The Yogurt Shop Murders

Summary

Morbid Podcast: The Yogurt Shop Murders

Hosts: Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Release Date: December 11, 2025

---

Overview

In this highly anticipated episode, Ash and Alaina tackle one of Austin's most infamous unsolved cases: The Yogurt Shop Murders. They weave detailed research and signature banter through the harrowing 1991 crime where four teenage girls were murdered while closing a yogurt shop. The hosts dive into the immediate aftermath, the community’s shattered innocence, false confessions and police missteps, and the wild decades-long journey that led to a break in the case. With their usual dose of empathy and dark humor, Ash and Alaina illuminate how wrongful convictions, coerced confessions, and evolving forensic science shaped the search for the truth.

---

Main Discussion Themes

1. The Crime & Initial Investigation
2. Impact on Community and Families
3. False Confessions, Police Errors, and Wrongful Accusations
4. Decades-Long Cold Case Frustration
5. Breakthroughs in DNA & Ballistics Technology
6. Exoneration of Wrongly Accused, Identification of the True Perpetrator
7. Reflections on Justice, Closure, and Police Integrity

---

1. The Crime & Initial Investigation

Summary:
Just before midnight on December 6, 1991, Austin police and fire reports lead to a horrific discovery at the "I Can't Believe It’s Yogurt" shop—four teenage girls, Eliza Thomas (17), Jennifer Harbison (17), Sarah Harbison (15), and Amy Ayers (13), murdered and set on fire.

Key Details & Insights

• Only one homicide detective, Sgt. John Winston, was on duty that night ([13:07]).
• The initial call escalated from two to four bodies discovered in quick succession.
• Grisly crime scene: Victims were found nude, bound and gagged with their own underwear; three shot execution-style, youngest (Amy) found separately, shot twice ([16:20]).
• Firefighters stumbled upon the bodies while extinguishing the fire.
• The fire and water obscured much of the physical evidence—soot, smoke, and soaking made forensic collection near-impossible ([17:20]).

Notable Quote:

• “I saw things in Vietnam and I thought nothing will ever match that. Well, this matches that, because it’s in Austin, Texas, right down the street from where we live.” – Sgt. John Jones ([17:11])

---

2. Impact on Community and Families

Summary:
The murder shattered Austin’s “small-town” sense of safety. The schools mourned, families were devastated, and the greater community banded together with tributes, T-shirts, music singles, and reward funds—but also with mounting fear.

Key Details

• Measures of support included memorials, benefit fund drives, and a tribute single, “We Will Not Forget” ([39:43]).
• The case was seen as evidence that big-city crime had arrived in Austin ([23:51]).
• Teenagers, friends of the victims: “There’s a lot of denial. Nobody wants to think this happened.” ([22:41])

Notable Quote:

• “It reminds me of the street horror that I left behind in Manhattan.” – Local man ([23:29])

---

3. False Confessions, Police Errors, and Wrongful Accusations

Summary: Multiple false confessions and police missteps undermined the case from early on. One major suspect group, four local teens, would spend years wrongly accused and, in two cases, imprisoned.

Key Events

• False confession by a teenage girl and her boyfriend, easily disproved ([34:06]).
• Years of fruitless leads, including a bizarre international confession from two men in Mexico – later retracted and discredited ([43:09], [48:30]).
• Police focused on four teens—Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Rob Springsteen, and Mike Scott—largely based on (later discredited) “confessions” extracted using questionable tactics ([53:47]).
• Long, high-pressure interrogations: e.g., Michael Scott interrogated for 18-22 hours, with a gun at his head during questioning ([52:48], [74:53]).
• Evidence against the teens was circumstantial at best; no physical evidence tied them to the crime ([72:40]).

Notable Quotes:

• “Confessions sound good, but that’s not the standard by which charges are filed. The killers have to tell us certain things that only the killers would know.” – Jon Jones ([37:23])
• “At the time, investigators were very tight lipped about their pursuit of the four accused, and they didn’t share any information about the evidence… so much of that had been corrupted by the efforts to put out the fire…” ([61:36])

Memorable/Disturbing Moment:

• Discovery of police photograph: Detective holding a gun to the back of Michael Scott’s head during interrogation ([74:53]).

---

4. Decades-Long Cold Case Frustration

Summary:
For years, leads dried up, tips went nowhere, the accused were tried and convicted mostly on dubious confessions, and families were left in limbo.

Key Developments

• Case goes cold for seven years ([49:00]).
• “We have a few leads, but I wouldn’t call any of them strong. We’re not too optimistic.” – Lt. Andrew Water ([38:55])
• Appeals in the 2000s eventually overturned convictions for Springsteen and Scott; they were freed after almost a decade ([91:21]).
• DNA evidence from the crime scene exonerated the accused—a fact that was not available at time of trial ([84:18]).

Notable Quotes:

• “The light at the end of the tunnel? It’s the headlights of a train. 1991’s been a bad year. A real bad year.” – John Jones ([39:00])

---

5. Breakthroughs in DNA & Ballistics Technology

Summary:
Dramatic advances in DNA profiling and ballistics, plus new legislation and dogged cold case efforts, led to a crucial break decades later.

Key Details

• Partial DNA profile from rape kit and skin cells ruled out all original suspects ([84:18]).
• New database (National Integrated Ballistic Information Network—NIBIN) allows for cross-checking bullets; a .380 bullet from the scene is matched to crimes in Kentucky ([97:02]).
• Junction of ballistics and genetic genealogy points to Robert Eugene Brashers – a serial offender never previously connected ([98:36]).

Notable Quotes:

• “Once the bullets had been matched…the rest of the pieces of the puzzle all started to fall into place.” ([98:05])
• “Citizen genealogists” played a key role developing a crucial DNA sample from skin cells ([98:53]).

---

6. Exoneration of the Wrongly Accused & Identification of the True Killer

Summary:
Authorities formally announce the identification of Robert Eugene Brashers as the killer. It’s a bittersweet “resolution”—Brashers had died by suicide in 1999 after a violent standoff with police.

Key Details

• Press conference in September 2025: After 34 years, case is finally solved ([101:21]).
• The wrongly accused men, Scott and Springsteen, continue to fight for full exoneration and possible compensation ([102:23]).
• Maurice Pierce, another wrongly accused, was killed by police during a later altercation ([102:52]).
• The case prompts the DA to establish a Conviction Integrity Unit to review coercive confessions in other cases ([103:36]).

Notable Quotes:

• “After 34 years of frustration and heartbreak, investigators could conclusively identify Robert Eugene Brashers as the killer…” ([101:10])
• “Their poor management, misconduct and malpractice in general allowed a killer to go free while two innocent men spent nearly a decade of their lives in prison.” ([102:10])
• “It takes one person, luckily, that was like, ‘I don’t know about this, and I should look into it.’” ([104:09])

---

7. Reflections on Justice, Closure, & Police Integrity

Summary:
Ash and Alaina close with a candid discussion of how miscarriages of justice can derail investigations for decades and warn against overreliance on confessions. They advocate for skepticism, more rigorous checks in police work, and highlight the need for continued advances in forensics and case review.

Notable Quotes:

• “It’s so scary to think of a time where we just thought…people don’t confess to things they didn’t do, so lock ‘em up.” ([88:16])
• “This whole case really is…when I was getting to the end, I was like, I feel like I’ve heard this before, which is sad…Because you hope that something like that…never…it’s like a once in a lifetime thing. But unfortunately it’s not.” ([104:47])

---

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On coerced confessions & police tactics:
  • "At the same time, I don’t know under what circumstances that would be appropriate [pointing a gun at a suspect's head]." – Defense attorney Jamie Belagia ([78:19])
  • “Anybody who has a gun put to their head is going to say whatever the fuck you want them [to say]…” – Elena ([79:47])
• On the toll for families and community:
  • “Every time I hear those words, that their rights were violated, I feel like I’m going to go insane.” – Eliza Thomas’s mother, Maria ([92:28])
  • Ash: “You’re just never a kid again. That innocence is stripped away from you…” ([38:29])
• When the true perpetrator is identified:
  • “Journalist Mike Hall said: I kept expecting some outcry or something, but it was stunned silence.” ([101:22])
  • “Even though they now have identified Robert Brashers as the sole killer…the biggest thing…is that he can’t really face justice.” ([101:42])

---

Important Timestamps

• [12:29] – Announcement of covering the Yogurt Shop Murders.
• [13:55] – Initial crime scene discovery and description.
• [17:11] – Police compare crime scene to horrors of Vietnam.
• [49:00] – Case stalls for seven years after false leads.
• [52:59] – 18-hour interrogation described.
• [74:53] – Photo surfaces of detective with gun to suspect’s head.
• [84:18] – DNA evidence excludes main suspects.
• [91:21] – Appeals overturn wrongful murder convictions.
• [97:02] – Forensic ballistics finally links bullet to out-of-state crimes.
• [101:10] – Identification of Robert Eugene Brashers as the killer announced.

---

Tone & Approach

Ash and Alaina maintain a compassionate, often wry tone—conveying the horror and heartbreak of the murders, the frustration at botched police work, and outrage at wrongful conviction, but also moments of empathy for all involved. They frequently reference their signature comedic asides, pop culture, and “fun facts” to lighten the mood ("Keep it weird…just not like durian fruit, like Robert Brashers" [107:01]).

---

Final Takeaways

• No case is truly "cold"—technology and investigation can catch up, even after decades.
• Wrongful convictions aren’t merely academic—they devastate lives and let perpetrators walk free.
• Community memory and advocacy matter—those lost were never forgotten.
• Forensic science and investigative integrity are crucial for real justice.

---

“No case is an ice-cold case. It’s merely chilly.” – Elena ([105:26])

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Netcredit is here to say yes to a personal loan or line of credit. When other lenders say no, apply in.

[Ash]

Minutes and get a decision as soon.

[Elena]

As the same day.

[Ash]

If approved, applications are typically funded the next business day or sooner.

[Elena]

Loans offered by Netcredit or lending partner banks and serviced by NetCredit.

[Ash]

Applications subject to review and approval.

[Elena]

Learn [e-mail] partners. NetCredit Credit to the People Ever spend.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

$200 on a fragrance only to realize you hate it? Micro perfumes fixes that. Now you can try luxury scents without the luxury price. Pick from real designer fragrances like Dior.

[Ash]

Tom Ford and Creed.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

It's the real deal. Authentic scents starting at just a few bucks. They come in sleek travel sprays, ship fast, and there's no subscription required. Why gamble on a full bottle? Go to microperfumes.com podcast for up to 60% off. That's microperfumes.com podcast for up to 60% off. OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $250,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star trust pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in [e-mail] depending on certain loan attributes. Your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

[Ash]

Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.

[Elena]

And I'm Elena.

[Ash]

And this is morbid.

This is morbid. It is. And it smells really good in the pod labio right now.

[Elena]

It does. It smells like pumpkins. Yeah, a little bit.

[Ash]

Kind of to me. Smells like sugar cookies.

[Elena]

Smells like a bit of both. Maybe some pumpkin. Sugar cookies.

[Ash]

That actually sounds awesome.

[Elena]

Maybe I'll make some of those.

[Ash]

Maybe you should.

[Elena]

Maybe I should. I did. I want to make some cookies tonight. I'm in a cookie making mood.

[Ash]

I'm in a cookie making mood, too. I've been watching so much holiday baking championship and I. I was watching one of the old seasons the other day and I saw somebody make a checkered cookie and I really want to make a checkered cookie now.

[Elena]

Oh, that sounds hard. But I want to try it.

[Ash]

I think it's like, not hard. It's just tedious.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

You know what I mean? Yeah.

[Elena]

I'm into it, though. I'm definitely into doing some holiday cookies.

[Ash]

Yeah. Drew got me for Christmas a kitchenaid and it got delivered like in the KitchenAid box. So I saw it.

[Elena]

Hell yeah.

[Ash]

And I was like, can I just have that? Even though it's for Christmas, Can I have that?

[Elena]

Can I have it?

[Ash]

And I'm so excited.

[Elena]

They're the best.

[Ash]

I had a KitchenAid and then I switched to a different brand, which I won't say, cuz it's not a bad brand. I just like, don't really want it.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And anymore. And I was like, could you get me a KitchenAid again? I know that's really annoying.

[Elena]

And he was like, maybe.

[Ash]

And then it showed up at our doorstep in the.

[Elena]

In the KitchenAid box.

[Ash]

And I said.

That is what she said. Must make cookies.

[Elena]

It's true. That's what she said. I did see this thing. And maybe you should get one of these. Now that you have a KitchenAid. Tell me I'm going to get one. It's like a rubber bowl that you put in your kitchen. Maid mixer or KitchenAid mixer. Yeah. I haven't had enough caffeine today. I know.

