$190,000. That is the asking price for a 43-hectare block in Wieambilla, Queensland, where two police officers and a neighbour were shot dead in December 2022. The property at 251 Wains Road has appeared on Realestate.com.au and Domain, listed as part of a deceased estate, with the seller hoping for a buyer who will be "respectful of the property, considering its history."
That history is one of the most shocking episodes in recent Australian law enforcement memory. Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel Train engaged police in a three-hour shootout on the property, killing constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow. Neighbour Alan Dare was also shot dead before specialist police killed all three members of the Train family. The killings sent a tremor through Queensland's policing community and prompted serious questions about firearms access, radicalisation, and the risks facing officers responding to remote properties.
The listing describes a two-bedroom house with a small dam and house paddock. The property is not connected to the electrical grid and has no running water. Images published alongside the listing reportedly showed the interior largely unchanged from when the Trains occupied it, including a gun magazine in the lounge room and a gun safe in another room. Realestate.com.au said it removed those images as soon as they were brought to its attention, though as of the time of original reporting the listing itself remained visible on the site.
The person selling the property is Aiden Train, Nathaniel's son, who is acting under executor responsibilities for the deceased estate. He has been in negotiations with the Queensland Police Union to sell the property directly to the union, a move that would keep it from entering general public hands. According to reporting by The Sydney Morning Herald, those talks have stalled.
Aiden Train told the Herald that a conveyancing contract was drawn up, a price was agreed, and amendments were exchanged, but the contract was never signed. "Things have sat dormant, with no update from them since October 2025," he said. He added that he remains open to selling to the union but needs to keep his options open to ensure the sale moves forward at a reasonable pace.
QPU president Shane Prior said he was surprised to see the property listed publicly, given the ongoing discussions. "The QPU has been negotiating in good faith," Prior said, adding that the union is conducting due diligence around the purchase, including fiduciary considerations relating to member funds and the cost of ongoing property maintenance. Those are legitimate concerns: spending union members' money on a remote, off-grid property with no clear operational purpose requires a defensible rationale, and the union's leadership is right to tread carefully.
Here's the thing: there is no straightforward answer to what should happen to a property like this. The case for the union's acquisition is clear on an emotional and symbolic level. Keeping the site out of hands that might exploit its notoriety for commercial or ideological purposes is a reasonable goal, and officers who lost colleagues there would likely take comfort from knowing the property is controlled by an institution that respects what happened.
The counterargument is equally valid. Police unions exist to represent the industrial and professional interests of their members, not to act as heritage custodians for crime scenes. Spending member funds on a dilapidated rural property with ongoing maintenance costs is a significant and unusual commitment. Critics of the plan could reasonably argue the Queensland government, which has a direct interest in how sites connected to police deaths are treated, should be the one stepping in rather than leaving the burden to a member-funded organisation.
What is clear is that leaving the property to drift through a public listing, potentially attracting buyers drawn to its infamy rather than its agricultural value, serves no one well, least of all the families of Matthew Arnold, Rachel McCrow, and Alan Dare. The Queensland government has not publicly indicated whether it has any interest in acquiring or managing the site. That silence is worth noting. Three people were killed in the line of duty and in an act of community service. The question of what becomes of the place where it happened deserves a more considered answer than a stalled contract and a real estate listing describing the block as having "history."