In a Sydney courtroom, the trial of a New South Wales police officer accused of murdering two men is revealing how obsession can quietly take root in the ordinary moments of a life — a dinner question, a stolen camera, a fabricated medical crisis — long before it erupts into violence. Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, stands charged with the February 2024 deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, both shot with a police service weapon in Baird's Paddington home. The testimony emerging from the NSW Supreme Court asks the jury to weigh not just what happened on a single day, but what kind of person was bein
NSW cop asked friend 'what would you do if I killed somebody' before alleged murders
Two men, Jesse Baird (26) and Luke Davies (29), were fatally shot with a police service weapon in Paddington on 19 February 2024.
He wore me down. It felt like guilt-tripping to me.
Mark
So this friend Georgia Cook—she's saying he literally asked her if she'd help hide a body. That's the kind of thing people say as a joke sometimes, right? How seriously should we take it?
Mimi
She took it seriously enough to remember it and testify about it nine months later. And the thing is, it wasn't just words. He then admitted to breaking into Baird's house, stealing his camera, eating his food. The question wasn't abstract—it came wrapped in actual criminal behavior.
Luke
But we should be careful here. One person's testimony about a conversation is one person's memory of what was said. We don't have a recording. We don't have Lamarre-Condon's version of what he meant or how he said it. The court is hearing Cook's recollection of tone and intent.
Mark
What strikes me is the escalation. The break-in, the stalking, then the fake cancer story to manipulate another friend into contacting Baird. That's not random—that's a pattern.
Mimi
Exactly. And the fake cancer thing is particularly calculated. He's using medical crisis as cover for his behavior, getting his friend to vouch for him without her actually knowing what she's vouching for. He's manufacturing a narrative.
Luke
Though we should note: the defense says self-defense. We don't know yet what Lamarre-Condon's account of his own actions is, or what evidence supports either version. The trial is still ongoing.
Mark
How did Shae Davison not realize she was being used?
Mimi
She did realize it, eventually. She told the jury it felt like guilt-tripping, like he was wearing her down. But in the moment, he was her friend, he was upset, and he kept applying pressure. That's how manipulation works—it's incremental.
Luke
And we should note she was unsure whether Baird even saw the messages. So the intended effect—whatever it was—may not have landed.
Mark
Do we know if Baird knew about any of this? The stalking, the break-in?
Mimi
The court hasn't established that yet. But Davison said it was possible Baird saw the Instagram messages through the preview function. Whether he knew about the house break-in or the watching from outside—that's still part of what the trial will determine.
Luke
Right. We have testimony about what Lamarre-Condon did and said. We have less clarity on what Baird knew or how he responded to any of it.
O Pulso
- Nine months before the killings, Lamarre-Condon asked a friend over dinner whether she would help him hide a body — a question he later laughed off, but which now echoes through a murder trial.
- Testimony reveals a pattern of escalating intrusion: secret surveillance of Baird's home, trespassing with a hidden key, stealing a gifted camera, and wearing a disguise to avoid recognition.
- After Baird ended the relationship a second time, Lamarre-Condon pressured a reluctant friend into sending a 1,600-word message to Baird — one that falsely placed her at his hospital bedside for a cancer diagnosis she knew nothing about.
- The friend told the jury she felt 'guilt-tripped,' her loyalty weaponized; when she tried to ask about the fabricated details, Lamarre-Condon demanded she unsend the messages entirely.
- The defense argues Lamarre-Condon entered Baird's home disguised as an Uber Eats driver and acted in self-defense — a claim prosecutors contest as the trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
In a Sydney courtroom, the trial of a New South Wales police officer accused of murdering two men is revealing how obsession can quietly take root in the ordinary moments of a life — a dinner question, a stolen camera, a fabricated medical crisis — long before it erupts into violence. Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, stands charged with the February 2024 deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, both shot with a police service weapon in Baird's Paddington home. The testimony emerging from the NSW Supreme Court asks the jury to weigh not just what happened on a single day, but what kind of person was being assembled across the nine months that preceded it.
A dinner conversation in May 2023 has become one of the most haunting pieces of evidence in the NSW Supreme Court trial of police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, charged with murdering Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29. Over that meal, Lamarre-Condon asked his friend Georgia Cook what she would do if he had killed someone — and whether she would help him hide the body. He laughed it off, said he hadn't killed anyone, but admitted to something he called 'crazy': he had been watching Baird's Paddington home from outside, used a hidden key to let himself in, stolen a Polaroid camera he had once gifted Baird, and eaten an Easter egg from the kitchen. He made these visits in his mother's car, wearing a black hoodie.
