Teacher Charged With Killing Couple In State Park Is From IL, Went To Suburban HS: Reports

CHICAGO — The 28-year-old teacher charged with murder in the killing of a married couple hiking at an Arkansas state park grew up in Chicago and went to high school in Oak Park, according to reports.

Andrew James McGann of Springdale, Arkansas, was arrested Wednesday in connection with the July 26 killing of 43-year-old Clinton David Brink and 41-year-old Cristen Amanda Brink at Devil’s Den State Park, police said, adding the couple was hiking with their two young daughters.

Officials said the husband was stabbed first, about half a mile into the park, then the mother ushered her daughters to safety before returning to help her husband. She was also stabbed to death. The girls — ages 7 and 9 — are in the care of family, authorities said. A third daughter was not hiking with her family when the Brinks were killed.

McGann, who has no criminal record, was arrested at a barbershop in Springdale, about 30 miles north of the park, and admitted to the killing, according to police, who described the attack as random.

McGann grew up in Chicago’s Garfield Ridge neighborhood and returned to his childhood home two years ago to show it to a girlfriend, the house’s current owner, Anthony Morales, told WGN.

McGann also attended Oak Park’s Fenwick High School, which he graduated from in 2015, school spokesperson Scott Hardesty confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times.

In adulthood, McGann worked as a teacher and was placed on administrative leave at an elementary school in the Dallas suburb of Flower Mound, Texas, in spring 2023 after concerns were raised about his classroom management. But he passed background checks in two different Oklahoma school districts and had been expected to start a new job in northwest Arkansas on Aug. 11.

Washington County prosecutor Brandon Carter indicated the jury would have the option to sentence McGann to the death penalty.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.