What we lose in the Shadows (A father and daughter True Crime Podcast)
What we lose in the Shadows (A father and daughter True Crime Podcast)
When evil wears black at noon
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A family’s move turns into tragedy on a summer hike when a stranger in black attacks, and two parents fight to protect their daughters. We trace the evidence that led to a barbershop arrest, examine red flags, and reflect on safety, community, and courage.
Devil's Den 'killer' Andrew James McGann was 'pretty cold' teacher
James Andrew McGann arrested for Devil's Den State Park double murder | Fox News
Contact us at: whatweloseintheshadows@gmail.com
Background music by Michael Shuller Music
Warm-up Banter and Puppy Chaos
SPEAKER_00Good morning and welcome to What We Lose in the Shadows.
SPEAKER_03A father-daughter true crime podcast.
SPEAKER_00My name is Jamison Keys.
SPEAKER_03I'm Caroline. Hello.
SPEAKER_00Hi Caroline. How are you?
SPEAKER_03Good. How are you?
SPEAKER_00You know, it's my favorite time of the year. Autumn is my favorite, followed by spring, and summer is my last least favorite, actually.
SPEAKER_03I think mine's the opposite. Mine's spring, summer, fall, winter. I do not like winter.
SPEAKER_00That's the only time I'm cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Not in fall?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm cool in fall. This is perfect time of the year. This is really nice. Weather's starting to get wonderful.
SPEAKER_03So you're a PSL person then? PSL. Pumpkin spice lattes?
SPEAKER_00Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. I I am a great, a great dissenter against the pumpkin spice conspiracy. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Conspiracy. Yeah, it is. Um, did you try the new seasonal drink? It's a pecan crunch. It's really good.
SPEAKER_00Pecan crunch. Mm-hmm. Well, that's better than the what was the one last year with the lavender.
SPEAKER_03Oh, lavender. No, that's spring. Spring. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00Lavender oat oat milk latte. Not oak milk, like I said last week.
SPEAKER_02Oh, oak.
SPEAKER_00That'd be funny. Tastes like a tree.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But no, no, I'm not a great lover of pumpkin spice. And nor do I understand the whole fascination this time of year with it.
SPEAKER_02Well, obviously a lot of people do. Yes. And there's pumpkin pie. That's also pumpkin. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03So I guess you are part of the conspiracy.
SPEAKER_00Funny. So this is the puppy edition. So we might you might hear some odd things here because uh Caroline just bought a new puppy.
SPEAKER_03Yes, adopted rescue.
SPEAKER_00So judging by the size of the paws, it's a boxer slash Rhodesian Ridgeback combination. Either way, it's a big dog.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she's gonna be a big girl. She's already like 30 some pounds.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So we're rushing here. She's currently, we're currently uh she's currently in involved with a flavored kind of a rawhide bone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she is just such a little cutie, and she's gonna grow up and be my protector. All the true crime girlies out there definitely understand that. And like the want to have like a big protective dog. And I love that she's like a girl dog.
SPEAKER_00Right? It's so cute. Absolutely, but uh she does have size, she's gonna have size on her side. So absolutely. I and her bark, even though she's a puppy, it's it's uh something to consider. Really? Absolutely.
Case Introduction and Trigger Warning
SPEAKER_03Good. That's what that's what I like to hear. The trigger warning for today is uh murder.
The Brink-Kent Family Backstory
SPEAKER_00That's right. So this is a case that's just recent. This is a case that um that really it's kind of outraged the entire country, and obviously there's a reason for that. So uh Clinton Brink was a 43-year-old man from Bakersville, California, and he seemed to be a hard-working guy who loved the outdoors. Uh, he had worked as an oil rig driller, uh, he was a certified nursing assistant, he was a delivery driver. Uh, he met a woman and they fell in love and had a daughter, but the marriage didn't really work out. And after the divorce, Clinton remained a devoted and present father. His daughter remained his primary focus. He met Kristen Kent, also from Bakersfield, and the two hit it off. They both loved hiking and camping in the great outdoors, generally speaking. Kristen was a registered nurse and blended her intelligence and her empathy not only on her job, but in every facet of her life. Clinton was described as a kind, gentle, unfailingly dependable person. Kristen also showed a great affection for Clinton's uh daughter that was from his first marriage, and she became like a second mother to her. They decided to get married and began planning their lives together. Not long after that, uh, they had one daughter and then a second daughter two years later. And the family was now complete. So they had three. They have three total. Uh Clinton was always looking for the next big opportunity, which led them and the family across the country, from California to the Midwest to Montana, and finally earlier this year to Arkansas. Earlier this year. 2025. 2025. So on uh Saturday, July 26th this year, uh, they were unpacking their new home in Prairie Grove, Arkansas. Clinton was scheduled to start his new job the following Monday. They decided to take a break from unpacking and go for a hike with their two girls, aged seven and nine. Devil's Den State Park is about 30 minutes away from where they live. This was in the middle of the day, and somewhere around 2 p.m., not too far from the trailhead, on a rocky kind of remote trail, they encountered something evil. According to Little Girls, uh, they saw a man dressed in a long black shirt, black pants, and a baseball cap, which, you know, the girls thought was kind of odd because it was a really hot 95 plus hot summer humid day in Arkansas. Other people also thought it was odd because one hiker took a picture of the man whose back was turned and he was looking off into nowhere, into the distance. He also had a backpack and fingerless gloves.
