Wieambilla inside story: Young officer Rachel McCrow’s execution caught on her body cam
Sniper’s lairs, battery-powered security cameras, and the cold-blooded execution of a young constable captured by her own body-worn camera: what really happened during the bloody Wieambilla ambush.
The four young police officers who jumped the gate to a remote bush block at Wieambilla on December 12 last year had no idea the pile of branches a few hundred metres in front of them concealed a sniper’s lair.
As they walked four abreast down the gravel driveway, they did not know they were in the sights of three high-powered rifles, trained on them from gaps in the branches.
It was 4.30pm on a Monday and the job was routine – they were following up a missing person’s report for Nathaniel Train, a former school principal from NSW, who may have been staying with his brother Gareth and sister-in-law Stacey on the off-grid property on Queensland’s Western Downs.
Two police constables from the nearby town of Tara, Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, arrived at the Wains Rd property and parked their dual-cab Toyota LandCruiser nose in, slightly to the right-hand side of the gate.
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Young cop’s execution caught on body cam
Sniper’s lairs, battery-powered security cameras, and the cold-blooded execution of a young constable captured by her own body-worn camera: what really happened during the bloody Wieambilla ambush.
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Two more constables from the neighbouring town of Chinchilla, Keely Brough and Randall Kirk, both 28, came next, parking their LandCruiser just behind.
What was to unfold that evening would spark a renewed debate about Australian gun laws, and drive fresh political promises for a national firearms registry, to protect police in the future.
The driveway gate was locked, and a security camera was mounted on the letter box, powered by a car battery.
There was still nothing to alarm the officers, who honked the horn of their car, and waved to the security camera, indicating that they were going to enter the property.
At 4.36pm, they hopped the fence, and started walking down the long driveway towards the weatherboard house, just out of sight around a curving left-hand bend.
Keely Brough was on the far left of the group, with Rachel McCrow beside her. Matthew Arnold was next, and Randall Kirk walked on the driveway’s right-hand edge. All four were in uniform, and carrying service-issued Glock pistols.
They walked past another battery-powered security camera, about 3m up the trunk of a eucalyptus. It is not known if they saw it.
They did not see the mirrors set up around the property to alert the Trains if anyone approached.
They didn’t know the innocuous-looking pile of branches and logs concealed a sniper’s hide. They didn’t know three sniper’s rests were set up to cradle and aim rifles.
They knew that Nathaniel, who had previously been married to Stacey, had illegally driven across the NSW-Queensland border in December 2021, during Covid lockdowns, before unlawfully dumping two of his registered guns. A Queensland arrest warrant had been issued in August 2022, triggering the suspension of his Queensland weapons licence.
But they didn’t know where Nathaniel Train was, and that he was still able to buy unlimited amounts of ammunition, because no one had been able to find him to physically remove his licence.
They didn’t know his brother, former school groundsman Gareth, was an online conspiracy theorist who believed the Port Arthur massacre was a false-flag operation designed to de-arm the population. They didn’t know Stacey was so opposed to receiving the Covid vaccine she’d left her job as head of curriculum at the Tara school the day before vaccination mandates were enforced.
They had no idea the trio believed the “end of days” was imminent.
None had significant criminal histories, and all previously had respectable jobs in the public education system.
The first the young officers knew anything was wrong was when they were about 200m down the driveway and the crack of three rifles sounded.
Constable Arnold and Constable McCrow fell to the ground. The Trains were shooting at them, with high-powered guns fitted with scopes, from inside the sniper’s lair.
The savagery and horror of the next few minutes is almost impossible to comprehend.
Constable Arnold, the youngest of the four, but the longest-serving police officer, died instantly, felled by a single, devastating shot to the chest. He was due to go on Christmas holidays to see his family the next day, and his car was already packed and waiting for him 36km away at Tara.
Constable McCrow fell to the ground after being shot in the right leg. Showing bravery and composure, she reached into her first aid kit for a tourniquet, wrapping it around the top of her leg to restrict the bleeding.
She took her Glock from her hip and returned fire, as she crawled back along the driveway towards the gate. She also turned on her body-worn camera.
The camera captured the truly horrifying moment when at least one person emerged from the sniper’s hide, walked up to where she lay, and ignored her pleas to spare her life. She was executed, in cold blood, at close range with a single shot. The Coroner’s office is now in possession of that horrific vision and audio.
Neither of the officers was wearing body-armour, which was not widely used at the time. Police believe it would not have been effective against such high-powered weaponry.
The other two police officers dived for cover. Constable Brough raced to the left off the driveway into thin scrub, and Constable Kirk disappeared into thicker bush to the right, close to a small dam.
He was able to fire at least one shot from his pistol, and activate his camera, as he made his way through the scrub to Wains Rd. The Trains kept up a barrage of shots as he made his escape.
Constable Kirk jumped the fence, scrambled into the Chinchilla LandCruiser, and raced for help, The vehicles outside the gate were parked in the kill zone, and he was hit in the hip by shrapnel and cut by flying glass. He kept driving, heading over a hill and on to the intersecting Mary Rd, where he was able to get phone reception and call for help.
On the property, the Trains – dressed in camouflage clothing – continued to hunt for Constable Brough. They lit a fire in the tinder-dry scrub to try to flush her out.
Constable Brough activated her camera, and began to leopard crawl her way out of the property. She managed to get a phone signal and called triple-0, speaking to the emergency communications centre at Toowoomba, staying on the line for the duration of her ordeal.
