Crime With Holly Presents: Gail & Rick Brink

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk
right now in true crime, and then together we're going
to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys,
welcome to this week's episode of Prime Time Crime, which
is a guest episode presented by my friend Holly of
Crime with Holly. We're not going to do an official

(00:20):
right now in true Crime this week. I'm going to
save it all for next week, but I did want
to do a little intro. I have shared an episode
from Holly in the past, so you guys have definitely
heard from her if you are a regular listener of mine.
But this week she is going to be telling you
about the unsolved for many years but now solved double

(00:41):
homicide of Rick and Gail Brink And it is a
super interesting story. I went down the rabbit hole, and
I'm so glad that Holly is willing to share this
episode with you guys, my listeners. So please, if you
are not following Holly, please go follow her. I'm with
Holly wherever you get your podcasts. Also on social media.

(01:04):
She is a solo podcaster. She does an amazing job.
She does solve cases, unsolved cases, She kind of covers
it all and she's amazing, So please go give her
a follow and give her a listen and enjoy this
week's episode, presented to you by Holly from Crime with Holly.
I will be back officially with you guys next week

(01:26):
for a brand new unsolved case.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Hello, Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Crime
with Holly. It's your girl, Holly, and I am back
today with another solved murder case for you all.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
But before we get.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Into those details, I just wanted to tell you guys
about a book that I received from author John Vines.
The book is called The World Is Angry. I absolutely
love to read. I read all kinds of genres, but
it'll come as no surprise is that I love myself

(02:02):
a good thriller, a good mystery, and when it raps
crime into the mix, I am sold and such a
sucker for it. Like I'm the type of person where
you do not want to bother me. When I'm reading
a good thriller, I get so invested. I'm a pretty
slow reader, but give your girl a good thriller and

(02:23):
I will be so invested that all of my spare
time will go into reading. And that is exactly what
happened with this book. This book follows Adam, who is
the main character, and his friends as they answer the
question are they chasing a killer or are they walking
straight into his trap? From chapter one, when the first

(02:47):
murder happened and the victim was found carefully staged with
a cryptic message, I was hooked. I stayed up way
past my bedtime because the way in which this person
was found and the eerie met message just had me
so curious about what was going to happen. I don't
want to say too much. I don't want to give
too much away, but if you like thrillers and mysteries,

(03:10):
this one is for you.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
I haven't quite made it to the end yet.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Hopefully this weekend I will be able to finish in
between my kids's sporting games, but I do highly suggest
y'all pick up a copy for yourselves. This is John
Vine's debut novel, and I cannot wait to see what
more he comes out with because I've really enjoyed this
one so far. This book is perfect for all of

(03:33):
us crime lovers, and so if you want to snag
yourself a copy, I will have the direct link in.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
The description of this episode again.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
The book is called The World Is Angry by John Vines.
Thank you John for gifting me a copy. I really
appreciate it, and I look forward to more books of
yours to come. So today's case is a case I
honestly had never heard of, and I stumbled upon it
while trying to figure out which case I wanted to

(04:04):
cover this week. I feel like I do that a lot.
I stumble across these lesser known cases, which I love.
I love sharing these cases that really haven't received as
much attention as others. Lots of creators do amazing, amazing
jobs sharing those bigger cases, and I just feel like
some of these smaller cases deserve the spotlight as well.

(04:26):
This is a case that went unsolved for twenty six years,
and it took a new set of eyes to uncover
some discrepancies that nobody ever could have imagined. This case
has some serious twists that I myself never saw coming.

(04:47):
I don't have any kind of case updates today or
shout outs to give, so we are just gonna get
down to business and hop right into today's episode.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Today's episode is on the.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Murders of Gail and Rick Brink. Gail Marie Winegarden was

(05:28):
born on April twenty fourth, nineteen sixty five, to her parents,
Windell and Dorothea Winegarden. Gail grew up in a large family,
and she was one of eight children that Windell and
Dorothea had. She lived in Ottawa County, Michigan, and for
the most part, it seems like her childhood was pretty typical.

(05:49):
I will say that there were financial struggles within the family.
Windell and Dorothea were not well off by any means,
and given such a large family, imagine some of the
financial strains that come with that. But it was because
of these financial strains that Gail knew from a young
age what it was like to work hard and to provide.

(06:11):
She knew that she wanted to get a job as
quickly as she could so she could begin saving for
her future, and she even told family members that she
would do whatever it took so that she always had
enough money to buy herself whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.
That was her goal. She was going to make it happen,

(06:32):
whether that meant working overtime or multiple jobs. She knew
she didn't want to face the same struggles her parents
faced as soon as she was old enough, she got
a job as a teenager working as a waitress, and
the hourly wage was not great, but she made up
for that with amazing tips that she brought in. She

(06:52):
was a total natural when it came to waiting on
people and that kind of work. She had this big,
beautiful she was vibrant. She was friendly and funny and
made all of her customers feel special. Her sister Cheryl
was quoted saying, quote, she made good money because she
had a charming personality about her.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
End quote. Not only did Gail have this.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Incredible work ethic and a vibrant energy about her, she
also was beautiful with dark curly hair.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
And a big smile.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
And being such a beautiful and charming and an amazing,
incredible person that Gail was, she attracted a lot of men.
People were just drawn to her. And while that's fine
in Dandy. She had an older brother named Ryan, who
was not quite three years older than she was. I
think he was about like two and a half years

