Sydney couple Luke Davies and Jesse Baird were remembered at Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on Saturday, with a moment of silence for the men opening the parade and touching tributes on floats associated with their workplaces.
The pair were allegedly murdered on February 19 at a terrace in Paddington, about 1km from Darlinghurst’s Taylor Square, the focal point of the parade’s march on Oxford St on Saturday night.
The lead-up to the parade was a challenging week, Mardi Gras chief executive Gil Beckwith said.
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“Obviously the loss of those two beautiful young men has been quite heartbreaking for so many in our community,” she told ABC TV during the parade.
Marchers wore rainbow kangaroos on their shirts behind a float featuring Luke Davies’ name on the nose cone of a Qantas plane in honour of the 29-year-old flight attendant.
Sydney Swans marked the deaths of Jesse Baird with black armbands for the 26-year-old AFL umpire as they marched up Oxford Street.
The bodies of the two men were found inside surfboard bags at the fence line of a rural property in Bungonia near Goulburn, about 200km southwest of Sydney, on Tuesday.
NSW Police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon, 28, is in custody, charged with murdering the pair at Baird’s Paddington home.
Detectives allege Lamarre-Condon’s killing of Baird with his police-issued gun was a premeditated attack after a months-long campaign of “predatory behaviour” towards the man he briefly dated.
Davies was allegedly murdered because he happened to be in the Paddington property at the time of his partner’s killing.
NSW Police’s involvement in Mardi Gras was the focus of debate in the lead-up to the parade.
Mardi Gras officials initially uninvited police from joining the parade following the officer’s charges, but a compromise was reached to allow them to march out of uniform.
Flowers filled the terrace’s fence throughout the week, one bouquet adorned with a scale-model Qantas plane, while an AFL umpire guernsey was also left at the scene.
The commemorations in Saturday night’s parade followed a vigil for the pair on Friday night, where mourners remembered the pair’s dazzling smiles and love for life.
