Police search Mount Hope property for Julian Ingram
Updated ,first published
Warning: This story contains names and images of deceased Indigenous people.
Mount Hope: The sole survivor of a shooting rampage allegedly carried out by suspected triple murderer Julian Ingram has recalled the moment the 37-year-old “laughed” before opening fire outside a home in the state’s mid-west.
Kaleb Macqueen has described the terrifying moments when Ingram allegedly shot Nerida Quinn, 50, outside her Walker St home in the NSW town of Lake Cargelligo on Thursday, after shooting dead her heavily pregnant ex-partner Sophie Quinn, 24, and her friend John Harris, 32.
Speaking to Nine News, 19-year-old Macqueen recalled how he stood outside the home of his friend’s mother, Nerida Quinn, who is also Sophie’s aunt, when Ingram allegedly came up to a car “with a gun pointed outside the window” of the vehicle.
“Within seconds it was too late,” Macqueen said.
“[Nerida] obviously I was going towards the uterus and I heard ‘boom boom’ she was holding his neck and he was laughing and [allegedly] He took a good shot to the head and was gone.
“It was fight or flight – I just had to save myself, I couldn’t do anything to Nerida anyway. If I had gone near her I probably would have died. [her].”
Macqueen was seriously injured by a shotgun blast during the incident and was taken to Canberra Hospital for treatment.
NSW Police are yet to find 37-year-old Ingram, who fled on Thursday afternoon. On Sunday, tactical police raided a remote property in Mount Hope, an hour from Lake Cargelligo, following a possible sighting of the triple murder suspect, also known as Julian Pierpoint.
Nearly 100 officers, including local police as well as heavily armed members of the NSW Police Tactical Operations Unit, have been searching for Ingram since he was last seen leaving Lake Cargelligo in his vehicle at Lachlan Shire Council minutes after the alleged shooting. According to locals who spent time with him, Ingram was seen heading north towards Euabalong, a town of about 80 people where he grew up and lived until about a decade ago.
Deputy Commissioner Andy Holland said Sunday that members of the public reported possible sightings of Ingram just after midnight Saturday at a remote property near Mount Hope, about 100 kilometers northwest of Lake Cargelligo. Holland said people in the Mount Hope area are being urged to “exercise extreme caution.”
“There’s no confirmation that he’s the culprit, but obviously we’re operating on the fact that he could be the culprit,” Holland said.
Tactical Operations Unit officers were canvassing the area and were expected to spend most of Sunday combing large swaths of land in the area, some spanning thousands of square kilometers and covered in dense scrub and bush. Search team members cleared sheds and other buildings on properties in the area, Holland said. A PolAir helicopter and drones were used to assist officers searching the ground. Search efforts were expected to remain at the current scale for several more days.
“The farms are extraordinarily large, and again that’s what makes the search difficult,” Holland said.
“He knows the back roads that others wouldn’t know. He knows the places. He knows the farm places and the cabins where he can obviously hang out, which is why the search is so difficult,” Holland said.
Holland said Ingram was a frequent visitor to the Mount Hope area and had extensive knowledge of the area through his work as Lachlan Shire Council gardener.
Ingram was spotted near a cemetery in Mount Hope, according to a social media post circulating in the local community. Locals said there were unconfirmed reports of Ingram being seen several times in the early hours of Sunday. Police have not confirmed the location of the reported sighting but gathered at a property in Mount Hope on Sunday afternoon.
Ingram, who worked as a bush cutter in the area before being appointed to the council, is considered an experienced bushman who was able to survive for long periods in the remote countryside with limited resources. Police were aware of the camps, but they were not the focus of Sunday’s search, Holland said. Ingram is believed to be armed. The public is asked not to approach him and to call Triple Zero if Ingram is seen. It is unclear what type of firearm Ingram was carrying, but several spent shotgun shells were seen near where Sophie Quinn and Harris were killed.
Holland said Ingram was believed to be traveling alone, but it could not be ruled out that locals may have been helping the 37-year-old evade authorities.
“We have members of the public and partners that detectives are talking to as we speak. They’re obviously giving us information about what their information is,” Holland said.
Ingram is believed to still be traveling in his municipal vehicle, a single-cab Ford Ranger registered DM-07-GZ, with a municipal sign, metal tray back, high visibility signs on the side and an emergency light bar on the roof.
Police searched and cleared properties in Lake Cargelligo, Euabalong, and Murrin Bridge, an indigenous community north of Lake Cargelligo, where Ingram frequently visited friends.
“We are positive [of] the fact that we will find it [alleged] guilty,” said Holland
The maximum temperature at Lake Cargelligo was expected to reach 44 degrees on Sunday and remain above 43 degrees for at least a week; police believe these conditions would force Ingram to travel after dark.
“With the heat, if I were doing these things, I would say it would make more sense to move at night,” Holland said.
Support is available from: National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Domestic Violence Counseling Service From (1800RESPECT) 1800 737 732.
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David Barwell is urban affairs correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
