An Arkansas couple killed Saturday while they were hiking in a state park with their two young daughters were stabbed to death in what appears to have been a random attack, authorities said Thursday.
Investigators believe Clinton David Brink, 43, was attacked first at Devil’s Den State Park, and that his wife, Cristen Amanda Brink, 41, took the children to safety. She then “returned to help her husband,” authorities said at a news conference.
Andrew James McGann, a teacher who had moved to Arkansas from Oklahoma, was arrested Wednesday at a barbershop in Springdale, Arkansas, after a dayslong manhunt and booked on charges of capital murder, jail records show.
It is not clear whether McGann, 28, has an attorney.
The couple’s children, who are 7 and 9 years old, were not injured, and officials do not believe they were the targets. A motive is unclear.
“That’s still a part of the investigation,” Arkansas State Police Director Mike Hagar said. “I can tell you that we have no reason to believe that there was any known association between our suspect and our victims.”
Authorities said that McGann’s DNA matched DNA found at the scene and that he made statements to investigators “indicating that he had committed these heinous acts.”
The trails at Devil’s Den have remained closed.
Clinton’s sister, Katrina Hutchins, said the couple and their children had just moved to the state about three weeks ago.
The family said Clinton and Cristen died “protecting their little girls.”
“They deserve justice,” the family said in a brief statement. The couple have another daughter who was not with them on the trail.
A blood trail
A hiker discovered the crime scene after finding the couple’s daughters alone, according to a preliminary report from the prosecutor’s office for the state’s 4th Judicial District
The hiker got the girls safely off the trail and then went to find their parents. The hiker found the deceased couple and called 911, the report said.
State police responded and officers found a trail of what is believed to be the victim’s blood leading from the crime scene, the report said.
Through interviews with witnesses, police learned a man left the trail with what appeared to be blood on his face and then got into a black sedan, which was later determined to be a Kia Stinger, the report said.
Authorities previously said witnesses described seeing a black, four-door sedan with tape partly covering its license plate.
Police tracked the Stinger to Springdale, where the suspect was arrested Wednesday, the prosecutor’s report said.
Hagar said McGann sustained an injury during the attack that caused a loss of blood, which was used to link him to the crime. Officers also saw cuts on the suspect’s hands and found blood inside his car, according to the preliminary report.
During a search of his home, “there were articles found there that are consistent with being involved in this particular crime,” Hagar said.
Brandon Carter, Washington County’s prosecuting attorney, said his office will not waive the death penalty.
Arrested during a haircut
Adriana Guadalupe Ruiz Avalos, a barber at Lupita’s Beauty Salon in Springdale, said she had been cutting McGann’s hair for about five minutes when a law enforcement officer asked whose black car was parked outside.
She told NBC News that McGann appeared to hesitate before he answered that it was his. The officer asked McGann a few questions inside the shop and then took him into custody, she said.
Ruiz Avalos said that because she watches a lot of true-crime documentaries, she made sure to leave his hair on the floor.
“I know police want to have hair in cases like this, so I left it there,” she said.
McGann did not talk while he was getting his haircut and seemed “very reserved, very timid and very shy,” she said.
She said she was “really saddened” by the deaths. “I’m thinking about what those two girls went through. … I was just thinking about them. I had my hands on that monster.”
Springdale is about 30 miles north of the state park where the couple were killed.
McGann has taught at several schools
State Police Maj. Stacie Rhoads said McGann recently moved to Arkansas from Oklahoma, where he had worked at several schools.
He was hired as a teacher in Springdale Public Schools in Arkansas but had not yet started, a district administrator said. He did “not at any time come into contact with Springdale students or the families we serve,” Superintendent Jared Cleveland said in a statement.
McGann had worked for about a year in Sand Springs Public Schools in Oklahoma but resigned in May to move out of state, the district said.
During the 2023-24 school year, he was a fifth-grade teacher at Spring Creek Elementary School in Oklahoma. Broken Arrow Public Schools said McGann left at the end of the school year to work out of state and had faced no disciplinary action while he was employed.
He had passed background checks for his employment in both Oklahoma districts, as well as for the state Education Department.
A woman whose son was in McGann’s class at Spring Creek said he was “awkward around the parents” and “struggled to make eye contact during parent-teacher conferences.” She said he was “pretty quiet, but all the kids loved him,” including her son. He started a running club for students.
He was also employed during the 2022-23 school year with the Lewisville Independent School District in Texas, a spokesperson said Thursday.
He was placed on administrative leave in spring 2023 from Donald Elementary School “following concerns related to classroom management, professional judgment and student favoritism,” the Texas district said.
Donald parent Lindsay Camp Polyak said McGann periodically taught her son. She said she was among parents who had concerns that he was not properly teaching their children and that some students were falling behind. She also said she noticed “grooming” behavior.
The district said in a message to the school community that an internal investigation “did not find any evidence of inappropriate behavior with a student.”
Polyak said her son told her that “Mr. McGann loves to play tag. He plays tag at recess every day with the girls.”
She said her son also told her that he would give out candy and special prizes to female students.
Polyak recalled going to the school for events and seeing female students “flocking around him.”
“In early May, late April, other parents start telling me that he was having special lunches during the lunch break, where all the kids would go to the cafeteria, but then he would ask some of the special girls to stay in his classroom and have lunch with him, which was weird,” Polyak said. “Other moms alleged that he had encouraged some girls to sit in his lap.”
She said parents raised their concerns to the school principal.
In its message to the school community, the district said that its investigation determined that McGann’s “classroom management and professional judgment” were below the district’s expectations but that there was no evidence of inappropriate behavior with a student.
He resigned from the district in May 2023.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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