12 Jesse & Luke | What Beau Lamarre-Condon did the night before his arrest

Before handing himself into police Beau Lamarre-Condon spent the night cleaning out the van he used to transport Jesse and Luke’s bodies and then called a police helpline to report a psychological injury. We hear recordings of Beau Lamarre-Condon in that call and in a secretly taped prison conversation. In this episode Jamie McKinnell explains the evidence of the police officer the accused stayed with that night, what she says he told her about what he'd done and an earlier conversation where he allegedly asked if she'd help him bury a body.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:45Stephen Stockwell?

  The jury has seen the moment that Bowlem Arcondon was arrested as he walked into a Bondi Police Station and heard what he told a friend as he cleaned out a van the night before. I'm Stephen Stockwell, this is episode 12 of the case of Jessie and Luke.

• 1:02Speaker 05

  He's accused of shooting Jessie Baird and Luke Davies with his service firearm.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  Police now allege Constable Bowlem Arcondon murdered the couple at a home in Paddington.

• 1:13Speaker 06

  This is just a terrible incident that's occurred here, the loss of these two young men. Now this is Mardi Gras time and yet it's a community in mourning. The pain is ongoing. We don't have a lot of answers that we would love to have just to help bring closure, to bring peace.

• 1:31Stephen Stockwell?

  The jury has seen the final movements of Bowlem Arcondon before he handed himself into the Bondi Police Station and was arrested for the alleged murders of Jessie Baird and Luke Davies. They've also heard from the woman who he stayed with the night before as he cleaned out the back of a van that he'd used to transport their bodies and heard a phone call that he made moments before being arrested. There, as all of this has been presented to the court, is the ABC's Legal Affairs reporter, Jamie McKinnell. Welcome, Jamie.

• 2:00Speaker 05

  Hi, Stocky.

• 2:01Stephen Stockwell?

  We're really getting a kind of final picture of what Bowlem Arcondon did before his arrest, right?

• 2:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, where he went, who he spoke to, what those people made of the conversations, and also how he arrived at a police station and his initial reaction to being placed under arrest.

• 2:18Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm, there's a lot to unpack in this episode. Do you think you can kind of wrap it up for us quickly before we dive in?

• 2:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, and thank you for saying not in 60 seconds because I don't think it is going to be 60 seconds. So the jury has watched a video of Bowlem Arcondon standing with his arms crossed as a senior officer from the homicide squad tells him he's under arrest for two alleged murders. This was at Bondi Police Station where the accused had been driven four days after the deaths of Jessie Baird and Luke Davies. He says nothing during those initial exchanges with police. We've heard where he spent his final night before that arrest with a former colleague, cleaning blood off a van and using that ex-colleague's phone to contact his mother and read news articles about the couple's disappearance.

• 3:05Speaker 05

  The jury has also been read a statement written by the accused about 10 months later in which he accused a female friend of being behind the plan to dispose of two bodies and claimed that she was with him as he tried to sink them in a dam. And that's a claim, as we've heard, which is denied by the female friend. Mr. Lamarcand said in that statement that he wanted to tell the truth and, quote, "do the right thing by the families of Jessie and Luke". And we've also heard a phone call that the accused made on the way to Bondi Police Station, reporting a work-related psychological injury to a police assistance line, and that was a call in which he claimed to have endured workplace bullying and to have symptoms of schizophrenia.

• 3:51Stephen Stockwell?

  Thank you, Jamie. You say so for sure. That was closer to 60 seconds than I think you probably realised. But yeah, I think it does point to the amount of evidence we have heard over the last couple of days. In this episode, we will be playing the voice of Bowlem Arcondon for the first time, so people can hear how he sounded when he was recorded secretly in prison and also as he made that call to the police helpline. Jamie, really though, the feature of the last couple of days has been a witness known as Fiona Rosso. She was a police officer when she met Bowlem Arcondon, she lived north of Sydney. And we have seen CCTV of the van that Bowlem Arcondon was driving arriving at a house north of Sydney. Is this her place?

• 4:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we've heard from Ms. Rosso about how she was at home one night when she had this unexpected visit. She said that she heard a male voice calling out her name and she was kind of taken aback and then she saw Mr. Lamarcand. Now Fiona Rosso is a pseudonym. She has also been given that certificate offering her protection against prosecution. In terms of her evidence in court, it means that that evidence can't be used against her. And the judge has also said that she's satisfied the evidence may tend to prove that Ms. Rosso concealed a serious offence. So she can't be prosecuted as a result of her evidence, but that does not protect her if the evidence is false against perjury charges.

