In a Sydney courtroom, the quiet discovery of bloodied clothing in a skip bin at a suburban bowls club has become the fulcrum of a murder trial — one that asks whether a former police officer's use of his service weapon was an act of lethal calculation or desperate fear. Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, stands accused of shooting AFL umpire Jesse Baird and Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies in a Paddington terrace on 19 February 2024, and then methodically erasing what he had done. The trial, now before the New South Wales Supreme Court, places two competing human truths before the jury: the forensic
Bloodied belongings found in skip bin as ex-cop murder trial hears evidence
Two men, Jesse Baird (AFL umpire) and Luke Davies (flight attendant), were allegedly fatally shot by a former police officer in Paddington, Sydney.
You're not in trouble. We've just got information there might be evidence.
Mark
So the skip bin discovery—that's the spine of the prosecution's case so far?
Mimi
It's certainly what they're leading with. A greenkeeper finds bloodied clothes, new AFL shorts still in packaging, a Qantas card. Two days after the alleged murders. That's not ambiguous evidence.
Luke
But we should be careful here. The prosecution alleges Lamarre-Condon dumped those items. We don't yet know what forensic work ties them directly to him—fingerprints, DNA, anything that proves he put them there.
Mimi
Fair point. The items are in the bin. The timing is suspicious. But you're right that possession of the bin isn't the same as proof of who used it.
Mark
And the defence is claiming self-defence. How does that square with the cleanup?
Mimi
Their argument is panic. He shot them in self-defence, then panicked and tried to clean up. It's a coherent story, even if it's a difficult one for a jury to swallow.
Luke
It's coherent, but it requires the jury to believe two things: that the shootings were justified, and that a trained police officer's response to a justified shooting was to dispose of evidence. Those don't sit easily together.
Mark
What about the crime scene photos? Over 200 of them.
Mimi
They show massive blood loss. The bullet passed through blood before hitting the floor. Blood saturated the timber beneath the house. That's consistent with the prosecution's account of what happened.
Luke
It's consistent with shootings happening in that room. It doesn't tell us who fired the shots or under what circumstances.
Mark
So the trial really hinges on what the jury believes about those moments inside the house.
Mimi
Exactly. The physical evidence is powerful, but it's not a recording of events. It's a record of aftermath.
El Pulso
- A greenkeeper's routine morning at Cronulla Bowls Club unravelled into a homicide investigation when he found black bags of bloodied clothing, a silver watch, AFL shorts still in packaging, and a Qantas ID card in a skip bin that had been empty the day before.
- Prosecutors allege Lamarre-Condon shot both men with his police service weapon inside Baird's home, then spent the hours that followed dismantling the scene — a theory anchored by forensic evidence of massive blood loss beneath the floorboards and a fired bullet still carrying traces of blood.
- Body-worn camera footage shown to the jury captured officers arriving at the Paddington terrace to find three Portuguese-speaking cleaners already at work, hired by a housemate unaware of what had occurred — a collision of the ordinary and the catastrophic.
- The defence counters that both shootings were acts of self-defence during physical struggles, and that the cleanup reflected panic rather than the cold logic of concealment.
- The jury must now weigh more than two hundred crime scene photographs, forensic testimony about blood saturation in the home's timber joists, and the contents of a skip bin against a narrative of fear — with Justice Natalie Adams presiding over a trial that is only beginning to unfold.
In a Sydney courtroom, the quiet discovery of bloodied clothing in a skip bin at a suburban bowls club has become the fulcrum of a murder trial — one that asks whether a former police officer's use of his service weapon was an act of lethal calculation or desperate fear. Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, stands accused of shooting AFL umpire Jesse Baird and Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies in a Paddington terrace on 19 February 2024, and then methodically erasing what he had done. The trial, now before the New South Wales Supreme Court, places two competing human truths before the jury: the forensic weight of over two hundred photographs and a blood-soaked floor, and a defence that asks whether panic, not premeditation, drove the events that followed.
Two days after Jesse Baird and Luke Davies were shot dead in a Paddington terrace, a greenkeeper arriving for work at Cronulla Bowls Club found a skip bin propped open with black plastic bags inside that hadn't been there the day before. When Craig Scott opened one, he found brown clothing stained with what appeared to be dried blood. What he and a co-worker pulled from that bin — a silver watch, a leather pouch, a Qantas ID card, wooden drawers, various shoes, and a pair of AFL shorts still in their original packaging — would become central to the prosecution's case against Beau Lamarre-Condon.