(07:51):
and he was like this fierce protector of his little sister.
He always looked out for her, He protected her. He
scared dudes away if they weren't treating her right, or
even if they were treating her right. He just made
sure that he let these men know that he was
there for his sister and you're not gonna mess with her.
He was this bulky, manly man who didn't back down

(08:13):
from a fight. From what it sounds like. When Gail
was eighteen years old, she met a man by the
name of Lars and the two started dating. The two
seemed like they had a happy little life together, and
they moved in with each other and lived together for.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
About a year.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
At nineteen years old, Gail was at work when a
handsome man named Rick Brink walked in. Rick was this handsome,
slightly older man. He was twenty five years old, and
again Gail was just nineteen, and when Gail laid eyes
on him, something within her clicked. It was legit love

(08:53):
at first sight for Gail, and that feeling was reciprocated
from Rick as well. What's crazy is that very day
that he met Gil, he went home and told his
mom all about her and said, this is the girl
I'm going to marry.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
They say, when you know, you know.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
And both Rick and Gail knew that they wanted each other.
Meeting Rick was a pivotal moment for Gail, a light
bulb went off in her head that this relationship that
she was in with Lars was not for her anymore
and she wanted Rick. So after meeting Rick, she goes

(09:31):
home after work and she tells Lars that she doesn't
want to be with him anymore. Things aren't going to
work out, and they were done. Lars was not happy,
to say the least, and as Gail was packing up
her things, he kind of snapped, and when she was
pulling things from her dresser drawers, he actually slammed the

(09:51):
drawer shut on her hand, and he even hit her
in the face, giving her a black eye. Obviously, Lars
was not as stand up guy. He wasn't really the
most amazing man prior to her breaking up with him,
and she kind of, I think, had this gut feeling
all along that she didn't want to be with him
long term, and so meeting Rick really gave her that

(10:15):
push in the direction that she needed to leave. When
Gail's older brother, Ryan caught wind that his sister was
assaulted by Lars, Ryan went and confronted him and they
got into a physical altercation and Ryan made threats to
him and told him to stay away from his sister.
Of course, after breaking up with Lars, Gail and Rick

(10:38):
started dating, and it truly was such a cute little
love story for them. Rick was such a gentleman and
he treated Gail like his queen. He was what every
person could hope and dream for in a partner, and
the two really made a great team. Both were very

(10:58):
hard working and dedicated to building their life together. They
had big dreams of buying a house, making it a home,
and creating a family together.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
They were so full of life.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
And energy and were an adventurous couple that you could
just tell when you were around them that they were
so madly and deeply in love. And again, this is
what we all hope and dream of when thinking about
a life partner, and Gail found that in Rick. On
April twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six, a year after they

(11:33):
met and a day after Gail's twenty first birthday, she
and Rick had a small wedding in a church with
their family and friends present. It was a beautiful and
happy day for the newlyweds, and all of the pictures
I've seen from the big day, they were just beaming
with happiness. And love and they're just again I said

(11:54):
it earlier, they're just so cute. They had your typical
wedding reception, filled with dancing, cake, the work, you name.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
It, they had it.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
After the wedding, they went on a tropical cruise for
their honeymoon and spent their days lounging in the sand
at the beach and swimming in the ocean. After their honeymoon,
they came back home and settled into life as newlyweds.
Their first goal together was to buy a house, and
Rick's father, Garrett, helped them find this super cute fixer

(12:24):
upper that was on twenty acres of land, and they
got a really good deal on it because it was
a foreclosure. This house needed a lot of work, though,
but Gale and Rick were so excited to fix this
place up and make it into exactly what they wanted.
The house was also located in their hometown of Holland, Michigan,

(12:48):
and so while they were having this freedom of married
life and adulthood, they were still close to their families,
and their families were also eager to help them with
their home renovation. What I love about this is they
documented their home renovations on home videos, and that is
such a lost thing that we really don't do anymore

(13:11):
now that we have cell phones and social media. I
know my family was huge on taking home videos with
those massive cam quarterers that my dad had to sit
on his shoulder, and that's exactly what Gail and Rick
and their families did. They took tons of home videos
of Gail working on the kitchen cabinets, Rick working on

(13:34):
replacing windows and windowsills, painting the place, and they literally
went top to bottom on this place with renovations. By
November nineteen eighty seven, things were coming together and the
house was almost complete. Rick and Gail had been married
for eighteen months by this time, and Gail confided in

(13:54):
her sister that the next room that they were going
to renovate was going to be a nursery for their
future child. Gail told her sister, Cheryl, that she and
Rick were ready to take the next big step in
their lives and had planned to start trying for a baby.
They both felt like they were ready for the next
chapter of their lives and were so excited to grow

(14:15):
their family and to live in this house that they
were literally piecing together and making it their dream home. Unfortunately,
Gail and Rick would never get that opportunity. They would
never get the opportunity to be parents because their lives
were taken in such an unexpected and tragic way. On Saturday,

(14:37):
November twenty first, nineteen eighty seven, Rick and Gail Brink
were eighteen months into their marriage. They were renovating their
home and laying the foundation for what was going to
be a beautiful future. On that day, they attended a
wedding for one of Rick's friends, and all was well.
They enjoyed their evening out and it was said that

(14:59):
they had left some time after eleven PM after they
danced and had some drinks and spent time celebrating the newlyweds.
But come Monday morning, the twenty third, Rick didn't show
up for work at his job at Trendway Corp. Where
he was a supervisor of this manufacturing company. This immediately