[Ash]

But I haven't had a lot of cough.

[Elena]

No. And it's a rubber bowl that, like, you can literally smush up to easily clean it. That's cool. That way, if you just, like, want to mix something small or quick or mix two different things, like, you know, dry ingredients and wet ingredients, you're not messing up the bowl and having to keep washing the bowl over and over again.

[Ash]

It's a great idea because there are so many times where you have to like, mix the separate ingredients. And I'm always like, like, I hate that I have to do this in like another.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Like, bowl that's not attached to my kitchen.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

Yeah. Cool. I'm gonna get one of those.

[Elena]

I think I might get one of those.

[Ash]

I got the KitchenAid one too, because Mikey was telling me this isn't sponsored by. No, it's just exciting.

[Elena]

But KitchenAid. If you want a sponsor. That'd be sick.

[Ash]

Honey. If you want a sponsor, send me that rubber bowl.

[Elena]

I love your.

[Ash]

I do too. I went back to it. I had the twist on one before and Mikey was saying that because I make a lot of bread putting like the. It's like a lift one instead.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ash]

I haven't unboxed mine yet, but I think I might do that today.

[Elena]

I think you should.

[Ash]

Maybe I'll make some checkered cookies.

[Elena]

I think it feels right today.

[Ash]

It does. It. It's cold as it's that kind of day.

[Elena]

It's a.

[Ash]

It's a holiday day.

[Elena]

Yeah, but it's not an actual holiday.

[Ash]

No, it's just like December. It's true.

[Elena]

If you have children listening, I'm going to. I'm going to talk about some top secret parent business. So send them out, get them, get rid of them. All right, they're out of the room. So how's your elf on the shelf going, everybody? For those who. Who celebrate, mine is going great. We are eight days in hell. Yeah. We have not forgotten a night.

[Ash]

There you go. So that's pretty. You haven't gotten into bed.

[Elena]

I'm in like, fuck, we did that once. I will say. But forgetting a night to me constitutes. I sit up at 4 or 5 in the morning like I'm being risen from the dead. It's literally like. And you like sit up and you run downstairs in this fog of just like, oh, God, I've ruined the magic. And it's not. It's 4 o', clock, like nobody's fine. But then you just stick him in a tree or something and you're like, oh, there he is, he's in the tree today. It's. That hasn't happened yet.

[Ash]

No, you've been doing really.

[Elena]

So far, we've really, we've really gone for it.

[Ash]

Her kids are Dancing with the Stars fans now, so I sent her a Dancing with the Stars one. That was pretty cute.

[Elena]

That one I've been holding. I haven't done it yet.

[Ash]

I mean, that's like a closer to Christmas.

[Elena]

Yeah. And it's one that requires a little more like pre planning. So.

[Ash]

Yeah, you need to get Barbie involved and like a couple, A couple of Barbies. Signage.

[Elena]

Gotta get some Barbies involved. Yeah, we gotta do the whole thing. Yeah, they're very into Dancing with the Stars all of a sudden. Because I think, I think it was Robert Irwin that got them into.

[Ash]

If anybody's gonna get you into Dancing with the Stars, Robert, they love him.

[Elena]

They rooted for him hard and I love it.

[Ash]

Yeah, he's a toy.

[Elena]

I'm like, clearly. No, we all know. We all know, ladies.

[Ash]

It was his technique.

[Elena]

It was. They loved him that way. I was like, I. I was like, hey, if you're gonna have a crush on anyone, have a crush on Robert Irwin.

[Ash]

Hell yeah.

[Elena]

You know? But yeah, so hopefully everybody's off on the shelf. Here's a reminder. Make sure you move it tonight.

[Ash]

Move that little bitch.

[Elena]

Here's your reminder. Maybe I'll post a couple of the ideas that I found. I found a lot of ideas on TikTok.

[Ash]

So there's so many cute ones.

[Elena]

Yes.

[Ash]

I don't even have a lot of them.

[Elena]

I get them. Yeah.

[Ash]

I'm like, let's really do this tonight.

[Elena]

They get so excited. Like the one I did today. And don't worry, we'll get to the story first.

[Ash]

Holiday magic.

[Elena]

But we. The one we did that happened today was our elf, David Bowie. That's his name.

[Ash]

They named him.

[Elena]

They named him when they were, like, two.

He was, like, strung up in Christmas lights and hung over the banister. So he's hanging in the middle of the hallway.

[Ash]

It's amazing.

[Elena]

And he's like, all. It's all around him. And then I hung a little sign off of him that said, Cause they have fairies. Three of them, obviously. We're a whimsical household. And it said, you fairies caught me. Can someone please explain to them who I am? And then it says, help. Love, David Bowie.

[Ash]

I love it.

[Elena]

They loved this.

[Ash]

Please.

[Elena]

Before they left for school, my oldest ran over to David Bowie, hanging upside down in lights, and said, hey, David, I promise you we're gonna talk to the fairies when we get home. I'm just gonna be late for school. Okay, Love you. Bye. And then ran away.

[Ash]

I just love. Hey, David.

[Elena]

David.

[Ash]

Also, when he was originally named, wasn't he David Bowie? David Bowie.

[Elena]

No, that's one of their fairies.

[Ash]

Oh, wow. So maybe that's what the fairies are pissed about.

[Elena]

Yeah. So the. The on the shelf is David Bowie. Then there's a fairy that's named David Bowie. David Bowie. And then there's another fairy called Fairy.

[Ash]

Fairy. And then there's.

[Elena]

And then there's Fairy Pink.

[Ash]

Just pink.

[Elena]

Just pink.

[Ash]

I like fairy fairy kids, man. Yeah.

[Elena]

You know, So I know Elf on the Shelf can be a lot, but it's cute, though. They love it. And it's worth it.

[Ash]

I love it. I love coming over and being like, where's the elf?

[Elena]

No, where's the elf?

[Ash]

What was the O? I like the bruh.

[Elena]

Bruh.

[Ash]

Bruh.

[Elena]

I fucking hate the 6, 7 thing.

[Ash]

As does every adult on the planet.

[Elena]

But here was my thinking, because John was like, oh. Because I was like, we gotta do. Because it was December 6th and 7th. I was like, we've got to have David Bowie acknowledge that. So I had him write a thing that was like, bruh.

[Ash]

Because they all. They're big into bruh lately.

[Elena]

And I told John, I said, once the parents start doing the. The trend, it's not cool anymore. So if we. If we feed into it, they're gonna be like that's not cool anymore.

[Ash]

But they like us.

[Elena]

I know. So hard.

[Ash]

I think that they, they don't care. Cuz John said like a 67 thing. Like not meaning to. He was literally referencing the number 6 and 7 for something else yesterday.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And one of them was like d. They said it.

[Elena]

They're still into it. Yeah, but we'll see.

[Ash]

It'll die. There's another thing that Drew was telling me about his like little cousin was telling him that there's like a hand motion that means something.

[Elena]

And yeah. It's the next thing I don't know. I'm out.

[Ash]

I'm still stuck on that Skibidi toilet Riz.

[Elena]

I, I never acknowledged that happening.

[Ash]

How do you not acknowledge that?

[Elena]

Cuz I can't.

[Ash]

I still don't know what it is, what it means, where it came from. But just the fact that the children of the streets were going around Skibidi.

[Elena]

Toilet Riz that just makes me so sad though. It's like.

[Ash]

But then I think about the dumb we said. Like, I mean, you know for sure it wasn't as dumb.

[Elena]

Anything can really compare to Skibidi toilet Riz.

[Ash]

But I mean me, our, my people said our eyebrows were on fleek.

[Elena]

Yeah, that's true.

[Ash]

What does that even mean?

[Elena]

No idea.

[Ash]

I love it. I still say it to this day. But yeah, it's pretty bad.

[Elena]

It's pretty.

[Ash]

Pretty random.

[Elena]

Pretty random.

[Ash]

Now to the business part.

[Elena]

Oh, the business. And then we get into the.

[Ash]

Yeah, because actually this is gonna be a long one.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So business part. We are still going to cover all of the Twilight episodes. Yeah.

[Elena]

Because you guys were awesome about that.

[Ash]

People loved them and we loved it. It was so much fun. So we're going, we're going to do New Moon and I think it will be our January bonus episode.

[Elena]

Yes. Because.

[Ash]

Because our next bonus good reason is going to be dropping Sunday, December 14, which is usually on a Friday. But this is a special one.

[Elena]

It's special.

[Ash]

It's going to be dropping simultaneously with the creators who made it. Who are.

[Elena]

Sam and Colby.

[Ash]

We joined them for a fucking expedition. It was literally. What time do we start our exploration?

[Elena]

It was early.

[Ash]

We started our exploration early and it literally. I think we got in our car to start driving home at like 4am.

[Elena]

Yeah, it was like 4 or 4:30. We drove home maybe closer to 5. It was nuts out. It was a all nighter.

[Ash]

Yeah. But we're all going to say, we're.

[Elena]

Not going to say what it is too much because they are going to release the video. And we will release our discussion of that video with that. It was when they were here, so it's a discussion with them is what the bonus episode will be, where we go over everything and kind of talk through it. So highly encourage you to watch the video and listen to the bonus episode. Cause they're gonna be good companions with each other. And it was so much fun.

[Ash]

Yeah. I would watch the video first and then listen to the bonus episode. Yeah.

[Elena]

Because we'll discuss the video. So I think it makes sense to watch the video first.

[Ash]

Yeah. It is just so much fun.

[Elena]

It really is.

[Ash]

We met so many cool people.

[Elena]

And we'll just say that, yeah, there was a lot. There was more people involved.

[Ash]

Yes, definitely.

[Elena]

But also, I think it helps because we know that everybody. You guys loved the Twilight episode, and we loved it. But I know there's some people that don't want, like, back to. Back to back, five bonus episodes in a row to just be Twilight. So we want to make sure we're kind of spreading them out at least like every other or every two. You know what I mean? So we will absolutely be covering all of them. We're just going to spread them out so everybody gets what they want to hear on a bonus episode. We.

[Ash]

We got what you need.

[Elena]

We got what you need.

[Ash]

And you say that we're just a friend. And we are.

[Elena]

And we are.

[Ash]

We're just your friends.

[Elena]

We're just friends.

[Ash]

All right. So actually very strange that we're recording this today because I think it's, like, not that far off from when this happened.

[Elena]

Oh, wow.

[Ash]

Which I didn't plan, but we're gonna be talking about the yogurt shop murders today.

[Elena]

I'm waiting for this one.

[Ash]

This is, like, one of our most highly requested cases, and I've always wanted to kind of, like, dive into it, especially since I, like, really. I watched the HBO documentary recently, and I was like, oh, wow. Like, there was so much more to this than I realized. But it's perfect timing kind of to go over it at this point because it's now solved, and it had not been solved for decades.

[Elena]

Long time.

[Ash]

So just before midnight on December 6, 1991, Sergeant John Winston, who was the only member of Austin's homicide unit on the clock at that time.

[Elena]

That's crazy.

[Ash]

Like, can you imagine?

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

He was leaving a scene where a man had actually barricaded himself inside his apartment with a gun, and he had just left that scene normal night. And another call came in. According to the dispatcher, firefighters had responded to a fire at I can't believe it's Yogurt, which was a frozen yogurt store on West Anderson Lane. And when they were finally able to enter the building, they discovered at first two bodies, both of which had been shot in the head. Now since he was the only homicide officer on duty at that point in time, he took the call, headed to the scene. Yeah, before he got there, another call came from dispatch that they had discovered a third body. And then moments later, another call came in. He's still on his way there. And the dispatcher updated saying, make that four. There's four bodies in a fire.

[Elena]

That also must be so chilling to hear him make that four.

[Ash]

Yeah, because it's just so like, okay. And another, like it's just rough. So when he got to the strip mall, the lot was buzzing with firefighters working, other police officers, reporters, of course, onlookers. Upon arrival, he checked in with the first officer on the scene, who was Sergeant John Jones. He described what he found when he was finally able to enter the building and said there were puddles of water all over the place. The bodies were still smoldering and it was hot, it was smoky and I was by myself. What a haunting scene. To walk in, that sounds awful. And at a yogurt shop, like one of the most innocent places.

[Elena]

That's the thing, it's just so innocent.

[Ash]

And it's like, as we'll come to find out, four teenage girls just working on closing up that place.

[Elena]

That's awful.

[Ash]

So according to Jones, it was actually the firefighters who first found the bodies while they were trying to get the fire subdued. They had just extinguished the blaze and they were knocking out the windows to ventilate the room when one of them spotted what looked like a foot on the floor. And when the smoke cleared and they could finally take in the rest of the room, they discovered the charred bodies of 17 year old Eliza Thomas and her co worker, 17 year old Jennifer Harbison. So just two 17 year olds, literally kids. Moments later, they found the body of Jennifer's sister, 15 year old Sarah Harbison, lying just a few feet away from her sister. All three bodies had suffered obviously serious damage from the fire, but all three were also nude and had been bound and gagged with their own underwear.

