The childhood friend of Beau Lamarre-Condon, identified in court as Elizabeth Kennedy for legal reasons, finished giving evidence on Wednesday.
Ms Kennedy, pictured with Lamarre-Condon, told the court he drove her from Sydney to Goulburn on February 21, 2024—two days after he allegedly killed Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.
She said she had not been told they were heading to Goulburn and became “annoyed” after realising the journey would take them roughly two hours from Sydney.
According to Ms Kennedy, Lamarre-Condon instructed her to switch off her phone. His iPhone was also turned off, although he used an Android handset to access maps during the drive.
Asked by Crown prosecutors whether she could identify the destination on the map, Ms Kennedy replied: “I can’t read a map, I don’t drive, and I’ve never had a licence.”
She said Lamarre-Condon spoke very little about Baird during the trip, a change she found unusual.
Ms Kennedy recalled him saying: “Guess what? Jesse’s seeing someone new.”
She said she could see that he was upset, but described him as “very bubbly and very talkative”, leading her to believe the news had not affected him deeply.
That struck her as “odd”, she told the court, because conversations between them would usually focus almost entirely on Baird.
After arriving at Cella Farm in Bungonia, Ms Kennedy said she watched Lamarre-Condon cut through the lock on the main gate. She also said he told her to conceal the rental van’s number plate with a garbage bag.
He then walked towards the rear of the property, disappearing from her view, while she remained near the gate for about 40 minutes, she said.
Left alone, Ms Kennedy said she began to panic.
“I was hyperventilating and crying,” she told the court.
She described crouching down during a panic attack and wanting to switch her phone back on. When Lamarre-Condon returned, she said, he told her to be quiet, asked whether she had contacted anyone and was told that she had not.
Ms Kennedy said he then promised to take her home immediately, which helped her begin to settle.
She described the return journey as “awful”, saying she was still distressed and uncomfortably cold from the air conditioning.
“He told me not to speak, even though I was freezing cold,” she said. “He let me turn my air vent off but I wasn’t allowed to close the windows.”
Ms Kennedy also testified that Lamarre-Condon asked about her anxiety medication and whether she had “thought about ending it all”.
The next day, after seeing media reports about Baird’s disappearance, Ms Kennedy said she tried to contact Lamarre-Condon approximately 12 times.
He eventually returned her call through the encrypted messaging service Signal.
She told the court: ‘I saw the news the night before that Jesse was missing and I had some questions.
‘He said he couldn’t answer them on the phone, he said he was seeing police on Friday morning because he had a meeting with them.’
During the call, the court heard Ms Kennedy said to Lamarre-Condon: ‘Have you seen the news?’
The court heard he replied: ‘Yeah, it’s crazy. I have to go to Bondi Police Station to talk to detectives tomorrow.’
She asked: ‘Do you know where Jesse is?’
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He replied: ‘No, it’s just crazy.’
The pair had planned to go to Europe together later that year. On the call, Lamarre-Condon allegedly said: ‘If I can’t go to Europe with you, I’m so sorry, I love you.’
She said, ‘It felt like a final call … He sounded apologetic, a bit stressed, and then he hung up and tried to call him back after that but the phone was off.’
Ms Kennedy said she told her partner about the situation that evening and they decided to talk to a lawyer.
She went to Bondi Police Station the following day, made a statement and drove with detectives to Goulburn to find the Bungonia farm.
During cross-examination by defence lawyer John Stratton SC, Ms Kennedy told the court the only thing she could smell in the van was air freshener.
‘To be fair, I don’t know what a dead body smells like,’ she said.
Mr Stratton asked her if she could see into the back of the van.
She said the back area of the van was obscured by a mesh cage, which meant she could only see a blue tarp that appeared to be flat on the floor.
He asked: ‘Did it look like there were two dead bodies under it?’
Ms Kennedy replied: ‘That was the last thing I was thinking.’
He said: ‘It didn’t look to you like the tarp was hiding a wheelbarrow, a spade or bags of cement?’
She said: ‘No.’
He asked: ‘Did [Lamarre-Condon] say to you, “Hey, before you get in the van, I need you to know it’s serious and I’m not joking, if you don’t want to help, I understand”.’
Ms Kennedy replied: ‘No, he never mentioned anything about helping him with anything.’
Mr Stratton asked: ‘Did [Lamarre-Condon] lift the tarp and show you the head of a deceased Jesse Baird?’
She replied: ‘No, he definitely didn’t want me to know there was anything in the back.’
He asked: ‘Did you say, “Oh my God, I saw his head, you weren’t joking”?’
Ms Kennedy said that never happened. She also denied that Lamarre-Condon started crying.
She told the court: ‘He never showed any remorse or shed a tear, even when he called me from jail.’
Mr Stratton asked Ms Kennedy if she convinced him to hide the bodies rather than go to the police.
He asked her: ‘Did you say, “No, no, no, you can’t go to the police, they won’t believe you, this is like the Taylor Swift song, No Body, No Crime”?’
Ms Kennedy denied saying anything like that.
She told the court Lamarre-Condon played the song during their trip to Goulburn: ‘It’s a really niche song … I tried to play a few more songs from that album and he didn’t know any of them.’
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