Jesse Baird and Luke Davies: Nothing amiss in the hours before couple’s murder

Heartbroken friends of murdered Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies who met and exchanged messages with them in their final hours say there was no sign of imminent danger.

Jesse Baird, left, and Luke Davies, right, at Sydney’s Beresford Hotel the night before they were murdered. Picture: Instagram

Heartbroken friends of murdered Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies who met and exchanged messages with them in their final hours say there was no sign of imminent danger, as it was revealed their alleged killer had told a friend he had been “floating in a dam”.

As police confirmed Friday after a post mortem that Mr Baird was shot dead, Mr Davies’s longtime friend Tom Stephenson said the couple had been happy and relaxed when he met them the day before the murders.

It comes as it was reported on Friday that police could hear a man yell “get out, f*k off” on the triple-0 call from the Paddington house on the day of the alleged murder, and that alleged killer Beau Lamarre-Condon told a friend “I am me but I am not me.”

Mr Davies had invited Mr Stephenson to Sydney’s Beresford Hotel on Sunday, February 18, to meet Mr Baird for the first time.

Mr Davies had described Mr Baird, who he had only recently started dating, as “the real deal”.

At the hotel, Mr Baird was “lovely, incredibly warm, friendly”, Mr Stephenson said.

“Luke and I’ve been catching up, going to the beach, going to coffee,” he told The Weekend Australian. “I think he was pretty keen for me to meet Jesse and I felt really pleased that he’d invited me to do that.

“Maybe he really valued Jesse and I to be friends for the sake of what was hopefully going to be a long relationship for them.”

The couple didn’t mention police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon, who is now accused of murdering both of them with his Glock pistol at Mr Baird’s home in Paddington, in inner-Sydney, the next morning.

“I’d never heard of Beau until all of this,” Mr Stephenson said.

Constable Lamarre-Condon had strong feelings for Mr Baird and wanted a relationship, friends say. But Mr Baird had asked Constable Lamarre-­Condon to stop contacting him.

Jesse Baird, left, and Luke Davies. Mr Davies had described his partner as “the real deal”. Picture: Instagram

Police documents reported by Nine Newspapers on Sunday said a friend of Constable Lamarre-Condon told police that he had lost touch with reality in a sleep-deprived state.

The friend shared messages from the alleged killer from February 22 in which he described “floating in a dam” and taking a woman with him to get rid of the bodies.

“This morning I was floating in a dam ... I am me, but it’s not me,” Constable Lamarre-Condon reportedly said. “I have to get this sorted and clean up my mess.”

“There was a dam. The body wouldn’t sink. The girl panicked and wanted to go home. I told her that was fair and that she was never here or a part of this.”

Mr Davies’ friend, Dean Bailey, revealed he received messages from the flight attendant the morning of his death.

“We’d always send funny Instagram memes back and forth to each other, and I received one at 9.18am the morning of the incident,” Mr Bailey told Sunrise. “It was a funny meme, followed by a crying laughter emoji, which is pretty much what Luke was like. You could picture him physically laughing as he sent that message.

“To know that within 30 minutes after that, things took a turn for the worse and the unimaginable happened. It’s heartbreaking to think what went on (after the message)”.

A Channel 10 staffer and former colleague of TV presenter Mr Baird described him as “high energy, incredibly friendly, incredibly positive”.

“He really did just sort of shine on everyone around him. And I think one of the reasons people are so profoundly gutted is that he really did touch so many people here, across a range of age groups, genders. He was just a wonderful presence to have around.

“He was enormously loved here – and I find it very hard to put that in past tense.”