(15:20):
set off alarm bells for his coworkers. Rick was described
as someone who was an incredible young man, wise beyond
his years, responsible and had excellent people skills. For him
to not show up for work that was completely out
of character for him. In all his years of working
at Trendway, he had never no call, no showed, and

(15:44):
rarely called in sick if ever, Rick's boss, Dawn tried
to call their home phone, but he got no answer.
He knew where Gail worked, which was a company called
Donnelly Automotive and she was their office worker. He called
the to check to see if Gail had arrived at
work that day, and she too was a no call,

(16:05):
no show. Obviously, they knew that something was wrong, and
thankfully Dawn knew Rick's parents and so he reached out
to them to see if they knew anything. Rick's parents
also had not heard from Rick or Gil since Saturday,
and his mom just had this terrible gut feeling. They
went over to the home off of Ransom Street, and

(16:26):
Rick's boss Dawn met them there as well. When they
pulled up, they found that Rick's Chevy Blazer was parked
in the driveway, which, at first glanced this seemed like
a good sign. Maybe they were inside the home so
sick that they were unable to call in to work.
But as they walked up the driveway to head to
the front door, they saw that twenty eight year old

(16:48):
Rick Brink was inside of the car and it was bad.
Rick's body was slumped on the driver's side. His knees
were on the floor under the steering wheel, and his
body was slumped over the center of the car, and
his head was on the passenger seat.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
It was very apparent.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
That he had been shot in the head, and finding
your son in this way is just unimaginable. They were
sick to their stomachs, so upset and distraught, and not
only that, they were terrified to enter the home because
they weren't sure what they were going to find inside.
Police responded immediately and entered the home, and in the

(17:32):
master bedroom they found twenty two year old Gail Brink
still in bed. Gail had a pillow placed over her face,
and at first it appeared that she was sleeping, but
the closer they got, the more they realized that the
pillow covering her face was covered in blood. Gail had

(17:53):
been shot three times in the head at point blank range.
At first glance, police thought that maybe this had been
a murder suicide. Maybe Rick had shot Gail first and
then went out to the car and took his own
life out in the Chevy Blazer. Investigators were trying to
process the scene and see if they could find a weapon.

(18:16):
They gently moved Rick's body to see if he had
been lying on top of a gun, but they found
that there was no weapon inside of the car, which
this obviously quickly ruled out murder suicide as being what happened. Also,
notably absent from the scene were shell casings, leaving the

(18:36):
authorities to believe that either someone cleaned up the casinges
or the shots had come from a revolver. It was
later determined that the murder weapon used was a twenty
two caliber revolver. So as I said, Rick had been
shot in the head, also at point blank range, and
they found that there was a bullet that had smashed

(18:57):
the passenger window as well, and oddly, the driver's side
window had been partially rolled down. Rick was clearly wearing
the same clothing he had worn to the wedding that
Saturday night, and he had his work galoshes on, like
maybe he quickly slipped his feet into his work boots
to leave the house to run somewhere really quick. The

(19:18):
blazer's ignition hadn't been turned on, and the investigators found
no fibers or hair or anything out of the ordinary.
It was a very weird scene and not a lot
was adding up. There had been no forced entry into
the home. There didn't seem to be a struggle that
took place anywhere in the home. It appeared that Gail

(19:39):
had taken her clothes off, leaving them on the floor
before crawling into bed to go to sleep. Robbery also
didn't seem like a motive because there was things left
all over the house that were of value. There was
like four hundred dollars in a nightstand, Jewelry was left
on the kitchen counter. Gil's purse was left out that
had money in it as well, and Rick's wall it

(20:00):
was also there. One thing that the investigators were leaning
towards was that whoever had done this to the Brinks
had to have been someone that was known to them.
The fact that Rick's window was partially rolled down had
them thinking that maybe he rolled it down to speak
to someone as he was getting into the Blazer. The

(20:21):
lack of forced entry and also the pillow over Gil's
head were flags for them as well that this was
a known person to the victims.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
The pillow that had been.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Placed over Gil's head was a pillow that had come
from the living room, and there weren't any bullet holes
through the pillows, so whoever placed this did so after
shooting her, and a lot of times killers will place
a pillow or something over their victim's heads so that
they don't have to see what they've done. They feel

(20:51):
guilt or remorse over it, and usually it's because they
know the victim on a personal level, So a lot
of things were pointing to someone close to them. When
the autopsies were performed on the Brinks, it was determined
by the contents of their stomach that they had likely
been killed early on Sunday, the twenty second. Now backing

(21:14):
up just a bit, we know that it was Rick's
parents who first made this discovery, and they had to
contact Gail's family. When they got the news, they were
completely shocked. Gail's brother, Ryan rushed over to their home
and found it swarming with investigators. He told them that
he also had been trying to contact his sister all

(21:36):
Sunday and never heard back from her. When asked if
he could think of anyone that would want to harm
his sister and her husband, he told them all about
Lars and the end of their relationship, including the fact
that he struck Gail, giving her a black eye. Ryan
told police that Lars was still in love with his

(21:56):
sister and that he was always jealous about the fact
that she had moved on with her life and found happiness.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Naturally.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Hearing all of this, the police wanted to speak to Lars.
This was sounding like a promising lead and they needed
to know where he was all weekend. When investigators tracked
down Lars, he denied any involvement in the murders, and
he fully cooperated with police. He agreed to take a
polygraph test, which he passed, and he also had a

(22:26):
solid alibi, so maybe he wasn't involved after all. When
speaking with people that were at the wedding that Gail
and Rick had attended, they said everything had been fine
that night. Both Gail and Rick had enjoyed some drinks
while they were out, and Gail had drank more than

