source : the age
The mother of Beau Lamarre-Condon, the police officer accused of the double murder of couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, will remain behind bars for at least two weeks after being arrested for allegedly influencing a key witness to change their evidence.
Coleen Lamarre was arrested at her home in Balmain on Wednesday and spent a night in the cells, charged with doing an act to pervert the course of justice.
Lamarre’s matter was briefly mentioned in the local court’s bail division on Thursday, but she did not appear via audiovisual link from custody.
Her lawyer asked for an adjournment until next Tuesday for a bail application. However, the prosecutor requested a two-week adjournment to elect which court the case would progress in.
Judge Lucas Swan accepted the two-week adjournment, noting that the estimated two-hour bail application was “somewhat excessive” to be squeezed into next Tuesday’s court list.
Lamarre, a former senior officer in the NSW Police radio division, will remain in custody until at least May 14. She was ordered to appear via audiovisual link on that date.
Her son Beau Lamarre-Condon is accused of fatally shooting former Channel Ten presenter Jesse Baird and his Qantas flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies with his police-issued pistol in February 2024.
Police allege the then-senior constable killed the couple at Baird’s Paddington share house before dumping their bodies in surfboard bags near the town of Bungonia, south of Goulburn.
Four days later, Lamarre-Condon handed himself into police, after allegedly trying to dispose of the couple’s bodies, first in a dam on a remote property and then a bush grave when the bodies wouldn’t sink. He has been in custody since.
Lamarre-Condon’s case has faced ongoing delays as he has switched several lawyers in the lead up to his trial later this year.
He was first represented by solicitor John Walford, then the publicly funded Legal Aid lawyers, who withdrew last July and handed the case to solicitor Ben Archbold.
During an October court appearance, Lamarre-Condon gave a bizarre statement in which he announced he wanted “the actual truth” to be revealed. He said he’d offered to plead to the manslaughter of “Jesse Baird only”, with no mention of Davies. He accused police and prosecutors of corruption and said he will “not be silenced”.
A police document, obtained by the Herald, revealed Baird and his new partner, Davies, were drinking with friends at the Beresford Hotel the evening before they died.
Investigators suspect Lamarre-Condon had stalked Baird, who had complained about a “shadowy figure” near his bed.
Lamarre-Condon allegedly arrived at the Paddington address, armed with his gun, in the 10 hours after Baird and Davies left the pub on Sunday evening.
The next day, Baird’s housemates spotted two surfboard bags in the terrace’s rear courtyard. Police claim they were led to bloodied clothing and other belongings in a skip bin in Cronulla, found by a passerby. The items took them to the alleged bloodied crime scene at Baird’s Paddington house.
Lamarre-Condon allegedly tried to sink the bags in a dam on a property 200 kilometres from Sydney, having loaded them into a rental van, before dumping them nearby.
He is accused of seeking refuge with a friend in Newcastle, making chilling comments about “floating in a dam” and a body that “wouldn’t sink”.
“I am me, but it’s not me,” he allegedly said.
Lamarre-Condon’s NSW Supreme Court trial is listed for September 21.
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