• 5:12Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm, and we'll come to the evidence that she gave around what happened the night that Bowlem Arcondon came to her house and also the contact they had in the week around that as well, you know, following the deaths of Jessie Baird and Luke Davies, but also in, you know, the kind of days before that too. There's a lot to unpack, but really before then, I want to get an idea of kind of what she knew of Bowlem Arcondon's life before that point. Now, she was aware of his relationship with Jessie Baird. She actually had met him once, one when he came up with Bowlem Arcondon to the area that she was living in. And she was also aware of the alleged break-in to Jessie Baird's house. And I mean, Jamie, this woman is a police officer. What did she say when she heard about that?

• 5:58Speaker 05

  Well, she said in her evidence that she didn't believe him. She said that according to what she remembers, Bowlem Arcondon told her that he went to Jessie Baird's house with a woman and Fiona Rosso said that she didn't know who that woman was, but she did give the first name of Elizabeth Kennedy. She was asked later to confirm, was it Elizabeth Kennedy? She couldn't say definitely that that was the person, she just didn't know who this other woman was. She also said that this had potentially happened twice, including when the accused went in and got Jessie's phone and then blocked contacts on the phone. And she said that she really wasn't taking this as a serious story. She said that she

• 6:41Speaker 05

  just thought it was stupid childish behaviour. We also heard that she had saved Mr. Lamarcand's contact in her phone as the name Bobby P, including on Signal. And she said that was a reference to a joke about this suggestion that he'd used a Bobby pin in one of those alleged break-ins where he had jammed a Bobby pin in the lock to make it look like it was a break-in.

• 7:04Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm. I mean, her memory around kind of some of these conversations, the reason that Bowlem Arcondon's contact in her phone was Bobby P, seemed pretty shaky. You know, she couldn't really explain why that was done, when it was done, all of those things. I mean, what was going on there?

• 7:23Speaker 05

  Well, we heard that she has depression and PTSD, and she also said that she was drinking quite a lot around this time. She said sometimes she actually drank until she blacked out. And she said that parts of 2023 were pretty rough and that she wasn't too invested in some of these interactions that she was having with Bowlem Arcondon.

• 7:43Stephen Stockwell?

  There were a couple of moments in early 2024 in the communication that she had with Bowlem Arcondon that kind of stuck out to me. The first was a message around January 5, and this is a picture of Bowlem Arcondon tattooing the witness we spoke about in our last episode. And the message said, ready for a laugh, put my initials on him, should have just tattered daddy. And then another message and some communication was around the accused asking her to hire a van and also a trip he made to her house at the start of February to practise for an acting class. Can you talk me through what unfolded when he went to her house that day?

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Well, he wanted to practise running lines. She said that Bowlem Arcondon had become interested in acting and doing an acting course. And the lines that they were running, she remembers as a script were, it was something to do with two people being done with drugs. And she said there was a character, one person who said, we have to go to police, and the other who was saying, no, we can't. But she also said that there was something that he said that wasn't in the script, and that was, would you bury or hide a body for me? Ms. Rosso told the court that she replied, yeah, of course, mate. And she said that she took this as being an expression of friendship or love or caring about someone. She said it was kind of like banter or fun and she took it as being light and thought

• 9:04Speaker 05

  it was just a comment. And she also said that she remembers around this time that the accused was really happy and had mostly let go of the Jessie situation. But she also did mention that it seemed like he was still bothered about the way he perceived Jessie Baird had treated him and other men. But she was also thinking, oh, he'll let that go too as well soon.

• 9:26Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm, okay. And so that period there is about three weeks before the deaths of Jessie and Luke. And as I kind of mentioned earlier, and as you've explained, Jamie, the, you know, she didn't have a great memory around kind of text messages, communications at this time. So that's in the lead up to the week that Jessie Baird and Luke Davies died. So, you know, there were a number of messages and calls that were shown to the court. She wasn't really sure kind of what they were. But one of the messages we heard about, Jamie, that sort of stuck with me was from the 15th of February. This is four days before the shooting at 60 Brown Street. There is a 19-minute call between them around that time, and then there are some messages. What were these messages?

