06 Jesse & Luke | How police found Jesse and Luke’s bodies

A detective investigating Jesse and Luke's disappearance has told the court how police found their bodies, describing the moment she discovered them left on a rural roadside. In this episode, Jamie McKinnell explains how a friend of Beau Lamarre-Condon led police to a farm 200km south of Sydney, and what else they found in the area. If you have any questions you'd like Jamie and Stocky to answer in future episodes, please email [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Family and domestic violence support: If you need help, contact 1800 Respect https://1800respect.org.au/ national helpline on 1800 737 732. The Case Of is the follow-up to the hit podcast Mushroom Case Daily, and all episodes of that show will remain available in the back catalogue of The Case Of.

• 0:00Speaker 04

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  So how did Joe build his so-called police state? And when did it all come crumbling down? And why was he once voted the greatest Queenslander of all time?

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  ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

• 0:45Speaker 03

  A police officer has broken down in court describing the moment she found Jessie Baird and Luke Davies's bodies and how she identified them while Jessie's family waited nearby. I'm Stephen Stockwell. Just a warning, there was some distressing content in this episode. This is episode six of the case of Jessie and Luke.

• 1:07Speaker 01

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

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Police now allege Constable Beau Lamar Condon murdered the couple at a home in Paddington.

• 1:17Speaker 06

  This is just a terrible incident that's occurred here, the loss of these two young men.

• 1:24Speaker 07

  Now this is Mardi Gras time and yet it's a community in mourning.

