Beau Lamarre-Condon has denied being “obsessed” with Jesse Baird from the start of their relationship, telling a court he would have liked the TV presenter even if he was “a garbage cleaner”.
The former police officer is accused of fatally shooting Baird and his new partner, Luke Davies, with his police service weapon in Baird’s Paddington home in Sydney on ۱۹ February ۲۰۲۴.
He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter.
Sitting in the witness box for the fourth day, Lamarre-Condon was grilled by crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC about his relationship with Baird.
The former officer told the NSW supreme court he would meet up with Baird in October and November ۲۰۲۲ for sexual encounters before the pair began going on romantic dates in December of that year.
Under cross-examination on Tuesday, Hatfield asked Lamarre-Condon: “You were obsessed with him right from the start?”
Lamarre-Condon denied this, telling the jury: “I never cared about showing Jesse off. I wanted Jesse to meet my friends because I thought he was genuine”.
“Jesse Baird could have been a garbage cleaner… I liked Jesse for who he was as a person,” Lamarre-Condon said.
Asked by Hatfield if Lamarre-Condon was “obsessed” with Baird in February and March ۲۰۲۳, the accused responded: “I don’t agree with ‘obsessed’. Smitten? Yes. Obsessed? no.”
Hatfield pointed to messages between Lamarre-Condon and his friends sent around the time the pair began going on dates, where the officer says: “it sounds crazy, I love him”.
Lamarre-Condon responded: “I say ‘I love you’ to all my friends and to people like that all the time.”
“That’s different to saying I’m ‘in’ love with him,” he said.
Asked whether he was insecure about the relationship and whether Baird liked him, Lamarre-Condon said his response was “natural” and sometimes occurred when the TV presenter did not reply to his messages straight away.
“I would always joke [with my friends], ‘we’re white girl crazy’,” Lamarre-Condon told the jury.
“It means we should stop being in our head and second-guessing ourselves.”
He told the court he would make jokes and have “banter” with his female friends, not his heterosexual male friends, telling each other things like: “you’re a crazy bitch”.
Hatfield showed screenshots of text messages between Baird and Lamarre-Condon and asked why Baird’s profile photo were low resolution.
“If you’re trying to insinuate any of these are not genuine … we’ve got videos,” the officer said, telling the court Baird’s photo was a screenshot from a video he took of the presenter.
The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.
