Luke Davies is pictured ahead of his farewell in Brisbane in November.
EXCLUSIVE
Luke Davies hosted a farewell party before moving to Sydney to follow his dream of becoming an international flight attendant, three months before he was allegedly murdered along with his new boyfriend.
Davies, 29, lived in Brisbane and worked as a cabin crew member on Qantas domestic flights until November, when he was offered his dream job on international flights.
He threw a party with mimosas and margaritas to say goodbye to all his friends before flying south and excitedly moving into a house in Waterloo, in Sydney’s inner suburbs, to begin the next chapter of his life.
One of his best friends, Dean Bailey, told Daily Mail Australia it was a bittersweet goodbye because they didn’t want him to move, but they felt better knowing they would see him again in August for his 30th birthday celebration in Bali.
“It was for selfish reasons that we didn’t want him to go,” he said.
“But then we saw Instagram stories of him going to Chile or Tokyo; he loved traveling and was living that dream.
“He was starting a new chapter, got his dream job and moved, which was huge for him.”
Davies didn’t tell her friends about her new boyfriend Jesse Baird, 26, because she was embarrassed to reveal new relationships, but they assumed she was seeing someone when she uploaded a photo of them together on February 5.
Just two weeks to the day after that publication, Davies and Baird were dead.
Luke Davies posted this photo with his new boyfriend, Jesse Baird, on Instagram on February 5, exactly two weeks before his death.
Luke Davies is pictured, right, with friends at his farewell function in November, before moving to Sydney.
Luke Davies is pictured, front left, with friends at his farewell party in Brisbane.
Baird’s former lover Beau Lamarre-Condon, who was a New South Wales police officer at the time, allegedly used his police-issued Glock pistol to shoot them both three times on a Paddington terrace at 9.50am. am on Monday, February 19.
Police allege that Lamarre-Condon did not expect Davies to be at the house when he allegedly arrived to kill Baird, but quickly adapted his plans.
Baird had previously decided to end his brief friends-with-benefits relationship with Lamarre-Condon via text message in November, asking the former police officer to refrain from contacting him again.
The deaths have been widely reported in the media, in part because Baird was a presenter on Channel Ten and his former colleagues paid heartfelt tributes to him on national television.
But while Davies’ friends believe both men deserve the tributes they are receiving, Bailey said they also feel his death has been overshadowed by Baird’s.
“I think the general consensus is that he’s not getting as much media attention as Jesse; we all have that feeling a little bit,” he said.
Bailey has organized a vigil in memory of Davies in a Brisbane park on Saturday, partly in response to the perceived imbalance.
Luke Davies is pictured with a friend at a farewell party in Brisbane in November.
Dean Bailey is pictured, left, with Luke Davies. Mr. Bailey has organized a vigil on Saturday.
He has been overwhelmed by the large number of people who responded to the invitation, including people he went to high school with.
When Davies’ death was revealed last week, Bailey said a friend asked him if he had “seen what happened with Luke”.
“I thought it would be something cheerful,” Mr. Bailey said.
And I thought, “What has Luke done now?” And then he tried to explain it to me and it didn’t make sense and I started calling my friends to find out.
“He was a lovely guy, friendly, loving, caring, he had a cheeky side – that’s what made us instantly connect – he loved to laugh and it was always like he was floating on an air of happiness.”
Another friend, Tomas Mian, told Daily Mail Australia he remembered Mr Davies as a “super adventurous”, genuine and kind person.
“It’s hard to find people like him, and I knew he had a good amount of friends, but I didn’t know how many he had,” Mian said.
He said his heart sank when a friend sent him a link about Davies’ death on February 21.
“I read it and thought, ‘no way, that’s not possible,’ and I remember getting goosebumps because it didn’t seem real,” she said.
Lamarre-Condon has been charged with two counts of murder and will appear in court at a later date.
In light of the charges, New South Wales police chiefs have begun the process of dismissing Lamarre-Condon from the police force.