The lone survivor of an horrific triple shooting murder in the Australian outback says he fears the alleged killer will come back to finish him off.
Kaleb Macqueen, 19, was at the Lake Cargelligo home of Nerida Quinn, on Thursday when local council worker Julian Ingram allegedly shot her dead, minutes after also allegedly killing heavily pregnant Sophie Quinn, 25, and her best friend John Harris, 32.
Kaleb was peppered with shotgun fragments and shrapnel during the incident and fled for his life.
He was treated in a Canberra hospital before returning to his hometown, 600km west of Sydney, on Saturday, and on Monday was running errands with his mum, Jessica Johnson.
He agreed to a wide-ranging interview with Daily Mail, after previously revealing to Nine News and 7News that the alleged killer ‘laughed’ as he opened fire at Ms Quinn’s Walker Street home.
He told Daily Mail that he shot Nerida in the neck first, laughed, and then fired an instantly fatal shot in her head, before turning the weapon on Kaleb.
The teenager’s voice shook as he said he is convinced 37-year-old Ingram – who is still at large – will return to kill him.
‘I feel like I am an unfinished murder … and he’s just going to come back and get me,’ Mr Macqueen said.
Kaleb was seen up and about in Lake Cargelligo on Monday
He has returned home to his mother, Jessica Johnson, after a harrowing ordeal
Kaleb had just gotten home having his wounds re-dressed in hospital on Monday
He shared pictures of his bullet wounds exclusively with Daily Mail
Ms Johnson said she had barely slept since her son was shot, and spent Sunday evening patrolling their family home with a baseball bat in case Ingram returned.
Kaleb said if the suspected killer was not soon apprehended, he would consider leaving the town.
‘I just hope he gets f**king locked up,’ he said.
The teenager recalled in chilling detail the shooting of Nerida, who is the mother of his close mate Gab, and the mother of Sophie, who had ended her relationship with Ingram.
On the day of the shootings, Kaleb was at the Quinn family home working on his car’s blinker, and Nerida asked him to also take a look at her car.
Gab had gone inside briefly, when Kaleb saw Ingram – also known as Hoolio – approaching in a Lachlan Shire Council ute.
‘I saw him come around the corner, pull into her driveway… he leaned a shotgun onto his mirror and I yelled, ‘Nerida, it’s Hoolio! Run!’
‘He shot her in the neck. (Then) I saw him laughing. She was alive, holding her neck, and then he shot her head and that was it.’
Then Ingram allegedly pointed the gun toward Kaleb, who took shot to the back of the head, his right shoulder, waist and left wrist.
Nerida Quinn, pictured with her daughter, was brutally murdered
Police are appealing for information on Ingram and his vehicle
Heavily pregnant Sophie Quinn was gunned down on Bokhara Street on Thursday
Her best friend John Harris was also in the car, and lost his life
Five days after the shooting, he described his pain level as still being ‘excruciating’.
Doctors on Monday told the young mine worker his shoulder may never be the same again. He underwent surgery on his wrist and is likely facing plastic surgery.
A possible sighting of Ingram in the small township of Mt Hope, 100km from Lake Cargelligo, has led a 100-strong police response to the area.
Daily Mail understands tactical police, special operations group officers in a BearCat, and detectives undertook an operation near Mt Hope in the early hours of Monday morning, but Ingram was not found.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Andy Holland insisted on Sunday that he will be found.
Devastatingly, Daily Mail can also reveal Nerida’s elderly mother-in-law Margaret, who lived at the Walker St residence and is in her 80s, suffered a heart attack on the night of the shooting and is in hospital having stents put in place.
Kaleb told Daily Mail that Thursday’s fatal rampage was not the first altercation he’d had with Ingram, a known brawler and pig-hunter who is widely known to be handy with a rifle despite never having a gun licence.
On January 16, just days before the shooting, Kaleb and his friends – including two of Nerida’s children – had attended a rural property between Lake Cargelligo and Griffith when they came across Ingram, again in his council vehicle.
Sophie was heavily pregnant with a baby boy she had named Troy
Ingram is on the run, and was possibly sighted near Mount Hope on Sunday morning
Kaleb alleged Ingram aggressively followed them home.
‘He was out there poaching. We had to speed, because I reckon he would have shot us that night.’
Ms Johnson has also had her own run-ins with Ingram, which she said she reported to police but nothing could be done because it was a ‘he said, she said’ situation.
When Kaleb left Canberra hospital, doctors told him he was lucky to be alive.
After being shot, Kaleb made it inside the home, where he collapsed on the kitchen floor.
‘The pain felt like I had been smacked over the head with a pole,’ he said.
‘Nerida’s husband had run out the front to her, and I just fell down on to the ground to get on the cold floorboards. They told me not to lay down, so I sat up against the fridge and I was bleeding bad.
