God and guns: the strict religious upbringing of the Wieambilla shooters

The same family member recalled the scandal that created a rift within the deeply religious family. The details were always kept relatively hushed, but it eventually became known that Stacey had left her husband for his brother.

Nathaniel Train had suffered a heart attack and an apparent mental breakdown, before heading north to the property at Wieambilla. His disappearance from New South Wales brought four police constables to the gate on Monday afternoon. Two were later shot dead as was neighbour Alan Dare.

Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel Train died hours later in a shootout with specialist police.

For those who knew the Train family, making sense of the Wieambilla shootings has involved more than a simple accounting for the movements and mindset of Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey in the past few years. It also involves reckoning with their past.

There are signs in some of his posts that he held to some of his conservative Christian upbringing.

Stacey had no social media presence and only leaves some traces. She was the principal at a tiny community school at Proston, in the South Burnett region, and later worked in Mount Isa and Tara, where she was the head of curriculum.

A former colleague at Tara says she would have been shocked if Stacey was in a relationship with two men at the same time, given the strength of her religious views. Stacey had made it clear she would leave due to vaccination mandates.

Nathaniel had worked in Cairns and Innisfail before heading to Walgett, a remote area of New South Wales with a large Indigenous population. His new partner reportedly worked at the same school.

His mental health appears to have deteriorated since suffering a heart attack in August last year and resigning from his position as principal of the Walgett primary school.

The constitution of his foundation, the Christian Independent Fellowship of Toowoomba, includes a statement of faith that outlines his views on marriage.

Guardian Australia reached out to Ronald Train but he did not respond. The preacher dedicates his books, all written during the last decade, to his children, their partners, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.