Financial ruin and a mental collapse drove fashion CEO Bryan Walker to fatally shoot his wife before killing himself, her brother told The Post.
Oakland police found Bryan Walker, 61, and Michelle Min, 63, dead on a turf terrace attached to their home in the hills near UC Berkeley after gunfire on a Friday morning. Her brother, Paul Min, said Walker shot his wife and then himself as the family prepared to have him institutionalized.
Paul Min told The Post that the couple’s fortune unraveled after Walker quietly took out loans against their properties and gambled on risky options and leveraged bets. By mid-September, Walker believed he had lost “well over $100 million.”
Oakland police recovered one firearm at the home and have not ruled out a murder-suicide. The department is leading the investigation.
Walker had been CEO of the luxury women’s fashion brand Bryn Walker. He later stepped aside and let his designer wife control their mutual business and his eponymous label. He had not worked for some time.
The couple had been married more than 30 years. Paul Min said they agreed Walker could “play” with some of their extensive wealth. That play turned into secret borrowing and high-risk trading.
When the losses became clear, the collapse was total. “He just curled up into a ball, and he was just sobbing like a baby for weeks on end. He was just completely useless,” Paul Min said.
"He just curled up into a ball, and he was just sobbing like a baby for weeks on end. He was just completely useless."
The family feared he was suicidal. Michelle stayed devoted. She fed him, comforted him, and hired a high-powered accountant in Chicago. The accountant told them the situation was not as bad as they believed. She still tried to salvage what remained.
Paul described the blow from her point of view in blunt terms.
"Imagine that happening to you? You would collapse. Your spouse lied to you and lost over $100 million and you might be out on the streets."
“You might go from being one of the wealthiest people in the country to being homeless because your husband lied to you and wagered everything on crazy bets,” he said.
Relatives hid the household firearms. They worked first to stabilize Walker’s mental state, then made plans to place him in institutional care. That step was set for the same Friday morning the couple died.
Paul said the family believed Walker “had basically gone insane.” He also said no one knows the full reason for what came next. His own judgment was stark: “I think he was just too weak to go by himself.”
“I used to think of him as a strong person, but I’d never seen him tested. When he lost his money, I kept trying to tell him, like, ‘It’s just money,'” Paul said.
Before the shooting, Walker texted a friend who lived down the street: “Call 911.” The friend ran to the house. Paul said the fatal shots rang out before help arrived.
Surveillance video reviewed by CBS captured audio of the sequence. The first gunshot is heard around 10:43 a.m. Friday. A man is heard crying and screaming in what CBS described as a very dramatic scene. A second gunshot follows a short time later. Then the recording goes dead quiet. CBS called the video too horrifying to air.
Paul’s account of the minutes inside the house tracks that timeline. He said Walker retrieved a firearm the family had tried to secure, loaded it in a downstairs bedroom, and walked upstairs. Michelle had gone to the turf patio to let out their small dog, Pip. Walker shot her there, Paul said, then shot himself.
Police later found what Paul described as a sort of suicide note at the scene. It included passcodes to Walker’s and Michelle’s phones. Paul said the note pointed to planning and left the codes so the family could handle their affairs.
Paul said his sister never turned on her husband, even at the end. “My sister was utterly devoted to Bryan to the very end, and he shot her.”
"My sister was utterly devoted to Bryan to the very end, and he shot her."
He said she did not answer with anger. “She didn’t say anything harsh to him. She just said, ‘Bryan, you’ve been sick. It’s my fault, I should have known better. I should have known you were in a crisis.'”
“She blamed herself. That’s the kind of person she was.”
Paul’s questions for Walker were direct. “Why take our beautiful sister?” he asked. “Why not just kill yourself?”
Michelle is also survived by her sister, Alexandra Min, 60. Paul, 58, said he will step in to run their fashion company while the family deals with what he called a complete mess and a financial reorganization.
Wealth did not buy judgment, and devotion did not buy safety, a wife who stayed to the end still paid for a crisis she did not create.
