SAUK COUNTY, Wis. (KNWA/KFTA) — Authorities in Wisconsin are reviewing possible connections between a 2020 unsolved stabbing at Devil’s Lake State Park and the recent double homicide at Devil’s Den State Park in Northwest Arkansas.
Andrew James McGann, 28, was arrested in July 2025 and charged with killing Clinton and Cristen Brink while they were hiking with their two daughters at Devil’s Den State Park in Washington County, Arkansas. Investigators say McGann confessed, and that DNA found at the scene matched his.
Now, investigators in Sauk County, Wisconsin, are re-examining the Oct. 14, 2020, stabbing of 24-year-old John Schmutzer, who was killed while hiking alone at Devil’s Lake State Park. DNA collected at the time ruled out other suspects, but no arrest was made.
A week after McGann’s arrest, Wisconsin authorities received several tips referencing him and requested DNA analysis from Arkansas to determine if he could be connected to—or ruled out from—the Schmutzer case…