Teacher suspected of killing Arkansas hikers alarmed parents with ‘odd’ behavior

Two years before he was arrested in the killings of two Arkansas hikers, Andrew J. McGann was known to some parents at a Texas elementary school for his pattern of off-putting behavior around their kids.

Lindsay Camp Polyak, whose son would spend some days in McGann’s classroom at Donald Elementary School in the town of Flower Mound, said she and other parents grew concerned that he was not properly teaching their children and felt they were falling behind academically. She also noticed what she characterized as McGann’s “grooming” of girls in the classroom.

“My kid would come home and say, ‘Mr. McGann loves to play tag. He plays tag at recess every day with the girls,’” Polyak said, adding that her son told her McGann gave out candy and special prizes — but only to the girls.

In a group chat with other fourth grade parents, Polyak said she learned that McGann arranged “special lunches” where certain girls would remain in his classroom; some parents alleged McGann encouraged girls to sit on his lap.

Details about McGann’s background as a teacher emerged after authorities arrested him in the fatal stabbings of a couple at Arkansas’ Devil’s Den State Park on July 26. Officials believe McGann, 28, fatally stabbed Clinton David Brink, 43, and his wife, Cristen Amanda Brink, 42, in front of their 7- and 9-year-old daughters.

McGann’s motive remains a mystery. Arkansas State Police Director Mike Hagar told reporters Thursday that officials have “no reason to believe that there was any known association between our suspect and our victims.” Arkansas authorities do not believe the Brinks’ young daughters were the intended targets of what appears to have been a random attack.

Polyak learned about McGann’s arrest at a barbershop after a parent sent her a link to a news article. “I was like, holy s—, this is McGann, this is the guy who was teaching my kid,” she said. “He had no business being around our children.”

Megan Perkins, another parent whose child attended Donald Elementary, described McGann as “odd.” She recalled that he was unnecessarily competitive with the kids during field day athletic contests. She said other parents would chat about his strange behavior, though not everyone was necessarily alarmed and some believed he was simply insecure as the new guy in the community.

In a statement, the Lewisville Independent School District said McGann was “placed on administrative leave in the spring of 2023 following concerns related to classroom management, professional judgement and student favoritism.” The school district said an “internal investigation found no evidence of inappropriate behavior with students.”

The Texas Education Agency said it had no record of state investigations into McGann, but placed a flag on his teaching certificate on Thursday following his arrest.

McGann resigned from the school district in May 2023, Lewisville ISD said. He then moved back to Oklahoma, where he got a job as a fifth grade teacher at Spring Creek Elementary School in Oklahoma City for the 2023-24 school year.

In an interview with NBC News, a woman whose son was in McGann’s class at Spring Creek said he was “pretty quiet, but all the kids loved him.”

The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about potential harassment, said her son admired his teacher and started wearing polo shirts to school “because that’s how Mr. McGann dressed.” McGann expressed an interest in wrestling, hiking and the outdoors, and at one point he started a running club for the kids.

She noticed that McGann was frequently “awkward around the parents” and “struggled to make eye contact during parent-teacher conferences.” He once joked that he taught elementary school students because he was “afraid of adults,” she said.

In a statement, Oklahoma’s Broken Arrow Public Schools said McGann “voluntarily resigned at the end of that year to pursue employment elsewhere.”

The district said there were “no disciplinary actions taken against him during his time at Broken Arrow Public Schools, and nothing in his background or reference checks gave cause for concern during the interview process.”

McGann’s next stop was Northwoods Fine Arts Academy in the Tulsa suburb of Sand Springs, where he worked during the 2024-25 school year. He again taught fifth grade and again “resigned his position” at the end of one academic year, Sand Springs Public Schools confirmed in a statement.

It’s not clear why McGann decided to relocate to Arkansas. But he had lined up another teaching job there, this time with Springdale Public Schools.

On July 26, two weeks before the start of the school year, a hiker came across a grisly crime scene in Devil’s Den State Park. The hiker found two girls alone on the trail, led them to safety, and then came across their parents, who had been stabbed to death, according to a preliminary report from the prosecutor’s office for the state’s 4th Judicial District.

A man had been spotted leaving the trail with what appeared to be blood on his face before getting into a black sedan later determined to be a Kia Stinger, according to the report.

The killings kicked off a manhunt that lasted four days before police tracked the Stinger to Springdale, where McGann was getting a haircut.

The barber, Adriana Guadalupe Ruiz Avalos, said she got a strange feeling about him almost immediately.

Ruiz Avalos said she tends to have a good read on the customers who stream into Lupita’s, an unassuming family-owned beauty salon in the Arkansas town of Springdale. That’s why her guard went up when a tense-faced 20-something in baggy khakis stepped into the salon on Wednesday afternoon and tersely asked for a high-fade haircut.

Ruiz Avalos, 28, started snipping away but kept a close eye on her customer. She had been following news reports about the frantic search for the suspect in the Devil’s Den killings. The man in front of her seemed timid, barely saying a word and keeping his head down.

Roughly five minutes into the haircut, a law enforcement officer walked inside. He was looking for the driver of the car parked outside, and he had a few questions for Ruiz Avalos’ quiet customer.

Before long, McGann was handcuffed and taken away.

Ruiz Avalos, who watches a lot of true-crime documentaries, made a point of keeping McGann’s hair clippings on the floor in the event they could be useful to investigators hunting for DNA evidence. In the hours after his arrest, she had trouble calming down.

“I felt nauseous all night. I didn’t fall asleep until 6 a.m. I was just thinking about them,” Ruiz Avalos said, referring to the Brinks.

The Brinks, like McGann, were recent transplants to Arkansas. They had moved to the state about three weeks ago, according to Clinton’s sister, Katrina Hutchins.

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

“They deserve justice,” the family said in a brief statement.

McGann has been booked on charges of capital murder, jail records show. Authorities said that McGann’s DNA matched that found at the scene. He made statements to investigators “indicating that he had committed these heinous acts.”