SPEAKER_03So a different hiker who just walked past him took a photo of this this man dressed in black.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, it was it must have been really strange. It was 95 degrees and you know, really humid, so not exactly what you'd wear on a hike like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's so weird though. He must have like been exuding some kind of like weird energy to have someone, like a random man too, who's like not as maybe nervous as a woman would be, right? So like to have like a random male hiker take a photo of you.
SPEAKER_02I mean, that's that would be cause for concern for sure.
SPEAKER_00For sure. This man approached the bring family, and without warning or provocation, he produced a knife and stabbed Clinton. Clinton fought to protect his family, and Kristen uh sought to get the girls to safety. When she got the kids away, she ran back to her husband. Unfortunately, both Clinton and Kristen were stabbed to death. Another hiker found the two frightened little girls and led them back to the safety of the welcome center and asked them to call the police. He returned to the trail to help if he could. Police arrived at 2 40 p.m. and found the two bodies. Immediately, the authorities shut down the park and called the state police. They interviewed other hikers, asking them for any pictures that they may have taken and for any information they might have. They were able to get a rough sketch of the possible killer. One man said he saw a man in dark clothes with red hair leaving the park with apparently a smear of blood on his face. Other witnesses said they saw a man fitting the description get into a black four-door sedan, possibly a Mazda. Another witness said he saw the black sedan driving away quickly and said the license plate was covered with duct tape. Uh. So premeditated.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Oh my goodness.
The Hike at Devil's Den
SPEAKER_00Police also uh collected camera footage from traffic cams, and they asked people around the general area for their doorbell cam footage. The police forensics lab took blood samples from the crime scene and found three unique blood profiles present. So the victim plus one other. There was no match in CODIS, but the Brinks fought back apparently because they drew blood from the attacker. It's so sad though. I mean, the father must have, you know, been sensing that there was definite danger as this guy approached. It just didn't look right. Something triggered him. Maybe he said something to little girls. We don't know that. But he fought for his children's lives. Kristen, who got the children to safety, but then she went back to give her husband aid or help him in some way, I guess. I guess if you're a nurse, which she was, right? Uh you're you're, you know, you're used to being committed and fearless when it comes to the job. Although I really wish she hadn't. Uh Kristen had also been a college volleyball player in a NCAA uh size school. Wow. So she was courageous and fit.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's just I don't know. I understand why she went back, even though, you know, she would have it would have been a better situation had she not.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03But I think she would have tortured herself had she not, you know, she would have been like, I should have gone back there. I should have made sure that, you know, I could have saved him. You know, she would have tortured herself with that. So I understand why she went back, but it's just so unfortunate that now, you know, the little girls don't have a mom.
SPEAKER_00That's the thing. That's the thing that really that bothers so much. And and I think, I think if if it if I were in the case, and I hopefully never am in that case, I I would understand that they didn't come back because my primary goal in that situation was to get my kids away.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_00So not long after that, a man walked into a barbershop in Springdale, Arkansas, about 35 miles away from Devil's Den State Park. Um, when he entered the barbershop, the young lady that was cutting his hair kind of got a weird vibe off him. Five minutes into his haircut, the state police entered the building and asked who owned the black uh skia stinger parked out front. The man in the chair said it was his. He was 28-year-old Andrew James McGann. So young. Yes, and so demented. He fit the sketch and he did have the black sedan. Police arrested him and cuffed him on the spot. Good. The young lady who was cutting his hair said that she hadn't swept up his hair yet, and the police collected that. Oh, good thinking. Yeah. Good thing on her part, too. Because That's what I mean. You know, because they're like, you know, okay, we got this guy. And she goes, wait a minute. There might be something there might be something here you might want. So the police tested the hair and extracted the DNA, and guess what? It matched. That is so crazy. Now, McGann uh is not your usual suspect. Really? Right. He's not some scary homeless person or some scary person that you would initially think would be a serial killer or a killer. He had no criminal record. His DNA was not in the database. In fact, he was by occupation an elementary school teacher.
