The smirking face of evil cop killer Stacey Train can be revealed for the first time – from a very different chapter in her life, when she was a respected school principal.
The mother-of-two was shot dead alongside her husband Gareth and his brother and lover Nathaniel during a dramatic police shootout at their property in Wieambilla, west of Brisbane, about 10.30pm on Monday.
The firefight came after the camouflage-clad trio killed young constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, who’d arrived at the off-grid home looking for Nathaniel, who was reported missing a year ago.
Gareth and Stacey Train had religiously stayed off the grid after the paranoid pair become obsessed with extreme conspiracy theories – including anti-vax beliefs that saw her quit her job as head of curriculum at nearby Tara Shire State College.
Almost no photos exist of the killer couple but Daily Mail Australia has obtained an image of Stacey Train posing with students when she was the principal at Quinalow P-10 State School, north-west of Brisbane, at an awards night in 2010.
Wearing a pearl necklace and patterned beige dress, she smiled awkwardly for the camera in the rare picture.
The smirking face of evil cop killer Stacey Train (pictured back right) can be revealed for the first time from a very different chapter in her life, when she was a respected school principal
Quinalow is one of a long list of primary schools in Queensland where ‘Mrs Train’ had stints as principal.
All three killers had worked for Queensland Department of Education in the last 15 years, but all had quit by the time of the savage ambush on Monday.
Stacey Train was also principal at Herberton, Mitchell and Proston State Schools and others in far north Queensland around Mount Isa, before taking up a post as head of curriculum and a teacher’s aide at Tara Shire State College in 2019.
Nathaniel Train (pictured) used to be a school principal, like his sister-in-law Stacey Train
But the staunch anti-vaxxer quit that job in December rather than take a Covid vaccine.
Gareth Train also resigned from the Department in May 2016, although his specific role unknown.
HIs brother, Nathaniel Train, resigned from the Department in March 2020, a spokesperson for the Queensland Government said.
None of them were subject to any Departmental disciplinary proceedings at the time of their departures, and Nathaniel Train went on to work in the school system in NSW’s central west.
A former student at Tara Shire State College, told Daily Mail Australia that Stacey Train felt as if she had to quit her job due to the school’s mandatory immunisation policy.
Like her husband and brother-in-law, Mrs Train believed in a range of false conspiracy theories – hers centring around concerns about Covid vaccines.
Constables Rachel McCrow, 29 (left) and Matthew Arnold, 26, (right) were both gunned down upon entering Gareth Train’s property in Wieambilla, rural Queensland
Four officers were at this Wains Road property at Wieambilla when they were fired upon
The former student said Mrs Train was ‘her own person, but nice’ and lived as something of a recluse – only ever travelling into town in Tara, about 45 minutes from her property, to go to work.
Like many people in the Wieambilla area, the former student heard gunshots on Monday evening and was shocked to learn the shoot-out happened close to her home.
She said it was ‘unsettling’ and she felt rattled, but was even more shocked to learn her old teacher was caught up in the incident.
Before the murderous trio moved to Wieambilla, the three of them owned a four-bedroom home together in Millstream, about 150km south-west of Cairns in far North Queensland, which they sold in 2009.
A neighbour from their Millstream days told Daily Mail Australia paints a very different picture from the Trains’ reputation at school, describing them as ‘paranoid’ and aggressive’ people, who didn’t want any attention.
The property, owned by Gareth, who spoke of prepping his home for an apocalypse, and his wife Stacey was well off the grid, had extensive solar panels and water tanks
‘They just weren’t nice people and showed the potential for just this sort of thing even way back then,’ he said.
‘They had barbed wire and gates and fences around the property too – that’s normal on rural properties like these, but they had surveillance cameras and spotlights and things like that which was a bit out of the ordinary back then.’
He said Stacey and Gareth lived on the property full time, and Nathaniel would stay there on the weekends.
’They had children who would be in the 20s now – they obviously don’t live with their parents any more though,’ the former neighbour added.
After they sold the Millstream property in 2009, the trio formally changed their home address to the address of Proston State School – where Mrs Train worked as the principal for a short time.
Nathaniel and his father Ronald Train hadn’t spoken for 23 years – but he co-owned property with his other son, Gareth.
On Tuesday, outside his Toowoomba home, the retired pastor told the Chinchilla News: ‘I have lost two children.’
One of the two surviving officers, Constable Keeley Brough (pictured) fled into surrounding bushland
A third officer, Constable Randall Kirk, 28, and a soon to be father-of-two, was shot in the leg but managed to escape. He is now recovering in hospital
‘I am not going to share anything with you, you can speculate and make up as much as you want,’ Mr Train said.
‘I have already had conversations with police.’
It is understood Constable Rachel McCrow, 29, and Constable Matthew Arnold, 26, arrived in the first vehicle, and met up with a second car containing Constable Keely Brough and Constable Randall Kirk, both aged 28, before approaching the property.
McCrow and Arnold then honked their horn to alert the residents of their presence. When there was no movement from inside the house, the four officers got out of their cars and jumped over the locked fence.
Seconds later, a shower of bullets descended on the four officers, believed to have been fired by Nathaniel and Gareth Train and Gareth’s wife Stacey.
Constance McCrow and Constable Arnold were instantly hit, and fell to the ground.
A third officer, Constable Randall Kirk, 28, and a soon to be father-of-two, was shot in the leg but managed to escape. He is now recovering in hospital.
The fourth cop, Keely Brough, 28, was able to escape to hide in nearby bushes as the gunmen tried to hunt her down.
The killers moved on the injured police officers and shot them dead, point-blank while stealing their guns while Ms Brough scrambled away.
Neighbour Alan Dare (pictured) was shot dead by the armed trio after he went to investigate the gunshots
The terrified officer texted her loved ones telling them she felt her time was nearly up. The murderous trio then set fire to the bush in a bid to flush her out.
An innocent bystander, Alan Dare, 58, who lived next door raced over after hearing the commotion but died after being caught in the crossfire.
On Tuesday, Daily Mail Australia revealed the Trains had spent years fortifying the wooden home into a makeshift bunker to try to fend off an assault by police which they had long anticipated.
They had also been bingeing on methamphetamine, with Gareth posting increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories online that claimed the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was a military operation and Princess Diana was killed as a ‘blood sacrifice’.
Gareth and Stacy Train had bought the two-bedroom wooden home and 45 hectare property for a bargain $95,000 seven years ago.
Since then, a close family member told one local they had set up elaborate defences, and moved it off the grid, installing solar panels, satellite dishes and rainwater and septic tanks.
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