• 1:27Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Throughout this trial, there have been tears in the witness box, often from family and friends of Jessie Baird and Luke Davies's, they've given their evidence. But yesterday, we saw them from the police officer who was second in charge of this investigation as she described finding their bodies. She also talked about how she searched for them with a friend of the accused. There throughout all this evidence has been ABC Legal Affairs reporter Jamie McKinnell. Welcome, Jamie. Hello, Stocky. There was some really emotional, some quite confronting moments yesterday. Did that stick with you too?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, there have been some really difficult moments to watch, particularly one of them that stuck with me was seeing Jessie Baird's mum walk out of the courtroom as we were hearing evidence from this experienced homicide detective. And as that detective was recalling being the first one on the scene at the location where they found Jessie and Luke's bodies. Now, as soon as she started going anywhere near that topic, that was when I saw Jessie's mum walk out of the courtroom. And I noticed as well, the number of people in the public gallery has really reduced throughout this tranche of evidence and probably for good reasons, Stocky, because things have got pretty dark and some of the things that the court is now talking about in the evidence that the jurors are hearing is very graphic and difficult to hear.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Hmm, I think, you know, talking about the experience of this detective and the impact it's clearly had on her really speaks to what's unfolded here. Do you think you could wrap up the last couple of days for us?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we are firmly back in the territory of forensics evidence and crime scene evidence. But this time it's to do with the location of where Jessie and Luke's bodies were found in Bungonia, south of Sydney. There have been some very graphic moments as jurors are learning about that scene and what it was like eight days after the alleged murders. We saw this experienced homicide detective push through emotion as she remembered being the first one to arrive at that scene and telling jurors about her observations. We've heard that this search around the Bungonia area was prompted by a witness who was with Beau Lamar Condon in a white van on a drive to Galben, who described parts of a farm that she remembered going to.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Now, the bodies were not at that farm, but police did find, we heard, other evidence there, including around a dam. We've also heard from another former police officer, a friend of the accused, who said that he became fixated with Jessie Baird after an apparent breakup. And she was one of the people who gave the accused advice in the months before the shooting about the situation with Jessie Baird. Now, that friend has also given evidence that weeks before, the defendant was asking her about what might happen to a police officer that he claimed to have seen take training ammunition from a shooting course.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Thank you, Jamie. I really want to talk about Christina Bella, this police officer who had been searching for the bodies of Jessie and Luke for a few days when she got the call to attend near a Greek monastery south of Sydney. We heard how she kind of drove to that property, was the first person to arrive there. Can you tell us what she noticed when she got out of her car?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this was a property around the Bungonia area, this monastery. It was on Tuesday, the 27th of February in 2024, when Detective Abella arrived. So it was eight days after the alleged murders. And she told the jurors this week that as soon as she got out of her car and had parked, she noticed a strong smell in the area. And she said in her evidence that she recognised this smell from her work as a police officer and said it was the scent of a decomposing body. She saw two surfboard bags in that same area and they were stacked on top of each other, she said. And she also said that the smell seemed to get stronger as she was walking towards those bags.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  What I noticed about this detective in the witness box, though, Stocky, was that she seemed to be taking sort of extended pauses between some words and almost hesitating to press on. She was remembering what she was observing there and sort of looking downwards as she was giving this evidence. And as jurors were leaving for a lunch break just after that evidence, I saw this detective in the witness box wiping her eyes with tissues. And I think it was clear that she had been fighting through quite a lot of emotion, reliving that memory and giving that evidence.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Hmm, yeah, it was really confronting evidence to hear just before the lunch break on Wednesday. And I think really quite a well timed lunch break, giving the opportunity for not just her, but also the jurors to kind of process what evidence they had just heard at that point. When we came back after lunch break, we did hear about how other police had arrived. One saying that, given the decomposition, you know, this is, as you say, over a week after Jessie Baird and Luke Davies had died, it would be hard to identify them. How did they end up doing that?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Well, we heard that it was actually Detective Abella who was the one who helped identify the bodies of the men. And they did that, she said, based on Instagram photographs that had jewellery that they'd previously worn and comparing that to jewellery at the scene. So nearby, she also said they found other items, like a wheelbarrow and some plastic bags and two keys. So it wasn't just this very important discovery of the surfboard bags, but it was, it was other evidence as well there.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, the process of identifying bodies after, yeah, a week, I just cannot imagine it all and can understand why this was, you know, so confronting for Christina Bella to have to think back to and process again. And Jamie, Jessie's family was there as this was unfolding?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, the detective said that some of his relatives were at that property through that process when she was first at the scene and sort of the, the crime scene started to be documented. So it again, would have been incredibly difficult for the relatives to be there. And as we mentioned, we saw Jessie Baird's mum walk out of the courtroom yesterday when she realised what direction this evidence was going in.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, confronting for the family in the moment that this has unfolded at this, you know, outside this Greek monastery, confronting again for them to have to think back through this during the trial. So not surprised that the public gallery was a bit thinner for some of this evidence. There was another reminder, Jamie, yesterday on the impact of the deaths of Jessie and Luke, with Christina Bella going to the house at 60 Brown Street to see if the keys that she found near the bodies of Jessie and Luke worked in the door. And this door was just surrounded by flowers. They were stacked next to it, they were sort of stacked in the door as well.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  And she tries these keys, do they fit?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they actually recorded a video of that process. So we saw this video played to court where Detective Abella was testing the keys and they ended up opening Jessie Baird's front door and also a security door, like an iron sort of gate style security door. But as she was doing that in the video, she was sort of trying to work around as best she could, these flowers, some of them had been placed in the bars of the security door and, and were just sort of being held there by the bars. And there were moments in the video where she was trying to work around those bouquets and some of them fell on the ground and then she sort of very carefully picked them up and placed them near the door. So again, it was a really sad reminder of the impact of this case.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. Um. Jamie, as well as the, you know, the process of discovering and identifying Jesse and Luke's bodies, we've heard about the searches that were done prior to that, um, how police were looking to see where they may be able to find these men. Um. This involved the searches of you know, other farm properties around this Bungonia area, south of Sydney. And this was done with a friend of Bo Lamar Condon, someone who was given legal protection in exchange for information, is that right?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Yes, so this is the witness that we've spoken about who has been given the pseudonym Elizabeth Kennedy. So we've heard that it was actually a lawyer acting on behalf of this woman, Elizabeth Kennedy, who first contacted police. And she ended up going in and providing what they call an induced statement to police. And that included information uh that she had been in the presence of Bo Lamar Condon in the days after the alleged shootings. Uh. She said that she had been in a white van with him and that they had driven to Goulburn and that they'd also stopped at a Bunning store and purchased things, including an angle grinder. Uh. And also that they had gone to a farm. So Ms. Kennedy, it seemed, could only speak generally about what she remembered of that farm.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  She gave um pretty vague descriptions of things like a rusty truck or a long driveway or a dam. And Detective Abella said initially, when they were going off that information and looking around Bungonia for a property like that, it was essentially like looking for a needle in a haystack because it's a pretty rural area. And those qualities are not uncommon for, uh, you know, farmland around there. But they ended up um getting maps of the area, doing it pretty strategically, splitting up into different teams and covering it quite thoroughly. And they end up at a uh a specific farm that they think might match those characteristics that Elizabeth Kennedy had described. And the detective said that they arrived at the gate and noticed that there was a padlock there that had been cut.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And so they really sort of focus on that property in particular.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Hmm. And, you know, other police arrive at this property. I think they end up confirming with Elizabeth Kennedy that this is the property that she was uh, you know, present at with Bo Lamar Condon. Uh. It's got, I think, two or three dams, a homestead as well. Um. What did the police find there?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Well, we heard that they sent in uh different resources, including police divers. So they scoured the the dams and there were two dozen officers who were performing what they call a line search, which is where they really thoroughly uh scour the the land or the area in a in a line and and look at the ground quite carefully. They ended up finding, um, according to Detective Abella's evidence, uh, things like cable ties and bits of concrete or residue of concrete. Uh. She said that they also noticed there was uh some CCTV systems that looked like they had the wires cut, but then she said the owner of the property told her that that was probably the work of cockatoos. And in cross-examination, we heard uh that those wires of the CCTV