The relationship between the two men had been brief and fractured. After Baird ended things a second time in November 2023 — having discovered Lamarre-Condon had gone through his phone and deleted messages from other men — Lamarre-Condon turned to his social circle for help. He arrived at friend Shae Davison's home asking not to be alone, then returned the next day with a request: would she send a message to Baird from her own Instagram account, as though it came from her?
Davison was reluctant. Lamarre-Condon claimed the message contained private medical details, but pressed her until she agreed — on the condition that he read it aloud first. The message, 1,600 words long, described a cancer diagnosis in his left shoulder, with amputation as a possible outcome, and placed Davison at his hospital bedside as a witness. She had never been there. He had written her into his story without her knowledge. When she later tried to ask about it, he was annoyed and asked her to unsend the messages. She did.
Whether Baird ever read those words remains unclear. What followed, prosecutors allege, was a plan that ended in both men's deaths on 19 February 2024, when Baird and his partner Luke Davies were shot with a police service weapon inside the Paddington home. The defense contends Lamarre-Condon entered disguised as an Uber Eats driver and acted in self-defense. The trial continues, still tracing the distance between a dinner table question and two deaths.
A New South Wales police officer sat down to dinner with a close friend in May 2023 and asked her a question that would later take on a different weight in a courtroom: "What would you do if I told you I killed somebody? Would you help me hide the body?" Nine months later, Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29, were found dead in Baird's Paddington home, shot with a police service weapon. Beau Lamarre-Condon, 31, now stands trial for their murders, and the testimony emerging from the NSW Supreme Court is painting a portrait of obsession, manipulation, and behavior that escalated across months before the killings on 19 February 2024.
The dinner conversation was not an isolated moment. Georgia Cook, Lamarre-Condon's friend, told the court that when she expressed concern about his question, he laughed it off and said he hadn't actually killed anyone—but that he had done "something crazy." What followed was a confession of trespassing. Lamarre-Condon had been watching Baird's Paddington home from outside, Cook testified. He had seen Baird and friends taking photographs with a Polaroid camera that Lamarre-Condon himself had given as a gift. When the group left, Lamarre-Condon used a key he had spotted being hidden to enter the house. He stole the Polaroid camera and ate an Easter egg that belonged to Baird. He would make these trips in his mother's car, wearing a black hoodie to avoid being recognized.
The relationship between Lamarre-Condon and Baird had been brief. They saw each other again for a few months after that initial breakup in April 2023, but Baird ended things again in November after discovering that Lamarre-Condon had gone through his phone and deleted messages from other men. The officer was, by his own friend's account, "really upset." He showed up at the home of another friend, Shae Davison, asking to stay because he didn't want to be alone. The next day he arrived with a backpack and made a request: would Davison send a message from her own Instagram account to Baird, framed as coming from her, as "one last try to win Jesse back"?
Davison was reluctant. Lamarre-Condon claimed the message contained medical details he didn't want her to see. But he pressed her. He said he had never asked anything of her before, that he was devastated, that she could help. "He wore me down," Davison told the jury on Friday. "It felt like guilt-tripping to me and using my friendship to get what he wanted." She agreed on one condition: he would read the message aloud to her, leaving out only the medical parts. When he did, she asked him to delete sections that weren't true. He appeared to make the edits. Then he sent the note as a series of messages and told her she could read the full text after 4 December 2023, when he said he was scheduled for surgery.
The message was 1,600 words long. It claimed Davison had accompanied Lamarre-Condon to Westmead Hospital, where he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his left shoulder. The worst-case scenario, the message stated, was amputation. He was on powerful medications that affected his hormones and behavior. The message tried to explain his actions—going through Baird's phone—as out of character, a product of his medical crisis. It spoke of real love, of trust that could be rebuilt. But Davison had never been to the hospital with him. She had never cleared those details. Lamarre-Condon had fabricated her presence in his medical narrative without her knowledge or consent.
When Davison tried to ask him about the content later, he was frustrated and annoyed that she had read it. He asked her to unsend the messages. She did. The trial heard that it was unclear whether Baird ever actually read the messages, though it was possible he saw them through Instagram's preview function. What is clear is that by early 2024, prosecutors allege, Lamarre-Condon had begun planning to murder Baird. The defense has offered a different account: that Lamarre-Condon disguised himself as an Uber Eats driver, entered the home in self-defense, and the shootings that followed were justified. The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues, with the full arc of what happened between that dinner conversation in May 2023 and the deaths in February 2024 still being contested in court.
Citações Notáveis
What would you do if I told you I killed somebody? Would you help me hide the body?— Beau Lamarre-Condon, to friend Georgia Cook, May 2023
He wore me down. It felt like guilt-tripping to me and using my friendship to get what he wanted.— Shae Davison, describing Lamarre-Condon's pressure to send a message to Baird
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Leia o original em The Guardian ↗