A love triangle and Christian extremists: Everything we know about the Wieambilla massacre.

Right now, in a Brisbane courtroom, an inquest is underway into one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent Australian history. Except, because the perpetrators were white and the ideology they were motivated by was Christian, the attack is often referred to simply as the 'Wieambilla shootings'.

On December 12, 2022, Queensland police were asked to attend the Wieambilla property of Gareth and Stacey Train, in relation to a missing person case they were following up on.

Watch: The backstory of the suspects behind the Wieambilla shootings. Post continues after video.

What happened in the Wieambilla massacre?

The love triangle.

Gareth's brother Nathaniel, a school principal, had been out of contact with his estranged wife since October. She had officially reported him missing earlier that month, and police had tracked him across the border into Queensland. Nathaniel also had an outstanding warrant from NSW in 2021 relating to weapons.

The relationship between Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey was a complex one. Stacey had previously been married to Nathaniel, before leaving him for his older brother while their two children were still very young, marrying Gareth in 2001.

(Left) Nathaniel and Stacey on their wedding day. (Right) Nathaniel's brother, Gareth. Image: Nine.

Described by many as "controlling" and "manipulative", Gareth's relationship with his former sister-in-law understandably caused a lot of conflict in the wider family at the time, yet in spite of the wife-swapping drama, all three Trains appear to have remained a tight unit over the intervening decades.

The ambush.

Four police officers attended the property, and after finding the gate locked with no response from inside, they scaled the fence and entered the 106-acre landhold.

At around 4:30 pm, as soon as police began to approach the small weatherboard house on the property, shots rang out.

Next door, Kerry Dare had just sat down to tea with her husband of 26 years, Alan.

She told ABC she thought at the time that perhaps someone had got an early Christmas present and was letting off a few rounds.

In actual fact, the shots were the result of an ambush that had taken place. As soon as officers began advancing towards the house, the residents of the house - later revealed to be Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel - opened fire on the officers.

Two constables, Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold were wounded, then shot and killed at close range, their police firearms taken. Heartbreakingly, the Coroner's Court heard yesterday that McCrow recorded a "final message of love for her family" before her death as she lay in the dirt of the killer's property.

Police officers Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow. Image: Queensland Police.

The two other officers, Randall Kirk and Keely Brough, were able to take cover and eventually retreat for backup, Kirk being seriously wounded in the process and Brough being forced to hide in bushland while being hunted down by the Train brothers, who she reported were dressed in camouflage and carrying rifles. 

One of the members of the Train family lit a grass fire, reportedly in an attempt to 'smoke out' the surviving police officers and force them to reveal their location.

The good samaritan.

Sometime after Alan and Kerry had heard the first gunshots, they heard an explosion and saw billowing smoke coming from the Train property. After phoning another neighbour, Alan decided to go and check it out to see if he could be of help.

The two men came upon a burning vehicle - a vehicle neither of them immediately recognised as a police car that had been set alight.

Alan, filming the spectacle on his mobile phone, suddenly slumped to the ground - his neighbour, Victor Lewis ran to his side and discovered a gunshot wound. 

He had been killed by a single rifle shot to the back. Horrifically, the phone was still recording - with his wife Kerry revealing she had seen the footage.

"I got to listen to Al's last breath," she told ABC's Cindy Wockner.

The American Christian conspiracy theorist.

In the years before the attack, Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey had all descended deep into the world of conspiracy theories and Christian fringe extremism.

Gareth in particular was an active member of online anti-government conspiracy groups and believed that the Port Arthur Massacre was a false flag operation created to rob Australians of their right to self-defence through guns. It's a view similar to the Sandy Hook denialists in the US, and one that saw him develop ties to US conspiracy theorists online.

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent vaccine mandates, seems to have been the catalyst for a deepening of the Train brothers' religious views and their anti-authoritarian conspiracy theories.

Nathaniel, who had been a much-loved school principal in several NSW schools, quit when he refused to get the jab in 2021. Stacey, who had been working as a teacher in nearby Tara, did the same. 

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, Gareth and Stacey made a disturbing video and posted it online to a now-deleted YouTube account.

"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 says into the camera, his face obscured by darkness.

"We'll see you when we get home. We'll see you at home, Don, love you," Stacey says. 

It has since been revealed that "Don" is in fact Donald Day, a 59-year-old man from Arizona who has since been arrested in the US by the FBI. In the lead up to the terrorist attack, Day had sent several Christian ideological messages to the Trains online.

"Between May 2021 and December 2022, the man repeatedly sent messages containing Christian end-of-days ideology to Gareth, and then later to Stacey," Queensland Police Assistant Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon said at a joint press conference with the FBI in December 2023.

The particular extremist Christian ideology that the Trains had subscribed to is described as "premillennialism" - a belief that "after a period of severe tribulation of the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ will visibly and bodily return to earth (His Second Coming/Advent or Parousia) and will then rule and reign on the earth for a period of one thousand years (millennium) of peace and prosperity."

The siege ends - and cops' families want firearms reform.

Less than six hours after the first gunshots rang out, Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey were all dead, shot by responding police officers in a firefight.

More details of precisely how the final siege went down will undoubtedly emerge across the course of the inquest, but one question that has rung out loud and clear comes from the heartbroken families of the fallen police constables, Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold.

Speaking to the media for the first time on Monday morning, McCrow's mother Judy, speaking on behalf of both constables' families, remembered their "gorgeous children", and said that what occurred at Wieambilla "should never have happened."

The family of police officers Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow at the Wieambilla shooting inquest, July 29. Image: AAP.

"We've never spoken directly to the media before, but today is different," the grieving mother continued, "as hard as it is to stand here, we know how important it is, because we don't want the loss of Matthew and Rachel to be in vain."

"While the terrible void in our lives will never be filled, we hope that any reforms put forward by the Coroner will prevent a tragedy like this happening again."

"Any change to policing processes, procedures or policies to reduce the likelihood of loss of life occurring in similar circumstances must be introduced immediately," she said.

"We pose this question to authorities: Could a national weapons and ammunition register, drones and satellite-based communication strategies reduce the current risk?"

Feature image: Queensland Police/AAP.