commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Suppose you’ve been dating a new man for a month. Things are going well and you’re beginning to think the relationship may have potential when one day, to your surprise, your new beau comes to you and tells you that he’s killed his sister and her husband for reasons he cannot explain satisfactorily, and takes you to see the bodies before they are discovered by the authorities.
According to her trial testimony, this is what happened to Ryan Wyngarden’s future wife Pam in November of 1987. Based on a report by the New York Daily News, at that time, out of fear that Wyngarden would also hurt or kill her, Pam did not come forward with the information. She and Ryan Wyngarden were married two years later.
Although it’s not clear what triggered her decision, two decades later Pam finally went to the police.
For his part, Ryan Wyngarden, 51, has expressed shock that his wife would finger him in the couple’s murder. At his trial testimony, he told the court that after his sister was found dead he went to see Pam and cried:
“I remember lying on her bed. I was saying ‘They killed my sister.”
Once Pam turned Ryan in, it was probably inevitable that he would be charged with shooting Rick and Gail Brink in their Park Township home on Ransom Street north of Holland, Michigan on Nov. 21, 1987.
Although Ryan’s trial lasted a full three weeks, the jury deliberated for a mere four hours before returning to the courtroom and announcing their guilty verdict. At that point, Wyngarden’s family members began crying while he looked stunned and dejected.
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When wondering why a brother might murder his sister and her husband, one would probably not initially hypothesize that the motivation was sexual jealousy, yet according to the prosecution, that is precisely the case here.
Ryan Wyngarden has admitted to engaging in inappropriate relations with his younger sister when he was 12 years old, but is adamant in claiming that did not lead him to kill her and her husband 13 years later, as the authorities allege.
Prosecutor Lee Fisher told the jury that the inappropriate relationship involved penetration on several occasions, starting when Ryan’s sister Gail was just 9 years old, according to the Grand Haven Tribune. Wyngarden’s testimony, however, is that the two were “comparing body parts” on the first occasion, but that “there was nothing sexual about it.”
According to Wyngarden, their next encounter was several years later. Wyngarden explained that the two had been smoking marijuana and “just groped on each other a little bit.” During a third encounter at a later date, Wyngarden admits that he and Gail touched genitals but insists they they did not engage in an act of sexual intercourse:
“My sister did not lose her virginity to me.”
Gail was about three years younger than Ryan.
During his several days on the witness stand, the prosecutors rigorously grilled the often argumentative Wyngarden about his sexual episodes with his sister and Wyngarden’s answers to the questions were often not directly responsive.
Wyngarden accused both the prosecutors and the police of putting words in his mouth and badgering him.
During his Wednesday testimony, Wyngarden admitted that during an October 2012 interview with detectives, he did not want to reveal the sex episodes and was evasive:
“It’s not something that I would just volunteer, but it’s not something I was that concerned about either.”
During the trial, the prosecutors keyed in on statements that Wyngarden allegedly made to others, including his sister Lynn, who testified that he had told her that he wanted to apologize to Gail because “he felt like he raped her.”
At one point, Wyngarden was overcome with emotion.
“I wouldn’t have killed my sister over this,” he said.
After repeated questioning on the issue, Wyngarden appeared dejected at one point and placed his hand on his chin.
During his testimony, the courtroom was packed.
Pam, as the key prosecution witness, was not allowed inside the courtroom as Ryan testified in his own defense.
During his second day on the stand, as the prosecutors relentlessly probed his sexual relationship with his sister, Wyngarden appeared to become increasingly frazzled and even combative, which probably did not help his cause with the jury.
“You guys are making it into a mockery, and you need a motive, and there is no motive,” he said at one point which drew a harsh warning from the judge.
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It is of course not at all unusual for siblings to engage in a certain amount of sexual experimentation with one another. How far the siblings go, however, undoubtedly varies greatly from case to case. One likes to think that the exploration is typically limited to mere preliminaries but that is not always the case. I am reminded of a story a close friend once told me about how he interrupted his big brother purely by chance just as he was about to sexually penetrate his little sister. Scary! When you’ve reached that point, you’ve clearly gone way too far.