On February 19, 2024, the quiet streets of Paddington were shattered when Jesse Baird and Luke Davies were shot and killed. Their deaths set the stage for a legal saga that culminates in a Supreme Court courtroom where former police officer Beau Lamarre‑Condon faces two counts of murder.
After the killings, police later discovered a concealed bullet hole in the bedroom door at the crime scene. The door had been repaired: “repairs had been made both to external and internal sides of the door,” Senior Sergeant Bronwyn Lansley explained. The cavity was obscured beneath a hook‑and‑felt pad.
To examine the evidence, police removed the whole door and fired a test shot into the same spot. The jury was shown video of the test shot. The fresh bullet hole measured a 10‑millimetre diameter, identical to the original.
He noted the “propellant spread”—the pattern of particles blasted out of the firearm—looked almost a mirror image between the test and the first shot.
Lucas Van Der Walt, the court’s ballistic examiner, compared the two holes. He noted the “propellant spread”—the pattern of particles blasted out of the firearm—looked almost a mirror image between the test and the first shot. “The original shot would have been discharged at a very similar distance,” he testified, estimating the muzzle was 5 to 10 centimetres from the door’s surface.
Senior Sergeant Lansley found burnt and unburnt powder residue—“which come out of the firearm when it’s discharged”—that confirmed the scene’s authenticity. Further forensic work pulled a partial DNA match from Luke Davies’ blood inside Lamarre‑Condon’s own Glock, binding the former officer to the location.
With the video and expert commentary before them, jurors confronted a courtroom puzzle: the introduction of a precise distance measurement, a concealed hole, and a weapon that carried the victim’s DNA. The Crown’s narrative—that the hidden hole had been deliberately concealed by a former police officer—reached a new, verifiable stage.
In the NSW Supreme Court, the jury deliberates whether Beau Lamarre‑Condon shot Luke Davies into the bedroom door, and whether he was responsible for the death of Jesse Baird. Their decision will bind the former officer to the gravity of murder. The truth behind the door, now laid bare, sits in the hands of ordinary citizens who will render a verdict.
