What began as a routine police job ended in the deaths of six people, but why it occurred may never be fully understood.
Warning: This story contains graphic details and imagery that some readers may find upsetting.
It was the beginning of a nightmare — one that has been relived and replayed by dozens of people over the past five weeks.
On December 12, 2022, Queensland police officers Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow and Wieambilla resident Alan Dare were ambushed by three extremists and murdered in cold blood.
The truths and terrors that transpired at Wains Road have come to light at a coronial inquest examining the killers' descent into delusion and whether the deadly attack could have been prevented.
But the answer to some questions may never be known.
From police officer to prey
Constable Randall Kirk had just watched the execution of two of his colleagues.
Now, he was the one being hunted.
With their bodies lying less than 30 metres away, there was just one thing that stood between him and certain death.
From behind the feeble protection of a tree, he fired one shot at the nearest attacker.
He missed, alerting them to his position.
Now they know where he’s hiding — and they’re rapidly closing in.
It was now or never.
Run and face the prospect of being shot or stay where he was and die.
Rather than wait for execution in the trenches, Constable Kirk made a split-second decision to sprint across the battlefield.
It wasn’t the first time the young police officer had been called to 251 Wains Road in Wieambilla, a small country town, comprised of hundreds of off-grid acreage properties, known as "bush blocks".
When he'd arrived at the same gates four months earlier, he was greeted by an insidious coffee mug sitting atop a fence post.
The words 'HAVE A NICE DAY’ were paradoxically printed on the front. Inside was a phone, with ‘F***WIT’ etched in permanent marker on the screen.
It was still there on that fateful December day.
What the officers didn’t know at the time was that this display was emblematic of the delusions experienced by those within the confines of the property.
Delusions that had reached a devastating culmination.
The beginning of the end
Gareth Train’s malignant paranoia can be traced back decades. He was mistrusting, domineering and defensive from a young age.
A forensic psychiatrist told the inquest Gareth may have suffered a minor brain injury at birth, and likely developed a paranoid personality disorder as a teenager or young adult.
It was a stark contrast to his brother, Nathaniel, who some described as gifted and even empathetic.
Still, the brothers forged a deep bond, bound together by trauma.
It would even endure the demise of Nathaniel’s marriage, when Stacey Train — his wife and the mother of his two children — left him for his older brother.
Gareth’s influence over Stacey and Nathaniel would ultimately become lethal, clouding them in a veil of conspiracy theories.
In the years leading up to the murders, Gareth had become fixated on the concept that companies were manufacturing neurological bioweapons that would turn people into “non-humans", and that government agencies were spying on him.
Just months before the shootings, he filmed himself shooting at planes flying overhead, fearing they were monitoring and dropping chemicals on them.
Entries in Stacey’s diary, recounted to the inquest by forensic psychiatrist Dr Andrew Aboud, revealed just how deep Gareth’s paranoia ran:
“ASIO monitoring, hacking, poisoning, chemtrails, people being abducted, being turned into non-humans, human beings wearing meat suits, police and authority figures being agents of evil… we see what is depicted or what's communicated in Stacey's diaries."
But his descent into delusion — from conspiracy theorist to cop killer — accelerated with the global COVID pandemic outbreak.
He began connecting his conspiracy theories to his religious beliefs.
The Trains subscribed to a form of apocalypticism known as pre-millenialism.
The Christian fundamentalist belief system centres on the notion that mankind has entered its final stages and will usher in the Second Coming of Christ.
The Trains believed that before "the end" arrived there would be a final battle, preceded by natural disasters, catastrophe and chaos.
In their eyes, the pandemic marked the beginning of the end.
Their final battle was imminent.
Gasoline to a fire
Consumed by paranoia, Gareth had attempted to find groups that aligned with his conspiratorial and religious views.
He wanted to be treated like an equal — like the leader he felt he was.
Some 13,000 kilometres across the globe, he found that validation in Donald Day Jr — an American man who not only shared their views, but encouraged them.
Donald Day Jr introduced a more extreme framing of the final battle, believing he and Gareth would be fighting alongside Jesus to bring about salvation, the inquest heard.
If the Trains' trajectory to radicalisation was a fire, then Donald Day Jr was the gasoline.