[Elena]

Oh my God.

[Ash]

This is a brutal, brutal case. It was immediately clear obviously that they weren't just victims of an accidental fire. So the firefighters just left the bodies where they were rather than take them out like they usually would. So while they kept making Their way through the shop opening windows. Another firefighter went around the back of the building to force the back door open. And as he was working from the back of the store, trying to ventilate the room, he opened the door to a small storage area where he discovered the fourth body, which was the youngest victim. 13 year old Amy Ayers. 13, 13 years old. So unlike the others, who had been shot in the head execution style, and their bodies were burned almost beyond recognition, Amy had suffered a lot less damage from the fire, but she had been shot twice in the head. Like the.

[Elena]

Twice.

[Ash]

Twice, yeah, like the other girl, she was also nude, but she had some kind of cloth sack wrapped around her neck. And later, investigators theorized that the killer or killers had stacked all four bodies on top of one another before setting the fire. But Amy, who was alive at the time, managed to crawl away and into the storage area.

[Elena]

Oh, my God.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

That's even more horrifying.

[Ash]

It is. So firefighters efforts to extinguish the blaze, while obviously necessary, did cause a lot of additional damage to the crime scene above and beyond what was already done by the fire. But still, the evidence of a mass killing was clear to investigators at the scene. Jones told a reporter, I saw things in Vietnam and I thought nothing will ever match that. Well, this matches that because it's in Austin, Texas, right down the street from where we live.

[Elena]

Oh, that's awful.

[Ash]

Like, for that to like, obviously what he walked into, for that to be comparable to things he saw in Vietnam.

[Elena]

To be able to compare those two.

[Ash]

Things, like that's next level. So what remained of the interior of the yogurt shop after the fire was put out really didn't provide a lot of evidence. Almost every surface was covered with soot, water, smoke. They couldn't fingerprint anything. And most other physical evidence was basically completely compromised and soaked through. So the only real clues that investigators had were the fact that the register was empty, which obviously suggested that the motive was robbery.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And then the fact that the victims had been shot with two different weapons, which to them implied multiple killers.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And finally, the key was still in the lock of the front door when firefighters broke it down. So that implied that the killer or killers gained entry through the back door. So they had a few things to go on.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

A quick call to the management of the yogurt shop confirmed that two of the victims, Jennifer and Eliza, were employees and they were working the closing shift. And the other two victims were identified a short time later. Like I said, as Jennifer's sister Sarah And Sarah's friend Amy. Formal identification would be done the following day through dental records, and that obviously confirmed everything. But Jones and the other investigators quickly put together a working theory that Jennifer and Eliza were closing the store that night, and the other two girls stopped by to help them close, which is just like.

[Elena]

So they.

[Ash]

They didn't even have to be there.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And at some point between their last customer and locking the doors for the night, the girls were held at gunpoint by at least two men who intended to rob the store, is what they thought.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Detective Mike Huckabee told a reporter, the first thing that comes to mind is crack cocaine. Like a robbery involving that. So what happened after the gunman entered the store was basically a complete mystery. A no sale was rung up at 11:03pm and there was money missing from the register. But the key to the office where they kept the day's revenue was still under the register, where it was supposed to be. And the office hadn't been touched, which was where most of the money was.

[Elena]

Yeah. And where you would think there would be most of the money.

[Ash]

Exactly. According to the arson inspector, the fire had been set along the south wall of the storage room. But when it came to the type of accelerant used to set the fire, the main investigator, the arson inspector, and the other investigators from Austin Fire Department were at a complete loss to identify it. Which is weird because under most circumstances, like the most common accelerants are lighter fluid and gasoline. And obviously that leaves, like, a distinct odor, but there was no odor like that, so. And neither the crime scene or the bodies contain any evidence of what was used.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

So it's really weird.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

In the days that followed, autopsies were obviously conducted on the victims. And that confirmed what everybody kind of saw at the initial exam and also revealed some new details. So all four autopsies were conducted by Dr. Tommy Brown, pathologist from Houston, who did kind of occasional work for the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office. And his work was overseen by the Deputy Medical Examiner, Les Carpenter. And he was known as a, quote, tight ass when it came to protocol. So these were going to be done, like, to the T?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So according to their reports, Eliza, Jennifer and Sarah had each been killed by one gunshot wound to the back of the head. They said it was fired at close range from a.22 caliber gun. Sarah had been sexually assaulted, and trace evidence was collected. Jennifer had ligature marks around her neck similar to the ones found on Amy's neck. And although their bodies had obviously Been severely burned in the fire. The medical examiner believed that the burns were sustained post mortem.

[Elena]

Oh, thankfully.

[Ash]

So, like, at least there's that. Which kind of changes. Like the initial theory where they thought that Amy had crawled off.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So at least something that hopefully didn't happen.

[Elena]

You know, goodness for small favors.

[Ash]

But she still. Amy was the outlier. Yeah. She, like I said, had been discovered in a different part of the store, and her murder was different. The medical examiner found skin cells under her nails, Obviously indicating that she fought back. And it also could have explained why her death was a little more brutal than the others. According to the autopsy, she had a bruise under her chin that was obviously sustained in the assault. She had also been partially strangled with a piece of cloth that was recovered at the scene. And as for her cause of death, she was shot in the back of the head with a.22 caliber like the others. But she had that second gunshot wound that went. Entered through the right side of her head and entered through or exited. Excuse me, through her left cheek.

[Elena]

Jesus.

[Ash]

Yeah. So Austin, obviously is one of the larger cities in Texas. Like, we all know that. But in 1991, it still had, like, a very small town identity.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

It was the kind of place where, like, they managed to avoid the violence and disconnection that happens in big cities. And, you know, the kind of place where nothing ever happens here.

[Elena]

It had more of, like, a small town vibe.

[Ash]

Yes, very much so. I really want to go to Austin, by the way.

[Elena]

Yeah. Isn't it, like, keep Austin weird? Isn't that there? So I feel like it's such. It sounds like such a cool place.

[Ash]

It's calling to us.

[Elena]

It is.

[Ash]

But back to the story. When the news of the yogurt shop murders broke the next day, it was like Austin's innocence had completely shattered, and so did everybody's feelings of safety. Anybody who knew the victims was absolutely devastated by the news of these murders. One student from Linear High School told a reporter that there's a lot of denial. Nobody wants to think this happened. Yeah, of course.

[Elena]

Don't blame them.

[Ash]

The Monday after the murders, the teachers and all the administrative staff at the high school really just prepared for a day of mourning. And they spent the majority of the day talking with students about what had happened. Principal Paul Turner said we have to help them process what they're feeling. I can't imagine processing a trauma like this as a high schooler.

[Elena]

No, like.

[Ash]

And you just. You, like, these are your girlfriends that were in your class yesterday and, like.

[Elena]

Girlfriends that were Just at their part time job that you also have a part time job and yeah, go to.

[Ash]

It without a thought your sister might come and help you clean up for the night. And you know, they were probably had plans to hang out afterwards, like just doing normal. Yeah, exactly.

[Elena]

They got dressed for work or to go see their friends or their sister and never knew that that was the end.

[Ash]

It's really, really awful, awful. So everybody who didn't know the victims, they were still very affected by the murders too. One local man told a reporter, it reminds me of the street horror that I left behind in Manhattan. For some, the yogurt shop murders represented something even more than the murder of just four girls. It was evidence that problems in the cities like Houston and Dallas had made their way to the relatively peaceful suburbs.

[Elena]

Which is scary.

[Ash]

It is super scary. Austin resident Cynthia Baron said, at one time, girls could go anywhere. Now you've got to be careful. You can't trust anybody anym.

[Elena]

And it's gotten worse.

[Ash]

Oh, exponentially. So, yeah. In one interview after another, though, representatives from law enforcement repeated their working theory of robbery, citing the fact that there was some money missing. Lt. Andrew Water said, that's the best theory, but it's possible there could have been something else. And they attempted to make it look like a robbery, which makes sense. The truth was, when it came to the motive for the murder and the identity of the suspects, investigators were very much in the dark, just like everybody else in Austin. The scene, like we were saying in the beginning, was so heavily compromised by not only the fire, but the water to extinguish it. So evidence was impossible to collect.

[Elena]

So they were kind of just going on like theory and speculation. Yeah, I mean, not bad speculation, I would say. At this point it seems like they're. They're kind of theorizing in the right direction.

[Ash]

Yeah, they're going in the right direction. And here, like, what was collected didn't do a lot to point them in any specific direction, though. That was the problem. Yeah, there was money missing from the register, but. And the killer or killers didn't bother to look in the office though, where the larger sums of money would have been. And like you said, like is pretty obvious, so that was weird. And further complicating matters was the fact that three of the victims had been sexually assaulted. Obviously some robberies can involve sexual assault and obviously can escalate to murder, but it seemed very unlikely that somebody would go into the yogurt shop, rob the place, and then spur of the moment decide to sexually assault These girls.

[Elena]

Yeah, it is a strange, like, set of events. Pathology here.

[Ash]

Yeah. It all seemed very planned, though, to investigators. The more and more they looked into it. And within a day of the murders, the relatively small Austin police department found themselves pretty much faced with an unimaginable crime and nowhere to go. No one on the force had that much experience at the time with any case that was similar. But unfortunately, no one on the force or the administration wanted to admit that they might have been a little bit out of their league here. So instead, they rallied their best investigators and vowed to find the killers, which was good that they were so dedicated to this, but at the same time, if you're out of your league, you got to admit that.

[Elena]

Yeah, you have to.

[Ash]

So as the residents of Austin came together to mourn the deaths of the girls, a task force of Austin homicide investigators and investigators from the local district attorney's office got to work interviewing friends, family, anybody that they could talk to to learn more about their victims and also establish, like, a concrete timeline of events. So what they learned was really more or less what you would expect to learn of for teenage girls. They were good students. They were well liked. They were active in community groups. A teacher of Jennifer said she brought joy to the classroom. And her sister Sarah. Sarah had already established herself as assertive, enthusiastic. She was a leader. Clearly a kid who was going to make a mark on the world.

[Elena]

Oh, that's so sad. Yeah.

[Ash]

Elsewhere in Austin, other detectives from the task force were working together to put a timeline of the day together. From the moment they the that the murders were reported in the paper, the task force was flooded with tips about suspicious cars, suspicious people.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Everybody wants to help, but everybody's kind of saying the same stuff.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

A typical tip from the public was like this one from Lucella Jones, who was a customer at the yogurt shop on the night of the murders. She said she remembered seeing two teenage boys in the shop who were focusing intently on something between them, a small sack of some kind. Like Jones. It seemed that everybody who was at the yogurt shop that night had seen something suspicious. From what investigators could tell, though, the night was pretty much like any other for Eliza and Jennifer. They usually worked closing shifts together. But investigators figured things deviated around 9pm when Jennifer went on break and drove to pick up her sister and Amy in North Cross. I think they were at the North Cross mall.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

And then when they got back to the shop a short time later, Jennifer punches back in. And then Sarah and Amy went to pick Up a pizza at a local restaurant.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

Several customers remembered seeing Sarah and Amy sitting in one of the booths at the yogurt shop eating their pizza. At 10:42pm just 18 minutes before closing, Eliza rang in the final sale for the night to Tim Stryker and his girlfriend, Margaret Sheehan. Other than Sarah and Amy, Tim and his girlfriend said they remembered seeing two large people in hooded jackets sitting in a booth together.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

They didn't really get a look at the faces of the two people at the table, but they said they remembered them because it didn't look like they were talking to each other. And there was also no food on their table, like they weren't eating.

[Elena]

So they were just sitting at a table together.

[Ash]

Just sitting there, being weird. In silence and hoodies.

[Elena]

Okay. In silence and hoodies.

[Ash]

Yeah. Not great. So when she was interviewed by police, Margaret Sheehan told investigators she never got the impression something was wrong in the yogurt shop that night. And as far as she could remember, Eliza and Jennifer were just talking about, like, the schedule that was upcoming that week ahead and a friend that they were going to visit. But it did seem to her that the men in the hooded jackets were listening in on Eliza and Jennifer's conversation. Which is creepy.

[Elena]

That's very creepy.

