Founders of fashion brand killed in hills neighborhood near Berkeley campus

The married couple who died in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus Friday were the co-creators of fashion brand Bryn Walker, according to property records, loved ones and multiple media reports. 

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Gunshots rang out in the affluent hillside neighborhood shortly after 10:45 a.m. Friday, according to police. Berkeley and Oakland police raced to the 400 block of Panoramic Way, which straddles the border between the two cities, and located a man and woman, both in their 60s, deceased outside a residence. 

Oakland Police Department Assistant Chief Casey Johnson said the couple appeared to be married and that a firearm was located at the scene. Johnson said no one was in custody, but there was no threat to the public; Johnson would not confirm if it was a murder-suicide, but he said investigators had not ruled it out.

Property records indicate the residence belonged to Bryan Walker and Michelle Min-Walker, a married couple who founded the clothing brand Bryn Walker. The pair created the brand, which is based in Berkeley, in the early 1990s.

“My customers are basically my inspiration — women who are strong, women who are not like lemmings,” Min-Walker said in a 2011 interview. “They don’t follow trends. These are women who have full lives, and they really have a voice.”

Along with multiple storefronts in the Bay Area, the brand is sold nationwide by retailers like Dillard’s. SFGATE’s attempts to contact Bryn Walker were not returned by publication time.

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Min-Walker’s brother told the California Post that his brother-in-law was deeply in debt and had become so unwell that the family was attempting to have him institutionalized. According to family, Bryan Walker was supposed to be taken to a mental facility for treatment on the day the couple died.

Oakland property records show the couple owned a number of parcels in the neighborhood and at one point in 2022, attempted to merge 15 parcels. On Friday, the normally quiet street was filled with police cruisers and TV news trucks while a helicopter flew in circles overhead. Access to the 400 block of Panoramic, which is reached by steep, tight switchbacks, was blocked by police tape. Homes on the street are priced in the millions, with sweeping views of the city and the bay beyond.

Oakland police, who have taken the lead on the investigation, have not confirmed the identities of the people who died or who fired the gun.