• 12:25Speaker 01

  that had been damaged or cut also had cobwebs around them. So it seemed more likely that uh cockatoos had sort of had a go at the wiring.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. Thank you, Jamie. Um. As well as kind of spending this time, south of Sydney, um, following the search that police were doing at that time, we've also been following the movements of Bo Lamar Condon uh on the Monday evening. So this is the Monday after the the shooting occurred in the morning. Been watching CCTV, kind of tracking his movements through that that evening after seeing movements earlier in the day, um, I think last week. Um. What have we seen in in this other vision?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Well, this is another compilation that essentially covers the the rest of the day after the alleged shooting. So on the nineteenth of February, uh, we've heard that Bo Lamar Condon is accused of murdering Jesse and Luke in the morning while the housemates were at work. And this compilation covers what the Crown says are his movements and actions after the alleged murders. So we saw shots of him uh going to different areas, walking around streets in in places like Kensington, driving around different areas. Some of it was in his Tesla. And then another part of it was showing where he went to an Avis car rental uh depot and picked up a Hiace van that uh he then drove off in.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Uh. There were shots of the van going back to Paddington and driving around different uh different areas. Uh. And it seems like the timeline shows that the the van arrived at Paddington and then uh left twenty two minutes later, but this is further into the evening of the nineteenth of February.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. Thank you, Jamie. And we did kind of finish on that sort of Monday evening and we still yet to get into what's unfolded on the Tuesday and any other CCTV that uh has been collected around that. Uh. Jamie, I was kind of looking through some of the CCTV that had been um released by the court and just checking some times. Something I noticed when we were watching this last week, I was kind of keeping a rough eye on the times, uh, and it looks like we have uh Bo Lamar Condon kind of coming and going from this Brown Street property throughout that Monday evening, um, or Monday afternoon, I should say. And the final time we see him leave the property or to walk around the corner is at about five fifty PM, it seems, on the the time in the the corner of the CCTV.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Um. Now, we know Ja- uh Jamie, that Jesse Bed's housemate got home at about kind of five, five thirty that Monday evening. Does that mean that they were home while Bo Lamar Condon was in the house?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  We don't know that for sure because what the CCTV shows is a a very restricted angle. So it's not facing directly on the Brown Street property or the, you know, the back roller door entrance to that home. It's showing a section of the street and somebody else's front courtyard uh from the look of it. And what we see and those timings that we've noticed is really all it's telling us is that he walks out of that specific frame of CCTV at a certain time or walks back into it at a at a different time. While he's out of the frame, we don't really know where he is or what he's doing. Um. But I think the Crown has given jurors a timeline of what they say was happening at specific points.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  And we haven't got access to that timeline yet for this period of of the the after the alleged shootings type of afternoon period. Um. But that will be very helpful once we do get access to understand exactly what the Crown says were his movements at specific times. The other thing that's difficult, I think, Stocky, is the um the timestamps on some of the CCTV uh not necessarily accurate in terms of the real time. Sometimes people's CCTV systems are out by an hour or so if they they haven't been set correctly. Uh. So it it can be tricky to uh watch that CCTV and uh try to match up up times according to what we see on the screen.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, we are seeing a um a huge amount of CCTV um throughout this. And yeah, the times are not always matching the times that it it clearly is at some of these points as well. You know, you've got um some of it out by an hour, um, some of it not out by a predictable amount at all. I've been kind of keeping track of different bits here and there, and some of it's out by like, you know, half an hour, you know, three and a half hours, some sort of bizarre obscure numbers. This is all um kind of gathered from many different places. It's not one sort of central CCTV database that we're uh seeing all of this from. Uh. Jamie, I want to talk as well about another friend of Bo Lamar Condon who's given evidence. This is someone who worked in the New South Wales Police as well, spoke to Bo Lamar Condon