By the end of 2020, Gareth began to ramp up a recruitment campaign to enlist his two stepchildren and his brother, Nathaniel, who was working as a school principal in New South Wales.
Gareth's deadly influence over his brother prevailed.
In December 2021 — months after suffering a near-fatal cardiac arrest in his office — Nathaniel decided to leave his job and flee to Queensland, illegally crossing the border with a cache of weapons.
Together, the group began preparing for the end, stockpiling weapons and goods and erecting "hides" and barricades, transforming the property at 251 Wains Road from a home to a garrison.
They’d spend hours upon hours predicting when the rapture may be, anticipating it would happen around mid-2023.
But their calculations changed on December 12, 2022 — the very moment four police officers jumped their front gate, which they had nicknamed "the Rubicon" to signal a point of no return.
The battle had arrived and they were ready.
The ambush
The four police officers had no idea what they were walking into.
As far as they were concerned, it was a run-of-the-mill police job: go to Wieambilla, locate a missing person and bring him into custody.
That missing person was Nathaniel Train.
A woman close to him had filed a missing persons report after failing to see him in person for a year.
A warrant for his arrest had also been issued for damaging a gate during his illegal border crossing.
No flags came up on Queensland police systems to indicate the Trains or their property could be dangerous.
Footage from Constable Kirk’s body worn camera reveals what happened next.
After jumping the gate, the four police officers made their way down the driveway.
To his left is 28-year-old Constable Keely Brough, his colleague from the Chinchilla police station, who had been on-the-beat for less than nine weeks.
To his right are 29-year-old Constable Rachel McCrow and 26-year-old Matthew Arnold, officers from the Tara police station.
What you can’t see in this vision are two carefully constructed, concealed and camouflaged hideouts, where Nathaniel and Gareth train lay in wait.
This was an ambush.
As the first shot rang out just after 4.30pm, Constable Matthew Arnold fell dead to the ground.
Constable Kirk took shelter behind a tree, Constable Brough fled to nearby bushland.
But Constable McCrow, who had been shot in the leg, was unable to retreat.
The 29-year-old pulled out her gun and emptied the cannister, firing 15 shots in the direction of the shooters.
The officer's firepower was no match for the domestic terrorists.
Constable McCrow's body-worn camera captured her final moments alive.
Even as she lay bleeding, she continued making situational reports about the two shooters.
Her final act of bravery was to record a message of love for her family before she was callously murdered by Gareth Train.
From behind a tree, Constable Randall Kirk was forced to watch it all unfold.
He’d also been giving situation reports over the phone to his boss, Sergeant Justin Drier.
Clutching his mobile in his hand, he made the desperate dash across the paddock; the sound of bullets splitting the air around him.
“They’re coming, they’re shooting,” he yelled.
He made it to his car, but within seconds of closing the door, glass shattered around him as bullets pierced the windscreen.
He’d been shot, but he didn’t know where.
Though his face was covered in blood, he had survived.
A final goodbye
The sound of gunshots and black smoke billowing into the air drew the attention of neighbours Alan Dare and Victor Lewis.
Alan Dare’s wife, Kerry Dare, called emergency services. Part of this phone call was heard at the inquest.
“There’s been people with gunshots across the road for the last hour or so. But there’s been two big bangs in the last 10 minutes… really loud. Not gunshots.
"Now there’s a burning smell and there’s all smoke in the air."
She told the operator her husband and their neighbour were going to investigate. Their major fear was bushfires, not active shooters.
In the background of the call, Alan told his wife he was going find the source of the commotion.
The operator replied:
"I probably wouldn't. I'd probably just stay at home. I know this might sound bad, but I'm trying to get some more information about what's going on."
About 30 seconds passed as Ms Dare continued to talk with the operator, describing the car her husband was taking to the neighbouring property.
The operator advised against the decision.
"I know he’s lost houses, I know but I’m going--" they said, before they were cut off mid-sentence.
"He's gone, sorry," Ms Dare said.
As Alan Dare approached 251 Wains Road, he pulled out his mobile phone and began to record the billowing smoke.
They could see a police car on fire, and with the sound of explosions still permeating the property, he told his neighbour not to "get too close".
In the video, he remarked that he could see a car coming from inside the property.
"There's a car, he's coming. There's a car coming," he said.
