An inquest into the horror Wieambilla terrorist attack will be laid bare to the public in a revealing new podcast.
Just weeks before Christmas in 2022, religious extremists plotted and carried out a shooting on a remote Queensland property, which resulted in the death of two police officers and a neighbour, as well as the three attackers.
An inquest investigating what was known and whether the attack could have been prevented will kick off at Brisbane’s Supreme Court at the end of the month.
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It will investigate Queensland Police’s response, both during the massacre and beforehand, after reports gunfire had been heard in the area and reported to police in the days before the shooting killings.
It will all be detailed in Nine’s new podcast, The Ultimate Sacrifice, as news presenter Melissa Downes and producer Jessica Lodge follow the court proceedings.
The podcast will drop weekly episodes throughout the four-week inquest.
“The Ultimate Sacrifice, it’s a retelling of what happened out in Wieambilla in December 2022,” Lodge said.
“We’ve really just collated all of that incredible reporting that happened in the days and weeks and even years since.
“There’s a really heavy level of responsibility to the families, to the victims in telling a story like this.”
Downes was preparing to present the 6pm news when the shooting ambush unfolded.
“It was about 5.30pm, we’re getting ready to read the bulletin when everything is pretty much set, then all of a sudden this big news came that something had happened, way out west, a shooting of some kind,” she said.
“As the news was progressing, all this information was coming through.”
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By the end of the news bulletin, two officers were dead, a neighbour was shot down and another two officers were fighting for their lives.
But, as Downes explained, that was just the beginning.
“It was in the continuing hours and days that followed from that, that so much more came out about this story and it really was mind-blowing,” she said.
The religious extremists responsible for the attack – the Train brothers Nathaniel and Gareth and Gareth’s wife Stacey – had set a trap and lay in wait before police came looking for Nathaniel after a missing person report was filed in New South Wales.
Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold were ambushed as soon as they walked into the property.
Neighbour Alan Dare was also shot dead on the road after hearing gunfire.
The siege ended when tactical police stormed the property, taking out the three cop killers.
The inquest will hear from the surviving officers and the loved ones of the victims to search for answers to ensure it never happens again.
“To have that information that we’ve only been given snippets of, hopefully it will answer questions, because as the police union president has said, the families deserve the answers,” Downes said.
The first two episodes of Nine podcast’s The Ultimate Sacrifice will be released on Monday.