Daily London
Exclusive: More than a year on from a harrowing inquest that exposed the scale of the evil that stole their loved ones, tomorrow the agonising wait for answers endured by the families of those killed in the Wieambilla massacre will finally come to a close.
As a coroner prepares to hand down findings, police officer Rachel McCrow’s father Wayne is sharing his grief for the first time, revealing his daughter’s police badge “comes everywhere with me”.
Ms McCrow and her colleague Matthew Arnold were killed when they attended 251 Wains Road on December 12, 2022.
They and two other police officers had attended the property to carry out a welfare check but were ambushed by conspiracy theorists Nathaniel, Gareth, and Stacey Train.
Arnold and Ms McCrow were shot dead while the Trains’ neighbour, Alan Dare, was also gunned down.
The Trains were later killed in a shoot-out.
Mr McCrow has been left to grapple with the reality of life without his daughter for almost three years.
“With the police force, when she joined and I was a bit sceptical, a bit worried about her,” he said.
“She said, ‘don’t worry Dad, I should’ve done this a long time ago, you know, I really love doing this’.”
Mr McCrow lives in western Sydney and is battling Parkinson’s disease.
He couldn’t travel to attend his daughter’s funeral but has grappled with the unthinkable horror that unfolded at remote Wieambilla since the first gut-wrenching phone call.
“Shock, just my body, I screamed and threw the phone. It was just shattering,” he said.
Mr McCrow’s precious memories with his daughter were marred by violence at the Trains’ Wieambilla property.
The officers’ body-worn cameras captured the entire ambush.
“He’s shot Rachel, I believe, I think she’s dead,” a police officer could be heard saying.
Ms McCrow fought back and fired back 15 rounds.
“She was yelling, calling them bastards and shooting at them,” Mr McCrow said.
Ms McCrow’s own bodycam rolling on her execution and the 29-year-old’s final message.
“‘I love you’ (she said). Yeah, she loved us all,” Mr McCrow said.
It’s Mr McCrow’s wish that after hearing the evidence of almost 70 witnesses at the inquest, Queensland’s coroner will have pieced together what could have been done to keep his daughter from coming face-to-face with pure evil.
He hopes tomorrow’s findings will bring some closure but he doesn’t want his daughter’s legacy to end here.
“Why not make a public holiday?” Mr McCrow said.
“The Rachel Day and Matthew Day. And throw Alan Dare in there too. The Wieambilla people.”