• 17:00Speaker 03

  almost daily, and she's given a pretty different view of his relationship with Jesse Bed than we've heard from other people.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this was Senior Constable Nicole Harville. And we heard that she worked these user pays shifts, which are sort of optional or or additional shifts that police can sometimes take on. And she did a couple of these with Bo Lamar Condon at first in twenty twenty three. And she said that uh he spoke a lot about Jesse Bed at that point. Uh. She said that he seemed happy and excited about this uh potential relationship that might have been forming at that point. Uh. But she also said in her evidence that he seemed paranoid about things like Jesse taking a long time to reply to messages and what that might mean. Um. So she said that she became a bit of a counselor as they sort of uh became closer and and exchanged numbers and were messaging more.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  By April in twenty twenty three, she had been sent a photo of a message in Jesse Bed's Instagram account showing a conversation with another man sent to her by Bo Lamar Condon. And she said that the defendant also sent her a screenshot of Jesse Bed's Tinder profile and uh that that he also said to her in messages that he had seen a pair of underpants in uh Jesse Bed's bedroom that made him a bit paranoid, I think. So by April, Bo Lamar Condon tells her in messages that he is ending it with Jesse Bed. And he tells her that this was his decision. But Nicole Harville says that while he seemed satisfied with that decision initially and thought that he might have done the right thing,

• 18:36Speaker 01

  he became fixated on Jesse Bed afterwards. And the next month, we saw messages where uh he talked about actively monitoring Jesse Bed's Spotify account and making a comment to her that it seemed like Jesse was quite going through it because his his Spotify list was depresso. She gave evidence to the court that uh Bo Lamar Condon had previously logged into Jesse Bed's Spotify while they were in a car together at some point, and it seemed like he was still actively monitoring the Spotify account. Um. In October twenty twenty three, we heard that Bo Lamar Condon told Ms. Harville that Jesse is coming on a Bali trip with him and that things seem to have

• 19:17Speaker 01

  changed again between them. He seems to be happy with this being a sort of non-committed type of relationship. But then in November, um, Bo Lamar Condon admits to her in messages that he had made this close friends Instagram story that we've spoken about, Stocky, to do with a bunch of flowers. And he tells her much more about what he did with that Instagram close friends story post.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jamie, I really want to talk about these flowers and this flower Instagram story because we've talked about this a little bit in the past. This is a uh story that Bo Lamar Condon posted on his close friends list, which is like a list on Instagram where you can limit who sees it, you choose who sees it. Um. The suggestion is that Bo Lamar Condon sort of pointed that post at one or two people that uh he knew that were interested in Jesse Bed or Jesse Bed was interested in. Um. And it was a picture of flowers uh suggesting that they had been sent to him by Jesse Bed. What did we learn about this?