Lamarre-Condon, 31, a former Sydney police officer, is accused of murdering Baird, 26, an AFL umpire, and Davies, 29, a Qantas flight attendant, at Baird's home on 19 February 2024. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter. The trial is now underway in the New South Wales Supreme Court before Justice Natalie Adams.
Scott's discovery triggered an urgent police response. Body-worn camera footage shown to the jury captured officers arriving at the Paddington address to find three cleaners already inside — hired by a housemate who knew only that Baird was due to move out that week. Communicating through Google Translate with the Portuguese-speaking workers, officers asked them to stop and declared the home a crime scene.
What investigators found inside was extensive. Senior Sergeant Bronwyn Lansley testified that a fired bullet, still carrying traces of blood, had passed through a source of blood before embedding in the wooden floor. Beneath the house, blood had flowed down the joists and saturated the timber. The jury was shown more than 200 photographs documenting the aftermath in meticulous detail.
The defence, led by John Stratton SC, does not dispute that the shootings occurred. Instead, it argues that both men were shot in self-defence during physical struggles, and that the cleanup that followed was not calculated concealment but the panicked response of someone who believed he had acted to protect his own life. The jury must now weigh that account against the forensic record left behind — in the photographs, in the floorboards, and in a skip bin at a bowls club two suburbs away.
Two days after an AFL umpire and a flight attendant were shot dead in a Paddington terrace, a greenkeeper arriving for work at Cronulla Bowls Club noticed something wrong. The lid of a skip bin was propped open. Inside, when Craig Scott looked, he found black plastic bags that hadn't been there the day before. He opened one. Inside was brown clothing stained with what looked like dried blood.
What Scott and his co-worker pulled from that bin over the next few minutes would become central to the prosecution's case against Beau Lamarre-Condon, a 31-year-old former Sydney police officer accused of murdering Jesse Baird, 26, an AFL umpire, and Luke Davies, 29, a Qantas flight attendant. The two men were shot on 19 February 2024 in Baird's home. Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter. The trial is now underway in the New South Wales Supreme Court.
Beyond the stained clothing, the bin contained a silver watch, a leather pouch, and a Qantas ID card. There were wooden drawers, various shoes, and a pair of AFL shorts still sealed in their original plastic packaging. The prosecution's theory is that Lamarre-Condon used his police service weapon to kill both men, then immediately began dismantling the crime scene, disposing of items at the bowls club in the hours that followed. Scott's discovery on 21 February triggered an urgent police response. Within hours, detectives arrived at Baird's Paddington address.
Body-worn camera footage shown to the jury this week captured the moment officers arrived to find three cleaners inside the home. A housemate had hired them because Baird was scheduled to move out that week. The officers, communicating through Google Translate with the Portuguese-speaking workers, asked to look around and then instructed them to stop what they were doing. "You're not in trouble," one officer said on the recording. "But we're just now to declare this a crime scene. We've just got information that there might be some evidence for us."
The crime scene investigation team that followed documented the aftermath in meticulous detail. The jury was shown more than 200 photographs from inside the house: walls, flooring, and a fired bullet with traces of blood still visible. Senior Sergeant Bronwyn Lansley testified that the bullet had passed through a source of blood before embedding itself in the wooden floor. Beneath the house, investigators found evidence of massive blood loss. "A significant amount of blood has flowed down the joist and saturated the timber," Lansley told the court.
The defence has offered a different narrative. Lamarre-Condon's lawyer, John Stratton SC, told the jury during opening statements that both men were shot in self-defence following physical struggles with the officer. The cleanup that followed, the defence argues, was not the calculated concealment of a calculated crime but the panicked response of someone who had acted in fear for his own safety. The trial continues before Justice Natalie Adams, with the jury now tasked with weighing the physical evidence—the bloodied items in the bin, the photographs of the crime scene, the forensic detail—against the defence's account of what happened inside that house on the night of 19 February.
Citas Notables
I saw several black plastic bin bags – I definitely remember those bags were not there the day before. I opened one of the bags and removed a piece of brown clothing … it had red stains on it – it looked like dried blood to me.— Craig Scott, greenkeeper at Cronulla Bowls Club, in statement read to court
A significant amount of blood has flowed down the joist and saturated the timber.— Senior Sergeant Bronwyn Lansley, describing forensic findings beneath the crime scene
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