‘Holy cow it’s close’: Widow’s chilling triple-0 audio before husband murdered in horror shooting released
The chilling audio of a woman reporting thick black smoke and flames approaching her property moments before her husband was shot dead has been revealed.
Chilling triple-0 audio in the moments before a man was murdered by his neighbours in a religiously motivated terror attack has been released by a coroner.
Alan Dare, 52, was one of the three victims shot dead by crazed gunmen at a property in Wieambilla, in Queensland’s Western Downs region, in late 2022.
Mr Dare lived with his wife Kerry at the neighbouring property of Nathaniel, Stacey and Gareth Train.
In a triple-0 call, Ms Dare tells the operator she can hear “gunshots and black smoke” and smell an “electrical burning smell”.
Mr Dare can be briefly heard in the background.
“There’s been … gunshots across the road for the last hour or so,” Mrs Dare says. “But there’s been two big bangs in the last 10 minutes. Really loud – not gunshots.”
Mrs Dare goes on to say there is a lot of smoke in the air before the operator tells them not to investigate.
The five-week inquest into the massacre at Wieambilla is examining the deaths of Queensland Police constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, Mr Dare and the three members of the Train family – Nathaniel, his brother Gareth and Gareth’s wife Stacey – on December 12, 2022.
Constables McCrow, 29, and Arnold, 26, were murdered by the Train brothers after jumping the fence of the Wieambilla property.
Two other constables – Keely Brough and Randall Kirk – survived.
Mr Dare, 58, was murdered investigating fires lit by the Trains. He lived on a property opposite theirs.
All three members of the Train family were killed by highly trained Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) officers during a lengthy shootout later that night.
The attending police were conducting a welfare check on Nathaniel, a former NSW school principal who had been reported missing months prior, but were ambushed by the family as they lay in wait.
The Trains followed an extremist Christian ideology known as premillennialism, believing Jesus Christ would return to earth after a period of extreme suffering.
In the triple-0 call, released by the Coroners Court on Friday, Mrs Dare tells the operator the blaze does not smell like a grass fire.
“Holy cow it’s close … it’s getting bad, holy sh*t,” she says as the black smoke continues to advance.
“We’re going to have to get onto the neighbours.”
Mrs Dare relays to the operator her husband was going to investigate with another neighbour, Victor Lewis.
“I would absolutely advise against it,” the operator tells her.
In the audio, she says her husband is “at the top of the road”.
The operator tells her police are already responding to a job in the area and urges her to call back if anything else comes to light.
Mr Dare was recording at the time he was fatally shot while investigating the fires.
On Friday, Queensland Police Sergeant Andrew Gates also gave evidence of the moment he retrieved the bodies of his fallen colleagues after they were shot dead by the Trains.
He told the court that he volunteered to go in as part of the extraction team to retrieve the bodies of constables Arnold and McCrow.
He revealed he did not want to but said it was “what we were doing”.
The court was told the team progressed along Wains Rd to the address with a vehicle proceeding at “walking pace”.
Sergeant Gates explained he felt the officers were in a “fatal funnel” due to the lack of cover.
He said he saw Constable McCrow down on the driveway about 150m onto the property.
The team were also calling out “colours” to Constable Brough as she hid in grassland to check if she could hear them.
Sergeant Gates gave evidence he yelled for Constable Brough to keep to the tree line.
He last saw his colleague “running for her life, Glock in hand” before the team moved in.
The court was told he then moved over to the body of Constable McCrow – almost ripping her shirt off as he tried to drag her to safety with her vest.
Sergeant Gates said it appeared to have been removed.
“We put her in (the vehicle) … her head turned, and I realised she was deceased,” Sergeant Gates said.
Toowoomba-based Senior Sergeant Christina Esselink also gave evidence she saw the initial job while working in the Darling Downs city.
She received permission to attend the forward command post – even though Wieambilla was not within her police district.
“I was aware there were shots fired at police and two (officers) were unaccounted for,” Sergeant Esselink said.
The court was told “significant” resources would be needed to respond to the shooting, including aerial assets like the Polair helicopter, she explained.
Sergeant Esselink said she organised for trained rifle users to come out to Wieambilla and attempted to organise the dog squad to attend.
The court was told Sergeant Esselink used her car to block an open gate towards the Train’s property, effectively containing and isolating the shooters on the property.
At this point, she was fired upon by members of the family, forcing her to bolt from the vehicle to safety.
The court was told she noticed Mr Dare’s body lying nearby and thought about taking his body with her.
“He had been murdered and there was a crime scene, there were shots and gunfire, and we had nowhere to put (his body),” Sergeant Esselink said.
“I thought we’d be back for him … everything was crazy at the time,” she said.
The inquest continues.