Wieambilla inquest day 11: How Gareth and Stacey Train became ‘fixated on end of times’

On the morning of the police massacre, the Trains wrote to a woman online asking her to join them at their Wieambilla property as they prepared for “end of times”. INQUEST DAY 11

The Trains attempted to recruit others to join them for their “final battle” as they purchased ghillie suits and bulk orders of coffee in preparation for the end times.

Deakin University Associate Professor of politics Josh Roose told the inquest that as late as 6am on the day of the Wieambilla massacre, the Trains wrote to a woman who had posted a premillennialism-themed video online and asked her to join them at their Queensland property.

Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel Train believed they were “at war” the moment four police officers jumped their front gate, Deakin University Associate Professor of politics Josh Roose told the Wieambilla inquest.

Professor Roose wrote a 350-page report for the coroner about the political, religious and ideological influences that shaped the actions of the Trains when they fired on police from sniper hides on their rural property.

The Wieambilla inquest is examining the murders of police constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold and local resident Alan Dare, as well as the shooting deaths of Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train.

The attack on police unfolded within two minutes of four officers arriving at the Trains’ Wieambilla bush block on December 12, 2022 to ask after former school principal Nathaniel Train, who had been reported missing in New South Wales.

The Wains Rd property belonged to Nathaniel’s brother Gareth and his wife Stacey on the Western Downs. Stacey had previously been married to Nathaniel.

Constables McCrow and Arnold were fatally shot with high-powered rifles fired from sniper hides as the four police walked down the dirt driveway.

Constables Keely Brough and Randall Kirk managed to escape, with Constable Brough hiding in grass eight inches high as the Train brothers hunted her and lit fires to flush her out.

The Trains also shot and killed their neighbour Mr Dare when he saw smoke coming from their property and came to investigate.

Train's last stand shootout with police at Wieambilla.

All three were killed by operatives from the Special Emergency Response Team following a lengthy shootout.

Professor Roose told the inquest the woman’s video talked about sacrifice and the loss of loved ones and that the Trains, moved by her message, wrote to her.

“They’d written an email to her encouraging her to join them on the property as they prepared for end times,” he said.

“That can be understood as an attempt to recruit someone to join them for this final battle.”

Professor Roose told the inquest he had also viewed videos posted by Stacey in the lead up to the shooting that he referred to as her “recruitment videos”.

“They were uploaded but didn’t reach more than a couple of dozen people,” he said.

“(She was) talking about the end times (and) the importance of repentance and coming over.”

He told the inquest the Trains were in a prolonged period of end of times preparation from August 2021 to about October 2022 before there was a rapid escalation “towards what happened in December 2022”.

Professor Roose said the acts of preparation included the purchasing of ghillie suits, purchasing of supplies including bulk orders of coffee and items like hatchets - much of it from eBay.

“They were effectively starting to bunker down,” he said.

“They had prepared their property, they had prepared their ambush hide.

“The amount of resources that go into preparing that hide and effectively manning it is significant.”

Gareth and Stacey Train recorded and uploaded a video to Youtube on Monday night, after the Wieambilla massacre.

He said Gareth was preparing to “stand ready for the evil that comes”.

He said the rapid escalation that began around November included videos uploaded by Gareth in which he taunted police and sought to intimidate and threaten them.

“For me, Gareth talked about his animosity for police well prior … (he) had talked about potentially executing police.

“Whilst Nathaniel had his moment talking about attacking police … Gareth talked about not giving in and how he would go down fighting.”

‘AN ACT OF TERRORISM’

Professor Roose said in his opinion the Trains committed an act of terrorism.

The legal definition requires the act to have an intention to coerce, influence the public or any government by intimation to advance a political, religious or ideological cause.

The definition includes death or serious harm.

The inquest heard in his report Professor Roose had drawn on the fact they had been broadcasting their views on social media and posting videos about the need to raise awareness of the “corruption of the world and the need to repent” and engaged others to fight with them.

He said there was also preparation for an ambush site.

Train property on Wains Road, Wieambilla. Picture: Liam Kidston

Professor Roose was asked if it mattered if the Trains believed they were under imminent threat from demons.

“You can still hold an ideological orientation and be mentally unwell,” he said.