SPEAKER_03What? That's horrifying. Oh my gosh. Imagine your child goes to the an elementary school around your neighborhood, and literally their teacher is arrested for murdering a family. Horrifying.
SPEAKER_00But wait, there's more.
SPEAKER_03No, there's not.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. Although he's not your normal teacher, he grew up in Illinois and went to college in multiple states, including Illinois and Oklahoma. Eventually he graduated from Oklahoma State in 2022.
SPEAKER_03With one degree.
SPEAKER_00With one degree.
SPEAKER_03It's interesting. I have noticed that.
SPEAKER_00He bounced around. He went to a school in Illinois. He went to another school. He went to a community college. And then he and he finally settled on a, I guess, a major, and that was elementary education.
The Attack and Heroic Parents
SPEAKER_03It's scary. But also, I mean, I feel like we do hear that a lot with these like killers or serial killers, is that they're just not content at one like college, right? Right. And they bounce around or they flunk out and then they go back. And you know, it's it's really interesting. And I obviously there's tons of people who do that that don't kill people. But it is an interesting little like tidbit about serial killers that seems to have like a correlation with that.
SPEAKER_00There's always stuff that someone can say, Well, look at that. But I mean, take taken in totality, it's like that's seems insignificant.
SPEAKER_03But however, why is it often taught, you know what I mean? It is it's weird.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So he began working after he graduated in 2022 as a substitute teacher in Oklahoma. Just as quickly, in fact, um, he left that job. In fact, in the last three years, he's worked for six different schools.
SPEAKER_03See, but again, we see this like the not like they're just not content or they can't get along with people. And it's not just one school, right? Where like something off could have happened. It's like multiple schools in a row you can't get along with, like, very telling.
SPEAKER_00That many schools in like two years from when he graduated, or three years from when he graduated, because he worked in Donald Elementary in Flower Mound, Texas, Broken Arrow School District in Oklahoma, uh, Sand Springs Elementary in Oklahoma, uh, and he had just been hired by Barrie uh Elementary School in Arkansas.
SPEAKER_03I bet they're literally like, oh, thank God we didn't. Or did he actually work there?
SPEAKER_00No, he he had been so he he like Clinton was about to start the new school year, about to start the new job, and they made it very prominent on their website saying he was never in charge of children in our school. He almost was, though. He almost was though, but he wasn't.
SPEAKER_02They were very yeah, they were like this is not a problem. Just by the skin of our teeth, we got lucky that he didn't end up teaching our school children.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, so and he had never been charged with any crimes. Um, I think the schools uh may have asked him to leave several times. In fact And why? Well, uh so one mother said uh he was really strange at their parents' teach parent teacher conference. He couldn't make eye contact with her and he answered her only in one word, uh, one word answer. So that is just weird.
SPEAKER_03So off weird, especially if you've ever been to a parent-teacher conference, like which I it seems like I wouldn't have, but I have in my other job. But um yeah, it's like the teachers are almost overly prepared every single time. Like they're like, here's exactly what your student is doing. This is their weaknesses, it's their strength, they're this. So I can't even imagine like not making eye contact. That's so out of the norm for teachers.
SPEAKER_00So in addition to that, he he was said to be really cold, you know, dealing with other people and dealing with the parents, which of course is nothing tribul uh nothing criminal, but it is troubling.
SPEAKER_03Um you know, instinct it tells us what uh evidence doesn't tell us yet.
SPEAKER_00That's profound. You should put that on a t-shirt. I don't know if it's profound, but it's true, you know, he's scary. And obviously, you know, obviously innocent until proven guilty here, but the DNA at the you know murder scene is pretty damning, right? The fact that he had cuts on his hand pretty damn is bulletproof. Yeah, it is. So no motive has been discovered. It seems completely random.
SPEAKER_03Did they do a psych screening?
SPEAKER_00I I think they haven't even worked that far because it wasn't that long, that much time. He's been, you know, to an arraignment and so on. Which month did this happen? This happened in July.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so literally it was just you know like a month or so ago. Oh, that's so tragic. Now, of course, it's now one of the police things, one of the things I read, one of the accounts said that he had confessed. But um, I'm not sure that's exactly correct because he pleaded innocent and is you know waiting trial.
