Qld police shooting: Where it all went wrong for three members of the Train family

Nathaniel Train was a ‘dedicated’ NSW principal devoted to helping children from tough backgrounds - but a heart attack at school, deteriorating mental health and growing unhappiness with the education system somehow led him to become a murderer.

Nathaniel Train had not spoken to his father for more than two decades.

But still, when NSW Police put out a missing person’s report last Thursday, his father Ronald – a Christian Minister and author – wanted his son to know that despite their estrangement, he was still “much loved”.

“Nathaniel is my youngest son,” Ronald Train wrote on a Facebook post. “Whilst we have not seen each other for 23 years, he is much loved.”

Now, Ronald Train has lost not only Nathaniel, but his older son Gareth and daughter-in-law Stacey, killed in a hail of bullets after a siege in which they took the lives of two young Queensland Police constables and a good Samaritan neighbour.

“I’ve lost two children,” a shattered Ronald Train said on Tuesday outside his home in Toowoomba.

Former NSW principal Nathaniel Train.

Mr Train died after police stormed the Wieambilla home.

At the time of putting out their missing person’s alert, NSW Police had been told it was possible Nathaniel could be in Queensland and so asked their northern counterparts to help.

Nathaniel’s links to Queensland were well established. Until recent years, the 46-year-old had mostly been living in Queensland since the turn of the century.

In 2004, he lived with Gareth and Stacey at a small property in Mt Sheridan, a suburb of Cairns in far north Queensland.

Nathaniel got into teaching and within a decade was principal at Innisfail East State School in 2013, moving to lead Yorkeys Knob State School in Cairns in 2014 where he had an immediate impact on the school.

“He was a dedicated and great principal and was always thinking about the kids’ learning and their futures,” a former parent at the school told The Daily Telegraph.

“(It’s) sad to see this has happened.”

Mr Train served as principal at several QLD schools before moving to Walgett.

In 2021 he moved back to NSW and took up the role of Executive Principal at Walgett Community College Primary School.

He made an immediate impact, immersing himself in the school and local communities to try and help improve the learning standards of his pupils in what is one of the poorest towns in the state.

But last August he suffered a major heart attack, rescued only by colleagues who performed CPR until ambulance paramedics arrived.

Nathaniel’s tenure with the Walgett school ended in March 2022 because of physical and mental health issues but not before he contacted NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham, telling him he was “unhappy” with the state of education at the school.

Mr Latham said the former principal had been particularly concerned about a case of NAPLAN cheating he thought the department bureaucrats “did nothing about” when the principal raised the issue in May 2021.

Mr Latham said he had taken Train’s concerns so seriously he visited the school himself, saying “it was very important” as it was the “worst school in the state” on academic grounds, absenteeism and teacher turnover.

Mr Train reached out to MP Mark Latham earlier this year to express concerns about the school’s state of education.

“The news this morning is a shock and a tragedy. It’s a confusing situation,” Mr Latham said.

“My dealings had no context at all in relation to what’s happened in Queensland.”

While Nathaniel had established himself in Cairns before moving to Walgett, Gareth and Stacey had moved in the mid 2000s to Queensland’s far west, buying a home outside Mt Isa.

In 2015 they bought a property with 45 hectares of space in rural Wieambilla after Stacey got a job teaching at the nearby Tara Shire State College.

In recent years the pair had seemingly become heavily involved in online conspiracy theory websites, with Covid-19 vaccine and lockdowns a subject of regular discussion. A former colleague of Stacey’s claimed she left her job in 2021 over a refusal to get vaccinated.

Gareth also made claims including that the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 was a “false flag” event organised by the government and even showed interest in a confrontation with police on his property.

Mr Train’s brother Gareth (not pictured) was vocal on conspiracy theory websites.

“I have directed law enforcement to leave my premises over the last 20yrs, having no reason or grounds and at times have also asked them to remove their hands from their weapons or pull their pistols and whistle Dixie,” he wrote.

“Fortunately for me they have all been cowards.

“Our country is at a point where even cowards are now dangerous because they are unpredictable in groups, turn your back and you may find yourself out cold on the floor with law enforcement dancing on your head. We are seeing this in Victoria.”

Gareth also claimed efforts were made to stop Donald Trump winning the presidential election against Hillary Clinton.

But most concerning were posts about him “ark homesteading for the past five years preparing to survive”.

“When it becomes clear that we are in a time like no other and you head out into the wilderness to escape persecution, know that my wife and I will offer refuge to all brothers and sisters,” he said in a post. “I will be scanning the UHF channels when that time comes.”

What led his once highly respected principal brother Nathaniel - who, other than appealing the loss of his driver’s licence earlier this year at Walgett Local Court, had never had a run-in with the law - to join his call to arms will be central to the investigation.

But, as Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said yesterday, when Constables Rachel McCrow, 29, Matthew Arnold, 23, Keely Brough, 28, and Randall Kirk, 28, walked onto their property to try and find the missing Nathaniel on Monday afternoon, they “did not stand a chance”.

“There was considerable weaponry involved,” she said.