Queensland shooting: Gunman Gareth Train was a conspiracy theorist

Detectives are unpicking a web of ­secrets that led a once-­respected school principal and the woman both he and his brother evidently loved to unleash a hail of gunfire.

Constable Rachel McCrow and Constable Matthew Arnold were gunned down at the property in the western Darling Downs of Queensland.

Detectives in two states are unpicking a web of paranoia and ­secrets that led a once-­respected school principal and the woman both he and his brother evidently loved to unleash a hail of gunfire on police at their property on Queensland’s Western Downs, ending with six people shot dead.

As accounts of heroism and selflessness by police and sadistic savagery by the three assailants – all killed in the shootout – emerged on Tuesday, the nation mourned the death of two young police constables – Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold – and good ­Samaritan bystander Alan Dare.

Constable Randall Kirk, 28, survived after he was shot in the leg. Picture: Peta McEachern

Central to this descent into murderous mayhem was the tangled relationship between Nathaniel Train, 46, who disappeared from his job running the Walgett Community College Primary School in remote northwest NSW a year ago, brother Gareth Train, 47, and Gareth’s wife Stacey Train, 45. All are believed to have been involved in a bizarre love triangle.

A highly regarded principal who featured in this newspaper in 2013 after turning around a poorly performing north Queensland primary school, Nathaniel Train was the subject of a missing person’s report from his current partner, pulling the unsuspecting contingent of four uniformed police into the firing line about 4.40pm on Monday.

What was supposed to be a welfare check on Train turned into a cold-blooded ambush after the police parked at the locked gate of the Wieambilla property, 40 minutes’ drive south of Chinchilla, and jumped the fence.

All hell broke loose when they approached the mustard-painted homestead.

Nathaniel Train.

Constables Arnold, 26, and McCrow, 29, went down in the fusillade that the Trains let loose, severely if not ­fatally wounded.

Constable Randall Kirk, 28, was hit in the leg. Constable Keely Brough, 29, and barely nine weeks out of the police academy, was ­unhurt. Both survivors stumbled into the surrounding scrub. At least one of the killers, dressed in camouflage fatigues, walked up to where Constable Arnold and Constable McCrow lay and fired several rounds into them, execution-style, and made off with their Glock service pistols.

As a tearful Queensland Police Commission Katarina Carroll ­observed, it was a miracle anyone survived the deadly onslaught. “The scene is unimaginable, it’s distressing and in my view those officers did not stand a chance,” she said after visiting the site. “I don’t know how two got out alive.”

 

The chaos continued for hours. The Trains focused on hunting down Constable Brough, who had run in a different direction from her injured colleague, possibly to draw them away from Constable Kirk. They set fire to the dry bushland in an apparent attempt to smoke her out. She was so convinced she was going to die that she texted heart-rending farewell messages to her family.

Constable Keely Brough, 29, and barely nine weeks out of the police academy, was ­unhurt after running into nearby bush.

“She did not know whether she was going to be shot or whether she was going to be burnt alive,” Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said.

“She was sending messages to loved ones where she was … what was going through her mind, one cannot comprehend.” She and Constable Kirk, bleeding heavily, individually made contact with police command, leading to a ­frantic rescue effort being launched.

A Special Emergency Response Team was dispatched from Brisbane, nearly 300km away.

A 16-strong extraction squad armed with assault rifles eventually reached the separated survivors and retrieved the bodies of constables Arnold and McCrow.

A police helicopter hovered overhead, attracting gunfire from the Trains. All three were shooting freely, police said.

Alerted by the noise and flames, Dare, 58, a neighbour, arrived in an apparent attempt to help; he was gunned down.

“He was doing what was right,” Mr Leavers said.

Alan Dare (pictured with his wife) was also shot dead at the property.

A Bear Cat armoured car lumbered forward soon after 10pm, after the now-surrounded fugitives rejected repeated calls by police negotiators to surrender. Bullets pinged off the vehicle’s thick steel hull. “They shot the shit out of the Bear Cat,” a source said.

Police believe the Trains had a small arsenal at their disposal, much of it registered, including shotguns and .308 calibre hunting rifles. One by one, the trio was subdued.

Stacey Train, once a teacher at the local Tara Shire State College, was seen to be hit but continued to fire when she went to ground, compelling the police to use deadly force.

Her husband was killed alongside Nathaniel.

Property records show the 43.5ha allotment was bought by Gareth and Stacey Train in February 2015 for $95,000, but they kept a low profile, not unusual in an area known as a haven for “blockies” pursuing alternative lifestyles.

The property in Wieambilla where the shooting took place. Source: Nine

Chinchilla mayor Paul McVeigh said he had never met the trio, and wasn’t aware of anyone who was close to them.

“In … Wieambilla, we have quite a few people who like to live in solitude, or enjoy that lower impact with other people and members of the community,” he said.

None of the Trains is believed to have had a criminal record but Gareth was a registered gun owner, and police would have been well aware some locals fiercely guard their privacy.

This might account for why four officers were sent – a sizeable commitment – with the murdered constables, Arnold and McCrow, called in from the town of Tara, while constables Kirk and Brough came from Chinchilla.

Gareth Train was also a devotee of conspiracy theories, detailing online his belief that the Port Arthur gunman, Martin Bryant, was the “perfect patsy” and the 1996 mass murder of 35 people was staged.

Ominously, he posted a warning to police on a right-wing website in 2020 not to venture on to the property. “I have directed law enforcement to leave my premises over the last 20 years, 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.”

Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carrol at Chinchilla Police Station. Picture: Liam Kidston

Police are trying to reconstruct the relationship between the three, with suggestions Nathaniel was once married to Stacey Train. One source said they were involved in a “love tryst” which formed part of the background to the bloodshed.

Nathaniel’s teaching specialty was Aboriginal children, which took him from Cairns and Innisfail in north Queensland to distant Walgett in outback NSW. After going missing in December 2021, his employment was officially terminated at the Walgett school in March this year.

His current partner raised concern about his welfare with NSW police in October. It was a far cry from the idealistic teacher who enthused to The Australian nearly a decade ago about the progress he was making with troubled students at the Innisfail East State School.

“I’m astounded at how quickly things have turned around,” he said at the time.

Locals gather for a minute’s silence and to thank the Tara police. Picture: Liam Kidston