Witnesses, Evidence, and DNA Leads
SPEAKER_03So uh just like the pulling a knife, um, like killing random people is like is seeming to lean like mentally unwell. Right. Um, although I guess you could just like completely apathetic and and you know, it could be that, but um, but probably, you know, maybe schizophrenic or something, like someone like that has like you know, things going on where like they're being told that they have to do that, because it's just like unprovoked. It's it's very strange.
SPEAKER_00Unprovoked, random. There's no evidence that they they just got there. There's no way they could have bumped into this dude, right? Except on that, that that fateful day on that path, right? The state, state of Arkansas, the attorney general, has not ruled out seeking the death penalty. So that may very well happen. So I in in the interim, um, I was looking online and it's really, it's really just it struck a nerve with people because of the random, terrible, brutal nature of the fact that that the the father fought and the mother went back for the father. It just it struck something. So in that little town where they they had just moved into, just recently, I think over the past weekend, they had an enormous fundraiser. Like there's companies and there are people that you know, food vendors and there are people that that um you know gave things to be auctioned off and so on. I think they raised like$45,000. And a couple different places across the country, they have um started up um GoFundMe pages for the little girls. Great. Yeah. And I'm hoping because the older, the older uh daughter, like I said, was just I think she's in her 20s. She recently just got married and she was starting to maybe go out and uh get a family of her own. Hopefully it ends up they're only half sisters, but I think the fact that the, you know, they've shared a shared a father and so on, um, that maybe I'm hoping that the family member is able to take them in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, even if it's not her, um, you know, another family member. Because, you know, young 20s, that's tough. But um, yeah, I'm sure they have other family, or hopefully they have other family, and um it's possible that they will not have to go through foster care.
SPEAKER_00Um Yeah, that that sounds like it's um it sounds like it's um a pretty possible thing for sure.
SPEAKER_03Good. Because that's so traumatic. I mean, no matter what, unfortunately, like the little girls are gonna like have quite a bit of trauma from that. Yeah. And uh hopefully, yeah, that they find like a safe place to heal from that. So sad.
SPEAKER_00I mean, but but I mean, the the interesting thing was, even though they were seven and nine, they were, according to the police, one of the biggest contributors to the information that helped find this guy.
SPEAKER_03That is very interesting because seven and nine, I mean, those are young ages. Yeah, for sure. But good for them. I mean, they must have, I don't know, just felt that they had to, you know, be aware of what was going on, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, physical evidence is is a big thing, especially now that uh DNA is so prominent. But you know, um it's interesting because not the uh an all large number of crimes, you know, they say, well, we have a witness. Well, you know, that's not always really solid, right?
SPEAKER_03No, because I eyewitnesses um or I what is it? Is that eyewitnesses? Eyewitnesses eyewitnesses, um, they aren't always reliable is the thing. Even if they think that they are, like being like honest and like forthcoming, sometimes they get it wrong. Like that's the scariest thing. Um, and why they trust, yeah, like evidence over eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, in fact, most times like 15, only 15% of the time does the solid physical evidence um actually be the determining factor. Only 15% of the time. Yeah, because the you know prosecution can throw it out. There could be something they can find it, they can find it, um, like for example, they could find it without a warrant and it gets thrown out. Things like that. Oh, yeah. Um, so witnesses themselves, which are not you already used to think, well, if there's no witness, there's no there's no way to convict. Only 35% of the time are witnesses the most um prominent factor in getting a case solved, um, which leaves like 50% or so, and that is actually the person confessing.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_00So the police get them in the room and they they know they have, you know, techniques and so on that um so so actually few murders in this country are planned. A lot of them are crimes of passion or random, you know, something like that.
SPEAKER_03Domestic violence. Domestic violence is huge, of course.
SPEAKER_00Um, but uh yeah, few, a few, few things are planned. But this was this was definitely something he thought about. It was premeditated. He taped his license plate. So no one could.
SPEAKER_03He's definitely going in there to to do something horrible.
The Arrest of Andrew McGann
SPEAKER_00He was dressed to um to cover himself up. He was dressed to try to reduce the amount of you know DNA and so on that go on him with all the long clothes and so on. But but still, they managed to they managed to the you know, Clinton must have put up one heck of a fight.
SPEAKER_03Of course, absolutely. I mean, anyone, hopefully, would do that for their children, right? I mean I I think that both you know the mom and the dad, you know, they did what what they had to do. Uh and that's beautiful. They're love.
SPEAKER_00It really, it really is beautiful. And people across the country are saying, stone, you know, stone cold, stone clad, absolute heroes. No other way to look at it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely beautiful. So sad though, like ugh, just so unnecessary.
SPEAKER_00The interesting thing is that because of the nature of it, several police departments are looking into cold cases now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, as they should, because he was moving all over the place. That's weird.
