Accused murderer Senior Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly drew police a map of where the bodies of a young Sydney couple who vanished more than a week ago could be found.
The bodies of Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29, were found inside surfboard bags at the fence line of a rural property in Bungonia near Goulburn, about 200km southwest of the city, on Tuesday.
Lamarre-Condon, 28, is behind bars after being charged with murdering the couple at Mr. Baird’s home in Paddington in Sydney’s east on February 19.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald alleges Lamarre-Condon moved the bodies to a second location after his “inability to dispose of them” at a previous site.
“The accused drew a bit of a map or at least a bit of a visual to describe where to go,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday.
Mr. Fitzgerald also defended NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb’s choice of words when she said she was “very grateful” for the assistance of the accused in finding the bodies.
“I’m grateful that we’ve removed some heartache from the family,” he said.
“I’m very surprised with the criticism the commissioner’s got - she'd been nothing but supportive and she’s given us every resource.”
Ms. Webb later clarified that her comment related to feeling grateful that the families of the victims were able to know where their loved ones were.
“If that information didn’t come forward, we would still be searching ... so we’re grateful that the information came forward in a way that the detectives could act and we could tell the families and take the families to their loved ones,” she told Nine’s Today program.
Police are still at the Bungonia property where the painstaking task of collecting evidence continues.
“Our focus today will be on continuing the search in the area,” Ms. Webb said.
The commissioner alleged Lamarre-Condon was familiar with the area.
“I understand it was an area that was familiar to him, but to what extent ... that really is not fully known at this stage, but certainly familiar enough that that’s where he went,” she said.
“He engaged new counsel yesterday and there had been a shift and we reacted immediately ... which led us to the outcome where we are today.”
Meanwhile, gun safety processes within the NSW Police Force are being reviewed amid allegations the accused used his police-issued firearm to kill the couple.
On Wednesday, Ms. Webb said she was looking to move quickly on the issue.
“The other point, though, I'd like to make is that this person has been deceptive in the way he’s gone about the access to the firearm that is not the behaviour we see of police officers doing their job every day,” she added.
“So there’s a degree of deception, and we will allege that in the way he’s accessed the firearm.”
A critical incident was declared following the alleged murders, meaning it will be investigated by police internally and reviewed by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.
A senior officer from Victoria Police will be commissioned to conduct the review of NSW Police systems relating to guns.
“Victoria Police, simply by its size, the nature of their policing responsibility and the type of policing operations they conduct and some lessons they’ve learned, I think we can learn from them,” Ms. Webb said on Tuesday.
Asked if more safeguards were needed around police accessing firearms, Ms. Webb agreed.
“We don’t want this to happen again, we need to understand how this happened,” she said.