[Ash]

And that was the last time anybody saw the four girls alive. So according to the owner of the I can't believe it's yogurt, Eliza was a stickler for the rule. She followed company procedure, everything to a T whenever she was in charge, and she was that night.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

So that meant investigators could be pretty certain that they closed the store at exactly 11 o' clock at night, obviously.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And started the cleaning checklist as soon as they locked that door.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

When police were able to access the scene, the front door was still locked and the sign had been flipped to close, so that supported that. The morning after the murders, though, the owner looked over the scene in the dining room, and based on how everything looked, she was able to tell investigators how far along in the cleaning process the girls had gotten when they were interrupted. Which is, like, pretty vital information that.

[Elena]

Gives you a timeline.

[Ash]

Exactly. Jennifer had started emptying and cleaning the first yogurt machine, it seemed, while Eliza was wiping down the counter. And, like the other surfaces, the register was open and the sales tape had been printed, but the cash drawer had been removed and was later found in the storage room lying beside Amy Ayer's body, which I guess you can assume that whatever cash was left in there maybe.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Was taken by the robbers. If they took any cash at all.

[Elena]

Nobody really thing. Because you don't really know.

[Ash]

But given how everything looked in the store, the manager estimated that the girls were about 10 or 15 minutes into the closing routine when they were interrupted. And since investigators knew that the fire was called in around 1145, that meant that whatever happened in the store that night, it happened in the span of about a half hour.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Which. That means one or two people were able to kill and sexually assault three out of four teenage girls and kill all four of them in how long? Half an hour.

[Elena]

Half an hour.

[Ash]

Which I do feel like supports the theory. And again, this is solved, so, like, we'll find out. But I feel like it's partially solved.

[Elena]

Because to me, it supports.

[Ash]

Two people had to be doing this.

[Elena]

I can see that.

[Ash]

You know what I mean?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I mean, one person could have done this, obviously. Like.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

If it's a big guy with a.

[Elena]

Gun, like, and if it's somebody that is, like, very commanding, you know, on something, you know, that can also make people act a little more like, superhuman than we can register.

[Ash]

Yep, that's true. You know, I don't know why. To me, it just says two people, but I think it's the two. The two guns being used.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Is a little bit weird, but, I mean, one person can have two guns.

[Elena]

Yeah, we absolutely can.

[Ash]

But anyway, before we get to who this is. A few days later, after everything was kind of established as far as they could get it, Austin police called their first press conference to discuss any progress on the case, which there wasn't a ton of progress made. They were reluctant to reveal too much information. Obviously, like, you want to keep things close to the chest. But they reiterated the theory that the primary motive for the crime was robbery. Lt. Andrew Waters said, we're still operating under the theory that the probable motive is robbery. As far as suspects, we have not developed any specific suspects. That said, Waters did announce that the evidence strongly indicated, like, I was just saying, that there were at least two killers in the store that night. And he said one of the killers has a dominant personality and led one or more reluctant people to participate in the crime.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

I don't really know why you would describe one of them as reluctant.

[Elena]

That's the thing. I'm like. Because you don't know where you get in that. Like, I think it's because they're describing one as so dominant that they assume there has to be this, like, very submissive personality with him. And it's like.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

Or you could just have two terrible people.

[Ash]

Two, like, really f ed up people.

[Elena]

Who are as into being terrible people as the next one.

[Ash]

It's like the case you just told. Yeah, those were two pretty terrible fucking people.

[Elena]

Yeah, the Onion Fields case. Like, that's the thing.

[Ash]

Exactly. So Lt. Waters admitted that they really didn't have any strong leads and the evidence that they had was sparse. Years later, though, the press would learn that detectives had held back obviously, critical information from the public, and most of which was related to the evidence of sexual assault. They were just doing what they were told at that point in time. And I also think trying to maintain a sense of decency for these four girls.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

It was 1991 in Austin, Texas. Nobody wanted to say to the public that three out of four murdered teen girls had also been assaulted.

[Elena]

Yeah, because that's awful. It's unimaginable.

[Ash]

Yeah, it's awful. It's unimaginable. Their fan. I don't even think their families were told. I remember when I watched the documentary, I don't think they were told that.

[Elena]

Oh, man.

[Ash]

But at the same time, some of the information withheld was also probably held back so that they could use it to narrow down suspects.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So you can see, maybe it was this, maybe it was that, or maybe.

[Elena]

It was a. Yeah. Of course.

[Ash]

Regardless of their reasons, though, withholding the information made the public's belief, and like the investigators belief that this was all a robbery gone wrong seem likely. Yeah, but if the public had been privy to all the information, the case would have looked a lot more like a sex crime than a robbery.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So there's a lot going on here.

[Elena]

There is. It's going in like a hundred different directions, it feels.

[Ash]

Yeah. So after two weeks of almost no updates from investigators, another press conference was called a few days before Christmas to update the public about the status. The week before, a teenage girl had actually confessed that she and her boyfriend committed the murders. What? But detectives really quickly realized that she was giving a false confession when she had absolutely no knowledge of the details of the murder. How disturbing.

[Elena]

How.

[Ash]

How disturbing.

[Elena]

That's unthinkable.

[Ash]

I'm like, why?

[Elena]

Why would you want to take credit for that?

[Ash]

You should probably be locked up just for that. Because if you're admitting to something like that, you're probably gonna do some fucked up shit in the future.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Netcredit is here to say yes to a personal loan or line of credit. When other lenders say no, apply in minutes and get a decision is soon. Soon as the same day loans offered by NetCredit or lending partner banks and serviced by NetCredit applications subject to review and approval. Learn more at netcredit.com partners I can't tell you how often I hear, oh, I'm a little ocd. I like things neat. That's not ocd. I'm Howie Mandel and I know this because I have ocd. Actual OCD causes relentless unwanted thoughts. What if I did something terrible and forgot? What if I'm a bad person? Why am I thinking this terrible thing? It makes you question absolutely everything and you'll do anything to feel feel better. OCD is debilitating, but it's also highly treatable with the right kind of therapy. Regular talk therapy doesn't cut it. OCD needs specialized therapy. That's why I want to tell you about NO cd. NO CD is the world's largest virtual therapy provider for ocd. Their licensed therapists provide specialized therapy virtually and it's covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. If you think you might be struggling with OCD, visit nocd.com to schedule a free 15 minute call and learn more. That's nocd.com the best TV comes in many forms.

[Ash]

From real life mysteries to blockbuster dramas, family favorites and buzz worthy reality shows, Philo makes it easy to stream them all with one simple, affordable subscription. For just $33 a month, Philo offers more than 70 live channels, including favorites like AMC, AE, MTV, Discovery, and Nickelodeon. Plus on demand TV like the entire AMC library. Whatever the mood, there's always something new to uncover. Philo subscribers also get access to HBO Max Basic with ads and Discovery at no extra cost, along with unlimited dvr. That's saves shows for up to a year. No long contracts, no complicated setup. Just endless entertainment ready to stream anytime. Ready for a better way to bundle all the TV you love? Get started at Philo tv. That's P H I L O tv. Your next obsession is waiting.

Jon Jones told a reporter, confessions sound good, but that's not the standard by which the charges are filed. The killers have to tell us certain things that only the killers would know. That didn't happen in this case. They started telling us stuff that just wasn't true. Now I want everybody to remember the first part of that statement. Confessions sound good, but that's not the standard by which charges are filed. Everyone just tuck that away in your brain.

[Elena]

I'm tucking it. Okay?

[Ash]

So the two teenagers who confessed were among 25 suspects that investigators interviewed since the murders. But all 25 of those suspects turned out to Be dead ends. Aside from a flurry of activity right after the killings, the case really failed to take off in any meaningful direction.

[Elena]

This must have been so infuriating.

[Ash]

Four, exactly four families here affected by this. And some of these families have, like, these girls had siblings. And these siblings are just going on wondering what happened to their older younger sister.

[Elena]

You're having to move forward in life, parenting, being a kid.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Not having any idea what happened.

[Ash]

Well, and it's like, what if you're a kid when this happens to you? You're just never a kid again.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Like that innocent is stripped away from.

[Elena]

You, and you're probably worried. You don't know who did this. So they're out there.

[Ash]

Yeah. Everybody's on it. So where are they? And then you're probably wondering, was our family targeted?

[Elena]

Yeah, they're going to come for me.

[Ash]

Exactly. So Andrew Water said, we have a few leads, but I wouldn't call any of them strong. We're not too optimistic, which I can't imagine hearing. One, as the public, I'd be like. And two, like we just said, as the families, like, there's nothing you have.

[Elena]

To hear we're not up to. That would shatter me.

[Ash]

Yeah, we're not ruining my stick.

[Elena]

It's awful.

[Ash]

A week later, when reporters contacted John Jones for an update on the case, as the end of the year was now approaching, Jones replied, It ain't looking good. The light at the end of the tunnel. It's the headlights of a train. 1991's been a bad year. A real bad year.

[Elena]

Oh, man. Yeah.

[Ash]

So By March of 1992, now, the Austin community was continuing to show their support for the victims families. One thing about this case, and I really highly suggest the documentary that's on HBO about shows the community that really came together at this point in time, everybody was keeping the girls memories alive with posters, banners, buttons, T shirts. There were companies that were put, like, pouring money into the reward.

[Elena]

Good job, Austin.

[Ash]

I think Bryce Foods was offering a $25,000 reward. And the owners of I can't believe it's yogurt also contributed to that, too. And then on local radio stations, they would play the benefit single called we will not forget, which a ton of people in the community and the victim's families got together to record.

[Elena]

Oh, stop.

[Ash]

About what happened to these girls and who they were. It will make you cry when you.

[Elena]

Hear it, I was gonna say.

[Ash]

But everybody did really support each other. It was awesome. So despite the city's determination to keep the victim's memories alive and to deliver justice. The arrival of 1992 brought absolutely nothing but frustration and dead ends for investigators. By March, the task force, which was consisting of one clerk, five detectives, and an ATF agent at that time, had sifted through more than a thousand leads.

[Elena]

And had just that amount of people.

[Ash]

Just that amount of people, and interviewed countless witnesses and suspects, and still they were no closer to where they were when they started.

[Elena]

I. This makes me stressed out just thinking about it, because when, like, you always think there's got to be some string to pull, and there is always some string to pull, I feel. But when you can't find that string and you're. I can't imagine just sitting there and hitting dead end, because it's not like, oh, here's something. You're just not going to get any further than this. You're getting nothing. Like, you're not even taking a mini little step forward. That's the thing that would be infuriating.

[Ash]

I think that's the thing, too, about the cases from the early 90s is that we didn't have the technology that we have today to make DNA profiles and that kind of thing. So it's even maddening to like, however many years later, like, what, over 30 years later, this gets solved. And you had that evidence from day one, which is incredible.

[Elena]

It was sitting there, but there was no.

[Ash]

Nothing they could do with it.

[Elena]

Thank goodness they collected it, though.

[Ash]

Yeah, thank goodness they did.

[Elena]

There's at least that.

[Ash]

And just like, just the way that this crime scene, like, everything happened at this crime scene, it's awful because that. Honestly, that could have been missing, too.

[Elena]

Absolutely.

[Ash]

But just the fact that they had that is remarkable.

[Elena]

It was so destroyed in a way.

[Ash]

So the best leads investigators had were descriptions of those two hooded individuals seen in the store and a composite sketch of a person of interest that was seen in and around the parking lot of the store that night. But it's like two hooded individual. That could be anybody.

[Elena]

I was gonna say that could literally be anybody.

[Ash]

Yeah. But then the sketch of the random individual, like, being a creep, led investigators to a recently arrested serial killer who we haven't talked about, Kenneth McDuff. He was awaiting trial for the murder of several Young women in McLennan County, Texas, not too far from Austin.

[Elena]

Yeah, we haven't covered him.

[Ash]

No, we haven't. But unfortunately, he had an alibi for the night of the murders that checked out and he was ruled out. But he was found guilty of the murders that he had been charged with before. And he was actually executed in 1998. So we'll look into that.

[Elena]

See you later. Goodbye.

[Ash]

Yeah. So later that year in mid October, police in Mexico suddenly arrested 23 year old. I'm gonna do my best with these. I looked them up, but just bear with me. Porfirio Saverdra and 22 year old Alberto Cortez, they were arrested on charges of drug trafficking and arms smuggling. During their interrogation, both confessed to the murders of the four teenagers in Austin.

[Elena]

Why is everyone confessing to this? I mean, interrogation?

[Ash]

Yeah, I was like, well this is my own question.

[Elena]

I was like, wait a minute. They're an interrogation I don't know about.

[Ash]

I'm, I'm actually very unclear about what happened with the teenagers. They were people of interest, so who knows?

[Elena]

Yeah. Who knows how that was happening?

[Ash]

There was one specific investigator that actually got taken off this case for not using great interrogation tactics.

[Elena]

Well, I guess that answered my question.

[Ash]

Yeah. So that could have, that could have definitely.

[Elena]

That could have played into it. Yeah.