SPEAKER_00You want to hear something chilling?
SPEAKER_03I've heard a lot of things chilling in the past 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_00In October of 2020, uh-huh, during the height of COVID, an investment banker named John Schletzer was out on a hike in the middle of the day in Devil's Lake Park in Wisconsin. He was on a remote trail not far from the trailhead when he was suddenly stabbed to death. A witness noticed an average man, average build, and blessed dressed in black with a black um book bag. Ooh. Now it's possible. Definitely possible because Wisconsin, remember now, this is during COVID, so this guy was probably in 2020, he was probably at home in Illinois, close to Wisconsin, or in Oklahoma, you know, one of those places. Could he have gone definitely to this? And it's strikingly similar. Middle of the day. People don't normally attack people in the middle of the day, using a knife, primary weapon, um, and dressed in black with a black backpack. There's so many things. I saw that, I read that, I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. Because they also try to tie it to another case of um an older woman who was walking on a trail in I think it was Minnesota or someplace like that, and uh in the middle of the day, and she was actually the dean of a college. Oh, and she but she was shot. So possible, still possible, still possible, but maybe not. But like serial killers tend to stick to the same modus operandi, right? But there are multiple agencies across the country requesting DNA samples. So maybe at least one or two, that especially the um investment banker, that may very well be the same guy.
Teacher Profile and Red Flags
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's that's wild. Apparently, I mean there always have been murders, stabbings. So there was so there was a a Ukrainian um immigrant here um who uh escaped Ukraine, escaped everything that's going on with the Russian attacks and soldiers coming in and like killing and raping women in Ukraine. So she escaped that. Uh she was 23. 23, moved here. I thought she was safe, assumingly more safe uh than a war zone, but apparently not, because she was stabbed for no reason on the bus in Charlotte. And there's video evidence of this, which is really disturbing, and they stop it before before he strikes her. Um, but I mean she got on, he was sitting right behind her, and she got on after him, and he just like was getting more and more agitated, and so he pulled down his thing and then just stabbed her three times.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03And you know, she she unfortunately passed away. But yeah, the witnesses there were like there was no, they didn't even talk. She didn't even see it coming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's the thing. I think so many of these things are actually somehow related to or interconnected with mental health problems.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely, absolutely. It's it's to me at least, it seems like like schizophrenia. Right. They they were trying to, at least in this situation, it seems like something was upsetting them. They were trying to um minimize that whatever was going on inside their their urge, they were trying to. Right. And they just it they just couldn't. And so it kind of seems like, you know, they were hearing voices that were telling them, like, oh, like you need to kill her, you know, which is common with schizophrenia. Um, not always, um, not always with um like killing people, but it it can be common with like violent urges to hurt people, which is why it's so important to seek help if you have mental health issues. There are medications that you can take that lower these urges. And the the sad part is that oftentimes, I think most times, the voices are still there and and the visuals are still there, unfortunately. So it is it's a really sad thing when this happens for everyone involved. Everyone involved. Right, exactly. And that that's I think the thing that I I wanted to like, you know, I we don't know what happened with the Devil's Den person. Um, but what we do know is that if it was a mental health issue, they did not seek help. And that's the real issue here is that people need to seek help because there is help to be to be given for these issues.
SPEAKER_00You know, you know what else was weird? If if indeed that other case, um uh a devil's lake um is somehow a person in dra black dressed in black, devil in the in the in the name. I mean, hopefully this isn't some kind of a weird Satanism kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_03You know, I feel like that I mean it is it is strange, but I mean people if they're connected, it's really odd. Yeah, but people get murdered everywhere, all over the the world, but all over the United States in every city.
SPEAKER_00You know what? State parks though. I mean, you could we could do an entire episode on just people that have been attacked and killed in state parks.
SPEAKER_03People do entire true crime podcasts on only park-related uh crime. So it's like it's I mean something about it. It's so interesting because it feels very um, it feels very relaxing to me.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03But I I guess it's just like a place where people feel unhibited. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know, but it certainly was a terrible crime, and and I'm and I'm I'm happy that they caught the person. Um but uh I I sure wish I sure wish at least one of them had survived for their girls' sake.
SPEAKER_03I wish things were different, for sure. Follow the show on whatever streaming site you're listening on.
SPEAKER_00And remember, all of the source material will be available in the show notes.
SPEAKER_01And follow us on Instagram at WhatWeLose in the shadows and let us know if you want to hear a specific case.
SPEAKER_00Or if you just want to give us some feedback.
SPEAKER_01Okay, join us in the shadows next Tuesday. Bye.