• 10:08Speaker 05

  Well, we heard that one of them was about the movie Saltburn, and the accused was asking her to watch that movie. And we heard that Bowlem Arcondon was saying that he could see himself playing the lead role of the nerd in that film. There was another message the following day also about the same topic.

• 10:26Stephen Stockwell?

  Okay, right. This is kind of, yeah, the Thursday before the deaths on the Monday. Was there any communication between Bowlem Arcondon and Fiona Rosso over the weekend?

• 10:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, there was contact. There were messages and there was a couple of calls, but she doesn't remember what a call on the Saturday was about. We heard there was a Signal message on the Sunday night as well. And in that message, we heard that Bowlem Arcondon wrote to her, if I don't get to talk to you again, I just wanted to tell you I love you so much and I value our friendship more than you'll know. Thank you for accepting me. I love you so much, with two X's at the end.

• 11:05Stephen Stockwell?

  Okay. Then we're at Monday morning. There is another message to Fiona Rosso quite early that morning, I think maybe even before 5am. What's this one?

• 11:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we've heard that he left home very early on this morning. This is the morning of the alleged murders. Also on Signal this was this conversation and these messages were read out where he says to her, I'll call you, I'll call you tonight and update you. And then she replies, what sign was it? What did the universe say, yea or nay? And the accused replied in these messages, there is no sign, I'm doing it. Now, looking back at these in court, Ms. Rosso couldn't remember what they meant. She said that she wasn't sure about these, these messages and the meaning. She was also asked about some calls during the week and she also said that she didn't remember those calls. She remembered

• 12:00Speaker 05

  two long calls. And she said one of those was something where she had checked Jesse Baird's social media and another one where the accused had said he had done something.

• 12:12Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, okay. It was interesting, you know, in court as they're trying to, you know, these, these dates and times being presented to her, you know, there's a phone call on this day at this time, you know, she has a table in front of her of those calls and yeah, just not able to kind of place or, you know, remember what was happening at that time. Jamie, now we're up to the van outside of Fiona Rosso's house. This is Thursday night. She told the court that Bowler McCondon rocked up late that evening. And initially, she's actually kind of worried about him and then she gets really confused. Can, can you talk me through what unfolded when he arrived there?

• 12:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, so she says that she was initially angry at him for, for showing up unannounced. And then that turned pretty quickly because she, she told the court that he was saying things as if he was saying goodbye and that he came there to say goodbye. So she testified that immediately she went from being angry to being panicked and she started thinking that he was going to kill himself. He said, according to her evidence, I've done something bad, but I don't want to incriminate you. She said that he wouldn't tell her what that was, but he also asked to use her hose. Now, she refused that request, she said, and she described being spun out at this point. She said, he asked her whether you've seen

• 13:34Speaker 05

  the news and he said, search Jesse's name online. She remembers bringing up a search for that and then seeing news articles about Jesse and Luke going missing. And she testified that he said something along the lines of upsetting his own family in terms of Bowler McCondon's family and if this came out or if this was on the news. She said that he then started asking her to search for the definition of schizophrenia and also search for whether people with schizophrenia can be charged. And she says that he talked about an out of body experience and floating in a dam.

• 14:13Stephen Stockwell?

  Right, okay. We heard in a previous episode, Jamie, about how it looked like someone was cleaning out a van when we saw the CCTV of this parked in this area north of Sydney. Do we get a clear idea of what was happening there?

• 14:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, so Fiona Rosso said while they were having these initial conversations inside, he started talking about cleaning the van. And, and then she said she got a call from someone and while she was on the phone, she saw him with a red bucket and going to the sink and filling it up. She says that he went out the front to a van and that van, she remembers having its rear door up. So she went outside, she said that she sat on the curb or on the gutter, she was drinking and watching him while he was scrubbing basically and cleaning this van. And she remembers thinking, what the F? She remembers him saying something like, there was a bit of blood and he had to scrub it off, but he couldn't

• 15:12Speaker 05

  get it off and he might need to paint it. Now, she also remembers that a neighbour came out at some point while this was happening. And Ms. Rosso said that she told that neighbour, it's, you know, it's all good, old mate here, he's just cleaning his van. She went back inside and sat on the couch at some point and then remembers one of these news articles that she was reading had a mention in it of a police officer being a suspect. And she said that Mr. McCondon was also using her phone because his was on flight mode. Now, this conversation they had around the dam, according to her evidence, he started talking about being at a dam and she wasn't sure whether he was describing, you know, being

• 15:56Speaker 05

  at a location or a dream. But she remembers him saying something about trying to sink bodies and driving for about two and a half hours with a girl to a farm. So she said she didn't want to push for too many details and she just wanted to keep things normal and calm.

