An American man linked to the 2022 Wieambilla police shootings in country Queensland has been sentenced to three years’ jail by a court in the United States.
Donald Day, 58, used the nickname “Geronimo’s Bones” to exchange chats and videos with brothers Nathaniel Train, 46, and Gareth Train, 47, who shot Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow to death in an ambush at their property near Chinchilla.
The Trains’ neighbour Alan Dare was also shot dead after he attempted to investigate sounds coming from the property.
Another two police officers were injured.
The Trains, along with Nathaniel’s wife, Stacey, were shot dead by police.
Day was arrested in the U.S. state of Arizona on Dec. 1 as part of a joint investigation with Australian police.
Day faced the U.S. federal court in Arizona on Feb. 13 (AEST) after striking a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to a charge of possessing firearms as a convicted felon.
Other charges against Day, relating to threatening World Health Organisation figures and FBI agents, and possessing an illegal shotgun, were dropped.
According to AAP, Queensland Police officers had been due to testify at Day’s now aborted trial about the alleged serious danger the American’s threats posed due to his association with the Trains.
Gareth had been following Day’s YouTube account since 2020 and the Trains had addressed a final video message to him following the fatal Queensland shootings.
“They came to kill us. We killed them. If you don’t defend yourself against these devils and demons, you are a coward. We will see you when we get home. We will see you at home, Don. Love you,” Gareth and Stacey said in the video.
Day responded: “Those [expletive] will regret that they ever [expletive] with us”.
In another interaction, Day told the Trains: “We teach those [expletive] how we are to be treated. Thank you, brother man. The world is a far better place, with you in it.”
The accused had prepared a sniper’s nest on his property and instructed the Trains to do the same with “determination and fury” and to take “scalps of our enemies.”
It was also revealed that Day supported the Trains in their delusion of believing a higher power had given them a sign and that “monsters and their heads are soon parted.”
“It is time,” Day told them, while in another message he referred to his relationship with the Trains as “true love.”
In other correspondence in 2022, Gareth referred to Day as a man who had been “fighting the war against Ba'al and his legion of meat suits since birth.”
In court, Day’s lawyer Jon Sands referenced a November 2025 inquest that found the Trains had not partaken in religious terrorism, but instead acted upon delusion where they believed police were demonic entities.
An additional expert, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Aboud, told the 2025 inquest that Gareth met the diagnostic criteria for delusional disorder, persecutory subtype, and Stacey and Nathaniel met the diagnostic criteria for shared psychotic disorder.
“It was the Trains’ shared psychotic disorders, not their communications with Mr. Day, that explained their actions,” Sands said.
Sands argued for a sentence of two years and three months, with 12 months’ supervised release.
Prosecutor Timothy Courchaine asked for a sentence of three years and 10 months, with a three-year supervised release period.
Ultimately, Day was sentenced to 36 months’ imprisonment minus time already served since Dec. 2023.
He will spend three years on supervised release after serving at least 90 percent of his term and must also forfeit his firearms and ammunition.
