More than three decades after four teenage girls were murdered in an Austin, Texas, yogurt shop in 1991, one original investigator from the case confirmed that a suspect has been identified.
Retired Austin detective John Jones told 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty that Robert Eugene Brashers, who is deceased, has been linked to the murders, per CBS News.
Brashers was a serial killer and rapist who committed at least three known murders in South Carolina and Missouri between 1990 and 1998.
He died by suicide in January 1999 during a standoff with police, where he used a gun that’s believed to be consistent with a bullet casing that was found in a drain inside the yogurt shop.
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Jones also explained that the connection between Brashers and the case was made through DNA evidence, according to CBS News.
The murders took place on December 6, 1991, when Eliza Thomas, 17, Amy Ayers, 13, and sisters Jennifer Harbison, 17, and Sarah Harbison, 15, were found dead in an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop in Austin. The victims were gagged and tied up with their own clothing, as well as shot in the head. CBS News also reported that the person who killed the girls set the shop on fire, which compromised most of the evidence.
Thomas and Jennifer were working at the yogurt shop when Sarah and their friend Ayers met them there while they were getting ready to close and head home.
The Austin Police Department developed a task force dedicated to solving the case, with government agencies including the FBI being called in to assist. It wasn’t until 1999 when four men, Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn, were arrested and charged with the murders, per CBS News. The suspects were only teenagers when the crime was committed.
All four of the men were initially questioned days after the murders, though they were released due to a lack of evidence. However, Springsteen and Scott confessed to the murders in 1999 and later recanted after they claimed they were coerced into confessing, per CBS News.
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The charges against Pierce and Welborn were dropped due to lack of evidence, while Springsteen and Scott ultimately went to trial and they were both convicted. However, their convictions were overturned on constitutional grounds and DNA evidence was unable to link them to the crime.
In light of the findings, they were released from prison in 2009, per WANE.com.
