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Former Walgett Community College Primary principal Nathaniel Train in December 2020.

“She’d stopped hearing from him,so she got a missing person’s report,” said the person,speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Then[Gareth] started sending a barrage of messages over her doing it. They were quite threatening messages.”

While working as a primary school principal in north-west NSW,Train had refused to get a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination,the teacher said. His sister-in-law Stacey,whom he had previously been married to,was a teacher in Queensland,also refused to be vaccinated.

Train moved to the north-west NSW town of Walgett from Queensland when he was appointed principal of the town’s primary school in mid-2020,but left after he suffered a heart attack in August 2021. His wife also worked at the school.

When she raised the alarm with police,Walgett officers sent the request for a welfare check directly to Darling Downs police station. When four police arrived at the remote home Gareth Train shared with his wife Stacey,Nathaniel was there too.

Clockwise from top-left:Nathanial and Stacey Train,Ron Train,and Gareth Train.

They greeted officers with a hail of bullets,and two died. Heavily armed police arrived at the property soon after,and after a siege lasting several hours,fatally shot all three during a late-night firefight. A neighbour,Alan Dare,was also killed. Gareth Train had previously posted online about his mistrust of police.

On Wednesday,NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb sent her condolences to the injured Queensland officers and the families of those who died. “Any loss of a police officer anywhere in Australia or around the world,we all feel it,” she said. “That sense that it could be any one of us,really.

“I’ve leant into the Queensland Police Commissioner,as have all the other commissioners around Australia and New Zealand,to say if you need anything,let us know. There are more questions than answers at this stage.”

Train had a mixed reputation in Walgett,a town dominated by warring factions. Some teachers and locals admired what he was trying to do with the school,but others found his approach rigid and controlling. “He wouldn’t even let parents into the front gate of the school,” said one.

Train left the town after he had a massive heart attack in August 2021. He was in the school’s front office and dropped to the floor. An assistant principal and school counsellor performed CPR until paramedics and police arrived.

After that,he changed. At that point,he stopped work. He was angry with the NSW Department of Education because he felt it had failed to support him when he was criticised by some factions in the town. He moved around and had no fixed address.

Sydney University psychology academic Micah Goldwater said Train’s experience reflected research that showed people who engaged with conspiracy theories felt they had lost control of their lives,and felt conspiracies were a way to regain a sense of control.

If Train felt he did not get the departmental support he deserved,and had lost control over his health,“that makes you vulnerable,” Goldwater said.

“He had a brother who was already involved;you have someone right there to say,‘look what the institutions you trusted did,here’s a system you can trust’.”

An expert on brain injuries,Professor Tuly Rosenfeld,who frequently provides expert evidence in court cases,said another potential explanation for Train’s mental descent was a brain injury due to loss of oxygen during his heart attack.

“We are talking specifically about the frontal parts of your brain,two golf ball sized regions,which are the heart of your personality and your reasoning and your judgment and insight – you need your frontal lobes to be able to rationalise what’s going on,” he said.

“That’s when people display paranoid thinking. They start to be suspicious and can’t cope with pressures.”

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