Authorities on Wednesday were still hunting the suspect who murdered a married couple in front of their young daughters on an Arkansas hiking trail over the weekend.
On Tuesday, they released a photo to accompany a composite sketch released the day before of a “person of interest” in the double homicide, the Arkansas State Police said.
Wednesday marked the fourth day since the couple’s 7- and 9-year-old girls appeared at the Devil’s Den State Park visitors center Saturday afternoon, reporting that their parents had been assaulted and were missing. Less than an hour after police arrived and started scouring the trails, screams in the distance led them to the bodies of Clinton David Brink, 43, and Cristen Amanda Brink, 41.
Police have not detailed how the Brinks died, or a motive. The state crime lab has their bodies and is determining their manner and cause of death.
The family had just moved from South Dakota to Prairie Grove, in northwest Arkansas. Prairie Grove Mayor David Faulk said their water had been connected just two weeks earlier. Clinton Brink was about to start a job delivering milk for Hiland Dairy in Fayetteville, and Cristen Brink was licensed as a nurse.
They had also spent several years in Montana, according to a colleague of Cristen Brink’s.
The couple’s family said the parents died as “heroes protecting their little girls.” The uninjured girls were safe and being cared for by family members, police said.
The man being sought is white, of medium build, and was carrying a black backpack. He wore a shirt with long but rolled-up sleeves, along with dark pants, sunglasses, a dark baseball cap and fingerless gloves. He “may have sustained an injury during the attack,” police said, without elaborating.
Witnesses saw him driving away in a black, four-door sedan, possibly a Mazda, with tape hiding the license plates, heading toward State Highway 170 or State Highway 220.
Police are asking anyone who was in the 2,500-acre state park on Saturday to comb through their photos and videos for anything that might shed light on the situation. Devil’s Den, about 140 miles northeast of state capital Little Rock, is known for its hiking trails, rock formations and tough terrain.
With News Wire Services
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