‘I was in pools of sweat and there was a lot of blood too. Nerida’s mother-in-law Margaret held a towel against my head and was helping me, which I appreciated.’
An imposing tactical police BearCat vehicle is hunting Ingram
Police searched properties around Mt Hope on Sunday
The police units have used an infrared drone in an attempt to flush out the wanted man
Kaleb knew the other victims well after growing up on the same street as John Harris’ family, as well as Sophie’s grandmother Beverly.
‘Sophie was lovely, I never had any problem with her,’ he said.
‘John was funny. He was always checking up on me.’
He also knew Ingram all too well, after he allegedly made romantic advances on his mother before entering a brief relationship with Sophie.
‘He tried to get with my mum and Mum said no, so he was trying to get back at that, I guess,’ Kaleb said.
Despite the massive police presence in Lake Caregelligo, including frequent patrols around Ms Johnson’s home, Kaleb is having trouble sleeping.
‘I get paranoid at night,’ he said.
Ms Johnson revealed she was close with Ingram last year, around August, after her ex became incarcerated.
Sophie’s Suzuki Swift parked on Bokhara Street after the shooting
Kaleb and his mum went for ice-blocks before a hospital appointment
‘Julian was a big help, he mowed the lawns on my double block, in the heat. Took rubbish to the tip and was just really nice at the beginning,’ she said.
‘And then, something happened that I don’t want to say… I found out something and I went to his house to approach him and he spat in my face. He came raging at me.
‘I reported it. But it was a he-said she-said because I was the only one there. So they couldn’t really do much. But then he stalked our car for about four days after that.’
Ms Johnson alleged he would follow her everywhere she was driving, and would drive slowly past her house, sometimes in the council truck, and sometimes in Sophie’s Suzuki hatchback – the same vehicle in which she was shot dead.
‘I told the police, the police approached Julian, and he stopped,’ she said.
Ms Johnson also claimed Julian had etched the words ‘Jessica, you’re a mess, you’re a gronk’ on the side of his fence – which he later removed.
When she confronted him about the writing on his fence in November, Jessica alleged he swerved toward her vehicle on the road.
‘If Kaleb didn’t yell out, ‘Swerve!’ like he did, (Ingram) would have went straight into (our) car. He’s a crazy maniac,’ she said.
Kaleb said his pinky was crushed during the shooting, and he will require further surgery
Kaleb believes he took the first shot in the back of his head
In the days after this, Ms Johnson and Ingram brokered a peace, and he resumed helping her.
‘But then he’s like, ‘Oh, Sophie’s pregnant… I want to do the right thing, like I’m the dad,’ Ms Johnson said.
It has not been confirmed that Ingram was the father of Sophie’s unborn child – a son she was going to name Troy.
Ingram, 37, was out on bail over allegations he had stalked, intimidated and assaulted Ms Quinn and damaged her property.
Court records obtained by the Daily Mail show he pleaded not guilty.
On December 3, police took out an interim Apprehended Domestic Violence Order (AVO) against Ingram on behalf of Ms Quinn.
The order was due to be reviewed in court on February 3.
Police said he had complied with his conditions, and had even reported for bail the morning before his alleged killing spree.
Special Operations Group officers have swarmed Lake Cargelligo
Police Indigenous Liaison officers at the home of victim John Harris’ family on Friday
Ms Johnson said Sophie was ‘bubbly, with big bright eyes…no one ever had any problems with her.
‘She would have hurt anyone. Same as John. He was just a character you know? He would joke around.’
In the minutes after the shooting, Ms Johnson said she was getting in the shower when she saw two missed calls from Kaleb, who had left their home just minutes before, and two missed calls from her 16-year-old son Riley.
Riley was at his grandmother Sandra Little’s house – directly across the street from Nerida’s home and the scene of the second fatal shooting.
She learned about the catastrophic situation when a subsequent text from Riley simply said, ‘Kaleb’s been shot’.
She raced to the scene, which was locked down by the emergency responders, and she was not able to get to her son.
‘I couldn’t even cuddle him,’ she said.
Ms Johnson, who went to school with Ingram and whose parents were friends with his late mother Juliann and father Trevor, is still reeling from the shooting.
‘We’re all thinking we’re going to wake up, and at the end of the day, we’re not,’ she said.
‘And knowing he’s still out there… I know the police are doing everything they can, but (we’re) so scared. He’s out there, planning… his next move. He’s a full-on bush kid.’
Ms Johnson described all the families involved in the shooting as ‘close’.
‘We are very grateful Kaleb’s alive, but it’s very sad. I send my love and condolences to the other victims and the families. It’s very hard for the whole community too. We all know each other.’