(22:46):
Rick did because he had to drive home. They didn't
get into any kind of arguments with anybody, they didn't
leave in a haste. All seemed fine and well the
entire night. They also couldn't think of anyone that would
have won to harm the couple. About three or four
days into the investigation, police received an interesting tip that

(23:08):
came from the previous owner of Gail and Rick's home.
The previous owner was named Sidney Colby and he went
by the name of Shotgun Sid. He was an interesting
character to say the least, and was honestly not the.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Most upstanding kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
But he did go into the police to tell them
that he was a little concerned that the actual intended
target was supposed to be him and his girlfriend and
not the Brinks. Shotgun Sid was a part of a
motorcycle gang and he was known to be a drug
dealer that has wronged a lot of people in many

(23:51):
different ways, including shorting them of drugs, stealing cars, and more.
He told the authorities that he believed that it was
a motorcycle gang out of Detroit who may have done
this to the Brinks. He felt like they likely didn't
know that he no longer lived there and that they
sent someone to kill him and his girlfriend, and so

(24:15):
they shot both Rick and Gail, assuming that they were
Shotgun Sid and his girl. The investigators contacted a narcotics
unit that they worked closely with in other cases, and
these guys actually had a few undercover informants that were
a part of this motorcycle gang in Detroit. They got

(24:36):
in touch with those informants to see if they knew
about anything, and they found no link to the motorcycle.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Gang and Gail and Rick's murders.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Investigators even interviewed a man that went by Ghetto Rat
that was part of this group, and he also said
that had they been murdered because of his gang, he
would have been there. Though this Ghetto Rat guy was
a shady dude, investigators believed him and the motorcycle gang
was also ruled out, and they were left once again

(25:08):
thinking that this was a targeted attack by someone that
was known to Rick and Gail. A month into the investigation,
on Christmas Eve, another murder occurred right down the road
from where Gail and Rick lived. Thirty year old Deborah
Wilson had attended the same high school and was in

(25:28):
the same grade as Rick Brink. On Christmas Eve, Deborah's
husband had gone out to party with some friends, and
when he came home, he found that all of the
lights were on in the house, but Deborah was nowhere
to be found. He noticed that the backsliding glass door
had been left open, and he felt uneasy about all

(25:49):
of this, so he called to report his wife as missing,
and then he also called his family to come over
to help him. It was his father who actually found
Deborah deceased in the field that was behind their house.
She had been violently attacked, repeatedly stabbed, and had her
throat slashed. And when I say that this murder happened

(26:11):
right up the road, it was legit less than half
of a mile from Rick and Gail's house, so very
very close proximity. The authorities were wondering if these two
murders were somehow connected. Was there a killer targeting people
that went to the school that Rick and Deborah attended.

(26:32):
And then there was also a murder that happened ten
years prior that was still unsolved. That was the murder
of Deborah Polenski. She was also violently attacked. Deborah was
sexually assaulted and stabbed death in her own bedroom, located
just a mile from where the murders of Rick, Gail

(26:53):
and Deborah Wilson had taken place. Was there a serial
killer that was targeting these young people in Holland. Those
in the community were on edge, and rightfully so, police
had zero answers to questions They were being asked, and
it was just a very scary time. People didn't know

(27:13):
if they were going to be targeted next, and there
was a really big cloud of fear over Holland Michigan
for a good length of time.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Now.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Investigators did everything they could to find some sort of
connection between the Brink murders and Deborah Wilson and Deborah Polinski,
and ultimately they found nothing linking them at all. They
did not believe that they were connected in any kind
of way, and with nothing to go on on all

(27:43):
three of these cases, they all inevitably went cold. As
the days turned to months and months into years, the
families of Gail and Rick struggled to move forward after
such a tragic loss, and the constant questions of who
did this remained in their minds for over two decades.

(28:05):
They feared that they were never going to get answers
and that justice would never be served for Gail and Reck.
And what a tragic thing to live with, How heavy
that must have been.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
I always say.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
That the unknown would eat me alive, and in this case,
the why would drive me insane? Why were they murdered?
Why would anyone want this sweet couple dead? As the
years passed, the case remained open, obviously, and here and
there people would pick up the boxes of files and

(28:38):
go through things to see if anything was missed, and
every single time, nothing new was found. In two thousand
and seven, twenty years after the Brink murders, the Ottawa
Sheriff's Department launches a brand new cold case unit that
consisted of detectives Venus Repper and Dave Blakely. These two

(28:59):
detectives weren't from the Holland area and had come from
different parts of the state of Michigan, so they were
coming into this unit as a fresh set of eyes
and could look at these cases without bias, which is
exactly what these unsolved murders needed now. At first, Detective
Repper and Detective Blakely started with the unsolved murder of
Deborah Wilson. They found new leads and new suspects, but

(29:23):
unfortunately their suspect died before they could get a conviction.
After his death, they switched gears and started to zero
in on the Brink murders. They spent countless hours going
over each box of information on the Brink murders and
started to conduct interviews. After speaking with Gail's older sister, Cheryl.