• 16:13Stephen Stockwell?

  Was she kind of afraid of him at this point?

• 16:16Speaker 05

  It seemed like that might have been one of her concerns. When the neighbour came out in particular, she was mentioning that she, she wanted to make sure that, you know, the neighbour thought this was, this was, this situation was fine and everything was okay.

• 16:31Stephen Stockwell?

  Okay, yep. You mentioned that Bowler McCondon has had Fiona Rosso's phone during this and, you know, it sounded as though on her evidence that, you know, he would have her phone for a period of time and then she would have it for a period of time looking at these, these, you know, articles and bits and pieces that she was looking at. At one point, she mentioned a message from Bowler McCondon's mum coming through, referencing something called, well, saying basically hot chocolate. Did we hear what that meant?

• 17:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, so Fiona Rosso said that that was basically a code word to signal that there had been a search warrant carried out at Mr. McCondon's mother's house. And Ms. Rosso said that she was drinking a lot through this night and she was, she had been drinking at that point, it was in the early hours of the morning. And she ended up going to sleep, I think she said around 2am.

• 17:25Stephen Stockwell?

  Right, okay. And Bowler McCondon ends up leaving her house quite early in the morning, right?

• 17:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, so she remembers waking up to an alarm going off, basically. And, and this was pretty early, about 4.30. He leaves. Fiona Rosso remembers her training partner then arrives and was asking if the accused had been there. She said he'd been there that night. And then later that, that day, that's when police arrived to speak with her.

• 17:54Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah. I don't think I'll forget the manner in which Fiona Rosso gave her evidence for quite some time. I mean, you know, there were moments, as we've talked about, Jamie, where she was kind of struggling to remember details, she couldn't place certain things. And the way that she told this story, basically from Bowler McCondon arriving to her house to him leaving, was in one straight answer, she would have spoken for 20 minutes to maybe even half an hour. She was incredibly emotional through this. She was crying at parts. I could see her hands shaking at moments. It was really quite confronting to watch. And it was a real change in her evidence from earlier and even after this moment. And it

• 18:35Stephen Stockwell?

  was, I did kind of wonder, like, this was running sort of through and into the, the morning tea break and, you know, with the emotion she was showing, I was wondering if anyone was going to kind of jump in at some point and, and cut her off. And Justice Natalie Adams at one point did. She sort of offered the break to her when she broke down at one point. And Fiona Rosso just said, no, no, I'm almost through it, I'm almost through it. Just, just let me finish. I mean, what did you think of the, the way that she was giving evidence, Jamie?

• 18:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was very obvious that she was visibly emotional as she was going into this, this very extended explanation of her memories of that night. And I remember too, Stokky, there were parts of when she was speaking where her voice was getting higher or it was, it was getting faster or it was, it was fading off at points. There were points where I thought it was getting harder to understand, but then she would sort of come back and centre herself more and continue. But it was a very visible emotion that she was showing.

• 19:33Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm, yeah, it would have been very clear to anyone in the jury watching that, you know, how affected she was telling that story. Following all of this, Jamie, Defence Barrister John Stratton cross-examined Fiona Rosso. And he started this by asking her if she had depression, if she was an alcoholic, which she agreed with. And then she questioned, he questioned the searches on her phone that she made when she says the accused was at her house. How did this go?

• 20:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, so he was doing this in a way where he sort of said at the start, I'm not meaning to be disrespectful, but I do need to ask you about certain things. And those were the the mental health issues at the time. One of the questions I remember him saying was, do you accept that because of the stress of the night and because of the amount you had to drink, your memory of those conversations may not be entirely accurate? And she said, I remember bits and pieces of it, and that's all I can offer. But in relation to the schizophrenia searches, he put to her that there was no record of those searches being conducted on her phone. And her answer to that was that her memory serves her that it did take place.

