Key Points
- Queensland Police said a 58-year-old US national had been arrested in connection to the religiously motivated terrorist attack.
- Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow and a civilian were killed in December 2022.
- The arrest comes after Queensland Police investigators travelled to the US to join the FBI and other law enforcement officers.
A US national has been arrested by the FBI after a in Australia that claimed the lives of two police officers and a good Samaritan.
It is alleged the 58-year-old man sent messages with "end of days ideology" to people involved in the December 2022 fatal shootings up to 18 months before the Queensland attack.
One of the two indictments issued against the man relates to the incitement of violence online in connection to the attack.
Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow were gunned down in cold blood by Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train after the officers arrived at a Wieambilla property west of Brisbane almost a year ago.
Neighbour Alan Dare was also shot dead after going to check on the property, with the three Trains killed in a gunfight with specialist police later that night.
Queensland Police on Wednesday said the US national had been arrested last week in Arizona in connection to the attack after international cooperation.
Police look on at the funeral for Alan Dare, the neighbour killed in Wieambilla shootings, at the Centenary Memorial Gardens in Wacol near Ipswich, Queensland, 23 December 2022. Source: AAP / Jason O'Brien
They then began commenting on each other's videos in May 2021, Queensland Police Service Assistant Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon said.
"Between May 2021 and December 2022, the man repeatedly sent messages containing Christian end-of-days ideology to Gareth, and then later to Stacey," she told reporters.
Police said the Trains subscribed to a broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as premillennialism.
"We know that the offenders executed a religiously motivated terrorist attack in Queensland," Assistant Commissioner Scanlon said. "They were motivated by a Christian extremist ideology."
Police said a US man was a person of interest in February when their investigation described the shootings as the nation's first domestic terror attack.
Assistant Commissioner Scanlon on Wednesday said the investigation still had a "long way to go" but described the man's arrest as extremely important.
"This is a terribly tragic event, and with the loss of lives, we need to understand the why," she said.
"None of this is possible without our partnerships and our relationships with others, and if it takes us across the world to do that ... then that's the way it has to be."
She said the victims' families had been notified about the latest development to let them know "the lengths we've gone to".
The man is in custody after appearing in a US court.
Constables Arnold, 26, and McCrow, 29, were wounded and then fatally shot at close range within 10 minutes of entering the property for a welfare check on a missing person.
A funeral service with full police honours was held in Brisbane before Christmas last year.
Two other officers, constables Randall Kirk and Keeley Brough, escaped the Wieambilla property while under heavy fire.
The Trains lit fires in an attempt to flush out a female officer who took cover in nearby bushland.
Dare, 58, was shot dead when he attended the property to investigate the blaze. He was given a hero's send-off in December last year when hundreds of people lined the streets at his funeral in his hometown of Ipswich.
His family in February accepted the Queensland Police Bravery Medal - the highest level QPS honour a civilian can receive - on his behalf.
