Wieambilla shooting: Cop killer Nathaniel Train had plans to build home with school teacher partner
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One of the three shooters who killed two Queensland police officers had plans with his fellow schoolteacher to build a house and retire on some land.
Nathaniel Train, 46, and his partner, Vanessa De Jager, dreamed of building their ‘forever home’ in Moruya, on the south coast of New South Wales.
Nathaniel was principal of Walgett Community College Elementary School, while Ms. De Jager was on the faculty.
The couple purchased the land for $288,000 in 2020 and hired a local architect to design the idyllic home that would become their retirement residence.
An artist’s impression of a house that could have been built on the site shows a beam-built property with a fireplace and open-plan modern kitchen inside.
The idyllic layout was a world away from the Wieambilla fortified home in Queensland shared by Nathaniel, his brother Gareth, 47, and his wife Stacey.
The trio had built tunnels, installed cameras and barbed wire, and established “kill zones” in the house.
He then became the center of a shootout Monday when the three fatally shot officers Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, and neighbor Alan Dare, 58.
Nathaniel Train and his partner Vanessa De Jager dreamed of building their ‘forever home’ in Moruya, on the south coast of New South Wales.
An artist’s impression of a house that could have been built on the site shows a beam-built property with a fireplace and open-plan modern kitchen inside.
Moruya’s architect, Mike Hallahan, said he had met Nathaniel several times after he was hired to design the couple’s New South Wales dream home.
He said they had put their plans to build the house on hold after Nathaniel suffered a heart attack in August 2021.
“From there, I just dealt with Vanessa,” he said. the daily telegraph.
“I don’t know what happened after that, if they broke up or what, but she just said she’d take care of it and I’d take care of her.”
An artist’s impression of a house that could have been built on the vacant lot shows a property supported by beams with a carriage house below the residence.
The interior consists of an open plan design with a fireplace, wooden walls and ceilings and a modern kitchen with an island bench.
A neighbor said the couple had stayed in a trailer on the property over Christmas 2021.
They had spoken to Nathaniel on occasion and described him as “nice and normal.”
Nathaniel then stopped communicating with Ms. de Jager in October 2022, prompting her to file a missing persons report on December 4.
The interior consists of an open plan design with a fireplace, wooden walls and ceilings and a modern kitchen with an island bench.
Hallahan said the couple had put their plans to build the house on hold after Nathaniel suffered a heart attack in August 2021.
Train was once married to his brother’s wife, Stacey (pictured), but had plans to build his forever home with his schoolmate, Mrs. De Jager.
Ms de Jager said she later received a message from her older brother, Gareth, who sent her abusive text messages for bringing the police into the matter.
Nathaniel remained in contact with some family members but had not been seen since December of last year after he resigned from his job as principal of Walgett Community College Elementary School.
Police put out a public call for information after a missing persons report was made on December 4, prompting a phone call suggesting he was north of the border in Wieambila.
Detectives now suspect that the mysterious phone call that drew police to the property came from the killers, obsessed with preparing for doomsday scenarios.
“They are considering the possibility that they called the NSW police and told them ‘they think they know where he is,'” a police source said. the aussie.
NSW Police acted accordingly, asking their Queensland counterparts to look into it as part of a routine missing persons investigation.
Former schoolteacher Stacey Train shared a bizarre love triangle with the brothers and shot the police before she was shot dead.
Nathaniel Train (right), his brother Gavin Train (left) shot dead two police officers and a neighbor
He was the bait.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted NSW and Queensland Police for comment on the line of inquiry.
The development comes as new evidence suggests the ambush may have been planned.
Detectives searching the property in recent days have discovered the terrifying extent of the “death trap” set up by the paranoid trio, who were also in a bizarre love triangle.
Investigators told Daily Mail Australia that they set up a “kill zone” where they planned to trap any officers who came to the house with an electronic tripwire that would give them time to don their camouflage gear and load their weapons.
The police found holes on the walls of the siege house and so many shell casings from the 90-minute shootout that they were ‘setting off metal detectors like pinball machines’.
Train’s murderous trio also set up an elaborate ‘extensive virtual surveillance box’.
Four officers were at this Wains Road property in Wieambilla when they were shot
Faces of the dead: Matthew Arnold, 26, was killed on arrival at the property, as was Rachel McCrow, 29
Access to the remote crime scene, more than 300 kilometers northwest of Brisbane, is still blocked as more forensic and ballistics police search the site.
A police source described the sophisticated array of cameras installed by the Trains on their 40ha property as an indication that they may have been anticipating the police knocking on their door.
“There was a detailed set of cameras that created an electronic tripwire for the virtual box, an area covered by the cameras and sensors, to pick up the movement of anyone entering an area in front of the closed door (of the trains) and around”. the house,” the source said.
You cannot see the house from the gate and the driveway.
“So when someone stops in front of the house, in the driveway or any movement in the virtual box, the cameras go off and an alarm goes off.
“It gives them time to put on the camouflage gear (prepare) the weapons.”