The New South Wales police commissioner Karen Webb has moved to dismiss alleged killer Beau Lamarre from the force.
Webb told the ABC on Wednesday night the senior constable had been served with a show cause notice – the first step in his dismissal from the state’s police force.
“I actually today read a segment of his file,” Webb told ABC’s 7:30 on Wednesday.
“It has been served today in custody, a show cause notice for his dismissal, and that particularises some things, but it may not be a complete picture.”
Meanwhile, New South Wales police will continue searching a remote property at Bungonia, potentially for weeks, where human remains were discovered on Tuesday that are believed to be alleged murder victims Luke Davies and Jesse Baird.
The discovery came four days after Lamarre, 28, was charged with the murders of Baird, a former Channel Ten presenter, and Davies, his partner, a Qantas flight attendant.
The crime scene had been established on Tuesday afternoon. Later that day, two bodies were found at the remote property in surfboard bags.
NSW police assistant commissioner Michael Fitzgerald alleged on Wednesday that Lamarre moved the bodies to a second location after his “inability to dispose of them” at a previous site.
On Tuesday Lamarre had told police where to find the bodies, Fitzgerald said.
“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 station 2GB on Wednesday.
Webb told ABC radio on Wednesday the search would continue at Bungonia “for many many days and maybe even weeks”.
“Police are still on the ground conducting a forensic examination of that whole scene, as well as officers that are doing a line search looking for other evidence,” she said.
“Police will be interviewing other witnesses that are still coming forward or who have come forward, and responding to Crime Stoppers information that has been coming through.”
Webb said the remains were moved to a morgue at Lidcombe overnight, where there would be a postmortem examination.
“We strongly believe they are the remains of Jesse and Luke,” she said. “It won’t be until [after the postmortem] that we’re able to determine time and manner of death.”
The police commissioner said one victim’s family had travelled to the Bungonia area “to understand where their loved one was”.
Police will allege Lamarre killed the two men on 19 February at Baird’s Paddington home using his force-issued handgun, before hiring a white van to dispose of the bodies.
Det Supt Danny Doherty said police would allege there was “some type of relationship at some stage” between Lamarre and Baird that “did not end well”.
The alleged use of a police handgun will be the subject of an internal NSW police review with oversight from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (Lecc) as well as Victoria police.
Webb told ABC TV she called the review because “clearly there’s a problem” with how Lamarre was able to access his police firearm in the way police allege. However, she alleged he was “manipulative” in gaining access to it.
“We do have policies and processes in place and what we’ll allege is that the accused has been manipulative in the way he’s reported that to get access to the firearm,” she said.
“What I have asked for is a review of our whole policies and processes around this to understand how we can tighten this. We need to tighten it, we cannot have this happen again.”
The NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, told Sunrise the alleged murders had sent “a shiver right throughout the whole of the NSW police force”.
“They don’t expect one of their own to commit an alleged murder,” she said. “But at the end of the day they do their job and they demonstrated that by being so dedicated to this search and finding the bodies.”
The assistant police commissioner defended Webb against criticism over her public statements on the case.
“I’m grateful that we’ve removed some heartache from the family,” Fitzgerald 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.”
