The saddest goodbye
During the Christmas holidays, you couldn’t escape the chatter. A family home had been broken into, the car keys taken, and the car was gone. Paddington isn’t immune to crime, but our terrace houses have a knack of keeping us safe.
Front grill doors, bars on the windows and the natural protection of high fences between pokey backyards, many of which house garages, and the high concentration of neighbours, have redirected burglars and car thieves to easier targets in other suburbs.
Opportunistic car theft, in particular, is a crime that has reached crisis levels in many suburbs in Australia. Predominantly youth offenders prowl the streets looking to get into any house they can, searching for only one thing — the car keys. Finding them means they are one click away from a joy ride in a stolen car and, apparently, the social media ‘glory’ it brings.
The fact that one house in our suburb was knocked over, and the car taken, had us on edge. None of us wanted to see that coming here.
But that crime, and the neighbourhood chatter around it, was barely a ripple compared to the reverberating shock of the double-murder in Brown St on February 19. Two young men, allegedly shot by a serving police officer with his service Glock pistol, on a Monday morning inside a terrace house.
Television presenter Jesse Baird, 26, lived in the house. He and his boyfriend, Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies, 29, who lived in Woolloomooloo, were killed at 9.50am.
Beau Lamarre-Condon, 28, a police officer, has been charged with the double-murder. At 9.54am, Jesse’s phone was used to dial Triple 0, but the call was disconnected when answered.
The details around the murders, and the search for Luke and Jesse’s bodies, made national and international headlines. The overriding feeling in Paddington was of acute sadness for two vibrant and fun-loving young men living life to the full, then losing their lives in such a shocking and senseless manner.
The flowers and tributes left at the house grew by the day. Cars crawled past, friends gathered outside, people walking dogs stopped solemnly. No one knew what to say to each other. What could you say? It was such a sad sight.
A crime of passion, domestic violence, a combination of both, call it what you will. It makes you realise life is precious and can be taken away in an instant.
We do feel safe in Paddington. What a place it is to raise a family, or to share-flat, or to live out your retirement. But we’re not immune. Dreadful things can happen anywhere, at any time.
RIP Jesse and Luke. We didn’t know you, but we wish we did. You seem to have been two ripping young men just starting out in life.