Beau Lamarre-Condon asked his cop colleague about two major murders, Lilie James and Matthew Leveson, the day before he allegedly killed Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.
Ben Higginson, a former police officer, told the court on Friday that he worked with Lamarre-Condon at an event in the Domain on February 18, 2024.
Lamarre-Condon asked what sort of work he’d been doing, so Mr Higginson told him that he had worked on Lilie James’ murder.
Ms James, 21, was bludgeoned to death by her ex-boyfriend Paul Thijssen, 24, at St Andrew’s Cathedral School in Sydney CBD on October 25, 2023. Thijssen then killed himself (both pictured below).
Mr Higginson told the court that Lamarre-Condon was very interested in the case.
‘I gave him a fair bit of detail about how f***ed up it was, and then some of the things Thijssen had done,’ he said.
When the Crown prosecutor asked what sort of detail he provided, Mr Higginson said: ‘We believe Thijssen used Lily’s phone to text her father to come to the school after he killed her.’
‘[Lamarre-Condon] thought Thijssen was stupid for doing it on CCTV.
‘He asked if Thijssen hadn’t murdered Lily and then been seen on CCTV, would have gotten away with it.
‘I said we don’t only rely on CCTV, there’s a big effort with investigators and so on.’
Mr Higginson told the court Lamarre-Condon asked about other aspects of murder investigations, like phones.
‘We can make a request to your phone company and they’ll give us a rough signal pinging and mark where you are or where you’re going,’ he said.
‘So if you leave your phone at home and commit a murder, the phone would show up in the vicinity of your residence.’
Mr Higginson also said Lamarre-Condon appeared interested in the murder of Leveson (pictured below), who was last seen leaving a Sydney nightclub in 2007.
His remains were uncovered in 2017. No one has been convicted of his murder. His boyfriend Michael Atkins was tried and acquitted.
In court on Friday, Mr Higginson said he told Lamarre-Condon that Atkins had been spotted on CCTV buying a tarp in Bunnings after Leveson vanished.
‘Then we spoke about not using bank cards and using cash because it’s more difficult for police to trace,’ he told the court.
‘With bank cards, we do a notice to produce from the bank so they give us all your purchases and deposits, and then you follow up to find CCTV and talk to people.’
The prosecutor asked about Lamarre-Condon’s demeanour during the interaction.
He said: ‘He thought Thijssen was stupid for doing it on CCTV.
‘He was pretty blase.’
