Wieambilla shooting: Madelyn Train defends relationship between parents and uncle

The daughter of paranoid conspiracy theorists Nathaniel and Stacey Train has revealed what she believes led to the deadly ambush of a group of young police officers.

Madelyn Train, in her 20s, is the couple’s biological daughter, but they divorced when she was three and she considers Nathaniel’s brother Gareth, who later married Stacey, as her father.

Defending the strange relationship between her parents and her uncle, Maddy said that she “grew up in a really healthy and happy family environment (and) the only reason it was unusual is literally people’s interpretation of it.”

Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey killed police officers Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, when they opened fire as they arrived at their Wieambilla property for a routine wellness check in a missing persons case in December .

Maddy said her mother ‘hated guns’ (pictured as a child with her little brother and Stacey)

Two other officers barely escaped the barrage of gunfire on the rural property, while neighbor Alan Dare, 58, was shot in the back as he ventured to investigate gunshots and a grass fire.

A prolonged siege then ensued as 16 officers from the Specialist Emergency Response Team were rushed to the site and was only concluded when the trio were killed by police.

A distraught Maddy denied claims that all three were methamphetamine users, saying she doesn’t think alcohol or drugs were a factor.

“I would say they were influenced by fear, by whatever was going on and they didn’t understand,” he told 9News in an interview that aired Sunday night.

“Gary often thought he was in a military setting because he wanted to join the military, he had read a lot of military books,” he said.

During the siege, Gareth texted Maddy that ‘Vanessa sent people to kill us.’

Vanessa is Nathaniel’s second estranged wife whom he married after Stacey, who had also made the missing person report on him.

Maddy claimed that the trio were the “gentlest” people she knew.

‘I mourn six people. I cry to my family, I cry to the police and I cry to the neighbor’.

“I developed acute traumatic stress disorder from that. Because mourning three of your family members is hard enough, but then finding out what they did and then seeing everyone’s reaction to what they did.

The family before Nathaniel and Stacey divorced, and she married her brother.

‘They (Nathaniel and Gareth) were shot dead. And then mom was trying to get out the back.

“They said she was armed but mom didn’t like guns so I don’t know what she was armed with but the police said it was a gun and I trust the police.”

She said that Gareth has always believed in conspiracy theories, but that he leveled up during the pandemic.

“It’s like he’s doing this weird project about Covid and the end of the world.”

He said his mother became more isolated when she lost her job at Tara State College for refusing to get a covid shot.

And that Nathaniel had a heart attack that affected his short-term memory and made him increasingly erratic.

Maddy said she would not consider changing her name either despite being linked to the tragedy.

“My name is not a secret, I have never done anything wrong,” he said.