[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: And Christine Brink had only recently moved to northwest Arkansas from Montana when they decided to take their two young daughters on a hike at Devil's Den State park near West Fork.
They loved the outdoors, a love they were sharing with their girls as they hiked along a park Trail on July 26, 2025.
But that family fun outing would be cut short in what police say was a brutal attack that left both parents dead, set off a five day manhunt and put the northwest Arkansas community on edge.
This is crime in the Ozarks.
This podcast is a product of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Community Journalism Project.
To learn more, visit nwajournalism.org first, let's hear a word from our sponsor. Southern Loft believes that your home should reflect your unique personality. That's why they offer a wide variety of stylish furniture pieces that are perfect for any taste. Whether you're looking for a new sofa for your living room or a sleek dining table for your kitchen, they have just what you need. So when you're looking for that piece of furniture that reflects you, visit Southern loft at 3155 North College in Fayetteville or call 479-856-6100.
Now let's get into the case.
Part 1 who were the Brinks?
Clinton David Brink was born June 14th of 1982 in Kern County, California, to mother Carrie and father David Brink. A brother to two siblings, Clinton would become an uncle to many nieces and nephews in his adult life.
His family described Clinton as a person who was beloved by everyone who met him.
They wrote in his obituary that Clinton could make his family members laugh, comfort them with strength and love them without condition, the obituary says of Clinton. He often apologized even when it wasn't necessary because peace and understanding were more important to him than pride. A certified nursing assistant and delivery driver, Clinton's patients and co workers knew him as kind, gentle and unfailingly dependable, according to his obituary. Kristin Amanda Brink was born almost exactly two years after the man she would later marry.
She entered this life on June 11, 1984, in Contra Coast County, California. Born to Catalina and Charles Trent, she had three brothers and would also become an aunt to many nieces and nephews in her adult life.
Family described Kristen as a vibrant and compassionate soul, a godly woman of principles who lived her faith, her obituary stated. Kristen was a strong, funny and deeply loving woman who always showed up for them. Kristen was also a standout volleyball player in high school as well as at California State University, San Bernardino, where she still is the program's all time leader in single game, season and career assists. Ken Cal State San Bernardino's women's volleyball head coach Kim Sherness, who has led the program since 1991, described Kristen as a, quote, iconic figure in our program who was loved by every single one of her teammates. She was unapologetically herself and her teammates loved her for it. A registered nurse, Kristin held both nursing and math degrees. Her patients saw her as a beacon of care, according to her obituary.
She loved singing, crocheting and needlepoint crafting. Clinton and Kristen shared 10 years of marriage rooted in faith, laughter and adventure, according to their family. They enjoyed hiking and kayaking. They took their children to theme parks. Their family said Clinton and Kristen were fiercely loyal to each other, describing them as, quote, truly one in heart and purpose. They were parents to three daughters, one now a grown woman and two others who were only 7 and 9 years old in July of 2025 when their lives were forever changed during a family hiking trip.
Part 2 An attack and a Manhunt Nestled in the Ozark foothills near the small city of West Fork, Devil's Den State park is a popular place for those seeking outdoor recreation.
Visitors are greeted by a vast trail network winding through the hills, a variety of campsites and swimming options at the park's pool or in Lee Creek. It's unclear whether the Brinks had ever visited the park before July 26th of 2025, but when Clinton and Christine took their two youngest daughters to hike there, the Brinks had recently moved from Montana to Prairie Grove, Arkansas. Clinton Brink was soon to start a job as a delivery driver for Highland Dairy in the Fayetteville area, but he'd never get the chance. The family was walking along the park's titular Devil's Den trail in an area with spotty cell phone service and challenging terrain, when police say a man the family had never met approached them and attacked Clinton with a knife. Kristen moved their daughters to safety, but then returned to help her husband when she herself was attacked by the man with the knife. A hiker reported finding two girls on the trail with no adults present, so the hiker got them off the trail and then went searching for the parents, according to police.
