Madelyn Train has visited the house for the first time with media. Photo / ACA
Madelyn Train has visited the house for the first time with media. Photo / ACA
The daughter of the Wieambilla cop killers has spoken out again, this time making the bizarre claim that her parents respected police.
Madelyn Train – aged in her 20s – is the first child of Nathaniel and Stacey Train.
The pair, who were high school sweethearts, divorced while Madelyn and her brother where still young, soon after, Stacey remarried his brother Gareth Train, whom the children consider their father.
On December 12, police constables Rachel McCrow, 29 and Matthew Arnold, 26 were shot and killed by Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey when they entered the family’s remote Queensland property in Wieambilla.
Nathaniel Train previously worked as the principal of Innisfail East State School – one of Australia's most disadvantaged schools that has punched above its weight academically. Photo / Supplied
All three Trains were killed in an ensuing shootout with police.
Now Madelyn has returned to the scene of the crime with Nine’s A Current Affair for the first time since the horrific incident.
Reporter Pippa Bradshaw asked if her parents disliked the police and Madelyn replied: “No, that’s not fair to say. I think they had a lot of respect for the police, they didn’t respect the police officers that jumped over the fence.”
Evidently shocked by her answer, Bradshaw probed that people “don’t have the right” to shoot someone who walks onto their property.
“Lots of farmers would argue differently,” Madelyn replied.
Madelyn said she “grieved” the loss of the two young police officers – as well as neighbour Alan Dare – who were all murdered by her parents.
“I grieved six people and the first people I grieved weren’t my family, they were the police officers and Alan Dare,” she said.
“I have a lot of trust in God and that I’m on this planet to do more than just be the daughter of someone that shot police officers.”
Chilling Text
Last week, Madelyn revealed more about her parents’ state of mind on the day of their deaths, sharing a text sent by Gareth at about 5.30pm on December 12.
“Vanessa sent people to kill us,” the text read.
It appears the trio believed the police had been sent to the property by Nathaniel’s estranged wife, Vanessa, who reported him missing from Dubbo, NSW in December 2021.
It also revealed that the murderous trio believed the police were intent on killing them.
The Trains were already dressed in camouflage gear and were heavily armed when police arrived. They are reported to have created “kill zones” and rigged up motion sensors to alert them to anyone coming near their land.
Nathaniel and Stacey had two children together before Stacey left her husband for Gareth.
Madelyn said that Gareth had bought into conspiracy theories and become paranoid during the Covid pandemic, and was convinced the government was spying on them.
Stacey’s family previously revealed how the former teacher became entwined with the Train brothers.
She grew up in a churchgoing family before branching off on her own to the independent church run by the brothers’ father, Ronald Train.
One of Stacey’s relatives, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Guardian she was a quiet girl and often the odd one out.
It was at the church that she met Nathaniel, whom she married in her late teens, and with whom she had two children. She later left him for his brother.
