The daughter of the individuals responsible for the murders of Queensland police officers and a neighbour have shared another snippet of family’s macabre story.
Madalyn Train revealed members of her family — Gareth, 47, Stacey, 45, and Nathaniel, 46 — became isolated from their loved ones over allegations of paedophilia, and as a result, became susceptible to extremist beliefs.
On December 12, the three carried out a violent attack that took the lives of constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, as well as neighbour Alan Dare, 59, at their rural home in Wieambilla, located 300km west of Brisbane.
The siege ended with the Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel being fatally shot by police during a late-night confrontation.
Speaking on a recent podcast released by The Guardian, daughter Madalyn said a rift within their extended family began when Gareth and Nathaniel made child abuse claims.
Ms Train said a man who was well known by the family, but now has died, was accused of molestation. However, the trio were shunned and isolated from the family group over the accusations.
“I didn’t really understand the scale of what they experienced as children because they never unpacked it on us,” she said, suggesting the incident sparked their doomed spiral.
“They talked to each other about it, and I think they talked to some medical professionals, but they never told us what they did.
“They always just taught us how to process our own trauma, not theirs.”
Ms Train spoke on the trio’s descent into believing in wild doomsday theories and revealed all three were “parental figures in different ways”.
“They were always spiritually minded,” she continued. “And they believed literally that Covid was the end of the world.”
“All three of them were parental figures for me in different ways,” she said.
“Everyone else thinks it’s weird, but if that’s what your parents did, it’s not weird. It wasn’t weird for me.
“Nathaniel was more like an uncle than a dad. Like, he tried, [but] Stacey and Nathaniel had us so young that they were still figuring out who they were.”
Earlier this month, Ms Train spoke about trying to cope with the loss of her parents and uncle, while detailing some increasingly unusual behaviour one of them displayed before their deaths.
“I mourn six people,” she told 9 News.
“So I mourn my family, I mourn the police officers and I mourn the neighbour.
“And I developed acute traumatic stress disorder from that, because grieving three of your family members is hard enough, but then finding out what they did, and then seeing everyone’s reaction to what they did.”
She said while she knew they had gun licences and a gun safe, and that Nathaniel had guns, she was not previously aware that Gareth owned any.
When asked what she believed happened that day, Madelyn said: “I’d say they were influenced by fear of the unknown, of whatever was happening and then not understanding.”
She also spoke about her “normal” upbringing before her life was turned upside down by the horrific massacre.
“I grew up in a really happy healthy family environment.”
She said Gareth would often think as if he was in a military scenario because he wanted to join the military.
Madelyn hadn’t seen her family in years but continued to communicate with the via emails and texts, and said she hadn’t been overly concerned.
“If I was ever concerned I would say, ‘Hey, I don’t think that’s quite right, look at this article,’ and redirect it to something that was slightly more positive so that they had something else to read.”