• 20:47Speaker 05

  And she disagreed with that suggestion that those searches never happened. He also asked her about a conversation that she brought up where she said Bo Lamar Condon had told her that he was at Mr. Baird's home, and that he was showing Jesse Baird his police gun, and that Jesse Baird had accidentally let off a round, and they had to retrieve that round from a wall. During those questions, Mr. Stratton was asking her, was it in a door that the bullet got stuck? And she was quite insistent that, no, it was a wall that the round had got stuck in.

• 21:25Stephen Stockwell?

  And now, Jamie, we know that Bo Lamar Condon hands himself into the Bondi Police Station at ten thirty ish on Friday morning. He leaves Fiona Rosso's house quite early on Friday morning. Did we see where he went?

• 21:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we've seen CCTV showing him stopping at Bunnings. He's been on multiple trips to different Bunnings stores throughout this week, but this was one of the last stops that he made there. We see in the CCTV at this point, he is wearing a cap and a face mask. And this was a shopping trip where he bought paint and a paintbrush. So there's also CCTV of the van moving around. And then there's a shot of him walking down a street, barefoot, carrying footwear. And that was just before he was driven to the Bondi Police Station.

• 22:18Stephen Stockwell?

  And, I mean, we've seen vision of Bo Lamar Condon kind of moving around previously, often wearing a cap. This first time, I think he would have been wearing a mask. Is that right, Jamie?

• 22:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, we haven't seen him wearing a mask in any of the other CCTV. But you're right, a cap was sort of a regular thing that we've seen before.

• 22:37Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, okay. And Jamie, we did hear in Fiona Rosso's evidence that, you know, there were articles at that time linking a police officer to the deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies that were online at that point. And as well as seeing the movements of Bo Lamar Condon, we've also heard his words on his way to hand himself into the police station. This is in the form of a recorded phone call to a police helpline, almost a forty minute call, all of which was played to the court. What stood out to you in that call?

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Well, towards the start of this call, he told the operator, so you're not shocked, my name's Bo Lamar. He says that he is on the way to see detectives, and they know he's coming. And there were lots of dropdown boxes that this operator needed to collect answers from in this call. So it was things like, what kind of injuries being reported, the date. And then they get to this free text box where he needs to describe what he's reporting. And this is what he said.

• 23:33Speaker 06

  Are you there? Yep. I've been. I'm typing, but I'm not real good. I've been exposed to multiple destruction, death, and trauma. Destruction, death, and trauma? With minimal support from the New South Wales Police Force. New South Wales Police Force, yeah. I've been bullied by multiple New South Wales Police Force members. Multiple Police Force members, yep.

• 24:15Speaker 06

  And when reporting, bullying against myself, no action has been taken. Myself, no action has, yep. All this, yeah, talking, all this stress and trauma. Yeah. And psychological abuse. Yeah. And trauma, I just say trauma already, has caused me. Yeah. Not sleep. Yeah. Get anxious. Yeah. It's caused me to have some symptoms of schizophrenia. Caused me to.

• 25:00Speaker 06

  Actually, sorry, you know what? Can you just backspace it up to, oh, sorry, can we just start again? Just to leave that whole thing? We'll just keep it short and sweet. Okay, all right, let me just. In joining the police force. Yep. In joining the police.

• 25:21Speaker 05

  Now, as well as this call, we've also seen body cam footage from when he walked into the Bondi Police Station, and he was told that he's under arrest. So we see basically the moment that he was arrested.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Hi, Bo and Brian. You're obviously no mates, but this is going to be really recorded. I want to explain to you that I'm Detective Chickens, but Glenn Graham from the homicide squad. At the moment, you are under arrest in respect of the murder of two people at Paddington. You're not obliged to say or do anything unless you wish. Anything you say will be recorded here, may later be used as evidence. So we might just take him into a room outside and have a quick discussion.

• 26:03Stephen Stockwell?

