- By Hannah Ritchie
- BBC News, Sydney
February 27, 2024, 04:35 GMT
Updated 2 hours ago
Image source: Jesse Baird
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Police say they are “very confident” they have found the bodies of Luke Davies (left) and Jesse Baird (right).
Australian police say two bodies have been found in the search for missing Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.
“We are very confident that we have found Luke and Jesse,” New South Wales (NSW) Police Commissioner Karen Webb said.
Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, a police officer who once dated TV presenter Mr Baird, was previously charged with murder.
The bodies were discovered on a rural property in the town of Bungonia.
Police said that after initially refusing to cooperate with the investigation, Mr. Lamarre-Condon finally revealed where the two bodies were on Tuesday morning.
Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty said the remains were found “near the entrance to the property” and attempts were made to “cover the bodies with stones and debris”.
He added that police believe two “surf bags” were used to transport the deceased couple in a white van from Mr Baird's inner-city home in Paddington, where they are believed to have been killed.
Last week, investigators found a bullet there that matched Mr. Lamarre-Condon's work weapon, along with a “significant” amount of blood and overturned furniture.
Mr Lamarre-Condon, who appeared in court on Friday and was refused bail, did not comment on the allegations against him. He first joined the police force in 2019 and was previously a prominent blogger.
Police began focusing their efforts on the Bungonia property, about two hours south of Sydney, after learning that Mr Lamarre-Condon had visited it last Wednesday with an acquaintance in the white van in which presumably the bodies of the two were transported.
After cutting a lock on a gate, Mr. Lamarre-Condon left the acquaintance there before driving the van to the property and returning 30 minutes later, police said.
The case gripping Australia is believed to be the first suspected murder committed by a New South Wales police officer in decades and has sparked a review of officers' access to their firearms outside the country business hours.
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Police officer Beaumont Lamarre-Condon is accused of murdering Jesse Baird and Luke Davies
It has also led to organizers of Sydney's iconic Mardi Gras parade banning NSW Police from this year's march. This decision has sparked heated debate online and disappointment from police, who claim the murders were a crime of “passion” and not linked to “gay hatred”.
Sydney's Mardi Gras parade has a complex history of LGBTQ+ activism and police brutality, after the first march in 1978 resulted in dozens of people being beaten and arrested by local officers.
In the decades since, however, it has been a unifying event, with uniformed police officers taking part every year since 1998.
Tributes have poured in for Mr Baird, a former presenter and red carpet reporter, and Mr Davies, who worked as a flight attendant for Qantas.
“Obviously Jesse and Luke were a very active part of the community and I look at their photos online and know they had a great life,” Commissioner Webb said.