(29:46):
They learned a few days before the murders, Gail and
her brother Ryan actually got into an argument. Long story short,
Gail's parents had been living in a RV in Ryan's driveway,
and apparently his landlord wanted this RV moved, so Ryan
called Gail and asked her if they could move it

(30:07):
to her property since she had a large amount of acres.
Gail flat out said no. She didn't want her parents
living on her property. She didn't want this ugly, big,
bulky RV clogging up their space, and with all of
the renovations going on, she didn't want her younger siblings
getting hurt.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
And Ryan was pissed.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
I guess the argument got really heated, and the Friday
before the murders, so just literally a day before they
were murdered, Gail had called her sister Cheryl and told
her that Ryan got so violent and so mad that
she said no. And this was the first time the

(30:49):
authorities were hearing this information. This was never reported to
the police after the murders in nineteen eighty seven. And
to top it off, Cheryl said that when their father
told them that Rick and Gail were dead, Ryan immediately
jumped up and said he was going to their house. Now,

(31:09):
at first, that doesn't sound odd, right, sounds like a
normal reaction that any of us would have. But this
stuck out to Cheryl because their father never mentioned that
the murders occurred at their home, so how would Ryan
have known to even go there. She also said that
he had made a few comments after the murders about

(31:30):
how sometimes he wonders if he could have done this,
this meaning the murders, and he also talked about weird
dreams and premonitions he had about the murders. And again
this was never told to the authorities. I'm assuming the
people he said these things too just assumed that Ryan
was going through it, he was grieving and going through

(31:53):
the emotional rollercoaster that comes after losing someone so tragically,
and that maybe he really didn't mean anything by it.
But looking back on those comments, it just didn't sit
well with Ryl twenty five years later. So after learning
all of this, the detectives started looking into Ryan Winegarden's
alibi for the night of the murder, and they found

(32:16):
a discrepancy pretty quickly in the story that Ryan and
his girlfriend Pam had told When first questioned about their whereabouts,
both Pam and Ryan had said that they had been
at a laundromat doing their laundry, but they had to
finish at a friend's house because they ran out of
change for the machines. After they were done at the

(32:38):
friend's house, they went home and were together all night.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
Now, both Pam and.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Ryan told this exact story, but the discrepancy they found
was in a polygraph test that Pam had taken a
little while after the murders, and when asked if she
had been with Ryan all night long, Pam said no,
which the polygraph proved was the truth. So Pam hadn't

(33:07):
actually been with Ryan all night long? So why did
they say they were together?

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Originally? That was what investigators needed to know.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
In February twenty twelve, detectives Repper and Blakely went to
pay Pam and Ryan a visit at their home. Pam
wasn't there, but Ryan was, and when they sat down
with him, he kind of downplayed what he could remember
from that day. He said it was over twenty years ago,
his memory wasn't the best, and that he was having

(33:38):
a hard time remembering the full details, which maybe that
is true, But if someone in my family had been murdered,
I feel like that day would forever be.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
Ingrained in my mind.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
I don't know, I've never been in that situation, obviously,
but that's just how I feel like I would remember
everything so vividly. So with this first initial interview with Ryan,
detectives didn't get much from him because he said he
couldn't really remember, and they requested that when Pam got
off of work, that she come into the station to
talk to them. When Pam and Ryan arrived at the

(34:14):
station for Pam's interview, Ryan wanted to be in the
room with her when she was being questioned. He oddly
did not want to let his wife out of his sight.
He seemed like he wanted to be involved in every
step of the way and seemed almost uncomfortable with the
idea that she was about to be questioned again. Detectives

(34:34):
told him that he had to wait outside, and they
took Pam in a separate room for an interview. She
gave the same story that she had over twenty years ago.
They went to the laundrymat went to a friend's at YadA, YadA, YadA.
So during this interview, detectives didn't get any new answers
from her either. They weren't able to clear up this discrepancy.

(34:57):
They didn't find anything new out really, and it was
kind of a bummer and almost a waste of time.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
But they just had this itch in the back of
their minds that there was more to this.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Story, and they didn't fully believe Pam and Ryan, so
they dug even deeper. They started picking apart Pam and
Ryan's lives from nineteen eighty seven. Who were their friends,
where were they working, what was going on in their lives,
and even who were they dating. Detectives located a good

(35:30):
friend of Ryan's named Jim Meetcham, and they interviewed him
and asked him standard questions about his relationship with Ryan,
and they learned that they were pretty good friends and
every morning before work in nineteen eighty seven, Jim would
go over to Ryan's house early in the morning for coffee.
Like I said, he did this before work and it

(35:51):
was a part of their daily routine. He said that
on that Monday, November twenty third, when he arrived at
Ryan's house for his morning coffee and chitchat session, Pam
was there, which wasn't unusual, but both Pam and Ryan
were visibly upset, and it was clear that they both

(36:12):
had been crying. When asked what was wrong, Ryan said
that his sister, Gail and her husband had been murdered.
Now this is significant because Jim went over early in
the morning on that Monday, November twenty third. That Monday
the twenty third was when Rick and Gail were found

(36:36):
after not showing up for work. But they weren't found
until eleven am, So how could Pam and Ryan already
know about the murders if they technically hadn't been found yet.
They also found out that old Ryan had another girlfriend
and that he had been to timing Pam. This other

(36:59):
woman's name was Chris Belin. Obviously they needed to speak
to her as well, and they went to go and
interview her. When they spoke with her, nothing really new
came out about Ryan and Pam and his whereabouts from
the night of the murders, and as detectives were wrapping
up and beginning to stand up to leave, they were

(37:20):
thanking her for her time and doing the typical if
you think of anything, give us a call, We appreciate you,
and so on. Chris all of a sudden goes, you know,
there is this one thing. Detective Repper and Blake Lee
stop in their tracks, giving her their undivided attention, and
she drops a very big, wild, oh my god, huge

(37:47):
twist of a bombshell on them. And when I first
heard this, you guys, I gasped. My jaw dropped. Chris
tells the detectives that there was a time when Ryan
showed her picture of Gail in her bikini that was
taken while the family, including Gail's husband Rick, had been
out on a boating trip, and he says, to her, quote,

(38:12):
look how hot she is. He kept going on and
on about the way she looked in her bikini, how
good she looked in this picture, how hot she was,
And from the sounds of it, he spent this whole
trip staring and oogling at his sister in a sexual way.

