‘I just thought he was a keyboard warrior’: Emails before police shooting ‘incredibly disturbing’

An associate of a man who killed two police with his brother received “incredibly disturbing” emails about law enforcement in the days before the shootings.

NSW school principal Nathaniel Train, 46, illegally crossed into Queensland with a cache of firearms during a COVID-19 border lockdown before taking part in the Wieambilla shootings on December 12, 2022.

Queensland State Coroner Terry Ryan on Thursday heard the associate give evidence about the period when Nathaniel Train left for what was meant to be a camping trip but turned into a near-complete disappearance before the shootings.

The associate cannot be identified due to a court order handed down before the inquest began.

The associate said they had accessed Nathaniel Train’s email account after his older brother Gareth, 47, had told them not to attempt to contact his sibling.

A barrister asked the associate about “incredibly disturbing” emails they saw in that account on December 10, 2022 written by Gareth Train threatening “graphic” consequences for continuing to report Nathaniel Train as missing.

“He had already expressed anger. I just thought he was a keyboard warrior,” the associate said.

The associate had filed a missing persons report on December 5, 2022, almost a year after Nathaniel Train entered Queensland and had stopped taking his heart medication.

The associate forwarded the emails to the officer investigating Nathaniel Train’s missing persons report on the weekend before the shootings, but they received an out-of-office automated reply.

The following Monday afternoon Nathaniel and Gareth Train lay in ambush with high-powered rifles at a remote bush block property west of Brisbane and opened fire on four junior police officers.

The officers had been asked to find Nathaniel Train on behalf of NSW police and were also serving an arrest warrant for illegally entering Queensland and firearms offences.

Police Constables Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, were killed during the ambush and the Trains’ neighbour, Alan Dare, 58, was shot dead soon after when he came to investigate.

In the hours afterward, Gareth Train sent his brother’s associate a text message that stated: “You sent people to kill us. Run”.

The associate called police in response and was not informed until the next morning that Nathaniel Train, his brother and his sibling’s wife Stacey, 45, had been shot dead during the night by specialist police.

The associate said Nathaniel Train had been under significant stress and suffered a heart attack in August 2021 while working long days at a highly disadvantaged school in regional NSW.

Equipment found at the Train family property in Wieambilla.Credit: AAP

Ryan heard Nathaniel Train arranged to go camping during the school holidays and the associate thought it would be a short trip.

“He was very emotional. Very teary ... it seemed things had become insurmountable for him. He needed time out,” they said.

The associate said they tried “desperately” to contact Nathaniel Train by text message and after a few months they started having twice-weekly phone calls.

“He asked if I was reading the biblical things he sent to me, about COVID ... I was upset all the time in those calls,” they said.

The associate said Nathaniel Train had been friends with police when he worked in education and had previously said he believed in God but nothing more than that.

A forensic psychiatrist has previously testified the Trains likely suffered from a “shared psychotic disorder” with Gareth as the primary sufferer who acted on extreme religious beliefs and conspiracy theories.

Nathaniel Train travelled to Wieambilla in January 2021 and heard Gareth Train detail his “grand opus” that numerous secret societies, COVID and other disasters were all connected to the world ending soon via a final battle between Jesus Christ and Satan.

“[Nathaniel Train] told me they just talked about God,” the associate said.

The associate said they had no prior knowledge of Gareth Train having multiple unlicensed firearms and knowledge of military tactics.

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