A celebrity-obsessed Sydney police officer allegedly used his service pistol to gun down his ex-boyfriend and the man's new partner inside a quiet suburban home, then rented a van and drove the bodies more than 120 miles to a remote waterway where he tried to make them disappear.
Senior Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon, 28, has been charged with the murders of Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29. Prosecutors allege the killings took place inside Baird's home in the upscale Sydney neighborhood of Paddington. Lamarre-Condon, a former celebrity blogger who once rubbed shoulders with reality TV stars and entertainment figures, had previously been in a relationship with Baird, a Channel 10 television personality.
The case turns on a chilling detail: the gun allegedly used in the killings was not a black-market firearm or an unregistered weapon. It was a police-issued service pistol. Fox News reported that a bullet casing recovered at Baird's home matched the service pistol Lamarre-Condon signed out of a New South Wales Police gun safe on February 15. He returned it on February 20.
That five-day gap now sits at the center of an internal review. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb acknowledged the gravity of the breach.
"It's a failure if someone has used their service firearm in the manner that's alleged, which is why it's necessary to have a review."
The review will examine policies governing off-duty access to service weapons. For a police force already under public scrutiny, the question is blunt: how does an officer walk out of a station with a loaded firearm, allegedly commit a double homicide, and return the weapon days later without triggering any alarm?
Authorities allege Lamarre-Condon did not stop at the killings. AP News reported that the officer allegedly rented a van, loaded both bodies, and drove roughly 124 miles southwest of Sydney to a rural property in Bungonia. Once there, he allegedly purchased weights suspected to have been intended to sink the remains in an inland waterway.
The alleged sequence reflects a calculated effort to destroy evidence and delay discovery. Police believe the bodies were transported to the Bungonia area, a sparsely populated region known for its gorges and waterways, precisely because of its remoteness.
Divers from the NSW Police force have been searching those waterways in an effort to recover Baird and Davies. Deputy Commissioner David Hudson framed the search in personal terms.
"It's our number one priority to try and locate Jesse and Luke to give the families some solace."
As of the latest reporting, investigators had not publicly confirmed whether the bodies had been found.
Lamarre-Condon's public profile set him apart from a typical patrol officer. The Sun reported that before and during his policing career, he cultivated a social media presence built around celebrity encounters. He reportedly styled himself as a fan-turned-insider, photographing himself alongside well-known Australian television personalities and entertainment figures.
That obsession with fame intersected with his personal life. Baird, who worked in television at Channel 10, had been in a relationship with Lamarre-Condon before the two split. Baird then began dating Davies, a 29-year-old flight attendant. Prosecutors allege the breakup and new relationship provided the motive.
The original headline references allegations that Lamarre-Condon pretended to be a rideshare driver before the killings. The Sun's reporting included that claim, suggesting the ruse was part of how the officer allegedly gained proximity to his victims on the night of the alleged attack.
Australia's strict civilian gun laws make this case especially jarring. The country overhauled its firearms regulations after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, and private gun ownership is tightly controlled. Police officers, however, retain access to service weapons, and the rules governing off-duty possession vary by department and jurisdiction.
Commissioner Webb's call for a review signals that NSW Police leadership views the current policy as inadequate. The core issue is straightforward: if officers can sign out service pistols and carry them off-duty without real-time oversight, the safeguard exists only on paper.
Investigators will need to determine whether any supervisory failures allowed Lamarre-Condon to access and retain the weapon during the period in question. They will also need to establish whether existing protocols were followed or whether gaps in the system went unnoticed.
The case has rippled into broader public debate in Australia. Because Baird and Davies were a same-sex couple, and because the alleged killer was himself a gay man within the police force, the murders have raised pointed questions about police participation in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.
Some community voices have called for police to be barred from marching in uniform, arguing that the institution cannot claim solidarity while one of its officers stands accused of killing two gay men. Others have pushed back, warning against collective punishment for the alleged actions of a single officer.
NSW Police leadership has not publicly announced a decision on parade participation tied to the case. The debate, however, has exposed a fault line between law enforcement's outreach efforts and the trust deficit that cases like this deepen.
Lamarre-Condon faces two murder charges. Authorities have not indicated whether additional charges related to the alleged concealment of remains or evidence tampering are forthcoming. Investigators will need to determine the full sequence of events inside the Paddington home, confirm the manner and cause of death, and establish whether anyone else assisted in the alleged disposal effort.
The search for Baird and Davies continues. For their families, every day without recovery is another day without answers or closure. For the NSW Police force, the case presents an institutional crisis that no policy review can fully resolve.
When the people entrusted with service weapons allegedly turn them on civilians, the failure is not just procedural. It is a fracture in the basic covenant between the public and the officers who swear to protect them.