(38:32):
And it's been reported that Rick, while on this boating trip,
actually took note and was so bothered by how his
brother in law was looking at his wife. His brother
in law was looking at his own sister. Chris always
felt the way that he was talking about his sister
was completely off, incredibly weird. And she was so uncomfortable

(38:53):
by it. And then Ryan confides in Chris and tells
her that he had a sexual, real life relationship with Gail,
his baby sister. Ryan told Chris that the sexual relationship
started when Gail was just nine years old and he
was twelve, and continued throughout their teen years. He had

(39:17):
admitted that there were times that Gail would say no,
and he forced her and raped her anyway. But in
the next breath, Ryan tried to make it seem like
Gail was into it, but detectives did not buy that
one bit, and they fully believed that he sexually took
advantage of his sister for years. He manipulated her, controlled her,

(39:39):
forced her, scared her into this situation and she kept
quiet out of fear. Talk about devastating for Gail to
just be nine years old, not fully understanding what was
going on and having these things done to her. It's
not only heartbreaking and sad, but it's discussed and talk

(40:01):
about a major bombshell. This was for the authorities. Ryan
had never ever disclosed this information to the police. He
had never admitted to having a sexual relationship with his
sister ever, and with this information detectives just knew that
there was no way that he wasn't somehow involved in
the case. They had the feeling for a long while

(40:25):
that he was involved when they found the discrepancy. But this,
this was huge, and this was potentially a secret that
was big enough to kill. For With the shocking revelation
that Ryan had been sexually abusing his little sister, Gail
Brink for years, authorities knew that they needed to speak

(40:46):
once again with Ryan's now wife Pam. They needed her
to be honest with them about Ryan's whereabouts. On the
night of November twenty one, nineteen eighty seven, after getting
in touch with paym, she agreed to come back to
the station, but once again she did not show up.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
Alone.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
In her wake was her husband and Gail's brother Ryan.
Once again, he wanted to be in the room while
Pam was being questioned, and they told him no, that
he needed to wait outside. This time, Pam kinda broke
down and just said that Ryan was very controlling, and

(41:26):
she finally admits that she wasn't with Ryan that night.
She said that originally she didn't know where he was
and that she had assumed that while he was out
he was gone to go deal drugs. After interviewing Pam,
they then brought Ryan in again, and this time they
took the approach of an interrogation. They were a lot

(41:49):
harder with their questioning and really tried to get him
to crack. Detective Blakely took the lead anytime Ryan was
interviewed or interrogated because Ryan really did not like women
and didn't respond well to Detective Repper. They start off
by telling him that Pam confessed that they were not

(42:09):
together all night on the night of the murders, which
Ryan continued to deny and said that Pam was just confused.
Then Detective Blakely asks Ryan about his relationship with his sister,
and Ryan just asks him back, quote what do you mean?
And Detective Blakely stared Ryan down and said, quote, you

(42:32):
know exactly what I mean sexually, and Ryan went completely silent.
Ryan and both detectives sat in silence for like forty seconds,
just staring each other down and talk about an uncomfortable
moment for the detectives. Forty seconds likely felt like forever

(42:55):
in that moment, in that small, cramped interrogation room, staring
down the person who they believed not only sexually abused
his sister, but murdered her and her husband. Finally, after
that long silence, Ryan says, quote, well, it was just
kids play, you know, like playing doctors end quote. And

(43:19):
he really, really, really really tried to downplay the severity
of it all, even though he previously admitted to other
people that he raped his sister. So after detectives get
him to admit to this incestuous relationship with Gail, he
refuses to say anything else and completely denies any involvement

(43:40):
in the murders. And just because Ryan admitted to this
sexual relationship and I hate calling it a relationship because
I fully believe it was abuse, you cannot change my
mind about that. But just because he admitted to that,
that wasn't enough to arrest him, so they had to
let him go. Oh. Over the next few days, Ryan

(44:03):
called Detective Blakely thirty two times, leaving him these crazy
and unhinged voicemails. He would say that he hates him,
but he appreciates him. At the same time, he would
say that he thinks that the detectives are sons of
bitches and a necessary evil. He is also demanding that
they find his sister's killer and that they're barking up

(44:26):
the wrong tree and claiming that he knows nothing about it.
He also accuses the detectives of forcing his wife to
confess to something that just isn't true. He said that
they intimidated her and forced her to say that the
alibi was a lie, and that she was scared and
said whatever they wanted to hear. He also talks about

(44:47):
how confused she was over the timeline and so on.
With the amount of calls and voice messages, it appears
that Ryan was scared they are closing in on him,
and he seems terrified. So even though detectives got Pam
to admit that the alibi was a lie, they felt

(45:09):
like she knew more, that she was holding on to
some key information that will ultimately get them an arrest.
It was just a matter of getting her alone and
away from Ryan and comfortable enough to speak her truth,
which was shaping out to be impossible anytime they tried.