[Ash]

So these arrests came as a surprise to everybody in Texas, especially the investigators, actually. They were convinced that the killer was familiar with the area and lived nearby.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And while the arrests usually might have come as a relief to everybody in Austin, especially, you would think the victims of the families, not a lot of people seemed convinced of the authenticity of these confessions.

[Elena]

That might even be worse than happening.

[Ash]

I think it's so much worse because.

[Elena]

It'S like a, it's a weird false hope. But then you, you feel like you're being duped a little.

[Ash]

I think you said it perfectly.

[Elena]

False hope.

[Ash]

Because you, there's a little piece of you, I'm sure that gets that feeling in your stomach like, oh, this could be it. And then you're like, you're like.

[Elena]

But I know it's not, I know it's not exactly.

[Ash]

Jennifer and Sarah's mother Barbara told a reporter, I don't feel justice. I'm not happy, I'm not thrilled. I'm not anything. All I know is that someone had confessed to something that is so horrible.

[Elena]

Because that is the other thing that I can't really fathom is like once somebody is caught for this. Yes, I'm sure you feel, I, I can imagine that you feel some sort of relief that justice is, is moving forward at the very least, even if.

[Ash]

It'S just like the smallest, tiniest feeling.

[Elena]

Yeah. But at this, you don't think about the fact that these families probably also feel this strange, like, yeah, I like this guy. You know what I mean? Like, like I don't. Okay, so we caught him and he did this awful thing. Like, it must be such a weird. I can't describe it correctly, but like a weird dichotomy of feelings.

[Ash]

Well, because it must be like, okay.

[Elena]

I don't want to know this guy.

[Ash]

I don't want to know this guy. And so, like, we're all done here, I guess. Yeah. Like, okay, how do you just go. How do you go about your life with it being unsolved, but then how do you go about your life when it is solved and you just know this person who took your baby away from you?

[Elena]

Well, and it's like I would picture, no matter what, somebody who hurt my child in my head would become this fucking just crouched over, like, fire breathing monster. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you just think of the worst kind of goblin in your head. And then when you see this person who did it, it must be this, like. So that. That's just the guy who did that. Like, you're just like, what the. Like, it must be such a weird because no matter what, you're gonna think of this person as a fucking monster.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And they are, but they're gonna look like a human. And that must be a weird thing to reconcile in your own brain.

[Ash]

And then on top of that, you just know that they get to. Even if they're in prison, they're living, they get to see the sun, they get to eat a meal, they get to play a card game, maybe in prison, like, they just get to go about life to some degree. And your child doesn't. Like, I. Yeah, you would want to destroy that person and you're not able to.

[Elena]

I can't imagine it, but my heart.

[Ash]

Goes out to all these families. But according to Mexican Deputy Attorney General Jose Louis Romero, a piece. Saavedra was the primary aggressor and Cortez was his accomplice, which did kind of line up with the theory what they were saying. One very determined person, one very possibly reluctant person. He said the Mexican deputy attorney general said he forced the young girls to submit. This is a lot. Sorry. Then he raped them, tied them up and shot them once they were dead. He said the two men cut up their bodies before setting fire to the store. Which I was like, wrong.

[Elena]

Where does it say that?

[Ash]

No, they didn't. But although Mexico typically doesn't extradite Mexican nationalists to or national. Sorry. To foreign countries, Mexican law does allow for Mexicans to be tried for crimes committed outside of the country while they're still in the country, which is interesting.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But they made it clear to the. The American press that they intended to pursue charges on behalf of Texas, which is pretty cool.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So while the families of the victims remained pretty ambivalent about the arrest and the announcement of the charges, investigators were unimpressed at best. Not only was it unclear why these men had confessed to such a heinous crime when they were only arrested on, like, pretty up charges, but nothing that crazy.

[Elena]

Much lesser than that.

[Ash]

Yeah. Like drugs and guns. But they also seem to have almost no familiarity with the case or the details of the murders.

[Elena]

I mean, that feels like a pretty red flag.

[Ash]

The biggest deal being he said they cut up the bot. The bodies.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Weren't cut up.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Also, according to the Mexican attorney general there, Saavedra had been an employee of the yogurt shop at one time in the past. But a quick check of the employment records found no record of either man having worked for them.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah. This is getting quickly falling apart at the seams.

[Ash]

Yeah. And further complicating matters was the fact that authorities in Mexico were also refusing to allow Austin investigators to even speak with the suspects. So there was no way to get an impression of what they did and didn't know firsthand.

[Elena]

What the hell?

[Ash]

Now, to the surprise of virtually no one involved, the two suspects ultimately recanted their confessions just a few days later.

[Elena]

I wonder why.

[Ash]

And they said they'd been beaten by police in Mexico and forced to confess. I don't know what happened. Just saying that. That's what they said.

[Elena]

But okay.

[Ash]

Now the short lived excitement. Question mark. I don't even know if anybody was necessarily excited. I think it was just maybe. Yeah.

[Elena]

Hope.

[Ash]

It was all very short lived. And it proved to be the last piece of significant news in the yogurt shop murders for more than seven years. Years.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

So that big, huge thing happened where they're like, we have these two suspects, they know everything. They even know more than we know. And then it just falls apart. No, they don't.

[Elena]

And then it's just like, that's it.

[Ash]

And then seven years goes by. Then years later, much to everybody's surprise, Austin Police Chief Stan Knee called a press conference to announce that three men had been arrested for the murders based largely on confessions that they gave to the police when they were first interviewed eight years earlier.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

Which is interesting, because eight years earlier, the police were saying they had absolutely nothing and had ruled everybody out.

[Elena]

I was gonna say, where was that?

[Ash]

Well, according to Knee, the arrests were the result of a New initiative launched a year earlier where detectives were re examining old leads, you know, trying to get somewhere, including the many confessions received at the time. So the story of how the arrests came to be started just eight days after the murders were committed. Like way back seven years or eight years earlier, when police arrested 16 year old Maurice Pierce, who was reportedly walking around the North Cross Mall a few blocks away from the yogurt shop carrying a.22 caliber pistol. Oh. Which I don't know if you remember, was one of the guns that was used in the murders. At the time, Pierce was in the company of his friend, 15 year old Forrest Welborn, who was also arrested at that time. When they were interviewed at the station, they claimed that on the night of the murders they were with two other friends, Rob Springsteen and. And his roommate Mike Scott, who were both 17 years old. Now, during their interviews with Pierce and Wellborn, Maurice Pierce supposedly told the police that the gun that he had in his possession had been used in the yogurt shop murders. And. But that I think he had said originally, like, it wasn't his gun, it was like a community gun.

[Elena]

A community gun, yeah.

[Ash]

There was like parties that were held in like a creek behind the yogurt shop and they would stash the gun there, shared it. They pretty much is what they were saying. Okay. And he said, I do know this was used in the yogurt shop murders, but I didn't commit them.

[Elena]

Okay. So it's like, yeah, absolutely, that was used, but yeah, not mine.

[Ash]

If you happen to, you know, just in case, link these up. Yeah, just that wasn't me.

[Elena]

That it belongs to everybody.

[Ash]

So that was weird.

To everybody. But after speaking with both boys for several hours, they concluded that Pierce had made up the story and let both of them go.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

The next day, when Pierce was asked about the claim for a second time, he admitted he was lying when he said that gun had been used in the murder.

[Elena]

Guys, stop lying.

[Ash]

Maybe don't say that to police. But again, remember, there was some weird tactics going on.

[Elena]

Stuff going on.

[Ash]

Yeah. I really again recommend the documentary because they go super far into it. We gotta be careful with what we say, you know.

[Elena]

Yeah, allegedly.

[Ash]

I'm not hbo.

[Elena]

We're not Home Box office.

Yeah, you got to throw an Allegedly.

[Ash]

Allegedly. So at the time, detectives took Pierce at his word. He was just a kid who didn't really seem to understand the gravity of the situation that, you know, he was in and was just messing around.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Yeah, it's a lot. But eight years later, desperate for new leads, investigators who were also working under a new chief of police.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

Went back to the original case file and looked over those confessions. And that's when the interviews with Maurice Pierce and Forest Wellborn started to jump out at them. According to the investigators notes on the interview, they strongly suspected the teenagers, particularly Rob. Rob Springsteen and Mike Scott, were withholding critical information. So the new members of the task force tracked all of these guys down, who they were now adults at this time in 1999, to re interview them about that night. So this time around, detectives interviewed Rob Springsteen and Mike Scott several more times, including one interrogation that lasted almost 18 hours. Holy. I want everybody to like imagine the last 18 hours of their life.

[Elena]

I was just gonna say this is one of those situations where you really do need a basis of comparison.

[Ash]

Yeah, you gotta sit down for a sec. So 18 hours ago for us, what's. It's 4 o' clock right now.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So what's that? 12 hours ago it was 4 o' clock in the morning. Right. And then add four more hours to that. 4, 3, 2, 1, 11. I was getting ready for bed.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Last night, 18 hours ago. And it's literally almost dinner time now.

[Elena]

You just be, you know, finishing up your interrogation right now. Yeah.

[Ash]

So you would be literally for the entirety that I was brushing my teeth, doing my skin care routine, scrolling on TikTok in my bed, sleeping for like six hours, went to her exercise class this morning, got home, showered, drove to work, ate breakfast, did some shit at work. Like I did a million things in 18 hours.

[Elena]

And we're getting ready to like end the day. Yeah.

[Ash]

And it's all of that would have been the event in an interrogation room.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Just. Just sit with that.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So finally, after being repeatedly pressed by police during those 18 hours, and that was just one of the interrogations, there was multiple like a couple days worth. Finally, Mike Scott broke down and confessed to the murders. That one I can see, it's very Jesse, Ms. Kelly.

[Elena]

It was giving me these vibes. Yeah.

[Ash]

If you don't know that the West Memphis three case, we covered it. Go back. I think we did it in like three part.

[Elena]

Yeah, I think so.

[Ash]

It has a very similar air to this case, actually. Yeah. So according to Scott, the four boys had been hanging out in the food court at North Cross Mall on the night of December 6, 1991. When Maurice Pierce said something about how he needed money, he told the detectives. I don't remember the specifics about what was brought up, but Maurice and Rob talked about Robbing a place. He said they all left the mall. They drove around for a little bit looking for a place to rob. And that's when they spotted the I can't believe it's yogurt shop.

[Elena]

Shop.

[Ash]

They went inside, they ordered some yogurt. Nobody saw them in there that night, by the way.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

Then casually cased the store, looking for entrances and exits before leaving and returning to the mall.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

Later that night, just before the shop was set to close, they all four of them returned to the store. According to Scott, Forest Wellborn waited in the car as a lookout while the other three gained entry through the back door, which was slightly ajar. He said one of the girls said something like, hey, what are you doing here? You don't belong here. And that's when Maurice pulled out his gun.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

It's very.

[Elena]

It feels very like a script you would see, you know, it feels like, hey, you, what are you doing?

[Ash]

Yeah, you don't belong here.

[Elena]

That doesn't sound like a teenage girl.

[Ash]

I don't think so. So that's when Maurice pulled out his gun. Mike watched the back door, and Maurice went to the cash register, demanded it be opened. When he saw there was no money in the drawer, he became irate because. Which actually would have made sense.

[Elena]

Absolutely.

[Ash]

Because remember, the money had already been transferred into the deposit box.

[Elena]

Yep.

[Ash]

He became irate and yelled, where the fuck is the rest of the money? But the girls explained it had already been dropped in the safe for the night. And that was that.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

A few minutes later, that was that. For the money. I mean, a few minutes later, Pierce called out for Scott to come help him. Michael Scott. And when he got to the back of the store, Michael Scott saw that all four girls had been stripped nude and were tied up.

[Elena]

Up.

[Ash]

So we're to believe that Maurice Pierce pretty much did that entire part alone. He said, I believe this is the way it was because I don't remember pulling their clothes off.

[Elena]

I feel like that's something you would remember.

[Ash]

Yeah. As Pierce was yelling at them, demanding money, the gun just went off.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

The classic killing one of the girls, which I need you to remember. These girls were killed execution style.

[Elena]

Yes. But it. Accident doesn't make sense. Just went off. Yeah. Then whenever you hear that in a story. Question.

[Ash]

Yeah. Big question marks. Then Scott said he heard a second shot and then a third. Frightened, he ran to the other side of the store where he said he found. And this is explicit, he said he found Rob Springsteen sexually assaulting Sarah Harbison. He said I told Rob that wasn't. That wasn't right. That's not what he came for. And at that point, he stopped.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

None of this is very believable, in my opinion.

[Elena]

Very believable. I know that we know the end.

[Ash]

Result here, so obviously that's influencing us a bit.