Professor Roose said he could not give evidence in relation to the state of mind of the Trains and was not qualified to say if they were suffering from psychotic delusional disorder.

His definition of terrorism was questioned by legal representatives for Madelyn Train who said he was not an expert in statutory interpretation.

Barrister Sally Robb KC asked Professor Roose if he accepted that the Trains were not trying to coerce or influence the state to do anything on December 12.

“Well, by influencing the state, I mean, killing state officials, public state actors,” he responded.

Barrisister Robb KC responded: “And what is the influence you say they were seeking to effect by doing that? Because that is what is required to meet the definition of a terrorist act.”

Professor Roose responded: “They were seeking to kill the enemy. They believed themselves to be in an end of times battle. By achieving that they were in one hand achieving salvation on the other they were defeating evil. The government and public state actors were evil in their mind.”

Barrister Gavin Handran KC, referring to evidence given by psychiatrist Dr Andrew Aboud yesterday, said the Trains saw their actions as defending themselves rather than acts of aggression.

Expert forensic psychiatrist Dr Andrew Aboud gave evidence at the inquest into the Wieambilla massacre yesterday. Picture: NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Professor Roose argued that many people who engage in acts of terrorism saw themselves as defending themselves or others.

“There are many instances where, for the most part, people engaged in terrorism don’t frame themselves as attackers,” he said.

He said members of Islamic State “talk about defending their faith, defending their people” and that those in the “Far Right” talk about “defending white people”.

”In the context of, I am not attacking, I am not an evil person, I’m defending, I’m noble, I’m a warrior defending my people,” Professor Roose said.

”It’s possible for someone with a mental illness to hold an ideological orientation and to act in accordance with it.”

TRAINS BECAME FIXATED IN END OF TIMES

Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel Train believed they were “at war” the moment four police officers jumped their front gate, Professor Roose told the inquest.

Professor Roose wrote a 350-page report for the coroner about the political, religious and ideological influences that shaped the actions of the Trains when they fired on police from sniper hides on their rural property.

The inquest heard Professor Roose had access to 2500 pieces of evidence, including more than 700 emails and more than 700 text messages sourced from the Trains, extensive hand-written notes found at the property, mostly penned by Stacey, personal photographs and witness statements.

Confirmed and identity of American man - Donald Day. An American man associated with Stacey and Gareth Train. Picture: YouTube

He also reviewed videos uploaded to social media platforms by the Trains during 2022, and online actions, comments and statements written by them.

Professor Roose said the Trains had become radicalised in Christian premillennialism beliefs, with each taking a different trajectory towards radicalisation.

He said a period in July 2021, was a “particularly important moment” in his opinion because it was then that Gareth - and later Stacey - began communicating with a man in the United States named Donald Day Jr.

He said they began to become fixated in the end times, believing that Jesus would return after a period of great suffering and tribulation.

“You can see them having that discussion about the return of Christ and … fighting alongside Jesus, fighting alongside Donald Day Jr … to bring about salvation.

A burnt out car at the entrance to the Train property at Western Downs.

“You could see Stacey looking at various sources about, is the rapture, for example, a thing that we should be looking at?

”There’s also a discussion between Gareth Train and Donald Day Jr about whether you’d be fighting alongside Jesus or if Jesus comes later.

“Really, this is about end times.

“Stacey had created a very detailed timeline in her notebooks and making sense of it was pretty challenging.

“She was spending hours and hours and hours working out precisely when this was going to happen.”

The inquest heard the Trains believed the end times would be sometime in April or May of 2023.

Professor Roose said Stacey wrote to Donald Day Jr about “crossing the Rubicon”.

The inquest previously heard the Trains had named their front gate the Rubicon, in reference to Julius Caesar pausing with his army at the banks of the Rubicon River in Italy where he said the “die is cast” or that they were at the point of no return.

“The moment that threshold was crossed, they were at war,” Professor Roose said.

“They considered themselves to be in a battle.”

Professor Roose said the trio had an estrangement from their children after they tried to convince them to join them on their property to “effectively save them from the end of times”. The children rejected their approach.

He said there was a “deep sense of grief” from Stacey and anger by Gareth while Nathaniel had tried to convince his children but gave up in the end.