Dispatch recordings indicated the girls went to the park's visitor center and told staff their parents had been attacked. The hiker who helped the girls found Kristen and Clinton's lifeless bodies on the trail, then had to hike out of the area to get cell phone service to alert authorities, according to the court documents. State troopers reported Finding the bodies around 2:40pm that afternoon. A five day manhunt ensued with investigators receiving dozens of tips. Social media became abuzz with chatter about what had happened and why. Authorities focused on calls from people in the park at the time of the attacks and anyone who had video or photo, according to state police Major Stacy Rhodes. She later says of the case, quote, nothing about this case was what I'd call conventional. It was every investigator's worst nightmare. Police released descriptions of the suspect along with the sketch of someone they would only initially call a person of interest.
Police says the suspect was believed to be white with medium build. They said he was possibly traveling in a Mazda with a license plate covered by tape.
They would later say he was actually driving a kia Stinger. On July 29, police released a photo of the person of interest as photographed from behind. Meanwhile, the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism announced it had increased law enforcement presence in state parks around Arkansas. Devil's Den became a ghost town except for the state troopers and the park rangers investigating there. The only person they found on July 28th that wasn't staff or law enforcement was a man sitting alone in a lawn chair next to his vehicle and tent at the edge of the park. Trails were closed, as were the park's cafe and pool. A fund was set up to help pay for the funeral expenses for the Brinks. It was quickly flooded with donations. Speculation ran rapid, but still no arrest. It was a picture of a region on edge. Then, late July 30, police made an announcement.
[00:07:10] Speaker C: Arkansas State Police special agents had arrested James Andrew McCann, 28, at Springdale. He's been charged with two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Clinton David Brink and Chris Banger. Brink, Flint and Kristen were killed on Saturday, July 26, 2025 at Devil's Den State Park.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Part 3 who is Andrew James McGann Andrew James McCain was 28 years old when police say he stabbed Clinton and Christine Brink. Like the Brinks, he was not a native to northwest Arkansas. He had recently moved to the area with the intention of working at the Springdale School District. After his arrest, the the district confirmed that Andrew was a, quote, teaching candidate hired for the 2024 and 2025 school year, but they said he had not yet actually started his employment there. At the time of his arrest, Andrew had an active teaching license in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. He was certified to teach elementary school in Oklahoma in 2022. In Texas in 2023, he was approved to teach elementary and middle school children in Arkansas in fall of 2020. Four of those three states had any listings of infractions or suspensions noted on his state licenses at the time of his arrest.
However, he was placed on administrative leave in the spring of 2023 while employed at Donald Elementary School in Flower Mound, Texas. A spokesperson from the Louisville Independent School District, of which Donald elementary is a part of, said the leave followed, quote, concerns related to classroom management, professional judgment and student favoritism. Andrew resigned from the Louisville job in May of 2023. Sierra Markham said her son had been a student in Andrew McGain's fourth grade classroom in Flower Mound and described him as the most standoffish teacher she had ever met. She said he was cold, adding, quote, you could ask him a question and he would give you a one worded response.
Overall, just pretty disinterested in his students. He later worked at the Sand Spring School District near Tulsa in Oklahoma. The district reported he resigned that position May of 2025 to take a job in another state. Andrew has no criminal record and police say there's no indication he knew the Brinks. There's not much else that's been revealed about him since he was arrested sitting in a barber's chair at a Springdale salon where he was getting a haircut. That's partially because Circuit Judge Joanna Taylor has issued a gag order in the capital murder case against him. The order states, quote, this level of intense pre trial publicity creates a reasonable likelihood that the defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial before an impartial jury will be prejudiced if this court fails to take steps to restrain public comments by certain persons. The order prohibits public comments regarding evidence in the case applied to prosecutors, defense attorneys, their staff, potential witnesses, court staff, the Washington County Circuit clerk and his staff, law enforcement and others involved in the investigation. Andrew McGain has pled not guilty to two counts of capital murder and is being held without bond at the Washington County Detention center while awaiting trial, which is currently set to begin March 29, 2027. A capital murder conviction is punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Part 4 One year later it's been nearly a year after the Brink's death and the incident seems to have largely faded from the public's day to day consciousness, but it remains hauntingly in the background.
Charles Hughes of Fayetteville recently spent the morning fishing with a friend at Lee Creek, which runs through Devil's Den State Park.
He said the killing won't stop him from enjoying the park no, it's just
[00:10:45] Speaker A: such a one off, in my opinion. It's just such a strange thing.
It doesn't affect. I mean, I'll be more cautious, I guess, but no, I'm gonna keep hiking around here.
