Family: Man, 80, charged in killing has brain tumor

Relatives say condition may have led to his 71-year-old wife’s slaying

The residents who chose to rebuild their lives on Faust Lane after Hurricane Harvey noticed mounting paranoia and forgetfulness in their elderly neighbor as he patched up his flooded east Houston home.

Richard Engelbrink, 80, handled most of the repairs to the ranch home he and his wife shared for over two decades, often waving off help, neighbor Matthew Salo said.

But the baffling behavior was caused by a brain tumor that may have led to the brutal slaying of his 71-year-old wife Thursday morning, Engelbrink’s family said Saturday.

“Our family is grieving the loss of our mother. Our father is mentally incapacitated due to a brain tumor,” read a statement from relatives. “Our family knows that he loved his wife dearly, and we view this as a horrific tragedy. Please respect our family’s wishes for privacy during this time of grief.”

Engelbrink was arrested trying to wash his hands of blood at a nearby Chase Bank on Memorial Drive after allegedly striking his wife repeatedly in the head with an unknown weapon. Witnesses there said he reported that a family member had tried to kill him. He has been charged

with murder in her death, and jailed on a $50,000 bond.

A trail of Alice Engelbrink’s blood still stained the cul-de-sac Saturday afternoon, starting with a stone path leading out of the idyllic home and bloodied hand prints smearing the doors of an SUV left in the driveway. Patches of blood could also be found on the wooden fence where she collapsed and died.

A security camera on Salo’s door caught the tragic moments before her death. Footage reviewed by the Houston Chronicle shows Richard Engelbrink — dressed in a blue collared shirt, slacks and clutching a brown briefcase — ringing the doorbell around 10:47 a.m. and trying to open the neighbor’s locked door as Alice stood nearby, apparently questioning his choice of attire. No one was home.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing. Why are you acting like this?” Alice can be heard crying out on the video.

In a series of clips, Salo’s wife, Gabriela Salo, can be seen coming home at 11:21 a.m. and then stepping outside 20 minutes later to investigate the sound of a screaming woman. Next, the camera captured Richard walking toward West Sam Houston Parkway and his wife staggering out of the home covered in blood.

“I couldn’t tell it was her,” Gabriela Salo said. “I never thought that he would do that to his wife.”

In a desperate attempt to find help, Alice approached a construction crew inside Andy Jethwa’s home. The workers shut the door after catching sight of the bloodied woman swaying on the front lawn and clutching a massive head wound.

“My builders closed the door on her because they didn’t want to get involved,” Jethwa told the Chronicle. “They told me they didn’t want her to come in here and get blood all over the house.”

She tried to seek help from more construction workers hammering away at the frame of the home next door but she collapsed.

“He was getting paranoid about the doctors, kind of thought the doctors were out to get him. He finally came home and wandered off.” Matthew Salo, neighbor of the Engelbrinks

“She must have banged her head,” Jethwa said, pointing to the blood on his fence.

Even if the workers had rushed to help her, both Jethwa and Salo believe it would have been too late.

“She walked, slowly but deliberately, down the street,” Salo said. “I mean it was eight minutes between her walking across the street and the ambulance to pick her up. That wasn’t fast enough to save her life.”

A handful of neighbors learned of the tumor in June after Richard Engelbrink failed to recognize a family of four who had been away due to Harvey repairs.

“When I saw him, he couldn’t remember me,” said one neighbor, who asked not to be identified.

While the couple was relocated for Harvey repairs, the 80year-old slipped out of the home where he was staying around 4 a.m. and went missing for about 10 hours, Salo said.

Salo learned of the disappearance when a knock at his door brought him face-to-face with a police officer looking for Engelbrink. When he called Engelbrink’s wife about the search, she revealed that he had been inand-out of the hospital due to a benign, but inoperable tumor.

“He was getting paranoid about the doctors, kind of thought the doctors were out to get him. He finally came home and wandered off,” Salo said.

With knowledge of the brain tumor, Salo believes that Richard was not of a right mind and did not recognize his wife the morning she died.

“She was worried about him,” he said. “It’s so tragic, with everything that happened, but frankly, he needs to be in a hospital. You want justice for Alice, but at the same, what is justice?”