[Elena]

Yeah. It's a little bit of confirmation bias. I. I will admit that. But looking at it now, I'm like, this doesn't sound believable. Like, even if I didn't know what the end result was, it's like some.

[Ash]

Of the details fit very perfectly.

[Elena]

Yeah. Like the cash register not being full, but.

[Ash]

But then, like you were saying, a lot of it sounds scripted, and it's.

[Elena]

I think I've also, now that we've mentioned the West Memphis Three case. In that case, allegedly pieces of information were fed to kind of fit according to who.

[Ash]

We are talking about a very similar thing.

[Elena]

Yeah. And we'll get cash register information could have been fed. I'm not saying it was. I'm just saying, like, I'm hypoth. I'm. I'm theorizing. Yeah. I'm being hypothetical.

[Ash]

We're alleging.

[Elena]

I'm alleging so hard.

[Ash]

I'm alleging.

[Elena]

I have a force field of a.

[Ash]

Ledge all around me. That's iconic.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So back to the story. Very bleak. Once all four girls had been shot, Pierce demanded that Michael Scott retrieve a can of Zippo lighter fluid from the car and spray it around the store. Michael Scott said he did as he was told and then he lit the accelerant with his lighter. Remember, there was no smell of lighter fluid at the scene.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

According to Scott, he didn't know what he did with the can of lighter fluid. He said, I could have thrown. I could have threw it on the pile of stuff in the back of the store. But either way, once the fire had been set, they fled the scene. They went their separate ways with Rob Springsteen and Mike Scott returning to their apartment. That story also changed later. And I think they said they all four of them ended up driving to, like, New Mexico or something.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Wild. And then it. None of it really made sense. But when he was confronted with Mike Scott's confession, and after hours and hours and hours of interrogation, Rob Springsteen told police a similar story to Scott.

[Elena]

So. So. And again, when you think of it this way, like, again, we have confirmation bias because we know that it's been solved now. So that is a thing. But you think about, like, being a family member or like, a loved one or something here after years of Nothing. And then suddenly they bring back suspects that they already looked at and they say, we were able to crack them. I wouldn't question it. No way. I would never in a million years question.

[Ash]

Because it honestly makes sense.

[Elena]

I don't care what they said. I would be like, okay, that makes sense.

[Ash]

Well, and it's like, oh, you talked to them originally, like Gotman. They must have been suspicious upon a second look. Okay, wow.

[Elena]

Like, that's very valid that I'm sure. Some of them, I don't know. But I'm just saying, like, if some of them were sitting there being, I personally would probably be like, thank goodness. This makes sense to me.

[Ash]

It's interesting when they interview some of the family members in the documentary and some of them were very like, relieved.

[Elena]

Like, this is it.

[Ash]

And then some of them were not quite so sure.

[Elena]

Yeah. So it really shows you. It really is like a spectrum of how nobody's gonna react the same way.

[Ash]

Because remember, it's four different families here.

[Elena]

Yeah. Like, I just, I can sit here right now from my position and be like, oh, well, that doesn't make sense. That's unscripted. How could you believe that? And then I think of the other side of the coin and I would 100% believe that because I would want to.

[Ash]

And also remember, this is the mid-90s or late, at this point, late-90s in Texas, you still want to believe police.

[Elena]

Yeah, of course.

[Ash]

And like police are to be believed in general.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But now we have some more examples of cases like this that we can at least happen.

[Elena]

Yeah. Have settled a little bit of a precedent for other things sometimes.

[Ash]

But. So Rob Springsteen told a very similar story. And he admitted in his confession the fact that he had been carrying a semi automatic handgun that fired 380 caliber ammunition, which was the second kind of ammunition. So surrounded by a large assembly of investigators, as well as obviously the families of the victims, Chief Knee told the crowd of reporters on December 6, 1991, we as a city lost our innocence. Today we can regain our confidence after nearly a decade of frustration and dead ends. The arrest definitely marked a significant win in what to a lot of people felt like a case that was just never going to be solved. Jeff Rusk, who was a lawyer for all the family, said, you have a sense of relief, may finally be served. So the announcement of the arrest might have brought some sense of relief, but it also begged the question, if investigators had known about the supposed confession for so long, why did they then wait seven, eight years to arrest these four.

[Elena]

Guys, I mean, that is interesting.

[Ash]

That's weird.

[Elena]

That would be a question.

[Ash]

At the time, investigators were very tight lipped about their pursuit of the four accused, and they didn't share any information about the evidence that supported the confessions, which. Which you can understand. They're in the middle of trying to get charges, of course, but as far as anybody knew, there wasn't really a lot of evidence discovered at the crime scene, like we said. And so much of that had been corrupted by the efforts to put out the fire, like we also said. So if all the evidence was so compelling against them, how was it that none of the previous investigators had picked up on it?

[Elena]

That would be a question.

[Ash]

Because that's the thing. Like, you can have these four suspects and you can say, like, we're moving forward and we feel strongly about it and we have so much evidence against them. But, like, where did all that evidence come from if you never really had much to begin with?

[Elena]

Because it. Because, like, which is it?

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

Did you not have much to begin with or did you sit on it?

[Ash]

Exactly. So, in fact, over the course of the investigation, the predominant theory, remember, was that two adult men committed this crime.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

At the time, residents were told that the killers were into vampires, the occult, and graveyard rights, which that does hearken back to Memphis. Oh, it does. But also, none of that was true about the accused back then or at this point back in the day. They were just kind of like regular teenagers. Yeah, teenagers. They kind of came from, like, a couple of them came from tough family situations and that kind of thing, but none of them were, like, you know, praying to Satan in their backyard.

[Elena]

Satanic rituals.

[Ash]

Yeah. And in all the witness statements that described suspicious people in the area, like I said, no one saw them in.

[Elena]

The area that night, and that's a sticky point.

[Ash]

And four teenage boys. I'm gonna remember that experience.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Like, I'm gonna remember being like, oh, yeah, four teenage boys. They were loud. They were annoying.

[Elena]

Yeah, of course I remember them.

[Ash]

I was at a gas station the other night and there was four teenage boys. And I was like, I'm not going inside.

[Elena]

Like, I remember them.

[Ash]

And I do. I remember them right now. That was, like, the other night. So at the time the murders were committed, even the oldest among them, by the way, Rob Springsteen and Mike Scott, wouldn't have been mistaken for adult men.

[Elena]

They look like children.

[Ash]

Yeah, they were 17 years old. And on top of that, none of them looked like the police sketch that was widely circulated after the murders occurred either.

[Elena]

I mean, these are all sticky points.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Not, you know, not smoking gun.

[Ash]

It's all circumstantial, but still. So while the members of the newly reformed task force were very enthusiastic about the arrests, a lot of people, including some of the families of the victims, took a more measured approach. They had been burned before in this investigation.

[Elena]

Yeah, that's smart.

[Ash]

Mike Harbison told reporters after the announcement of the arrests. We simply do not have enough information and haven't gotten our emotions together enough to make a comment at this point. And you don't have to, and you absolutely don't have.

[Elena]

I hate when they're like, what do you want to say about this? It's like, let them grieve.

[Ash]

These poor people had years and years and years of reporters just knocking on their doors consistently.

[Elena]

I can't even picture that.

[Ash]

That rough. For their part, the families of the accused were even more skeptical, which obviously you could expect, but to the point of completely refusing to accept this theory. Maurice Pierce's wife, Kimberly, said, they don't have the right person. I know my husband. It's just not within him to commit murder. He couldn't hurt a fly. Which is sad.

[Elena]

Like you.

[Ash]

I mean, you don't want to believe that a man you married seven years earlier murdered four teenage girls when he was a teenager himself. Yeah, no, like, that's horrifying.

[Elena]

I mean, whenever I hear that he couldn't hurt a fly comment, I'm like, you should snip that one off. Because for some reason, whenever somebody says.

[Ash]

That, it does backfire.

[Elena]

Sometimes it doesn't normally go in their favor.

[Ash]

Yeah. Well, like I mentioned earlier, the skepticism from the public was not without justification. The investigation, as we have been talking about, dragged out for years without a lot of progress. And in that time, a few police errors came to light. And one of the task force members, Hector Polanco, had been kicked off the case amid allegations that he had coerced a confession.

[Elena]

There it is.

[Ash]

And that there were, like, some not so great tactics being used on other confessions.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And there was also the fact that everything about the arrest very much seemed to be too convenient. When the bodies were first discovered, detectives were baffled by the crime scene, the lack of motive, the sheer brutality, the cruelty. And now, all of a sudden, they made four arrests, and all the details just perfectly fell into place. Journalist Mike hall remembered. We had this kind of poetic closure. Four boys had killed four girls, but it just seemed a little bit too poetic.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

In the years since the murders, the victims had been memorialized in many, many ways. Most of which focused on their purity and their innocence. So it seemed fitting that their accused killers, who were around the same ages of the victims at the time, were discovered to be their exact opposites. Of course, where Jennifer Harbison, quote, brought joy into the classroom, and Amy Ayers made good grades and good friends. Maurice Pierce was described as having attended a school that served dropouts and students with discipline problems. And Mike Scott was described in similar terms, with one reporter saying that he repeated his sophomore year and dropped out of Austin schools 12 months after the killings, which they also pointed to as like, a big thing. Like, oh, a year later, he dropped out of school. Was it the. The trauma of having murdered four girls.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Which it could have been.

[Elena]

Absolutely.

[Ash]

But also, it could have been life.

[Elena]

Yeah, I was gonna say a lot going on.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

But when you put it together with this timeline, with what you think is going on, it begins to. Confirmation bias kind of sneaks in there.

[Ash]

But again, it's so very similar to the West Memphis Three case, where it's like, you have this case where three young boys were murdered, and then you go after three teenage boys who are.

[Elena]

Like, four girls are murdered.

[Ash]

They're opposite. Exactly. Yeah. It's very interesting. So in the days that followed the announcement, each of the suspects were arraigned on murder charges. But the picture that emerged of each of them was not what anybody would have expected of people who committed such an atrocity, like, horrible, horrible, violent act. By all accounts, the four suspects were pretty unremarkable teenagers when the murders were committed to, like most teenagers, they spent their time hanging out at the mall. They drank beer in the park occasionally, and they fought with their parents. But nowhere in their histories was there any indication that they were capable of committing violent, violent sexual assault.

[Elena]

This isn't just, like, a small thing.

[Ash]

This is robbery, rape, murder, and arson times four. So, no, there was no clues in any of their past that they were capable of this. And actually, at the time of their arrest, everyone who knew them personally spoke highly of them. Like, there was other people who were like, oh, like, they dropped out of school and they were delinquents and blah, blah, blah. But one person said of Michael Scott, he's never so much as raised his voice. And Rob Springsteen's landlord described him and his wife as super. You couldn't ask for better renters.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Which, again, flipping it on its head, we hear that shit all the time with, like, brutal. Brutal cases that we cover where the people are guilty. But then in this case, you have to look at it twice.

[Elena]

Yeah, because you say, okay, I can.

[Ash]

Say that about anybody.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

People can be chameleons.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

Or people can just be who they are. So in November, the public finally heard the details of the arrests and the confessions when Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn appeared in court for their hearing to determine if they were actually going to be certified to stand trial as adults because they were both juveniles when the murders were committed. During the hearing, investigators testified about the state of the crime scene, the details of the injuries sustained by the four victims, the confessions given first by Maurice Pierce in 1991 and then by Scott and Springsteen in 1999. So at the end of the hearing, Judge Janine Muir was pretty convinced that there was probable cause, and she certified both as adults, clearing the way for them to be indicted.

[Elena]

Dang.

[Ash]

Within a few weeks, three of the four would be indicted on four counts of capital murder. But the grand jury actually declined to indict Forest Welborn due to a lack of compelling evidence. Oh, because remember, Forrest was said to be the lookout.

[Elena]

Okay. Yeah, like in the car.

[Ash]

Being sick. The worst. Being sick during the holidays. Even worse. Good News is that GoodRx can help you get back on your feet for way less. You could save an average of $53 on flu treatments, plus discounts on cold meds, decongestants and more. GoodRx is easy and free. Just search for your prescription on the app or the website. Compare prices at local pharmacies, save your free coupon and show it at the pharmacy counter. With Goodrx, you can save on prescriptions at over 70,000 pharmacies nationwide, like Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publix, Kroger, Pretty much everywhere. Pick up your prescription in store or have Goodrx deliver it right to your door. GoodRx is not insurance, but it does work whether you have insurance or not. And in fact, it might even beat your co pay price. Whenever I get in line to pick up my prescriptions, I always pull up the app to see what I can save on. Don't let cold and flu season steal your holiday cheer. Check out GoodRx for savings on the medications you need this holiday season. That's goodrx.com.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Morbid.

