A former school principal who executed two cops had two kids with her high school sweetheart, before she married his brother – sparking a rift spanning two decades in their family.
Stacey Train, her husband Gareth Train and her ex-husband Nathaniel Train all died in a shootout with police at a remote Queensland property on Monday afternoon after they rained bullets down on four police officers who were carrying out a missing person’s inquiry.
Constable Rachel McCrow, 29, and Constable Matthew Arnold, 26, were killed “execution-style” at the property in Wieambilla, about three hours west of Brisbane.
A neighbour, Alan Dare, 58, was also shot and killed by the trio after he came over to investigate the situation.
Two other officers, Constable Keely Brough and Constable Randall Kirk, both aged 28, were also involved in the ambush but managed to escape, with the latter suffering a gunshot wound to the leg.
Now the Guardian reports that Gareth and Stacey Train raised two children on various properties they owned in regional parts of Queensland – but Nathaniel, not Gareth, was the children’s father. The children are now believed to be in their 20s.
The paper spoke to family members who said Nathaniel and Stacey were high school sweethearts in Toowoomba, where both were involved in the independent evangelical church run by the brothers’ father, pastor Ronald A Train.
They got married in their late teens in 1995 and had two children – however, the relationship soured when Stacey Train left her husband for his brother, Gareth.
The relationship caused a rift in the family – particularly between the brothers and their father, who was a pastor for 27 years at a church which has strict views on marriage.
Nathaniel and his father had not spoken for 23 years, with Ronald confirming that fact in a Facebook comment under a missing person’s appeal for Nathaniel.
But Ronald told A Current Affair he had “absolutely no idea” Gareth and Stacey had struck up a relationship, got married and shacked up in the bush.
“My second son Gareth is on the Asperger’s line. Very difficult to control, very overpowering,” he said.
“I just think he took over that relationship that Nathaniel and Stacey had.”
He added that Gareth and Nathaniel were fairly close when they were younger because they were “two brothers next to each other”.
The Train brothers and Stacey all previously worked at the Queensland Department of Education but quit their positions in recent months.
Stacey held anti-vax beliefs that saw her quit her job as a head of curriculum at a nearby school in December last year.
Nathaniel’s career as an educator in Queensland and NSW has been well documented and it has been previously reported that Stacey worked in the system as well.
However, information around Gareth and his career has been extremely scarce.
A spokesperson told news.com.au that Gareth resigned from the Department of Education in May 2016.
They said Nathaniel and Stacey resigned in March 2020 and December 2021, respectively.
“They were not subject to any departmental disciplinary proceedings,” the department spokesperson said.
“Our deepest thoughts and sincere sympathies are with the victims’ families, friends, colleagues and loved ones at this tragic time.”
A former student of Nathaniel has claimed the ex-principal made her life “hell” while she was in primary school.
Chantel Kari told news.com.au she and many other Indigenous students had unpleasant interactions with the accused cop killer over the years.
He was the principal at Bentley Park College in Cairns when she was in Year 6, which was around 2006.
“He made my life hell. A lot of the Indigenous students at Bentley Park College had issues with him,” the now 29-year-old said, adding he would have been in his early 30s at the time.
“I was constantly suspended from school for no reason other than he said so, kind of thing.”
Kari said eventually her grandmother stepped in and made a complaint to the Queensland Department of Education.
She said “it was a lot” to deal with and all the paperwork that had to go through the department took “months”.
“They ended up stepping him down and moving him and the deputy principal from the school because of the constant trouble Indigenous students and families were having with him,” Kari claimed.
Speculation has been rife about how Nathaniel, once a well-known educator within a number of communities, became a cold-blooded cop killer.
The last school that he worked at was Walgett Community College Primary School in NSW, but his time as principal all came crashing down after he became consumed by a NAPLAN cheating scandal.
One student, who may have been related to a teaching assistant, was unable to answer the first two questions on their NAPLAN test but then got all of the remaining 34 questions correct, the Daily Mail reported.
Nathaniel reported this to the NSW Department of Education but was said to be unhappy with the lack of action.
In August 2021, Train suffered a massive heart attack at the school and was saved by teachers who rushed to his aid.
He never returned to school but did not stop his campaign to resolve the cheating scandal, firing off 16 separate emails to the education department.
Police are reportedly investigating whether the shooting spree that killed McCrow, Arnold and Dare was premeditated.
Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll told ABC’s 7.30 programme that investigators would “get to the bottom” of what occurred, including whether the trio deliberately lured police to the property.
“We’re definitely investigating every avenue, whether it be premeditated, some of the stuff that’s online from these people,” she said.
“We will investigate what they have been doing not only in recent weeks, but in recent years, who have they been interacting with, family, friends, their online presence.”
A police source told the ABC that graphic body camera footage from the officers involved would be used to piece together what happened, including how the officers and Dare died.
Locals have also claimed that the Train brothers had been using methamphetamine and bragging about turning Gareth and Stacey’s two-bedroom home into a sort of bunker.
The Daily Mail reported a close family member had told one local that the home had been moved completely off grid, with the brothers installing solar panels, satellite dishes and rainwater and septic tanks.
“He said it had tunnels, fortified and barred doors and windows, guns everywhere and the boys [the Train brothers] had been taking ice lately,” the local from the nearby town of Tara said.
Margaret, a woman who rented the Wieambilla home 10 years ago, told the publication that a relative of the Train brothers had told her they had “fortified the house and built tunnels underneath … with brickwork or blocks”.
She said it was an “ordinary house” when she had lived there with her children and grandchildren, but noted she heard that things had recently “gone bad in there”.
“I heard it turned into some kind of weird cult,” Margaret said.
“They had barbed wire. I don’t know about cameras, but it was made so nobody could get inside easily.”