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Well, in her evidence, Nicole Harville said that Bo Le Marcondon used a generic photo of a bunch of flowers that he found on the internet to make that close friend's story post. So he puts this post up. Jesse Baird is in Melbourne at the time. The suggestion seems to be in the, in the story that he's posted is that Jesse is the one who has sent him the flowers. And so after that, the court has heard that Jesse Baird confronted Bo Le Marcondon in messages about what that was about. He had been sent a screenshot of Bo's post from somebody else who had seen it. Jesse Baird wasn't in that restricted audience group, but he had been sent a screenshot. And so he confronts Bo Le Marcondon. And Nicole Harville was exchanging messages with Bo Le Marcondon after that confrontation,

• 21:01Speaker 01

  where he seemed to be looking to her for advice. And she told the court that Bo Le Marcondon had gone to a florist and asked them to replicate exactly the bunch of flowers that he used in that generic photo from the internet. She said he paid about $160 for this replica bouquet and had then asked his mother to sit with the replica flowers and pose as if to suggest that they were for her from somebody else. And she also said that he got his mother to write a note that made it seem like the flowers were sent to her from her partner at the time. We've seen messages between Mr. Le Marcondon and Nicole

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Harville, where he was sending her a draft message of what he wanted to send Jesse and looking for her advice. And he seemed to be in two minds about whether to stick to the story to do with the mother as an explanation or to be honest about what had happened. And in that message, the draft message he sent her, he was saying things to Jesse about, you know, you know me, you know, the real Bo, you know, some of my closest friends, all my friends have told you that honesty is my biggest quality. I'm not a liar. It seems like after that, according to the messages between Nicole Harville and Bo Le Marcondon, that Jesse blocks Bo Le Marcondon and he again looks to her for advice. And Nicole

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Harville, in other messages to Bo Le Marcondon after this had all happened, tells him that Jesse Baird had caused him to do this, as in caused him to make the post about the flowers and behave in that way. And in her evidence, she told the jury that she thought Jesse Baird was playing games with the defendant and playing games with his mind or his heart.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. Jamie, the thing that surprised me about Nicole Harville's evidence is that it seemed as though Bo Le Marcondon's mother was quite a willing participant in this kind of ruse.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, Nicole Harville told the court that the defendant had told her that he explained the situation to his mother and asked her to pose. Then we've seen this photo of her that, that the defendant sent to Nicole Harville of his mother sitting in a chair with this bunch of flowers that she says was the replica version of the bouquet and the handwritten note. And I think there were some crutches and a dog in the photo. But it seems like from what Nicole Harville was told and then her evidence in court, that Bo Le Marcondon's mother was aware of the situation and agreed to pose for the photo as a potential explanation of that situation that, that Bo Le Marcondon was thinking about using to explain it to Jesse.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  I also want to talk a bit about some of the questions that Bo Le Marcondon asked Nicole Harville or that she says Bo Le Marcondon asked her, just kind of about police investigation tactics and processes and things like that. What conversations did they have and what did she say that he had asked her?