Netcredit is here to say yes to a personal loan or line of credit. When other lenders say no, apply in minutes and get a decision as soon as the same day. Loans offered by NetCredit or lending partner banks and serviced by NetCredit. Applications subject to review and approval. Learn [e-mail] partners. I can't tell you how often I hear, oh, I'm a little ocd. I like things neat. That's not ocd. I'm Howie Mandel, and I know this because I have ocd. Actual OCD causes relentless unwanted thoughts. What if I did something terrible and forgot? What if I'm a bad person? Why am I thinking this terrible thing? It makes you question absolutely everything, and you'll do anything to feel better. OCD is debilitating, but it's also highly treatable with the right kind of therapy. Regular talk therapy doesn't cut it. OCD needs specialized therapy. That's why I want to tell you about NO cd. NOCD is the world's largest virtual therapy provider for ocd. Their licensed therapists provide specialized therapy virtually, and it's covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. If you think you might be struggling with OCD, visit nocd.com to schedule a free 15 minute call and learn more. That's n o c d.com.

[Ash]

So the arrests and the indictments and a flurry of activity that followed were exciting for investigators and gave some hope to the families that after all these years, they might get some justice. But that excitement did not last very long. In May of 2000, just five months after the indictments were handed down by a grand jury, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms released a report finding that after careful analysis, the gun confiscated from Maurice Pierce in 1991 was unlikely to have been the weapon used in the yogurt shop murders.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Now, since his possession of the gun was the reason for his arrest in 1991, and the single thing that pointed investigators in the direction of these four men in the first place, this was a critical blow for the prosecution, who literally did not have one shred of physical evidence tying any of these four or three at this point to the murders.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

Now, in their confessions, both Mike and Rob told investigators that they had vague memories of throwing the weapons into the Colorado river on the night of the murders. So investigators, as soon as it came out that, like, Maurice Pierce's gun wasn't the one, they were like, okay, well, there's other weapons.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So they immediately started dragging the river in search of the original murder weapon. But by that time, nine years had passed and at least six floods had washed out the river.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

So the likelihood of finding anything was.

[Elena]

Very slim, very low.

[Ash]

But the prosecution now seemed desperate, so they searched anyway. In an expose for Texas Monthly the next year, journalist Mike hall wrote, there was no more Apt symbol of the Austin police department's troubles than images on the news of cops literally fishing for clues.

[Elena]

That's the thing. I was like, I. I would get it if it felt. It felt like it was a compelling case that had everything you needed, and you just needed this one thing.

[Ash]

A literal smoking gun.

[Elena]

And that it was leaning in the direction of like, these are the guys, and I just need this to prove it. Then, like, going, you know, putting forth those resources makes sense.

[Ash]

Yeah. Of course.

[Elena]

These are human lives. Like, you should do that. But it's like, when it is so clearly going the other way.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Those resources could be better, much well spent somewhere else. And it's like, this is when I'm like, it's very cool.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

It just didn't feel like a good. A good use of it.

[Ash]

Definitely not a good use of resources. Because, unsurprisingly, their search turned up literally nothing. And that was only the beginning of the Austin police department's problems. On May 31, less than a month after the report on the gun not being the gun was released, a shocking photograph taken from Mike Scott's police interrogation was published in the papers.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

Appearing to show detective Robert Merrill holding a gun to the back of Michael Scott's head during his investig. His interrogation.

[Elena]

Oh.

Yeah.

Allegedly. But there's a picture.

Like, holy.

[Ash]

That'll change things for everybody.

[Elena]

What?

I will never. Watching the West Memphis three stuff changed my. Like, I. Because I just don't get it. I don't. Because.

[Ash]

Why don't you.

[Elena]

Closing a case is more important pretenses is more important than finding out who actually did it. Understand that. It's like you want to close the case because you want to bring justice. Of course, that's supposed to be what you go to law enforcement for. And it's like. But like, in the west Memphis three case, they knew.

[Ash]

Oh, I mean, they were hiring allegedly.

[Elena]

People to make up things like allegedly. And it's like they knew. And it's like. Like, how do you feel good about that? The killers are still killer or killers are still running around, and you're just sitting there shoehorning someone into the.

[Ash]

I know.

[Elena]

And it's like, do you not this.

[Ash]

You have to wonder.

[Elena]

There has to be some part of.

[Ash]

Them on the flip side of it. You have to wonder if they so desperately want to believe that this is true, that somehow they convince themselves that it's true.

[Elena]

That's the only thing that makes sense, I think, because otherwise I can't understand ruining somebody's life.

[Ash]

Yeah. An innocent person's life on false pretenses.

[Elena]

To clue the case.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

And letting somebody, an actual killer, a very dangerous animal of a human being, go, you know, like, just because you don't want to do the work. So I have to believe that what you said is true, that it's like some. Maybe they convince themselves that.

[Ash]

I think the human brain works in very, very mysterious ways when life and death is involved. You know what I mean?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I don't think we understand all of it.

[Elena]

It's just knowing that. It's like holding a gun to his head.

[Ash]

Yeah. That's next level. That's like, even if you do believe that he killed these four young women, you can't.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Do that. And also, did you not think, like, what was the point of taking a photograph of that?

[Elena]

That's the other thing. I'm like, who took that picture? Couldn't tell you. Yeah.

[Ash]

So since their arrest the previous year, though, all four suspects had maintained their innocence, by the way. And both Mike Scott and Rob Springsteen claimed that their confessions, the only thing tying them to the murders, by the way, had been coerced and given under distress or duress. Which we now had a photo of.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

The public publication of the picture from Mike Scott's interrogation, which was included in a motion to move his trial to a different county, seemed to support their statement. In a response to the image going public, the prosecutor's office released their own statement saying the description contained in the motion of the photograph of Detective Robert Merrill and Michael Scott is inaccurate. Like, it's a photo. How is a photo inaccurate?

[Elena]

Yeah, you're gonna have to explain that one to me.

[Ash]

Yeah. But skeptics like defense attorney and former Austin Police Department officer Jamie Belagia noted that the single image might not be representative of the real situation, but the officer added, at the same time, I don't know under what circumstances that would be appropriate.

[Elena]

That's the problem there, because it's like, of course you're looking at one single image. I'm saying this in a generalized manner of, like always, if you look at a single image, it's hard to tell what the greater context around it. But then there's some images that you go.

[Ash]

That should never.

[Elena]

Context makes sense. Sense to put a gun to someone's head. Yeah. You know, like, that's. Even if he's like.

[Ash]

Because I don't think there's really any. I mean, we talked a lot about protocols in our last episode. I have never taken the police exam. I've never been a police Officer, I really don't even know very many police officers, but I really can't imagine that there's a lot of instances in which you would hold a gun to a suspect's head.

[Elena]

That's the thing. And the only thing I don't know this is literally me just, like, pulling this out of my ass. The only thing he could ever argue, I would think, is that he was, like, showing what happened to the girls. Okay.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

But if you're doing that by putting your gun to this person under interrogation's head, that by nature is intimidation. It's like, even if you're not actually. If you're saying that it's just to show what happened or something, you're putting a gun to someone's.

[Ash]

Because at that point, no matter what.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

You just need to use, like, your finger.

[Elena]

Like a finger gun, like, and it's like.

[Ash]

Which is not going to result exactly in the same.

[Elena]

So no matter what, it's an intimidation tactic, regardless of what pretense it was done under.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Intimidation is there because anybody who has a gun put to their head is.

[Ash]

Going to say whatever the fuck you want them, and they're going to have.

[Elena]

An immense emotional, physical, psychological reaction to that. It's just going to happen. So you're already twisting the circumstances to fit what you need it to fit.

[Ash]

And also, who knows at what point in his interrogation that that happened. Michael Scott was the person who was interrogated for 18 hours. Yeah. And I.

[Elena]

Some of the sources say 22 hours.

[Ash]

That's insane.

[Elena]

Which, like, so anywhere between. Anywhere in that situ. Like, that's insane.

[Ash]

Yeah, it's.

[Elena]

And can you imagine how exhausted you would be in having a gun put to your head? That's the thing.

[Ash]

You're exhausted, and then they pull out a gun and put it to your head.

[Elena]

And again, under any context.

[Ash]

Not great.

[Elena]

Not great.

[Ash]

Not great.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

So within a matter of just a few weeks, the case against Pierce, Springsteen, and Scott had gone from strong ish to seriously questionable.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But the prosecution's problems were far from over. In June, Diana Castanada, one of the grand jury members who had indicted all three men, wrote to the judge, Mike lynch, and, quote, complained the jurors had been used as pawns in what I assume to be a rush judgment.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Ash]

That was one of the jury members.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Ash]

In Castaneda's opinion, the grand jury had been heavily pressured by the district attorney's office, who were eager to close the case on the yogurt shop murders, regardless of what the evidence told them. A year later, in an interview with My Call, she said, I wish this case had been done properly. I'm afraid we have taken the easy way, and that all the facts aren't in it.

[Elena]

Oh, no. Yeah.

[Ash]

Diana Costaneda's concerns about fairness, the fairness of the grand jury hearings, were alarming in and of themselves.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But it was also concerning that she had even learned about them at all, because grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And only the outcome of the hearing is made public. So by airing her concerns with the judge and then with a journalist, that basically compromised the entire process.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Which, like, probably good that that happened, but how did that even happen in the first place? So, just two weeks later, another bombshell dropped when Detective Paul Johnson, a member of the yogurt Shop task force, revealed that back in 1999, a ballistics expert with the Austin Police Department informed him that Pierce's gun, almost certain, was almost certainly not the gun used in the murders. So that was, like, way back when. Oops. At this point, the report from the ATF had more or less ruled out that Pierce's gun was the murder weapon. So the news itself was not significant. It was just, like the implication.

[Elena]

It was. Yeah.

[Ash]

When investigators first interrogated them again, like, for the second time in 1999, they did so based on Pierce's false confession from 1991 and the fact that his gun supposedly matched the caliber used in the shooting. But if what Johnson said was true, that meant that detectives knew that his gun wasn't a match at least nine months before they spoke with him again.

[Elena]

It's like, what the. What is going on here?

[Ash]

It doesn't mean. Yeah, it's messy. So, on their own, each of these revelations raise serious questions about the validity of all these. These confessions and the cause for arrest. But taken together, they suggested that other than a false confession from a teenager that was immediately recanted, investigators never actually even had a reason to suspect these four men in the first place.

[Elena]

That's even scarier.

[Ash]

It's terrifying. By that point, the only thing connecting the three accused to the murders were Scott and Springsteen's confessions, which, again, they both claimed they had been coerced. And that claim seemed to be supported, again, by the photograph that we were just talking about. Now, just as important to the growing evidence of police misconduct was what the limited evidence collected from the scene had to say about the killer or the killers in 1991. Like I was saying earlier, DNA technology was obviously still developing, but Sarah Harbison had been sexually assaulted And Amy Ayers had fought back against her attacker. So that obviously produced physical evidence from both of them in seminal fluid and skin cells. By the time Maurice Pierce, Michael Scott, and Rob Springsteen were facing capital murder charges, by the way, in 2000, DNA technology had come a long way and could at the very least be used to rule out a suspect or suspects. On June 30, a report from the Texas Department of Public Safety was released, and it clearly stated that DNA collected from the crime scene was not a match for any of these three men, and their DNA had not been found anywhere else at the scene.

[Elena]

This is literally an echo of the West Memphis Three case.

[Ash]

It's chilling.

[Elena]

That's exactly what happened.

[Ash]

And the rest is too. Oh, so it doesn't necessarily exonerate them fully. No, but it's insane.

[Elena]

But it shows that they were not like, you know, the DNA that was found is not there.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

So that's, like, significant.

[Ash]

It's significant. And hand in hand with everything else, it's extra, extra significant. And it obviously presented yet another serious challenge for the prosecution. It weakened their case in general. And it also contradicted Mike Scott's confession, because part of his confession was that Rob Springsteen had sexually assaulted Sarah Harbison.

[Elena]

And that just disproved that completely, which makes his whole confession come into question.

[Ash]

And you basically got to throw it out at that point. Despite all the publicity about corruption, abuse, and the growing amount of evidence indicating that these three suspects had nothing to do with this case, investigators pressed on.

[Elena]

Oh, man.

[Ash]

Hoping that the confessions, which we just told you are tainted as all hell, would be enough to secure a conviction.

[Elena]

They just barreled through, huh?

[Ash]

And it's. It's hard to imagine.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But now, present day, we've become, obviously, we were even saying it earlier, more cynical, more sophisticated when it comes to our knowledge of the law. But in the early 2000s, it was pretty reasonable to assume that Springsteen and Scott wouldn't have confessed to crimes that they didn't.

[Elena]

Of course, it would be a widely.

