00:00The inquest into the deaths of Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow and local
00:06man Alan Dare is in its third week and is looking at the motivations of their killers
00:11Gareth Nathaniel and Stacey Train.
00:14After the trio murdered two police officers and their neighbour at their William Biller
00:17block in December 2022, investigators declared they were Christian fundamentalists who had
00:23subscribed to pre-millennialism beliefs.
00:26Today, Associate Professor in Politics Josh Roos gave evidence endorsing this classification
00:31based on an extensive amount of material he reviewed.
00:35Mr Roos told the court the trajectory to ideological radicalisation was different for all three
00:41but there was significant evidence it took place during the pandemic, at a time when
00:45all three already held conspiratorial beliefs.
00:49He found Gareth and Stacey started developing extreme religious views in 2021, shortly after
00:55they began communicating with a US man online and were introduced to violent end of days
01:01material.
01:02He determined the couple later influenced Nathaniel and he adopted these same beliefs,
01:08including that governments and police were devils and demons.
01:11The court heard during this time Stacey had repeatedly attempted to recruit others online
01:17to join them in their preparations for a final battle of good and evil, including on the
01:22day of the shootings.
01:24Associate Professor Roos determined the murders, by definition, were an act of terrorism and
01:29the trains were religiously motivated.
01:32The inquest, which is running for five weeks, continues.
