On Tuesday, February 27, police found the bodies of missing Australian host Jesse Baird and his boyfriend Luke Davies in a rural area outside Sydney. The news comes four days after a police officer was charged with the murders of the couple.

Detectives confirmed that a crime scene has been established at a property near Goulburn, about 160km south-west of Sydney, where two bodies were found inside surfboard bags. Speaking to reporters, police commissioner Karen Webb said, “Today… at that location, we believe we have located two bodies. The families have been notified. We are very confident we have located Luke and Jesse.”

Webb added that the discovery of the bodies of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies had been made with the assistance of the officer who was charged with their murders, Beaumont Lamarre-Condon. According to police assistant commissioner Michael Fitzgerald, it was the first time since his arrest that the accused had “willingly told us information”, after obtaining a lawyer.

Lamarre was charged on Friday, February 23, with the murders of 26-year-old Baird and his partner Luke Davies. Before joining the police force, the suspect had been an influencer and blogger. According to news reports, Lamarre came out publicly in 2014 by throwing a letter on stage at a Lady Gaga concert, which the singer read out to the audience.

The officer also had previously been investigated for the aggressive tasering of an Aboriginal man in 2020 after a video of the incident emerged.

As police alleged in court, there was “some type of relationship at some stage” between the suspect and Baird, which “did not end well”. Police believe that Baird and Davies were shot at home in central Sydney and that the murders were “of a domestic nature” and not a “gay hate crime”.

According to the investigation, Lamarre would allegedly have rented a van after killing the couple, which he used to dispose of the body. The suspect is due to appear in court on April 23 and will remain in custody until then.

Ballistics tests confirmed that the handgun used by Lamarre matched a police-issue firearm, which was later found inside a police station safe. The use of the firearm will be the subject of an internal review. “We’re in this position that a police firearm was used, and that can never happen again,” commissioner Webb said. “So we’ve got to look to ways to mitigate that risk in whatever way we can.”

The deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies were a shock to many Australians, particularly members of the LGBTQ+ community. After news broke out that the pair had been murdered by a police officer, organisers of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras asked police not to join their annual parade this year. They explained in a statement that the call was made because the LGBTQ+ community needed “space to grieve”.

Commenting on this decision, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that relations between the police and the Mardi Gras had improved since the first parade in 1978, where participants clashed with authorities and dozens were arrested.

“But I understand that the queer community in Sydney in particular, are grieving what is an enormous tragedy,” Albanese said. “My heart goes out to those who are grieving, from the family and friends of these two men who’ve really suffered.”