[00:10:57] Speaker C: Not going away.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: No, no, no. It's not gonna ruin it for me.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Still, he remembers what it was like in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: I was pretty shocked. I mean, I bought that trail many a time and just never felt, you know, any sort of danger or anything like that would ever happen here. So, yeah, again, to me, it's just such a one off nut job thing that I just.
I'm not gonna let. I'm gonna look over my shoulder every time I go hiking because of that. So.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: The Brinks family doesn't want people to stop enjoying the outdoors either. The family issued a statement in September thanking the northwest Arkansas communities for their support and urging people to continue getting outside, something Clinton and Christine loved. The statement said the couple, quote, wouldn't want families to stop hiking, exploring and enjoying nature because of what happened.
Their memory is better honored by embracing the beauty of those places, not avoiding them out of fear.
Jesse Martin from South Haven, Mississippi, said he visits parks across the country and learned of the killings while reading about Devil's Den. Prior to his visit, I looked up
[00:12:02] Speaker C: everything from I'm terrified of bear because I had a bear encounter in North Carolina. But I've looked up, I looked deep into this as far as even rumors of back in, how it was named and everything about its spookiness and a lot, a lot of different things. But yes, I did look into it and ended up feeling comfortable about it. I did. Mm, mm. No worries.
Not really.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: However, when he mentioned the deaths to a local, he noticed the chilling effect it had on her.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: I mentioned it, I mentioned that murder to a girl that works up here at the store. They got a little store. It's not really a store, not much in there.
And she, she like, you know, something we don't talk about. She shut that down quick. I asked her how long she'd been with him and she said six years. So she's dug in deep. She don't want that. You know, it entered my mind just now when I first pulled out. There was three girls going onto a trail, and it crossed my mind right then, you know, but this world, there's predators out there, and they're literally human predators.
It could happen anywhere, you know, Devil's Den. It's kind of ironic it happened, you know, I mean, I heard as much as read as much on the Internet as he had his tag taped up, he had motorcycle, he had cut off gloves on different things like that. He probably sat out there waiting.
Ain't no telling how long he'd been there. Ain't no telling how long he's done this. Ain't no telling how many parks he's been to. His number could be two, it could be 20.
Serial killers are rampant and our technology and everything is catching up with him and getting better.
But they're still out there. And if, you know, they can. If the judges don't carry out proper sentencing, I mean that's one of the problems with crime in today's world in the United States anyway, I believe is judges are too lenient.
They just are.
This one, they're seeking the death penalty. Okay. Okay. And prosecutor said they're not backing off on, so we'll see.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: We asked if he made any changes to his preparations before coming to the park, and Martin said he had a firearm with him, adding he wouldn't have gone to the park without it. Firearms were generally not allowed in state parks at the time of the stabbings at Devil's Den, but two amendments to state law last year now permits the possession of guns in most public spaces in the state, including 47 of Arkansas's 52 state parks, according to the Arkansas's attorney general's office.
Devil's Den is among them. The killings also resulted in police around the nation searching for possible links between Andrew McGain and other unsolved cases, such as one in Vermont and another in Wisconsin. But as of now, no law enforcement agencies have said they have been able to connect the suspect to those cases, even though they have relatives in Prairie Grove. The Brinks two young daughters were taken to California to live with an aunt who also has three children of her own, according to Prairie Grove Mayor David Folk, who has been in touch with the family off and on since the deaths. The mayor and other community leaders in Prairie Grove organized a benefit event in September to provide money to the family to help raise the girls. The fund raised more than $56,000 as of that month. The family has found some solace in the kindness of strangers in a community their loved ones had only started to explore.
This has been the hardest time of our lives and your kindness has remind us that we're not walking through it alone, according to a statement from the family. Every hug, every prayer, every donation, every kind word has helped us carry a little bit of the weight. To learn more about the lasting impact of the Devil's Den killings. See reporter Ron Wood's article that will publish July 26 in the print and replica editions of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or
[email protected] and check back there often. As we at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, as well as our fellow journalists at the River Valley Democrat Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, keep an eye on this case and other crimes in the Ozarks.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: Foreign.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: This podcast is a product of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Community Journalism Project.
To learn more, visit nwajournalism.org.
