Arkansas couple hiking with daughters were stabbed to death in ‘random’ attack

A couple from Arkansas killed on Saturday during a hike in a state park with their two young girls was stabbed to death in what seems to have been a random attack, authorities announced on Thursday.

Investigators believe that Clinton David Brink, 43, was first attacked at Dev’s Den State Park, and his wife, Cristen Amanda Brink, 41, put the children safe. She “then returned to help her husband,” the authorities said at a press conference.

Andrew James McGann, a former Oklahoma teacher, was arrested on Wednesday in a springdale, in Arkansas, a hairdressing salon after a day’s man hunting and reserved for capital murder, according to prison files.

It is not clear if McGann, 28, has a lawyer.

The children of the couple, aged 7 and 9, were not injured and those responsible do not believe that they were the targets. A pattern is not clear.

“It’s still part of the investigation,” said Mike Hagar with Arkansas State police. “I can tell you that we have no reason to believe that there was a known association between our suspect and our victims.”

Clinton’s sister Katrina Hutchins said the couple and their children had just moved to the state about three weeks ago.

The family said that Clinton and Cristen died “protecting their little girls”.

“They deserve justice,” the family said in a brief press release. The couple has another girl who was not with them on the track.

The authorities said that McGann’s DNA corresponded to the DNA found on the scene and that he made statements to the investigators “indicating that he had committed these odious acts”.

Hager said McGann had suffered an injury in the attack that caused a blood loss, which was used to connect it to the crime.

During a search of his home, “there were articles that are compatible there that are involved in this particular crime,” said Hager.

Brandon Carter, Washington County prosecutor, said his office will not give up the death penalty.

Police from the state of the Arkansas had published a sketch of the suspect after being informed of the deaths shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday in Devil’s Den, where the trails remained closed. The authorities said that witnesses described having seen a four -door sedan with adhesive tape partly covering its license plate.

Adriana Guadalupe Ruiz Avalos, a hairdresser at the Lupita beauty salon in Springdale, said that she had cut McGann’s hair for about five minutes when a police officer asked who the black car was parked outside.

She told NBC News that McGann seemed to hesitate before replying her. The officer asked McGann a few questions inside the store, then placed it in police custody, she said.

Ruiz Avalos said that because she looked at a lot of real documentaries, she made sure to leave her hair on the ground.

“I know that the police want to have hair in cases like this, so I left it there,” she said.

McGann did not speak by obtaining his haircut and seemed “very reserved, very shy and very shy,” she said.

She said she was “really saddened” by death. “I think of what these two girls lived. … I was just thinking of them. I had my hand on this monster.”

Sprindale is about 30 miles north of the state park where the couple was killed.

Arkansas state police police, Stacie Rhoads said McGann had recently moved to Arkansas from Oklahoma, where he had worked in several schools.

He was hired as a teacher in public schools in Springdale in Arkansas, but had not yet started, said a district administrator. He was “at any time came into contact with the students of Springdale or the families we serve,” said Superintendent Jared Cleveland in a statement.

McGann had worked for about a year in the public schools of Sand Springs in Oklahoma but resigned in May to leave the State, said the district.

During the 2023-24 school year, he worked as a fifth year teacher at Spring Creek Elementary School in Oklahoma. Broken Arrow Public Schools said McGann had left at the end of the school year to work outside the state and had made no disciplinary action during his employees.

He had made checks of the history for his job in the two Oklahoma districts as well as for the Department of Education of Oklahoma.

A mother whose son was in McGann’s class in Spring Creek said that the professor was “clumsy around parents” and “had trouble establishing visual contact during parent-teacher conferences”. She said he was “quite calm, but all the children loved him”, including her son. During his stay at school, he launched a race club for students.

He was also employed during the 2022-23 school year with the independent school district of Lewisville in Texas, a spokesman announced on Thursday.

He was put on administrative leave in the spring of 2023 in Donald primary school, “following concerns related to class management, professional judgment and student favoritism,” said the Texas District.

Donald Parent Lindsay Camp Polyak said that his son had been periodically taught by McGann. She said that she was one of the parents who feared that he did not teach their children properly and that some students were delaying. She also said that she had noticed a “grooming” behavior.

The district said in a message to the school community shared Thursday with NBC News that an internal investigation “had found no evidence of inappropriate behavior with a student”.

Polyak said that his son had told him that “Mr. McGann loves playing tag. He plays a label for recess every day with the girls.”

She said that her son had also told her that he would give candies and special prices to students.

Polyak remembers going to school for events and seeing students “flock around him”.

“At the beginning of May, at the end of April, other parents were starting to tell me that he was taking special lunches during the lunch break, where all the children would go to the cafeteria, but he then asked some of the special girls to stay in his class and lunch with him, which was weird,” said Polyak. “Other mothers have allegedly alleged that he had encouraged some girls to sit on his lap.”

She said the parents had raised their concerns to the school director.

In his message to the school community, the district said that his investigation had determined that McGann’s “class management and professional judgment” was lower than the expectations of the district, but that there was no proof of inappropriate behavior with a student.

He resigned from the district in May 2023.