The heroic Arkansas mother knifed to death in a Devil’s Den State Park rushed her daughters to safety while her husband fended off their crazed assailant — and was murdered when she went back to help her spouse, police revealed Thursday.

Cristen Amanda Brink, 41, fled with her kids when the family was ambushed by a knifeman on a remote wilderness trail Saturday, with her 43-year-old husband, Clinton David Brink, grappling with the attacker so they could get away.

Cristen got the kids to a safe place — then ran back into danger to help her husband, Arkansas prosecutors and police revealed at a press conference Thursday.

But she never returned to collect the terrified girls.

By the time the dust settled, she and her husband were dead, and their killer was in the wind.

After a four-day manhunt — fueled largely by the courageous girls’ vivid description of the attacker — suspect Andrew James McGann, 28, was finally arrested Wednesday, while he was getting his hair cut at a barbershop in Springdale.

Police say he confessed to the crime and that his DNA matched blood found at the scene — but that he is expected to plead not guilty.

No motive in the grisly attack has been revealed, but investigators said Thursday there was “no indication to suggest that the girls were his target.”

But McGann — a teacher with certifications to teach elementary and middle school in three states — previously faced allegations of inappropriate behavior at a Texas school where he taught in 2023.

An investigation found no conclusive evidence, but McGann resigned soon afterward.

Despite those allegations, McGann was due to start teaching again in Arkansas’ Springdale Public Schools next week.

McGann has no criminal record as an adult, prosecutors said, no known history of mental illness, and no connection of any kind to the victims.

“It appears to be a completely random event,” prosecutors said at the press conference.

He also made no apparent attempt to conceal his movements, according to investigators, explaining he appears to have gotten a haircut after the killings — but it wasn’t an attempt to conceal his identity.

“You can chalk that up to school starts next week,” investigators said.

They added that his handling of the crime was “very sloppy” — so sloppy that investigators were able to locate and arrest him within an hour of identifying him as the suspect.

Prosecutors said they would use the “full weight” of their office to bring justice to the Brinks, and that they would not waive the death penalty if McGann is found guilty of the murders.

The Brinks’ daughters — including a third girl who was not at the park with them during the attack — are in the care of family members.

They had just moved to Arkansas from South Dakota, and Clinton was planning to start a new job as a milk delivery driver soon.