On Friday, police identified a deceased man as a new suspect in the unsolved 1991 killings of four teenage girls at an Austin yogurt shop, announcing that DNA evidence had led to a "significant breakthrough" in a brutal crime that has long cast a shadow over Texas' capital and confounded investigators for decades. In a statement, the Austin Police Department revealed that DNA tests had pointed to Robert Eugene Brashers, who took his own life in 1999 during a standoff with law enforcement. Since then, he has been connected to multiple killings and rapes across other states.
The announcement came as the case regained public attention following the release last month of "The Yogurt Shop Murders," an HBO documentary series. Police emphasized that the case remains open and scheduled a press conference for Monday to elaborate on their findings.
The murders sent shockwaves through Austin and became enshrined as one of the area's most infamous crimes. Austin police investigators and prosecutors grappled with the case for years, sifting through thousands of leads, several false confessions, and heavily compromised evidence from the fire-ravaged crime scene. "Our team never gave up on this case," the Austin Police Department declared.
Amy Ayers, 13; Eliza Thomas, 17; and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, aged 17 and 15 respectively, were bound, gagged, and shot execution-style in the "I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt" store where two of them worked. The building was then set ablaze.
According to investigators, someone entered the store through the back door around closing time, attacked the girls, and started the fire. The bodies were discovered as firefighters were still battling the inferno.
The autopsy report offered fleeting glimpses into the lives of the teenage sisters and friends: Ayers adorned small, white earrings; Sarah Harbison wore a gold necklace and a Mickey Mouse watch; Jennifer Harbison sported a high school ring and a Timex watch. Yet, it also painted a harrowing picture: their hands were bound with underwear, and their mouths were gagged with cloth. Ayers had been shot twice.
In 1999, authorities apprehended four men on murder charges. Two of them, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, were teenagers at the time of the murders. Initially, they confessed and implicated each other, but both swiftly recanted their statements, claiming they had been coerced by the police.
Nevertheless, both men stood trial and were convicted. Springsteen was initially sentenced to death row, but his sentence was later commuted to life in prison. A decade later, their convictions were overturned, and they were set for retrial. In 2009, a judge ordered their release when prosecutors revealed that new DNA tests, unavailable in 1991, had pointed to another male suspect.
In 2018, Missouri authorities stated that DNA evidence had linked Brashers to the strangulation of a South Carolina woman in 1990, the shooting of a mother and daughter in Missouri in 1998, and the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee in 1997. Brashers died in 1999 when he shot himself during a protracted standoff with police at a motel in Kennett, Missouri.