(45:30):
Ryan intervened, So instead of having Pam come to the
station and instead of going to their home, they randomly
showed up to Pam's work and told her flat out, listen,
we're not going away. Our job is to solve cold cases.
Back in nineteen eighty seven, you were interviewed and the
police left you alone after that. This time, we aren't

(45:52):
going anywhere and we will keep coming back. So just
tell us what you know, tell us the truth, and
everything is going to be okay. And finally she caves.
She admits that she has been so controlled by Ryan
for so many years, and that she is ready to
get this burden that she has carried for twenty five

(46:13):
years off of her chest. Pam tells them that on
the night of September twenty first, nineteen eighty seven, Ryan
showed up at her apartment, and at that time the
two were just dating and they didn't actually live together.
When he showed up at her apartment, he was very
angry and very upset and indicated to her that he

(46:34):
had just shot and killed Rick and Gail. He told
her that they thought that they were better than everyone
else and too good for everyone, so he killed them.
And this is what it sounds like the authorities pieced
together about what happened on that night. Rick and Gale
went to that wedding and returned some time between eleven

(46:56):
and eleven thirty pm, still dressed in their wedding attie.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
The two watch.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
TV for some time and then Ryan showed up. He
came over to discuss something which I'm going to assume
was the RV parking situation with their parents, and their
exchange got heated. At one point, Gail told Ryan he
needed to leave and she turned to go to the
bedroom to get ready for bed. Ryan was still standing

(47:23):
in the living room angry when Rick told him that
he needed to leave, and the authorities believe that maybe
he kind of gave it away that he knew about
the sexual abuse that had gone on. Rick makes Ryan
leave and he goes back to watching TV. A half
hour later, Ryan comes back telling Rick that he needs

(47:44):
his help because he was having car issues. Rick slips
on his work gloshes and his coat and goes out
to his blazer and gets inside before Ryan shoots him
in the head. Ryan then went inside and shot Gail's
three times in the head. It is believed that one
of the driving forces for Ryan to murder his sister

(48:07):
and brother in law was not only the abuse and
Rick potentially finding out about that or knowing about it,
and not only the RV situation, but they felt like
Ryan was jealous of how well they were doing for themselves.
Ryan himself was struggling to make ends neat He was

(48:27):
selling drugs on the side for extra cash, and he
was jealous that Rick and Gale seemed to have it all.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
They were hard workers, they were.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Newlyweds and happily married. They had bought this house on
their own, and he hated to see them happy. After
admitting to the detectives that Ryan confessed to murdering them,
they took Pam to the prosecutor's office for her to
do a formal interview and give a full statement. It
was there that she told them the story of how

(48:56):
Ryan intimidated her into silence for over twenty five years.
Pam said that after he told her that he killed
Rick and Gail, he took her to their house and
they walked up to the truck where he showed her rickenside.
He said to her, quote, if you say anything, this
is going to happen to you.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
He then forced Pam, who was crying at this point,
inside the home. She was telling him she doesn't want
to see she doesn't want to go down there, but
he forces her into the bedroom and brought her to
the edge of the bed, lifted the pillow from Gail's
face and said, quote, isn't she beautiful?

Speaker 3 (49:35):
End quote?

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Which that part is crazy to me. Gail had been
shot three times in the head, yet he's sitting there
saying how beautiful she looks when you know that had
to have been a devastating scene. Pam said that Ryan
had put the clothing he had worn, as well as
a gun, into a bag and disposed of it somewhere.

(49:59):
And I don't think those the items were ever recovered from.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
What I found.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
So as Pam was telling the authorities this, she was
just a broken, emotional mess. I can imagine that this
felt like this suffocating weight had been lifted off of
her shoulders. And while I'm sure some people are wondering
why she didn't speak up sooner and why she married
this man anyways, knowing that he was a killer, we

(50:25):
really truly don't know what it's like to be in
her shoes and to feel the fear in the control
that she felt from Ryan. While she was at the
prosecutor's office giving her statement, Ryan was calling her cell
phone non stop trying to figure out what was going on.
I think he just had this feeling that something was off.

(50:45):
They were closing in on him, and he feared that
his wife would finally be brave enough.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
To speak up.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
And with all of this new information, they felt like
they finally had enough to arrest him, and they also
wanted to make sure that Pam was going to be
safe at home as well. They fully believed that Pam
was another one of Ryan's victims.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
She had been.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Controlled and manipulated by this man for decades. Pam also
suffered psychological abuse from her father, and this is how
they believed that Ryan was able to sneak in there
and control her the way he did. She had never
really known anything else, which is so sad. On January eighteenth,

(51:27):
twenty thirteen, Ryan Wingarden was officially arrested and charged with
the murders of his sister Gail and brother in law Rick,
and while in jail awaiting his trial, he sent twenty
nine letters to Pam as well as a bunch of
letters that he sent to his children and friends that
he wanted them then to give to Pam. He wanted

(51:50):
to ensure that she read these letters and read what
he had to say. In these letters, he tried to
convince Pam that she was being brainwashed and manipulated by
detectives to blame him for the murders. He wrote, quote,
I think that now you are in this lie, that
you feel like you must follow through with it or
get in trouble end quote. I think he was trying

(52:12):
to gaslight and make her question her sanity. I think
Ryan was spiraling because he lost control of his wife,
that he had this hold on over twenty five years,
and he was in a panic. On March eleventh, twenty fourteen,
Ryan's trial began nearly three decades after the murders, and

(52:34):
of course Pam was the prosecution's star witness. Getting up
there and testifying against her husband was probably the hardest
thing that she could ever do, and Ryan did not
make it easy the entire time she was testifying. He
stared her down and she was visibly emotional about.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Being on the stand.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Throughout her testimony, Ryan would have random outburst, calling her
black hearted, saying she's lying and that he can't believe
the lies that she was making up. The judge got
on him multiple times and threatened to remove him from
the court, which I think eventually happened. Detective Repper, in
an interview, stated that as the days went on and

(53:19):
as her testimony went on, you could almost see Pam
become empowered. Ryan's outburst showed the jury the type of
person he was and how manipulative and controlling he was.
He was losing it in court because he no longer
held the power over Pam and he could not stand it.

