Trains may have lured police to deadly ambush with missing-person tipoff

Police are investigating the possibility that three shooters who killed two young constables and a neighbour were the source of information that lured the officers to an ambush.

Stacey and Nathaniel Train on their wedding day. Picture: A Current Affair

Police are investigating the possibility that three shooters who killed two young constables and a neighbour this week were the source of information that lured the officers to an ambush on a remote Queensland property.

Gareth Train, his wife, Stacey, and brother Nathaniel were already armed and in camouflage gear when four police officers arrived at the bush property at Wieambilla, 290km west of Brisbane, around 4.30pm on Monday.

The police were met with gunfire as they walked up the driveway on a NSW-instigated missing person’s inquiry over Nathaniel Train, 46, a primary school principal who vanished in December, last year after reportedly suffering a heart attack months earlier.

Despite going missing, he remained in contact with family until October 9 this year.

On December 8, NSW police issued a public statement asking for assistance to locate Train saying: ”When he could not be contacted by family or friends, he was reported missing to officers from Central North Police District on Sunday (4 December 2022), who immediately commenced inquiries into his whereabouts”.

Sources have told The Australian that investigators are now looking at whether one of the three shooters called NSW police after the public call for assistance informing them that Train was on the Queensland property.

Brothers Gareth Train, left, and Nathaniel Train, back.

“They are looking at this possibility that they called NSW police and told them they ‘think they know where he is’,’’ the source said.

“NSW police acted on that and asked their Queensland counterparts to look into it as part of a routine missing persons’ inquiry.

“He was the bait.”

NSW and Queensland police have declined to comment about the investigation.

Questions put to NSW police included who was the source of a tip that Train was at the property.

“The questions you have asked are all relevant to the QPOL investigation,’’ a spokesman for NSW police said. “The NSW Police Force will not be making any comment on this matter.”

Since the shooting, it has emerged that in 2020 Gareth Train had issued an ominous online warning against police entering his property among a series of posts on ­Citizens Initiated Referendums espousing bizarre conspiracy theories.

Gareth Train did not hold a gun licence but sources have told The Australian Nathaniel, a principal of a NSW primary school who had been reported missing in December last year, held a gun licence in NSW.

Stacey Train, a veteran teacher and mother of two, quit her job at Tara Shire State College last year after refusing to take the mandatory Covid vaccination.

Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll this week said the four officers who went to the property “did not stand a chance”.

Constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, were shot dead and another policeman, Randall Kirk, was injured but escaped.

The property at Wieambilla, Queensland. Picture: Nine News.

The shooters missed the fourth officer, Keely Brough, who fled into bushland, which the Trains then set on fire to smoke her out. She was rescued by a 16-strong police extraction team.

Neighbour Alan Dare, 58, was also shot and killed after entering the property when he heard the gunfire.

The Trains were later shot dead by police who stormed the property in armoured vehicles under the cover of darkness.

The trio appeared well-prepared when the police arrived, and it’s understood they were not in the house, but some distance down the large block towards the front entrance when the police officers jumped the locked gate.

The Trains had been able to observe the police officers’ arrival on closed-circuit surveillance cameras rigged in the bush.

At least one of the Train brothers was believed to be wearing full camouflage similar to an amy-style ghillie suit.

The level of preparation has led investigators to consider whether the trio had potentially lured the police to the scene, and that they were lying in wait for them and actively seeking the confrontation.

A police vehicle riddled with bullet holes after the deadly shootout. Picture: Aisling Brennan

As is common on routine jobs in country policing, the young officers were not wearing the ballistic vests that are routinely worn by officers in big cities.

However, it’s believed a ballistic vest would not have been sufficient protection against the high-powered weapons used, and would not have saved their lives.

The Australian understands the specialist police were prepared to wait the offenders out, and only opened fire after they left the house and advanced towards them.

All three were armed with long-armed firearms, believed to be high-powered weapons similar to hunting rifles, and unleashed a barrage of shots towards police and their vehicles.

They did not appear to be using the Glocks that they had stolen earlier from constables Arnold and McCrow, whose funerals it was announced on Thursday night will be held at 10am on Wednesday, December 21, at Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

Aerial photographs show the trio’s bodies lying close to the house on the bare lawn near to the front steps, while one of the offenders was several metres away.

The firefight was intense, and all three Trains continued firing until they were killed.