The inquest heard Stacey Train had a ‘deep sense of grief’.

He said there were different phases of radicalisation of the Trains.

In the first phase, there were pre-covid conspiracy theories that went from a conspiratorial dimension before there was an evolution into a “Premillennialism dispensationalism”.

Between January 2020 to December 2020 they moved into the second phase of radicalisation he said, where Gareth already held strong conspiratorial beliefs when Covid hit around the world.

Gareth contacted people including a sovereign citizen, searching for something to belong to, where his views would be recognised as significant, Professor Roose said.

He said Gareth wanted to be recognised as a leader.

Professor Roose said he would not frame it as Gareth suffering from persecutory beliefs over that period.

“I would frame it as more of a sense of power imbalance,” Professor Roose said.

“Angry, believed he was disempowered unjustly in the world, looking for something to belong to.

“And so I wouldn’t go through that psychological, psychiatric process of determining that (he was suffering from persecutory beliefs), but I understand that, as I said, slightly differently.

“I don’t think he felt persecuted, per se, from my understanding and my framing, I think he felt like the world was corrupt, that powerful actors behind the scenes were pulling the strings and that he had a role to play in combating that.”

SHOCK FIND IN AUTOPSY

Nathaniel Train’s cardiac arrest did not cause a brain injury or cause any lasting effect on his cognitive abilities that could have explained his actions in the shooting of two police officers in the Wieambilla massacre, an inquest has been told.

Professor Christian Gericke, a consultant neurologist with 25 years of specialist experience, said there was no evidence to suggest Nathaniel’s cardiac arrest in August 2021 caused an enduring brain injury or had any lasting effect on his cognitive abilities.

Nathaniel Train.

His report found the most plausible hypothesis is that Nathaniel started to develop an acute psychotic illness with paranoid ideas of persecution and religious delusions in late January 2022.

Dr Gericke said after Nathaniel’s cardiac arrest he “normalised very quickly” and he had only short-term memory deficits.

A CT scan did not show any evidence of any lasting effect either.

“Obviously, we always like to see an MRI scan of the brain, because that’s much more, much more precise, and you can see minor damages that you can’t see on the CT scan,” Dr Gericke said.

“But now we have the autopsy report, which is even better than an MRI, and that did not show any brain damage that would be suggestive of hypoxic ischaemic injury, which is the method of injury that would happen with a cardiac arrest, no blood supply to the brain and damage, causing enduring damage.

“So we have very good evidence that he did not suffer from this.”

Dr Gericke said Nathaniel had “very rapid recovery with only some minor cognitive defects that seemed very very small”.

He said medical consultations after the cardiac arrest also showed that Nathaniel interacted normally with professionals.

Stacey and Gareth Train at their home at Wieambilla. Date unknown.

“And again, that’s something with significant hypoxic ischaemic injury that would not be possible,” he said.

On Monday Dr Andrew Aboud, clinical director of Prison Mental Health Service and a consultant forensic psychiatrist, said his opinion was the Trains would have most likely been found to be delusional and referred to the mental health court had they survived the Wieambilla massacre.

Dr Aboud said he believed all three Trains were suffering from a shared psychiatric disorder referred to as folie à trois or “the insanity of three”, with Gareth the primary and Stacey and Nathaniel the secondaries.

Dr Aboud said at some point Gareth’s delusions changed from conspiracy theories about the moon landing and Port Arthur massacre to more personal, persecutory delusions.

He said often people with persecutory delusions believe they are being followed or spied upon or their phone calls intercepted.

He said people inflicted like this will often move to another part of the country to escape “only to believe their persecutors have found them … and it’s all starting again”.

Inside the Train property.

Dr Aboud said he believed the period where Gareth’s delusions became “more focused” to the point where they “took over his life” occurred around the time he and Stacey bought the isolated Wieambilla property in 2015.

Dr Aboud said he personally believed all three Trains were “fully deluded” at the beginning of 2021 following a meeting between the trio.

When questioned on Tuesday about Dr Aboud’s evidence, Mr Gericke said he agreed with the evidence that they may have been deluded earlier, as he had not been given access to the same background material.