How a man who killed a police officer and his brother, who was a school principal, were influenced by bad ideas about police and guns before they killed two officers and an innocent neighbor on an off-grid property.
A conspiracy theorist shared a series of crazy posts saying that Port Arthur was a set-up and that Princess Diana’s death was a “blood sacrifice,” and then he shot and killed two young police officers and a bystander.
Gareth Train, who was preparing for the end of the world, along with his brother Nathaniel, a former school principal, and his wife Stacey, a former teacher, shot and killed Queensland police officers Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, as they walked up his driveway on Monday around 4.30 p.m.
When the police came to the Wieambilla homestead of the Train family to look for Nathaniel, who hadn’t been seen or heard from since October, three family members in camouflage and with many guns opened fire on them.
Alan Dare, a 58-year-old neighbor and bystander, was also killed. Two other police officers made it out alive, one by hiding in bushes and the other by leaving the property. Later, a special operations team shot and killed the Train family.
Posts found by Daily Mail Australia show that Gareth Train was very active online in the comments sections of fringe news websites and often shared strange and often crazy theories about major world events.
In one rant he posted online, Gareth said that the Australian government was to blame for the Port Arthur Massacre, which happened in Tasmania in 1996 and killed 35 people.
“Anyone who watched the live media coverage at the time and knew about the political lies leading up to it knows that this was a Government Psychological Operation to disarm the Australian population,” he wrote in November 2020.
Only two months before Gareth said that “chemical agents” had been dropped over large parts of NSW, Victoria, and Queensland in Australia. He wrote, “We are now being poisoned and chemically controlled on a huge scale.”
Gareth also talked about how he didn’t trust the Queensland Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) a lot. This is the same team that came to his house last night at 10:30pm local time and shot him.
In September of last year, he said, “The state-sponsored terrorizing squaddies, like SOG, SERT, and other special people, are just government paramilitary hammers.”
In April of last year, he said that Princess Diana’s death and 9/11 were caused by a “occult blood sacrifice.” This was one of his most outrageous claims.
“Most people don’t believe Princess Diana’s death was an occult blood sacrifice to break a spell, or that 9/11 or the War Machine were also blood sacrifices,” he said.
“Occult blood sacrifice and occult money magick go together like peanut butter and jelly.” Occult is a word for the ways people act on their supernatural beliefs.
Gareth also said that “Lucifarian spellbinding” was “built into” social media.
He also wrote a post against vaccinations. In another post, he talked about Queensland, which he called the “bad lands.”
Nathaniel’s brother is thought to have been living at Gareth and Stacey’s off-grid home, where he seemed to be preparing for the end of the world with a lot of solar panels and water tanks.
Online, he said, “I’ve been ark homesteading for the past five years, getting ready to survive tomorrow.” However, he said he was happy to live in Queensland despite its problems: “Bad cops, bad mobile service, bad roads, bad council, bad ice addicts, bad youth crime… but still the best place to be living free.”
Gareth didn’t like the police very much, and he was very interested in re-education camps.
Gareth wrote on a train-related thread, “Re-education camps are at the end of the line.” By watching the rail system, no one will be able to get away. People who don’t agree will end up on the “long black train.”
Nathaniel Train, on the other hand, was a very well-liked teacher who was praised by his peers for his work with kids, which helped raise standards and dramatically improve exam scores.
He was a well-liked principal at Yorkeys Knob State School near Cairns for about five years. Before that, he had been a principal at Innisfail East State School since 2011.
He was the Executive Principal at Walgett Community College Primary School until recently.
One of his old coworkers told the Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, “He made Yorkeys the best NAPLAN school in far north Queensland.”
Nathaniel hadn’t been seen since December of last year, but his family had been in touch with him until October. On December 4, it was said that he was missing.
The former principal left Walgett after having a major heart attack in August of last year.
Staff at the school had to bring him back to life because his mental health had gotten so bad after he left.
Stacey Train was also a teacher. At the Tara Shire State College, she was in charge of the curriculum.
She also ran to be the Queensland Teachers Union representative for the Western Downs branch.
On Monday, two other police officers were hurt in the shooting.
Randall Kirk, a 28-year-old police officer with a toddler and a pregnant wife, was shot in the leg but was able to get away.
Keely Brough, who is 28 years old, was able to get away and hide in a bush. She sent frantic text messages to her loved ones as the gunmen set fire to the bush to smoke her out.
Later, she was saved by a police tactical team that had been sent to the scene.
Alan Dare, who lived next door and came out to see what was going on, was also shot by two people who were hiding.
During a press conference on Tuesday, the head of the Queensland Police, Katarina Carroll, said that it was a miracle that the two officers were still alive.
She said, “They bravely did what they could to save their coworkers under the worst of circumstances.”
On Tuesday, a senior police officer said that the families of the people who died were in “absolute despair.”
On Tuesday morning, a group of police cars and vans carrying the bodies of the two dead police officers left the scene of the crime to go to Brisbane’s forensic mortuary.
The bodies of constables McCrow and Arnold should arrive at the John Tonge Centre at Coopers Plains in the west of Brisbane by late morning. There, they will be examined by a pathologist.
Constable Arnold was sworn in as a police officer in March 2020, and Constable McCrow did the same in June 2021.
On Tuesday, flags will be at half-staff at all police stations in Queensland, and a flower tribute is growing in front of the Chinchilla police station.