  I'll be right to go and come through. It was interesting watching that video or hearing how that unfolded. You know, it was introduced through the officer in charge, Sasha Panazza. And, you know, you see towards the end of that, that Bo Lamar Condon is taken into an office. And, you know, we see Sasha Panazza sitting in that room as he is sat down and explained kind of what's going to unfold and where he's going to be taken from there. Also through Sasha Panazza, the officer in charge, we had a statement from Bo Lamar Condon about the involvement of Elizabeth Kennedy. We spoke about her evidence in our last episode. She's a witness and a friend of Bo Lamar Condon who travelled with Bo Lamar Condon

• 26:44Stephen Stockwell?

  on a drive south of Sydney in a van. And she says she was unaware there were bodies in the van. But in the statement from Bo Lamar Condon, it suggests that she was aware of what happened. Now, we've already spoken about the questions that Bo Lamar Condon's defence team asked her about that. You know, basically, the suggestion that she was aware that the bodies were there and they're not going to the police was her idea. What was new from this statement, though, Jamie?

• 27:11Speaker 05

  Well, he says in it that he tried to open the gate of this farm with a chainsaw that he had, but then he needed to go and get an angle grinder. He says that Ms. Kennedy came into the farm, and they poured concrete into the surfboard bags. He says at one point in this ten page handwritten statement, when the bag wouldn't sink, Elizabeth Kennedy got my pocket knife out of the car and tried to cut multiple holes into the surfboard cover. This is where Luke got the wounds in his leg. As the postmortem states, the wounds occurred postmortem. At a later point in this statement, he also says, at no point did she say she didn't want to assist or have any part in it. She was a willing participant

• 27:53Speaker 05

  that had full knowledge of what we were going to do prior to getting into that van. Now, as we've said, Stocky, these are claims and allegations that Ms. Kennedy has denied during her evidence. Her testimony was that she was left at the farm gate while he went into the property further in the van. But Mr. Lamar Condon, in this statement alleges that Elizabeth Kennedy flat out lied to police. He says that when he's deciding what pleas he's considering, that he has decided that if he's going to be honest, he needs to tell the whole truth. And he also offers in this statement assistance with, you know, a statement or information to police about Elizabeth Kennedy's alleged involvement.

• 28:35Stephen Stockwell?

  Something I noticed at the end of this statement, Jamie, is that Bo Lamar Condon says he gets Elizabeth Kennedy's statement in around kind of April twenty twenty five. And as you say, the reasons for him making this is because he wants to do the right thing. But the way he frames this and the way it's said is that he wants to do the right things by the families of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, because they deserve to know the truth, too. We've also heard another couple of pieces of evidence over the last week or so, Jamie, where Bo Lamar Condon says he wants to take responsibility for the death of Jesse Baird, but not of Luke Davies. Is that right?

• 29:11Speaker 05

  Well, during the evidence of a previous witness, this was mentioned. And this is the friend who visited him in jail while the meeting was being secretly recorded. He told the friend that he was pleading guilty to the manslaughter of Jesse Baird only, and insists that he didn't do anything to Luke Davies. But he refers in this conversation multiple times to him taking accountability.

• 29:33Speaker 06

  So as you know, I don't know if you Googled my name recently, have you? I pleaded guilty to manslaughter relating to Jesse Baird, Owen Lee, not anybody else. So what that means is I've admitted to causing his death, meaning me saying to I have a single a person. Doesn't mean, anyway, I can't talk about specifics around that, you'll find out when it occurs in the news and in trial. So I can't talk about that, but um, that was the truth.

• 30:00Stephen Stockwell?

  That is a part of a uh, conversation that was secretly recorded by a witness in prison, talking to Bowlem Mark Condon, uh, it's something we talked about a lot in our last episode. If you wanna hear a bit more about that, you can uh, jump back and have the context of how that conversation sounded between those two. We're getting a lot of questions sent into [email protected]. Jamie, thank you for getting in touch. Everyone who is, is writing to us, it is taking me longer and longer to get through them, but I do really enjoy reading all of them. Um, so many lovely complimentary emails that we get, Jamie. You're, you're missing out not being uh, deep in the case of inbox, but I wanna start with one here from Kate in Melbourne. She is asking about Elizabeth Kennedy's evidence and what she saw and what she thought

• 30:44Stephen Stockwell?

  on the drive to the farm with uh, Bowlem Mark Condon. Uh, this is a two hour drive, she was had a, told to have her phone off throughout. She says she waited at a gate for forty minutes. Um, and Kate's wondering whether anyone asked uh, Elizabeth Kennedy what she thought was going on during that process.

