up legitimate number plates but “personalised laser-engraved plates” for these influencers.

On February 16, he had a conversation with a female friend.

Hatfield asks: “Did you tell her you had a plan to do something to Jesse”.

“I had told her … I was planning on getting my property back … and she said ‘don’t get me involved in case something goes wrong, I don’t want to know’,” he replied.

He says he messaged her on February 15 about the movie Saltburn, and says he “see myself playing the lead role”.

“It was the number one movie at the time, produced by Margot Robbie,” he tells the court.

He says it’s not the case he identified with the plot, which involves murders.

On February 12, 2024 Lamarre-Condon accepts he looked up number plates.

He tells the court they were novelty for his swimwear brand, not proper number plates.

He says he didn’t wipe that search specifically, but could have been on a private browser or wiped the entire history that day after looking up adult content.

The accused says it’s “incorrect” he looked up a Hertz vehicle because of Baird.

We’ll be back about 11:55am (AEDT).

Lamarre-Condon was on a “romantic” date on February 6, 2024.

He says they spoke about past relationships three days before, and described being in a “situationship with a 26-year-old”.

The accused says he didn’t want to use a “fireplace” Tesla feature that would automatically trigger an accompanying Spotify romance playlist, and that he was still signed in to Baird’s account.

If that happened, “they would see it”, he says about Baird.

He uses Apple Music so he says he didn’t realise Baird’s Spotify was still logged in on his car until that point.

A friend told him that “cash is king” he testifies, a motto “taught” to him, he tells court.

He acknowledges he got cash out “after the fact”, but not before “for the purposes of planning a murder”.

His bank transaction list shows cardless cash collections on January 25, February 3, February 16, and February 18 from what the court can see at the moment.

He recalls looking up fireworks on February 3, 2024 to let off fireworks in the national park.

Hatfield asks if he made a purchase on AliExpress that day, and says he bought a “hair straightener” because he has naturally curly hair.

We’re looking at bank transactions and there’s a transaction for about $60.

He denies buying a motorcycle helmet, and says he instead bough a laser hair removal kit and props for his swimwear line.

“I can tell you for certain I didn’t buy a helmet.”

The accused is asked whether he told a friend he was “pissed off” Baird and another man were going on “adventures or dates”.

“I really wanted to go on a picnic with Jesse to the Blue Mountains or Hunter Valley,” it’s suggested he said to his friend.

He denies commenting on the Hunter Valley, and says his comments were about photos he saw in November 2023 of Baird in the mountains with another man.

We’re now looking at texts between the accused and a female friend on Feb 1, 2024.

He invites a friend to join him for a swim in Cronulla.

“You weren’t depressed at all, was that the case?” Hatfield asks.

“Mr Crown, depression comes and goes.”

He says the texts don’t reflect whether he went back to Miranda Police Station to retrieve his gun or not.

Texts to a male friend show he went to pick up his male friend about 5:30pm, and they went to the Royal National Park.

Lamarre-Condon says he was “planning” to kill himself if he had to work with a problematic sergeant again.

At 4pm on February 1, 2024 he was at the beach.

“I don’t believe I was there for fun and a swim,” he tells court, and says he could have been there for work doing case management with young people.

“You were down there relaxing,” Hatfield suggests.

“Mr Crown, I can’t say.”

Hatfield puts to him that his questions in January were “peculiar”.

Lamarre-Condon says he doesn’t recall her telling him not to do anything “dumb”.

We’re looking at texts between Lamarre-Condon and a male friend from February 1, 2024.

This is the day he and the friend went to the Royal National Park and the accused fired two non-operational rounds, the court has heard.

Asked about his mood on that day, he says he “was not in a good headspace”.

“You were thinking about murdering Jesse Baird this weekend,” Hatfield asks about January 16, 2024.

“I’ve never thought about murder Jesse, no,” Lamarre-Condon replies.

He’s talking about a coffee date that weekend where he suggests Balmain or Paddington.

Baird lived in Paddington.

Hatfield put to him that he was in Baird’s suburb in a hired car.

The accused replies that Baird was “nowhere near” him on that day.

“I didn’t know it at the time, I didn’t go there for [Baird],” he tells court.

On this call log, he calls a man whose family farm the bodies were taken to.

He says he called him because he thought he might have been blocked on Instagram, and also wanted to catch up in a “normal conversation”.

He says he tried contacting the man via Signal, but didn’t receive a reply.

“Were you contacting [him] pretending to be someone else,” Hatfield asks.

“No, I wasn’t pretending to be someone else. But the name on Signal was ‘Bob’.”

The accused denies he was calling him to ask about the farm.

We’re looking at a call record from Lamarre-Condon’s “burner phone”.

This log is from January 16, 2024.

Lamarre-Condon says it’s a “second phone, I wouldn’t call it a burner phone” then says it’s just a “sim card”.

He says he couldn’t use his main phone because the Signal app isn’t fully encrypted.

The accused hired a vehicle over the January long weekend in 2023.

“I was getting my rims of my Tesla resprayed and some of my wrapping done,” he tells court.

He spent a couple days with a male friend, and went to a cafe with another man, and visited the Northern Beaches.

Hatfield says he was using a “burner phone” that weekend.

He replies he used it for encrypted app Signal to contact colleagues, and to call another man who he says had blocked him on Instagram.

“It was never [used] near Jesse Baird, ever,” Lamarre-Condon says.

On the January long weekend, Lamarre-Condon says he went to the Royal National Park with a male friend.

“I have never been aware of any relationship Jesse had … after the 19th.”

“I hadn’t seen anything on social media” and wasn’t looking him up, he says.

Hatfield asks why he blocked Luke Davies on Instagram.

“I just blocked … I even blocked Jesse’s family members, I didn’t want any of that.”

Hatfied asks if he was thinking about or had stolen bullets when he was asking Harvell about another officer taking a shell casing.

The accused says he doesn’t know if he took it before or after the conversation.

He says he saw them at Miranda Police Station, took them, and it was for the “intention of suicide”.

He denies he took these bullets from a police training day, as suggested by Hatfield.

The accused’s colleague and friend, Nicole Harvell, has previously told court the accused referenced “boxes and boxes” of these non-operational rounds that “weren’t counted”.

“I don’t remember having that part of the conversation,” Lamarre-Condon says in court.

He says he disagrees he was talking about rounds, and not shell casings, which also weren’t counted.

This other officer reportedly took a shell casing to frame, and pocketed it.

“Did you raise the matter a few times with her … that junior constable getting away with stealing it [the shell casing],” Hatfield asks.

He replies he talked about it once with her.

To kickstart the morning, Hatfield has begun asking Lamarre-Condon about asking questions about technology called Cellbrite in January 2023.

Cellbrite programs are used to retrieve data from devices.

The accused says he was enquiring because he was working towards a senior position in the police force, which involved tracking drug dealers’ phones.

Lamarre-Condon says he asked about Snapchat data specifically because parents had asked him about it in relation to their kids.

Missed out on Thursday’s cross-examination?

Sydney reporter Phoebe Pin has got you covered. Catch-up here:

Welcome to today’s coverage.

We’re back in the NSW Supreme Court listening to Beau Lamarre-Condon giving evidence.

He’s being questioned by Brett Hatfield SC, the Crown prosecutor, as part of ongoing cross-examination.