(53:41):
The trial lasted over three weeks, and during that time,
the jury her testimonies from sixty different people, including someone
that Ryan had met in jail named Darryl. Darryl claimed
that Ryan admitted to him that he had shot and
killed his sister and her husband. He also said that

(54:01):
Ryan talked about his older sister, Cheryl and her fight
for justice for Gail and Rick, and how he said,
quote if I had known that bitch was going to
cause me so much trouble, I would have killed her
a long time ago end quote. Ryan also took the
stand in his own defense and would go on crazy

(54:21):
long tangents, and he denied molesting Gail. He said the
very few sexual encounters they had was when they were young,
and it was just innocent and kids being kids and exploring.
Ryan said that he wouldn't have cared if Gail told
anyone about their few encounters because it was innocent and

(54:42):
nothing serious and really wasn't a big deal. So he
was saying that the prosecution's motive was completely ridiculous, and
again he wouldn't have cared if Rick found out because
it happened only a few times and they were just
young and exploring. When asked about his original alibi, he

(55:02):
stuck to it. He said that his wife, Pam, had
been threatened, manipulated, coerced, and abused by the authorities and
that is why she said the alibi was a lie.
When asked why he thought that she would stick to
this new story, he said that he believed she was
doing it because she wanted a divorce. He got emotional

(55:24):
on the stand, crying, saying he can't believe his sister
and Pam would say these things about him, and that
he believes they were manipulated into this. He says that
he wants to sue the county over it all. The
defense tried their hardest to prove that Ryan was innocent
and brought up the motorcycle gang theory, amongst a few

(55:45):
other theories, and ultimately the jury did not buy it.
On March twenty eighth, twenty fourteen, the jury had reached
their verdict. Ryan Winingarden was found guilty on two counts
of first degree murderer. Three weeks later. At his sentencing,
Ryan was still claiming he was innocent and cried asking

(56:07):
God why he would do this to him because he
was such a good and innocent man. While the judge
was trying to address Ryan and give him his sentence,
Ryan kept interrupting him, telling him that he was flat
out lying. The judge got so irritated and so fed
up with it that he straight up asks Ryan, do
I need to bind and gag you, sir. He proceeded

(56:31):
to tell Ryan that he will have the deputies duct
tape him if necessary, but he will sit there and
listen to what he has to say. After Ryan got
himself under control, the judge said, quote, this was a
brutal homicide. You are a brutal, cold blooded murderer.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
He then sentenced Ryan to two life sentences with no
possibility of parole.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
Ryan has, of.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Course, tried to appeal his conviction three times, and all
of his appeals were denied. Ryan will remain at the
Michigan Department of Corrections for the rest of his natural life.
He is now sixty two years old and his wife,
Pam did divorce him after everything, and I do hope
that she was able to heal and grow now that

(57:20):
she is no longer under his thumb. This story is
just so heartbreaking and tragic. Rick and Gale's family and
friends feel their loss every single day. Their loved ones
are left wondering what could have been. They fully believe
that Rick and Gil would have been incredible parents, giving

(57:42):
their children the best lives possible. Unfortunately, they never got
that chance. That is all for this week's episode, guys.
I look forward to hearing what you guys think about
this episode, so make sure you leave comments on the
Facebook group, Instagram, or if you listen on Spotify, leave

(58:02):
an episode comment. You can find my private Facebook group
where I share all things true crime by searching Crime
with Holly podcast discussion group. You can find me on
Instagram at Crime a Holly, and if you would like
more true crime content, you can find me on TikTok
at Crime with Holly dot podcast. I just want to say,

(58:23):
and I wasn't sure if I was going to address
this at all. But it's really it's really weighing heavy
on my heart. If you follow me on if you
follow me on Instagram, you might have seen yesterday and
my stories that I'm taking a little bit of a
break until Monday. Today's I'm recording this on Thursday. This
episode's going to go up tomorrow, so I'll be back

(58:44):
on Monday. But this week has been so incredibly heavy
in my country, in the United States. If you are
on social media at all, you have been exposed to
two horrific attacks that have happened, and one of which
is only being reported on now, and it happened last month,
which is absolutely crazy. But the videos that are circulating

(59:07):
is so heavy and such a hard topic, and.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
We're not.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Meant to see that kind of traumatic stuff. Like it's
just it's very very heavy. I know a lot of
people are hurting, and I just want to remind you,
guys to take care of yourself, take care of your
mental health, love on your loved ones, and really hold
each other at this time because what happened, the two

(59:41):
different attacks, it's just a reminder that life is so
so short. Just take care of yourself, guys. I don't
even know how to form what I want, what I
want to even say, but I am just so it's
just it's been an emotional week. I don't care what
side of the road you're on and what your beliefs are.

(01:00:01):
What I just there's just so much hate and so
much evil, and I don't even know what to say.
I want to address this, but I don't even know
what to say. Always remember to be aware and take care,
and what is done in dark always comes to light.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
Bye bye,

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