After ambushing police officers with a hail of bullets, Stacey and Gareth Train huddled together in the dark at their remote Queensland property and recorded a video.
“They came to kill us and we killed them,” Gareth said in the video, uploaded on Monday night and still circulating online.
“If you don’t defend yourself against these devils and demons, you’re a coward.”
Stacey added: “We’ll see you when we get home … love you.”
The disturbing video, first revealed publicly by Crikey on Friday, was published on a now-deleted YouTube account as well as another online conspiracy site on Monday, in the hours after two police and a neighbour had been shot dead but before a shootout with tactical officers that saw the assailants killed.
The pair use their middle names in the videos: Daniel and Jane. The third shooter, Gareth’s brother Nathaniel Train, does not appear in the footage.
The accounts contained a number of other videos seemingly produced by Gareth in the weeks leading up to the shootings that suggest other interactions with police, as well as communication with conspiracy theorists in the US.
In one video posted on 10 December, two days before the shootings, a distorted voice reads out details of a missing persons report about fellow gunman Nathaniel Train, while the song Bad Boys, from the TV series Cops, blasts in the background.
The person claims that Nathaniel was a “whistleblower” for “high-level corruption” in the NSW Department of Education and NSW police.
“You attempt to abduct us using contractors. You attempt to intimidate and target us with your Raytheon Learjets and planes. You send covert assets out here to my place in the bush,” the video’s description reads.
“What is your play here? To have me and my wife murdered during a state police ‘welfare check’? You already tried that one … eat shit and die.”
In another video, published on 8 December, Gareth Train names individual officers from Queensland and New South Wales police, and their phone extensions, and says in the video description he “won’t be returning any calls”.
He also refers to police visiting his property, warning them to “put an end to that shit”.
In comments made under some of the videos, which appear to have been written under an alias used by Stacey Train, she refers to recent “welfare checks” made by police at their property, saying “these fools are stepping into a world of hurt they know nothing of”.
“After dealing with covert agents and tactics for some time now, Daniel believes that should they choose to cross the rubicon with public state actors our Father is giving up a clear sign,” she says.
International links revealed
The videos suggest close links between the couple and some US-based conspiracy theorists and individuals espousing fringe religious beliefs.
The Trains discuss with a US couple about buying “supplies” in the days before the shooting.
“We are happy and keen for the next stage of the journey. So it begins,” they wrote.
In another video, Stacey Train appears to read from a letter written to a woman in which she refers to associates based in the US.
She talks of losing contact with her two children.
“Recently, my husband and I lost both their adult children when they chose the world, rejecting us and the narrow paths to take the wide road that their partners and friends are on.”
Josh Roose, an associate professor in politics at Deakin University who specialises in extremism, said while the videos showed some elements of the sovereign citizen conspiracy movement which took hold during the Covid-19 pandemic, they were not limited to that.
“It’s like a Lego set of conspiracy narratives. You can see they have almost welded their own reality drawing on this vast array of ideological influences and also these spiritual, biblical and religious influences,” he said.
“There’s an obsession with the apocalypse and the end of days, but what comes through is a strong hatred of society and of the police.”
The videos also contain some references to Indigenous history, with the brothers’ family having some Aboriginal heritage.
Roose said the videos – including the chilling footage that appeared to be taken after the shooting – were “made to be shared”.
“They’re already showing up in other conspiracy-based groups and they cast out the message of the people who carried out these acts, and typically they do promote the cause and promote violence,” he said.
Asked if officers had attended the Wieambilla property in the days before Monday’s shooting, Queensland police declined to answer, saying it would be “inappropriate” for them to “provide further comment at this time”.
“This is a complex and thorough Coronial Investigation overviewed by the Crime and Corruption Commission and will be reported to the State Coroner,” a spokesperson told Guardian Australia.
Police have requested media outlets who published video footage related to the shooting to remove it, saying it was “distressing to the families of those involved and police.”
“We respectfully request media outlets, including social media platforms and traditional media outlets, to remove this content from their platforms and discontinue broadcast, if they have not already,” police said said.
“We also urge members of the public not to re-post or share this content.”