• 31:01Speaker 05

  She did say at one point, uh, when she claimed that Mr. Lamarcand put garbage bags over the rego of the van, she just thought he was up to something, but a lot of these witnesses are getting reminders that their, their evidence can't be what they thought or what they assumed. They're only giving evidence about what they saw or what they heard. Uh, so nobody is really asking those kinds of questions about what you thought at this time or, or that time.

• 31:26Stephen Stockwell?

  Yep, okay. Thank you, Jamie. Uh, and thank you, Kate. Wonderful question. It's lovely to have the opportunity to kind of clarify that because it is something that actually does come up quite a bit. It's a very uh, normal thing for us to talk about what we thought happened at a certain point, but Jamie, as you say, the uh, the evidence is what someone saw or what they heard, not what they were thinking. We have a question here from um, Matthew, who is wondering about certificates that are being offered to witnesses to uh, protect them from prosecution, using any of the evidence that they give in uh, in court. Uh, Jamie, we're now up to the third certificate for this trial with the witness we've talked about in this episode. Matthew's wondering if this is a normal amount.

• 32:04Speaker 05

  Well, they are handed out from time to time in cases and there is actually a whole legal framework about how they're handled and, and what a judge needs to be satisfied of before this is granted. So we've heard Justice Natalie Adams actually refer to that legislation when she's formally uh, you know, giving the certificate or, or um, telling a witness that she's satisfied of certain things. So if um, if people do wanna um, be particularly nerdy and read the legislation, the judge is referring to section one hundred and twenty-eight of the Evidence Act, and that gives uh, basically the framework of um, how that is handled in court.

• 32:40Stephen Stockwell?

  Thank you, Jamie. Didn't realise that we're giving out homework on the case of, but um, if this is becoming a trend, I've got some things I can send some people to, but uh, thank you for, for answering that one. And uh, Matthew, wonderful question. Thank you for writing into [email protected]. And um, Jamie, we talked in our last episode about how we're about to move into the defence case, we're expecting the Crown case to uh, to close in uh, the next uh, next few days, basically. And Nadia has a question about uh, how that will work. What's gonna happen when the defence starts presenting their case? Will witnesses get recalled? Who's going first? How does this work?

• 33:13Speaker 05

  Uh, well, the defence uh, may have evidence or witnesses that they are planning to call. For example, one option may be that the defendant in a case gives evidence in their own defence case. Now, we don't know if that's going to happen in this situation, but when the defence calls witnesses, they're then cross-examined by the Crown in the same way that the defence cross-examines Crown witnesses. So it's um, it's a similar process, but it, we will be defence witnesses who are being called, if any are going to be called. But all we know for now is that the Crown case will finish quite soon and that we know that we are still only just approaching the halfway point in terms of the duration of this trial.

• 33:55Stephen Stockwell?

  Thank you, Jamie. Um, do you know where we're heading next in this trial?

• 33:59Speaker 05

  The honest answer to that is I don't know. The jury hasn't been given any warning about what's still to come. Um, all we know is that the Crown case is closing very soon, but we still don't know what is left to come from the Crown case.

• 34:14Stephen Stockwell?

  Yep, thank you, Jamie. Appreciate you uh, taking us through uh, all of the detail of this. If you have any questions yourself you'd like us to answer, please get in touch, [email protected] is where you can reach us. I'll be back in your feed on Tuesday next week with another episode of the case of Jesse and Luke, but get ABC Listen at the ready because I will actually be back in your feed before then for what may be our final episode ever of Mushroom Case Daily. Erin Patterson's appeal decision is being handed down tomorrow morning, on Friday morning. So it'll be in your feed tomorrow, Arvo, with all of the details of what has unfolded. Then I'll be joined by Rachel Brown and Christian Silva to talk through the latest. So yeah, get around ABC Listen, make sure you're following the case of so you can uh,

• 34:57Stephen Stockwell?

  listen and watch the absolute latest and if you've got any dormant Mushroom Case Daily group chats, now is the time to reignite them.

• 35:09Stephen Stockwell?

  The Case of Jesse and Luke is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. This episode was reported by Jamie McKinnell and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson and thank you to Alicia Bridges for her help this week as well. Also, thank you to video producer Dylan Bean, to senior lawyers Jasmine Sims and Anne Flavon for their legal advice, to the New South Wales newsroom and to audio studios manager, Eric George. This episode was produced on the land of the Gadigal and we're Untree people.