Former Sydney police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon had previously visited the Bungonia farm where he allegedly attempted to sink the bodies of a young Sydney couple in a dam, a jury has been told.
The 31-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and is claiming self-defence during a three-month trial in the NSW Supreme Court.
He is accused of shooting Jesse Baird and Luke Davies using his police pistol in Mr Baird's Paddington share house in Sydney's east on February 19, 2024.
The bodies of the pair were found near a monastery at Bungonia, south of Sydney, in surfboard bags eight days later.
Jurors have also heard Mr Lamarre-Condon is alleged to have initially attempted to sink the bodies at a farm about a 15-minute drive away, using quick-set cement and weights.
Accused's previous visit to farm
Mr Lamarre-Condon matched with a man on the dating app Hinge in March 2023 whose family owned the hobby farm, the jury heard on Wednesday.
In a witness statement read to the court, the man said he knew Mr Lamarre-Condon for about nine months after the accused told him to follow him on Instagram.
In September 2023, Mr Lamarre-Condon contacted the man and asked to catch up next time he was in Sydney.
The court heard they met for coffee in Glebe and later saw each other again at Westfield Bondi Junction.
They saw two movies together, including the Taylor Swift movie, during four or five subsequent catch ups.
In November 2023, Mr Lamarre-Condon invited the witness on a trip to an off-grid cabin, but the man said he instead suggested the defendant could visit his family's farm to save money.
During that visit, he recalled making a fire in a fire pit, driving around to look at the animals, and Mr Lamarre-Condon recording a video for social media.
He said Mr Lamarre-Condon posted that video to his Instagram account with Taylor Swift's song You Belong with Me playing over the footage.
The witness said he "lost interest" in Mr Lamarre-Condon and started dating his current partner in December 2023.
'Weird' messages
In his statement, he recalled receiving missed calls from a "no caller ID" number at the end of January 2024, which he assumed were from a scammer.
On the encrypted messaging app Signal, he then received messages saying "Hey" and "call me back". The only identifier of the user's account was the name "Bob".
"I just thought it was weird," the witness said in his statement.
About one month later, he was contacted by a detective who asked if he knew Mr Lamarre-Condon.
When he told her Mr Lamarre-Condon had previously been to the farm, he was informed that police had reason to believe the bodies of Mr Baird and Mr Davies were located there.
The Crown's case is that Mr Lamarre-Condon allegedly stalked Mr Baird in the lead up to the shootings, after he was romantically involved with Mr Baird from 2022 and parts of 2023, but that Mr Baird considered things more casual and had twice broken it off.
The jurors have heard evidence of two apparent break ups; firstly in April 2023 when Mr Baird told him he was not ready for a relationship, and then in November 2023 when Mr Baird requested no further contact after realising Mr Lamarre-Condon had interfered with his phone by blocking contacts.
Mr Lamarre-Condon's lawyers have said their client's case is that two separate struggles inside the Brown Street terrace involving the gun resulted in the two deaths.
They have indicated an argument that he later panicked and cleaned the Brown Street property because he realised the gravity of the situation and how it would look.
The trial, which is now in its fourth week and has an estimated duration of three months, continues on Thursday.
