Two bodies 'found in surf bags' amid hunt for missing TV star and flight attendant boyfriend
The bodies were found this morning by police in Bungonia following a search for the couple
Jesse Baird
Two bodies have been found by police in Australia in the search for missing couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.
The bodies were discovered in the town of Bungonia, about halfway between Sydney and Canberra, today after Beaumont Lamarre-Condon – the police officer charged with the couple’s murder – told police where they were.
New South Wales Police Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty said the remains were found covered with rock and debris near the entrance to the Bungonia property.
Doherty said police believed the couple’s bodies were taken in two ‘surf bags’ – large bags used to carry surfboards – in a white van from Baird’s Sydney home, where it is thought the pair were killed.
The bodies’ finding follows last week’s discovery of a “significant” amount of blood, upturned furniture, and a bullet from Lamarre-Condon’s police-issued gun.
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said: “We are very confident that we have located Luke and Jesse.”
Commissioner Webb said Baird, 26, a former TV presenter and celebrity reporter, and Davies, 29, a flight attendant for Qantas, were “an active part of the community” and “had a great life”.
A police statement said: “While the bodies are yet to be formally identified, they are believed to be that of Luke Davies and Jesse Baird. A post-mortem examination will be conducted to confirm the cause of death.”
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Commissioner Webb said the couple were “an active part of the community” and “had a great life”
Lamarre-Condon, who had previously dated Baird in a relationship police say “did not end well”, was refused bail following a court appearance on Friday, and has not yet commented on his charges.
Police understand he and a female acquaintance had visited the Bungonia property last Wednesday in a white van thought to contain the couple’s bodies.
Lamarre-Condon broke a lock on a gate to the property before driving the van inside, returning half an hour later to meet his waiting acquaintance, police said.
The case is thought to be the first suspected murder by a NSW police officer in decades, and has led to a review into officers’ access to weapons outside of working hours.
Commissioner Webb said: “We’re in this position that a police firearm was used, and that can never happen again, so we’ve got to look to ways to mitigate that risk in whatever way we can.”
It has reignited tensions between NSW police and Sydney’s gay community – organisers of the city’s Mardi Gras parade uninvited police from this year’s event.
The first parade in 1978 saw dozens of revellers beaten and arrested by police, but officers have taken part every year since 1998.
Amid the row, police have alleged the murders were a ‘crime of passion’ rather than being “gay-hate related”.