Seconds later, Alan fell to the ground.
He had been fatally shot.
Caught in a 'fatal funnel'
Back on the Trains' property, Constable Keely Brough had found cover in about eight inches of sparse grass.
The killers knew she was out there and were determined to hunt her down, lighting fires in a bid to coax her out of her hiding spot.
She had phoned triple-0, telling the operator the blazes were getting closer — so close, she could feel the heat of the flames through her shoes.
Officers who attempted to rescue her found themselves caught in a “fatal funnel” and a “fire lane” of gunfire.
Specialist police teams with heavy armoured vehicles were still half an hour away, and officers on the ground knew what Constable Brough’s fate would be if they didn’t act.
The triple-0 operator had come up with a codeword — "pink and blue" — to signal when police were nearby and the young officer could run.
At around 6:30pm she finally heard those words, sprinting across the paddock as Constable Kirk had done just hours before.
With the officer safe, police turned their attention to the Trains — but the shooters had no intention of being apprehended alive.
'You sent people to kill us. Run'
The trio had retreated to their house, ready with their stockpile of weapons, some of which they had stolen from the police car and the bodies of the two slain police officers.
Shrouded in darkness, Stacey and Gareth uploaded a final video to the internet.
"They came to kill us, and we killed them," Gareth said
"If you don't defend yourselves against these devils and demons, you're a coward."
Speaking directly into the camera, Stacey remarked: "We'll see you when we get home".
"We will see you at home, Don," Gareth echoed, in reference to Donald Day Jr.
"Love you," Stacey said.
Gareth sent a final text message to the woman who had made the missing persons report about Nathaniel Train.
“You sent people to kill us. Run,” it read.
Negotiations met with gunfire
By 10pm, a fleet of armoured vehicles had cornered the Trains near their home.
Nathaniel hid behind a log barricade, while Gareth positioned himself near a water tank.
Stacey was inside the home but would come outside to fire shots from the front porch.
Attempts at negotiations were met with gunfire. It became clear the Trains were not going to surrender.
Gareth, the ringleader, was the first to meet his demise.
Stacey and Nathaniel were shot dead soon after.
As daylight broke and police began to trawl through their home and property, it was quickly evident that it was no spur-of-the-moment attack.
There was a frightening digital footprint and attempts to recruit more members to the group.
The discovery posed more questions than answers.
Was there any way police could have known what awaited them at 251 Wains Road?
Could it have been prevented?
Is there a possibility Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold should still be alive today?
A legacy of change
The inquest laid bare the truth of the tragedy, hearing firsthand recounts of what happened that day and the months leading up to it.
It was revealed police from New South Wales had been forwarded emails on the morning of the shooting, which had been written by Gareth Train just days before.
“I am sure when the bully men find Nathaniel, he will greet them as they deserve.
“If trouble arrives on my door step it will be dealt with forthwith, as it always has. Gareth”
Police officers from the Chinchilla police station testified they would never have sent the four officers to Wieambilla on that day had they had known about the threatening emails.
Whether Queensland coroner Terry Ryan believes it would have changed the police response is a question he'll be asked to answer as part of his findings.
Behind the incident that rocked the nation are families left shattered.
In a statement to the court, the McCrow and Arnold families said they were forced to wait five hours before they were told their loved ones had died.
Matthew Arnold's sister knew her brother was dead well before officers knocked on their door — she was checking the fitness data from his Apple watch and knew something was wrong.
The McCrow family was not informed until three months after the tragedy that Rachel McCrow had recorded final messages for them in the seconds before she was killed.
"In the chaotic moments leading up to her brutal murder, she was telling us over and over, 'I love you'," Dr Judy McCrow, Rachel's mother said.
"Rachel, we want you to know, 'we love you so much' too. We will never stop loving you."
Today would have been Constable McCrow's 31st birthday.
Matthew Arnold was a triplet. Now their birthdays "will never be the same".
He will never get the chance to attend his sister's wedding or have his own.
The McCrow and Arnold families say their deaths cannot be in vain.
"Change must be Rachel and Matt Arnold's legacy."
Credits:
Reporter: Laura Lavelle
Editor: Bridget Walker
Digital production: Claudia Williams and Bridget Walker
Video effects and graphics: David McSween and Paul Yeomans
Posted, updated