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Well, one shift in particular where they were having these kinds of discussions, it was in January 2024, they were at the Opera House on one of these extra shifts that they were on together. They were around each other for a long time. And so they were talking quite a bit, according to Nicole Harville. And she said in her evidence that Bo Le Marcondon said to her, I saw a junior constable take training rounds from an annual shooting course that all police have to do. And she said that he seemed curious about whether that junior constable would get caught or what would happen to that person. And she said in her evidence that her response would have been something like, oh, that's crazy, but probably not. They, they probably won't get caught because the training rounds

• 24:42Speaker 01

  that they use at these shooting courses are not sort of accounted for. And students or officers who are at that course can go and take training rounds and use as many as they need. So she didn't think that person would get caught. She said that this was something that was just raised by the defendant. There was no discussion about training rounds or ammunition or shooting courses or anything before this. She also, in this conversation, during this shift, remembers him at another point, asking whether you would be able to tell who shot who in a shootout. And then she remembers saying to him, well, police can trace a bullet to the specific gun that it comes out of. And she said he seemed very

• 25:26Speaker 01

  shocked by that. And that was surprising to her because she thought that was pretty common knowledge. And even in, you know, crime shows, you can understand things like that about basic police techniques. She also said that he asked her at another point whether if there was a triple zero call reporting shots fired in a particular area and also a triple zero call that reported fireworks in an area, would she go to the shots fired job? And she said that this seemed sort of like a random thought that popped into his head. And she was being asked about these conversations in general. And she said, none of it seemed sort of out of the ordinary or suspicious to her at the time, because they are, you know, police officers and they're curious about these kinds of things and they might talk about these kinds of things frequently.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Jamie, we had a little bit of cross examination of this weapons expert, but it doesn't feel like we've heard a huge amount from Bo Le Marcondon's defence team and the barristers at this stage. I mean, are they asking many questions?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's certainly cross examination and there's lines of questioning in that cross examination, but it is a shorter amount of time than what the witnesses are spending in their examination in chief. They're really clarifying things or querying the witnesses on their answers maybe a little bit more. But for example, with the, the weapons coordinator, who was a witness about the shooting training, the defence was asking whether at that training, police get techniques or training to disarm a person. And he said no. And, and then was asked, will the police get any training along those lines? And he said, yeah, well, in different courses. So he didn't seem like the right witness to speak to that topic. There are certainly topics that the defence is raising in cross

• 27:08Speaker 01

  examination, but sometimes they don't really go anywhere with that particular witness. There's things that they're asking that might become relevant later that we don't know the relevance of right now. So they're certainly doing cross examination with Nicole Harville, for example, they were showing her another version of screenshots of her messages with messages that didn't appear in the screenshots that she handed over to police. And they seemed like messages from Bo Le Marcondon, where he was talking about other people that he was seeing or going on dates with, or she was asking him more questions. So there are things that they're exploring, but at this point in the trial, we don't

• 27:47Speaker 01

  have the full picture. And so it's difficult to talk about, you know, the defence lines of questioning. But it's worth reminding people, Stocky, the jurors have been told to keep an open mind. The defence has said you need to not draw any conclusions until you've heard all of the evidence and we're still only in week three.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's still so much more to, to come from this trial at this point. There's still so much more evidence. We, you know, are nowhere near the kind of defence closing arguments where they'll draw all of this together as well. So yeah, plenty more to come, plenty more for the jurors to consider as this unfolds. Jamie, we are getting plenty of questions sent through to the case of inbox, [email protected] is where you can reach us. Very much appreciate hearing from all of you, all your thoughts, feedback, questions mainly, but the rest of it's very welcome as well. And Jamie, I want to start here with a question that we've received from Stephen in Sydney. He is wondering what explanation the defence has given for Bo Le Marcondon buying a surfboard bag before the alleged murders of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  We haven't heard an explanation from them about that yet. We have seen the CCTV of him at the sports shop with his friend. We know the Crown allegation is that that was part of his planning to allegedly murder Jesse Baird. But we did not hear anything about the defence version of that in the defence opening. But we should note, Stocky, that this is still in the Crown case at the moment. The defence case will come later in the trial.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Yep. Okay. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you, Stephen, for sending an email to [email protected]. One here from Winner in Canberra. She understands that Jesse Baird's housemates weren't home at the time the shooting occurred. And they're wondering if the accused was aware of that.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we've seen that CCTV of him outside the house in the area. We know the Crown has said that he was waiting for the housemates to leave. And in fact, Brett Hatfield, I see, the Crown prosecutor, said in his opening that when the first housemate left, that Bo Le Marcondon actually took the car park that she had left vacant and that was directly across from the property. So he was, according to the Crown's opening, aware of the housemates movements and was waiting for a period of, I think, about three hours. And during that period, he did see them leave. So he would have been aware on the Crown's case of them leaving and not being there anymore.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you, Winner. Appreciate the email you've sent to us. One here, Jamie, from Philip. He's wondering why we're so liberal with our use of the word allegedly. He understands the legal for legal reasons, for us need to be careful. But he's wondering why we can't have just a disclaimer at the top of an episode that says, all of this is alleged to, to kind of cover us. Can you explain that?

