A trio who killed two Queensland constables and their neighbour at Wieambilla believed people were being abducted and turned into non-humans and police figures were agents of evil, an inquest has heard.
It is the third week of a coronial inquest into the shootings, where Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold were shot dead while responding to a missing persons report at a rural property on Queensland's Western Downs.
Two other police officers narrowly escaped with their lives. Neighbour to the property, Alan Dare, was also killed.
Shooters Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train were later killed following a shootout with specialist police.
On Monday, forensic psychiatrist Dr Andrew Aboud told the court the trio believed being arrested by police "would be a fate worse than death."
He suggested the Trains were suffering from a "shared psychotic disorder… [where] Gareth Train was the primary, and Nathaniel and Stacey Train were the secondaries."
Dr Aboud relied on witness statements, interviews, diary notes and letters from the Trains, vision from body worn cameras and PolAir, and interviews with their friends and former colleagues to form the basis of his evidence.
The court heard the three held a belief that at a date in 2023, they would "reach salvation through a second coming of Christ".
But during the Wieambilla siege, "they were not intending to be apprehended alive".
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Descent into delusion
Dr Aboud said Gareth's descent into delusion began as paranoia in his late teens or early 20s.
The forensic psychiatrist said Gareth had a paranoid personality disorder and was prone to conspiracy theories.
After purchasing the Wieambilla property with his wife Stacey in the mid 2010s, he began researching and posting conspiracy theories online, and developed "persecutory beliefs under a religious theme", believing he was being targeted by government agencies.
The court heard he became concerned neurological bioweapons were being produced, which would turn people from humans, into "non-humans".
At some stage, Stacey began to share in her husband's beliefs, Dr Aboud said.
They would leave their phones in a tin foil box, believing they were being monitored by government agencies, the inquest heard.
Gareth began filming himself shooting at planes flying over his property, fearing they were monitoring him and dropping chemtrails to "infect masses of people… in order to subjugate individuals a part of an ASIO-controlled plan".
"That delusion was held by all three, but led by Gareth," Dr Aboud said.
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020, Dr Aboud said Gareth started to link these conspiracy theories to the global outbreak.
"His view about COVID is that it was a method for people to then become mass-vaccinated, and that is then married up with a concept of neurological bio-weapons, changing people's DNA," Dr Aboud said.
"We now have Gareth believing human beings are being turned into non-humans.
"You cloak over the top of that, [the belief] that there is a battle going on in the spirit world between good and evil."
By the end of 2020, Gareth ramped up his communication with his brother, Nathaniel — who at the time was the principal of a school in New South Wales — sharing with him his conspiracy theories.
"Nathaniel seems to accept these increasing statements that are essentially reflected of the paranoid beliefs and the religious beliefs," Dr Aboud said.
Court hears Nathaniel travels for 'church'
In early January 2021, the court heard a prominent episode in the timeline of events occurred, which the trio regarded as "church".
Nathaniel had travelled to Queensland and spent one night at the Wains Road property for a private meeting with his brother and Stacey.
"It was most likely that this was Gareth revealing the grand opus and how everything came together," Dr Aboud said.
"World events, weather events, the worsening situation of the world, the various paranoid beliefs about ASIO monitoring, hacking, poisoning, chemtrails, people being abducted, being turned into non-humans, human beings wearing meat suits, police and authority figures being agents of evil… we see what is depicted or what's communicated in Stacey's diaries."
Dr Aboud said by the end of this meeting, he believed it was possible all three were "fully deluded," – if not then, certainly by early 2022.
However, between "church" in January 2021 and then, a significant event occurred in Nathaniel's life.
The court heard he suffered a near-fatal cardiac arrest while at work and had to be resuscitated in his office.
In a recorded phone conversation he had with his brother, while he was recovering in hospital, he told him he was "having dreams of going hand-to-hand with police".
"That came from Nathaniel. It was not provoked or put into Nathaniel's head by Gareth in that conversation," Dr Aboud said.
By the end of 2021, Nathaniel had left his job in education, and illegally crossed the New South Wales border to Queensland, with a cache of weapons in tow.
The court heard for six months he lived at locations other than the Wieambilla property, where Stacey and Gareth resided, "for fear they would bring authorities to [their] door".
However, a few months after he moved in, in mid-2022, police left a calling card at their front gate, when they came searching for Nathaniel.
Dr Aboud said the trio believed at a date in early to mid 2023, there would be a second coming of Christ and they would reach religious salvation.
"[When police left the calling card, they became] increasingly irritated, annoyed, angry at the police interest in Nathaniel," Dr Aboud said.
"The fear is that police might want to take Nathaniel away, and what would happen to Nathaniel would be that not only would he not reach his salvation, but he might in fact be forced or subjugated, turned into a non-human, or something even worse.
"Of course that fate may have also befell themselves, so it wasn't just about Nathaniel."
Gareth started to send videos to police officers where he would edit his voice to make it slower.
"It makes it sound really quite ominous and dark and he's insulting the police," Dr Aboud said.
Two days before the Wieambilla shootings, Stacey wrote a comment on one of Gareth's video uploads.
"After dealing with covert agents and tactics for some time now, Daniel (who it was later revealed was Gareth's alias) believes that should they choose to cross The Rubicon with public state actors, The Father is giving us a clear sign," counsel assisting the coroner, Ruth O'Gorman said, reading her comment to the court.
"Monsters and their heads thou soon parted."
Dr Aboud said the Trains had named their front gate, The Rubicon, – a reference to Julius Ceasar, which signifies a "point of no return."
"[It could mean] that we will now have to fight to the death because to be apprehended by police would be a fate worse than death. We would be subjugated, drugged, turned into non-humans, we would never reach our religious salvation. We would rather die as soldiers of God," Dr Aboud said.
"This becomes terribly ominous because Gareth has led Stacey and Nathaniel to believe if anybody crosses that gate, The Father has made a decision about what they must now do."
Dr Aboud said it was likely the Trains at the time felt they were being ambushed by police, rather than the other way around.
"Quite frankly, they were morally insane. They did not know that what they were doing was wrong," he said.
"They felt justified in their actions. And I believe that they lacked the capacity to know they ought not do the act."
