Beau Lamarre-Condon’s friend claims the former police officer asked him whether shots could be heard from a “house” while firing his police firearm in a park weeks before he is accused of killing a Sydney couple.
Mr Lamarre-Condon, 31, has pleaded not guilty to murdering TV presenter Jesse Baird, whom he briefly dated, and Qantas host Luke Davies on February 19, 2024 at the journalist’s Paddington home.
Mr Lamarre-Condon, 31, is arguing self-defence in a jury trial before the NSW Supreme Court.
The jury is now hearing from Mr Lamarre-Condon’s former friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The jury was earlier told Mr Lamarre-Condon asked the man “not to judge him” and told him that he had “killed two people” about an hour after the couple’s deaths, saying “pew pew” when asked how he “did it”.
Mr Lamarre-Condon also went for a sushi train dinner with the man the night after the alleged murders, with prosecutors alleging the former officer had mentioned needing to find a skip bin that evening.
Mr Lamarre-Condon allegedly dropped his friend home before returning to Club Cronulla that night to dump the couple’s bloodied belongings in a skip bin.
The former officer’s friend on Friday told the jury that Mr Lamarre-Condon took him to a national park in early 2024 and took out his police vest and gun and fired two shots into bushland.
During the second shot, Mr Lamarre-Condon allegedly put the gun in a paper bag before firing the weapon.
“He asked me ‘Would you hear this in a house?’” the man told the jury.
“I then proceeded to say, ‘You could hear that anywhere’.”
Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield earlier told the jury the friend would give evidence about Mr Lamarre-Condon using his police firearm to test muffling sound.
“He went with the accused to the Royal National Park where he used his police firearm and tested firing the gun using police training rounds that he’d stolen and testing it with a paper bag over the barrel to muffle sound,” Mr Hatfield said.
The jury was also told on Friday that the man went on a holiday to Bali with Mr Lamarre-Condon towards the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024.
The man was asked by Mr Hatfield whether anything “unusual” happened on the trip, with the man claiming Mr Lamarre-Condon wanted to buy a gun silencer.
“He said we need to find a spot where I can purchase a silencer,” the man said.
“He said that he was going hunting on a mate’s farm.”
They found a gun store, the man told the jury, but it was closed or had been shut down.
After the man flew home a few days before Mr Lamarre-Condon, he told the jury he received a photo from the former police officer standing in an airsoft gun store.
“I asked the accused ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’. He said ‘No’,” the man told the jury.
The jury has been told the man made statements to police under the promise that what he said could not be used against him in any criminal proceedings.
He has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
More to come