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a great question because I know it does, it probably does sound repetitive when we're putting it in there in different sentences again and again. And I'm going to resist the temptation to handball this question to Jazz, our lawyer, because I think I can explain it. I'm not a lawyer, but I've been a court reporter for a fair while. So I think I can channel Jazz and give a good explanation. So it's important, especially in a case like this, because some things are not disputed and some things are disputed. So what we're doing with not only the word allegedly, but the placement in specific sentences of allegedly is signalling to viewers and listeners what is in dispute and what is not in dispute. So for example, we know that

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Mr Lamarcandon doesn't dispute that he was in the home on the day of the alleged murders. He says he had a different reason for being there and it was not to cause anyone harm. So we can say he was there, but then when we talk about what happened inside, we need to say it was an alleged murder or alleged murders. Same thing with the surfboard purchase, the footage of him at the shop. He was there with a friend, we can say that, but the allegation is from the Crown that that was part of his planning for the alleged murders. So the wording and the sort of language that we're using is specific to some things that are in dispute and not in dispute. And it's something that is pretty common in court reporting that you'll notice the placement does really matter.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  So we are making sure that people are aware of what's in dispute and what's not in dispute. And if things are in dispute, obviously they're a matter for the jury and they're yet to be proven, but they're being tested and being explored through the evidence we're hearing through the trial.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  Thank you, Jamie. Wonderful explanation. If it's good enough, if it passes Jazz's muster, then it'll be in the episode. So that's how you'll know that you've done right by Jazz. Philip, thank you for asking that question. It was a great question as well. I will apologise for probably occasionally dropping in a superfluous allegedly. I only do it because I panicked, if that makes you feel any better.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for taking us through all of this, Jamie, answering these questions. If you have a question as well you'd like to get in touch about, send us an email, [email protected] is where you can reach us. Jamie, do you know where we're heading next?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the current witness we're still hearing from is another crime scene officer to do with the Bungonia crime scene where the bodies of Jessie and Luke were found. He's a really experienced crime scene officer. He's retired now, but he is someone who had, I think, decades of experience and he's been going through very, in a lot of detail, what they found at that crime scene. The jury is seeing some photographs of different things. So it seems like that's the category of evidence that we'll continue with. But it does seem like this is the kind of evidence that we've talked about, Stocky, that is really difficult and that seems like it will continue for a little while.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you, Jamie. Appreciate you taking us through all of this for this episode. We'll be back in your feed on Tuesday next week with another episode of The Case of Jessie and Luke. You can catch us on ABC Listen, best place to listen to The Case of, or even watch The Case of as well. You can also find us on YouTube or a number of other podcast platforms as well. And on Tuesday this week, I promised you some big news and I'm excited to say that in November this year, we'll be hosting our very first The Case of live show. So pop that in your diaries for mid-November. It'll be somewhere in Melbourne, to be revealed, but pop that one in your diary for mid-November and we'll have more details for you on tickets and the rest of it very, very soon.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  The Case of Jessie 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. A very big thank you to video producer Dylan Bean, to senior lawyer Jasmine Sims, our legal queen for her legal advice, to the New South Wales newsroom, and also to Audio Studios manager, Eric George. This episode was produced on the land of the Gadigal and Wurundjeri people.