January 21, 2013–There is the promise of justice in the Brink case

The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department today released news that 50-year-old Ryan Mark Wyngarden was arrested Friday for the murder of his sister and brother-in-law, Gail and Rick Brink, in November of 1987.

Here are some local links to Channel 8, Channel 13, and will link it to the Grand Rapids Press as soon as we get a story.

The department is not releasing much information just yet–and who can blame them–but to our most recent knowledge the cold case was under the supervision of Venus Repper and Dave Blakely and they were working the case hard, especially since 2011.

Ryan Wyngarden was, by his own admission to me, involved in drugs and drug dealing at the time of the murder. He would call periodically to urge me to make a film about the case. He may have been seeking information instead. There will be much more about this in the days ahead.  After all, an arrest is not a conviction or a admission of guilt.