Her camera made periodic soft beeps as it continued to record her desperate escape. She tried to wedge her torso into the ground to muffle the sound. An ant-hill provided some cover. Snakes were driven out by the blaze.
Constable Brough was under fire for two hours. She’d been in the job eight weeks.
The young officer made it to the fence, metres to the left of the gate where the Tara police car was still parked. When she reached the road, she started running.
She flagged down a passing emergency services vehicle, and was taken to the intersection of Wains Rd and Mary Rd, where a bleeding Constable Kirk had arrived some time earlier, and where a forward command post had been set up. The Coroner is also in possession of the audio and video recorded by her and Constable Kirk’s cameras, and Constable Brough’s telephone call with triple-0.
Meanwhile, the Trains came to the gate and set fire to the Tara police car.
Alarm bells were ringing out across Queensland Police.
In Brisbane, helicopters were scrambled to fly Specialist Emergency Response Team officers to Wieambilla, four hours drive northwest of the state capital.
But local police, not knowing if constables Arnold and McCrow were alive, were moving in.
From the command post up down the road, a plan was formed. Some of the officers had rifles for use in the bush, where police occasionally had to euthanase animals. Most were armed just with their pistols – suitable for short-range targets, but almost useless against sniper rifles.
Eight police officers from Tara, Chinchilla, Dalby and Miles piled into two cars and drove to the property, straight into the kill zone.
They gained access through the locked gates, and powered up the driveway where their comrades lay.
At 6.30pm, they managed to get their fallen colleagues into the cars, and roar back down the driveway.
As they turned on to the road, they drove past the body of Alan Dare, lying on the gravel to the left of the gate.
Mr Dare, 58, and his wife Kerry were neighbours of the Trains. When Mr Dare, a member of the local rural fire brigade, heard gunshots and saw smoke, he feared a bushfire.
With his friend Victor Lewis, he hopped on to a quad bike to see if everything was OK. As they pulled up, Mr Dare quickly called triple-0.
He was shot dead at 5.30pm, felled by a single bullet from inside the property. He was still on the phone to emergency services.
Mr Lewis was able to escape on the bike. Mr Dare’s triple-0 recording is in the hands of the Coroner.
Ambulances and paramedics from across the district were arriving at the command post but realised immediately that nothing could be done for constables McCrow and Arnold.
Mr Dare’s body would lie in situ for hours until he could be safely retrieved.
Hiding in the dark and waiting for what they knew would come, Gareth and Stacey Train recorded a final video, which they uploaded to YouTube at 7.39pm.
“They came to kill us and we killed them. If you don’t defend yourself against these devils and demons … you’re a coward,” Gareth said.
“We’ll see you when we get home. We’ll see you at home, Don, love you,” Stacey said.
Don was an American man they were communicating with online who shared the same warped ideology the Trains subscribed to. Police and ASIO would later determine they were domestic terrorists who believed in an extremist Christian ideology called Premillenialism. They were also anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and sovereign citizens.
Three hours after that video went live, heavily armed tactical police in armoured vehicles would gain access to the property.
The Trains made a final stand, the brothers shooting from behind strategically placed logs near the house and Stacey Train from the veranda, but all were shot dead by SERT officers. Above, the police helicopter captured vision and thermal imaging of the firefight.
At 10.30pm, the siege of Wieambilla was over.
Three conspiracy theorists lay dead.
A kind neighbour, who came to see if everything was OK and to offer help, was dead.
And two young police officers, taken in the prime of their lives and with so much to live for, were dead.
Today, scorched dirt outside the gate shows where the Tara police vehicle was set on fire. The fire burned the wooden fence posts, and the battery powering the security camera, but the letterbox remains intact, the property number, 251, still clearly visible.
Further on, the pile of branches which concealed the sniper’s hide is still in place. A silver ladder put up by the police stands alongside it.
A short distance back from the hide are two small flags, showing where Constable McCrow died.
Police scoured the land and the two dams, searching for booby-traps. They found six guns: two registered to Nathaniel Train, and four more that appeared to be unregistered firearms, including one from 1904. Three bows and arrows and three knives were also collected.
They seized computers, Stacey Train’s diary, books and other literature, which give clues to the sovereign-citizen, anti-vaxxer, Christian extremist ideology the evil trio shared.
The Queensland Police Union vowed in the days after the tragedy to purchase the property, to ensure it never fell into the wrong hands, and could instead be put to use as a training ground or retreat for police officers.
For now, it is under the control of the Coroner and is still an official crime scene.
Property records show it remains in the names of Gareth and Stacey Train, presumably while probate proceedings continue in the background.
Stacey Train had two children with Nathaniel, who she married at 18 before leaving him several years later for Gareth. Gareth raised the children, not Nathaniel.
The 43.5ha property cost the Trains $95,000 when they bought it in February 2015. The real estate advertising photos of the day show two small ceramic deer statues outside the water tanks adjoining the modest yellow weatherboard home.
Those same two statues are now broken and burned, outside the gate on Wains Rd.
A few metres away, a simple memorial to Alan Dare, spelling his name in stones set in cement, stands to the left-hand side of the gate, close to the edge of the road.
As another bushfire menaced Wieambilla in late October, two farmers drove by in a ute.
They’re from the nearby Hopeland hamlet, scoping out the movement of the fire, and inquire about the property.
“I know what to do with that place,’’ one says.
“Burn it down. Burn the whole thing down.”