Little Rock, Ark. — Arkansas police charged a 28-year-old schoolteacher within the killing of a married couple who were hiking with their children at Satan’s Den State Park, discovering him in a close-by metropolis after a five-day search and public pleas for trail-goers to look via their pictures.
State Police arrested Andrew James McGann at a barbershop in Springdale, stated Col. Stacie Rhoads, commander of the division’s felony investigation division. He was charged with two counts of capital murder and was being held Thursday within the state’s Washington County jail.
Arkansas State Police
Police introduced the arrest at a Wednesday night time information convention however would not focus on a motive. McGann had been employed at Springdale Public Faculties as a instructor candidate for the upcoming 12 months however hadn’t but come into contact with any of its households or college students, the district stated in an announcement.
A lawyer could not be situated for McGann, and a message was left for a quantity listed for him. It wasn’t instantly clear when his first court docket look was.
“If you happen to commit a violent, mindless act right here in our state, our legislation enforcement will hunt you down and convey you to justice, as a result of that is what the folks of Arkansas frankly deserve,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders informed reporters.
Springdale is roughly 30 miles north of the state’s distant Satan’s Den Park, the place trails have remained closed since Saturday’s killings.
Clinton David Brink, 43, and Cristen Amanda Brink, 41, have been discovered useless on a strolling path at Satan’s Den. Their daughters, who’re 7 and 9, weren’t harm and are being cared for by relations, authorities have stated.
State Police have launched few particulars concerning the investigation, together with how the couple was killed.
Within the days after the assault, police launched a composite sketch after which a photograph of an individual of curiosity that confirmed them solely from behind. Authorities urged trailgoers who had been on the park to test their digicam rolls for pictures or video that may assist level to a suspect.
Rhoads stated the general public’s assist and video footage they acquired was instrumental in capturing McGann. Ideas got here in from as distant as Washington state, she stated.
“It was overwhelming,” she stated.
McGann was a instructor at a small Oklahoma faculty district till Could after which resigned to take a job in one other state, in response to an announcement fron Sand Springs Public Faculties, which is close to Tulsa. It added that McGann had handed all background checks.
McGann had not but began his new job in Arkansas at Sprindale Public Faculties, stated Jared Cleveland, the district superintendent. He stated the district couldn’t present extra info, citing the investigation.
“Our complete crew extends our deepest condolences to the Brink household. Their kids are particularly in our ideas and prayers,” Cleveland stated.
Sierra Marcum stated three years in the past, her son was a pupil in McGann’s fourth grade classroom in Donald Elementary Faculty in Flower Mound, Texas, and described him because the “most standoff instructor she had ever met.” Her son’s yearbook features a photograph of McGann.
“Fairly chilly. You can ask him a query and he would provide you with a one phrase response,” she stated. “General simply fairly disinterested in his college students.”
Marcum informed CBS Information that, over the course of the varsity 12 months, her son reported inappropriate habits by McGann towards the women in his class. It included being “very sensitive with the women and having them on his lap and making feedback to them and conserving them again from recess.”
In an electronic mail despatched to folks in 2023 and shared with CBS Information, a faculty administrator stated McGann was positioned on go away pending the outcomes of an investigation into “complaints of poor classroom administration and poor skilled judgment.”
“Whereas our investigation didn’t discover any proof of inappropriate habits with a pupil, we did discover his classroom administration {and professional} judgment to be under our district’s expectations,” the e-mail stated.
McGann resigned efficient instantly, in response to the e-mail. Marcum remembers McGann departing his place about three quarters of the way in which via his first faculty 12 months as a instructor.
CBS Information has reached out to the Lewisville Unbiased Faculty District, of which Donald Elementary is a component, for remark.
Clinton and Cristen Brink had simply moved from South Dakota to the small metropolis of Prairie Grove in northwest Arkansas. Their water had been linked lower than two weeks in the past, Mayor David Faulk stated.
Clinton Brink had been scheduled to begin a job as a milk supply driver Monday within the close by Fayetteville space, in response to Hiland Dairy, his employer. Cristen Brink had been licensed as a nurse in Montana and South Dakota earlier than shifting to Arkansas.
The Brink household stated the couple died “heroes defending their little ladies.”
“Our complete state is grieving for the tragic loss and mindless and horrific crime that is taken place on this space,” Sanders stated.
Satan’s Den is a 2,500-acre state park close to West Fork, about 140 miles northwest of Little Rock, the state capital.
The park is thought for its climbing trails and rock formations and is a brief drive from the College of Arkansas in Fayetteville and Walmart’s Bentonville headquarters.
It was chosen as a state park website within the Nineteen Thirties and its trails result in the encircling Ozark Nationwide Forest.
