An American man with links to cop killers Gareth and Stacey Train claims the pair turned down an invitation to relocate in the US before carrying out a deadly ambush on Queensland Police officers.
Instead, the man claimed, they stayed in Australia to “weather the storm”.
News.com.au has established a link between the Arizona man and the Trains through a series of videos and a letter.
The man, who is understood to be an online friend of the Trains, contacted news.com.au after recent coverage linking him to the Trains.
News.com.au has forwarded the email from Don to the police investigating the incident.
Among the chilling email, much of which defended the Trains’ sinister actions and criticised media “hit pieces” on the trio, was a revelation he offered the Trains the option to relocate to the US.
“I asked the Trains to abandon the hell that Australia has become and relocate to America … they chose to weather the storm of tyranny inundating their homeland and to fight against it,” the man, known to the Trains as Don, said.
The email made it abundantly apparent the Trains felt persecuted due to their views on the Covid-19 vaccine rollouts and mandates.
Mandates, restrictions and lockdowns, besides those encouraging inoculation, in Queensland we’re somewhat less extensive than those experienced in more populated Australian states such as NSW and Victoria.
“QPS pushed them to the brink – primarily because they refused to be vaxxed and spoke out against the vax,” the man said.
Stacey and Nathaniel – Gareth’s brother – had been school teachers, but their unwillingness to vaccinate put an end to their careers.
Stacey resigned from Tara Shire State School on December 16, 2021.
Sources close to the Trains have said Covid mandates and restrictions and subsequent unemployment further exposed Stacey to the troubling conspiracy theories held by Gareth.
The email was the first time Don publicly referred to the pair by their real names.
In a series of YouTube sermon-like videos from an account that has since been deleted, Don would refer to them by their online pseudonyms, Daniel and Jane – their middle names.
Don’s videos, and some created by Gareth, share themes of hatred of police and fundamentalist Christian ideology.
Other lengthy videos by Don, some of which mentioned Gareth and Stacey, detested social credit systems, the Covid-19 vaccine and the media.
Don was addressed directly in a chilling video believed to be filmed and posted by the Trains in the moments after they gunned down Constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, “execution-style”, along with their neighbour Alan Dare.
“They came to kill us, and we killed them,” Gareth said, shrouded in darkness with his wife, Stacey at his side.
“If you don’t defend yourself against these devils and demons, you’re a coward.
“We will see you when you get home”, Stacey said.
“We’ll see you at home Don,” Gareth continued.
“Love you,” Stacey added before the video ended.
Don was irate to hear of their deaths.
The videos involving the Trains ultimately raised questions about whether authorities knew about the Train’s questionable online activity.
Last week, The Guardianreported Queensland and NSW Police were only made aware of the videos after the shooting.
An anonymous former long-serving national security official told the publication that he was “utterly baffled” online activity by Gareth was not on the radar of police.
“I suspect they were not really looking at these sites – or if they were, they did not understand what they were seeing,” he said.
Other experts said the shooting would likely change the way authorities assess conspiracy theorists and the risk of violence.
Deakin University terrorism expert Greg Barton told news.com.au that the Covid pandemic had been an “accelerant” for a string of dangerous conspiracies that had already existed and that it had brought people with similar outlandish viewpoints together like never before.
Prof Barton said Australia was past the “tipping point”, with more than half of counter-terrorism measures now focused on battling far-right or conspiracy ideologies.
He added that threats were likely to manifest as “lone acts” which could nevertheless be “of a very large scale of devastation”.
“We have bollards everywhere, and we take care with public gatherings, but we’re still vulnerable from a policing point of view,” he said.
Lydia Khalil, an expert in extremism and a research fellow at the Lowy Institute and Deakin University, told The Guardian the tragedy would likely change how authorities assessed conspiracy theorists and the risk of violence.
“(The shooting will) change how researchers and government agencies calculate the risk of violence that they pose because we now have a clear example – a precedent – of this type of conspiratorial behaviour leading to violence,” she said.
On the afternoon of Monday, December 12, the Trains were reportedly laying in wait in the bushes at their isolated Wieambilla property as the four police officers approached their home responding to a missing persons request from NSW Police.
Constables McCrow and Arnold were killed, while constables Randall Kirk and Keely Brough managed to escape.
Constable Kirk was injured in the shooting and later hospitalised, while Constable Brough spent two hours on the Trains’ property, eluding them as they shot at her and tried to flush her out with a vegetation fire.
Stacey, her husband Gareth and brother-in-law Nathaniel (who is also her ex-husband), died during a confrontation with Queensland Police’s elite SERT officers.
On Wednesday, thousands of Queenslanders gathered across the state to pay their respects to two officers who were gunned down on the Western Downs property.
In a powerful eulogy, senior sergeant Laura Harriss said the officers “deserved so much better” for their service to their community.
“You deserved so much more from the public you fought to protect,” she said.
“Your name will never be forgotten. We love you always, we will love you forever.”