[Ash]

Held belief that innocent people just simply do not confess to things that they didn't do. Yeah, except they do. It actually happens so much more often than we think. And we've talked about it, it quite a few times on this show, and it's really scary, but at that time, people just didn't think that way.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Why would you ever say. Yeah, all the awful things if. I mean, you watch their interrogations and they're very graphic.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Why would anybody ever say they did that when they had no Part of it, but we now know so much more.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

I just said that all pretty much. I was just, like, reiterating myself, but it's just insane.

[Elena]

It's true. True.

[Ash]

So a lot of times in investigations, detectives go out of their way to keep certain aspects of the crime from the public in order to rule out those suspects who didn't know the details. Yeah, but during interrogations, especially very long, very intense interrogations that say last 18 to 22 hours and involve holding a gun to somebody's head, I don't know, maybe a great deal of information can be conveyed to the person being interviewed, whether investigators even know they're doing it or not.

[Elena]

Yep.

[Ash]

Through photographs, accusations, repeated questions about the crime scenes, and different aspects of the interrogation, investigators can feed critical details about the case to a suspect, who then turns around and repeats those things back to the investigator to appease them. And in some cases, and allegedly, possibly this one, avoid physical harm.

[Elena]

Yep.

[Ash]

As a result, people who are under this stress, this anxiety, end up confessing to crazy that they didn't do.

[Elena]

You can be manipulated.

[Ash]

In the summer of 2002, Rob Springsteen, though, and Michael Scott went on the trial for the murders. And despite there being no physical evidence, and really, at this point, just no evidence at all connecting them to the murders, juries in both cases found them guilty after deliberating for less than three hours.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Ash]

During the sentencing phase, Rob Springsteen was sentenced to death.

[Elena]

My God.

[Ash]

And Michael Scott received a life sentence with no possibility for parole.

[Elena]

And again, if. If they were guilty of these things, then you're like, well, you know, you did the crime, you gotta do the time. But it's like, with all the questions, it's like to go that far, to be sentenced to death with all those lingering questions is wild. Very West Memphis. 3.

[Ash]

It's also just so scary to think of a time where we just thought as a community and like, as a public, like, no, people don't confess to things they didn't do, so lock em up.

[Elena]

And so that's no matter what.

[Ash]

Like, that's crazy. So they were sentenced, the two of them, Rob and Mike. And Maurice Pierce was sitting in a jail cell awaiting his trial. So once the sentences were handed down with the same fate, pretty likely for me, Maurice Pierce. It seemed like the painful saga of the yogurt shop murders was finally coming to a close. However, when Rob Springsteen's appeal finally made it to court in the spring of 2006, Austin residents hope of putting the murders behind them completely fell apart. Part Springsteen's Defense attorney Mary K. Ciola argued because Springsteen's arrest and conviction had depended almost entirely on Michael Scott's confession, and Springsteen had been denied the right to question Scott, his accuser. That's like one of our basic rights. At his trial, his rights had been violated. Ultimately, it was like a very loopy, Pretty minor technicality. Yeah, not minor, but it was a technicality.

[Elena]

Loophole.

[Ash]

Exactly. But. But it worked. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and they overturned his conviction and remanded him to the custody of Travis County Sheriff's Office to either be retried or released.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

And remember, that's a huge deal because he was facing the death like he was. He got the death.

[Elena]

Wow. Mary Kay. Mary. Really?

[Ash]

Not the makeup for that. The lawyer.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Also I just said brawn.

[Elena]

The makeup round.

[Ash]

The mega brawl.

[Elena]

Also, I have to get this out of the way.

[Ash]

Go for it.

[Elena]

Michael Scott.

[Ash]

Okay. Every time you say it.

[Elena]

I can't. Okay. I just gotta get it out of the way. I know. You know, we all know.

[Ash]

We all know.

[Elena]

We all. We're all knowing.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

That we're thinking of the office.

[Ash]

I was actually surprised that you didn't say it earlier.

[Elena]

I was. Because it. It seemed insensitive at certain points. And so I figured I'd wait until now because I just gotta get it out. Just so you. You guys listening? Because I know that you also thought that. And I don't want you to think that I'm pretending I didn't.

[Ash]

There were so many times in this that I was trying to write Mike instead of Michael simply for that purpose.

[Elena]

Cause he was crying. Called both. Yeah. Just got to put it that out.

[Ash]

If you can imagine. Things got even worse for the prosecution the following year.

[Elena]

Jesus.

[Ash]

When Mike Scott's appeal reached the appeals court. Among other things, his appeal argued that his constitutional rights had also been violated when Austin police coerced a confession from him during that 1999 interrogation. At the initial trial, the prosecution claimed that there were details that of the confession that only the killers could have known. However, Scott's lawyer argued that nearly all of the information provided in the confession had been made publicly available over the years in press releases, newspapers, and word of mouth, quote originating from the numerous police officers and firefighters who had responded to the crime scene.

[Elena]

Oh, man.

[Ash]

Remember, had small town vibes.

[Elena]

Certainly did.

[Ash]

Small town people.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

They're talking talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. So the defense also argued that many of the details of the confession were just straight up wrong and contradicted facts of the case.

[Elena]

You got a Question.

[Ash]

It's like they were so excited about the things that did fit that they.

[Elena]

Ignored the ones that didn't.

[Ash]

Yeah. So in a 5 to 4 decision handed down in June of 2007, the Texas appeals court ruled in favor of Mike Scott, and they reversed his conviction.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

So we now have two appeals courts agreeing with the convicted. So in their conclusion, they basically said that because the confession was the only thing that could move the jury to find Michael Scott guilty, and there was serious cause to question the validity. Validity. Of that confession in the first place, it would have been impossible for the jury to find him guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

[Elena]

So those are the key words. Beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Ash]

Exactly. So the news that both convictions had now been overturned was met with joy from the defendants, obviously. But for the families, it was like being re. Victimized all over again.

[Elena]

That must have felt like being tased. I can't even think of that one.

[Ash]

Like you, we're happy that we have a justice system where you can appeal your conviction because of cases like this, but when you're sitting there as a. A family member of somebody who has been tortured, essentially, and then murdered, you don't give a. About the right.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

The person who is said to have done that and who you've been convinced for years at this point.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Did this and is sitting in jail where they should be.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So Eliza Thomas's mother, Maria, said, every time I hear those words that their rights were violated, I feel like I'm going to go insane.

[Elena]

Absolutely.

[Ash]

Which you can 1000% understand.

[Elena]

I feel the same way.

[Ash]

But for the prosecution, who had intended to retry both men, things continued their downward spiral.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

After the decisions from the appeals court, Michael Scott and Rob Springsteen's lawyers filed a motion to receive the results of the partial DNA profile that had been developed from the rape kit, which ruled both of them out.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Still determined to prosecute the case, then District attorney Rosemary Lemberg pressed on telling a reporter. I remain really confident that both Springsteen and Scott were responsible for killing those poor girls.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

I don't know why she would be so confident.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But by 2009, there was no new evidence and there were no new leads that had been found to link these two men to the case.

[Elena]

Case.

[Ash]

And so Lemberg had no choice but to drop the charges against both of them. And once again, the yogurt shop murders were an open, unsolved case, which for the family, is even more. Is. It's almost. Even more heartbreaking. I don't even think almost. It's more Heartbreaking than there just never have been.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Like any answer at all, it's just catastrophic because just they went through all of this lead up to a trial. They went through trials, they got their convictions. These two men that they thought did this, like I was saying, spent their time in prison. They got going to be there forever, basically.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And then all of a sudden, you're back to square one and you have no idea who did this.

[Elena]

And that's the other thing. It's like they turn around now and say, we got nothing.

[Ash]

And at that point, I'm sure you've lost all faith in the justice system. Oh, yeah, I can't imagine so. With the charges dropped, Springsteen and Scott were both free men after nearly a decade spent in prison. But just because the district attorney dropped the charges didn't necessarily exonerate them. And it also remained possible that they could be retried at any time should any new information come to light. So that's terrifying for them. Yeah.

[Elena]

I mean, it's good because something comes up that's like, they did do it, actually. It's like, yeah, you want to bring them in.

[Ash]

Exactly. So with no new leads or evidence, the case was effectively shelved for several years. Several more years into. Until new legislation passed in 2021, which gave families of cold case victims the opportunity to petition to have the cases re examined. In the years that had passed, DNA technology continued to advance. So investigators went back to that partial profile taken from the rape kit, which had ruled everybody out. The sample was obviously somewhat degraded, and it contained only the male portion of the DNA. But it was somewhere to start. So investigators ran it through every database that they could think of until they finally got a hit from a public database used for population studies. But they ran into a problem.

[Elena]

Oh, no.

[Ash]

The problem was that the sample had been submitted anonymously by the FBI. Oh. And had no identity attached to it.

[Elena]

The frustration.

[Ash]

So that meant whoever the DNA sample on the database belonged to, they were either a convicted felon in a federal case case or an arrestee. And privacy laws prevented the FBI from disclosing that person's identity to investigators in Austin. So it's like you find something, but it's like, oh, sorry, can't tell you. It's like a literal, like, bridge troll. Like, you shall not pass.

[Elena]

Yeah, like, okay, but I want to.

[Ash]

After 30 years, investigators had finally managed to develop a lead on their most promising suspect in one of Texas's most notorious culture, cold cases. But they were prevented from knowing the identity of who that person was. So they then spent a few more years spinning their wheels in frustration until the new head of the Cold Case Unit, Daniel Jackson.

[Elena]

Daniel Jackson.

[Ash]

He decided to take a new approach to the evidence.

[Elena]

Let's go, Daniel.

[Ash]

He's actually quite smart. So in the roughly 15 years since Rob Springsteen and Mike Scott had been released from prison, 15 years had now gone by. By, by the way, we're telling this in like an hour and a half, so it's hard to imagine, but that's a long time.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So since then, the District Attorney's office had been hyper focused on that DNA pro DNA profile, hoping that it would lead them to who they still believed was Springsteen and Scott's accomplice, because they still believed they were involved in this. In the years since their release, though, technology in the area of law law enforcement had advanced in a myriad of ways, including the development of a new law enforcement database known as the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. So like CODIS does with human identifying characteristics, the NIBIN logs the unique identifying characteristics of bullets used in crimes across the country, which is really cool.

[Elena]

Nibbin.

[Ash]

Nibbin. And that allows investigators to determine whether a particular gun has been used in other crimes. Unfortunately, Nibbin doesn't include all types of ammunition, and it excludes, among other things, small caliber ammunitions like the.22 caliber bullet, which we've all become very familiar with. But in considering the evidence recently, it occurred to Jackson that while the majority of the murders were committed with a.22 caliber weapon, remember, Amy Ayers had been shot a second time with a.380 caliber weapon as well. So to everybody's surprise, when the.380 bullet was entered into Nibbin, which we're now calling it. We don't actually know if it's called that.

[Elena]

I feel like it's right. Right.

[Ash]

It's better than nib. Yeah, I like nibb.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

But to everybody's surprise, it returned as a match to a series of crimes committed in Kentucky in the 1990s. In that case, a family owned store had been robbed and the cashier was bound before being shot in the back. Oh. And before leaving the crime scene, the killer set the store on fire.

[Elena]

Oh, my God.

[Ash]

Bound. Shot in the back.

Hello. Once the bullets had been matched to a gun used in the other crime, the rest of the pieces of the puzzle all started to fall into place. The DNA profile taken from the rape kit and the skin cells collected from Amy Ear's fingernails, which had now been further developed through a citizen genealogist, was run Through CODIS again. And it came back as a hit on a sexual assault case from 1990. The rapist in that case was identified as Robert Eugene Brashers.

Truly that's actually the exact translation to who this person is is what that's called.

[Elena]

So I also think it's wild that the skin cells collected from Amy Ayers fingernails were developed by citizen genealogists.

[Ash]

Thank you. Actually are going back into that.

[Elena]

So interesting.

[Ash]

That is incredible.

[Elena]

That's incredible.

[Ash]

And again a great representation of community.

[Elena]

Yes, absolutely.

[Ash]

The community in this case did not let anybody stepped in. So was born in 1958 in Virginia and his early life was unremarkable. Once he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the army and served honorably until his discharge in the early 80s when he settled in New Orleans. Which like how dare he even have the audacity. In 1985, Robert Brashers was arrested on charges that he sexually assaulted and attempted to murder 24 year old Michelle Wilson Wilkerson. After shooting Wilkerson and leaving her for dead, he fled the scene. But she managed to find help and eventually reported him.

[Elena]

Good for her.

[Ash]

So he was arrested a short time later and convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison, which you know how I feel about attempted murder.

[Elena]

All right.

[Ash]

But he got released in 1989.

[Elena]

So he was just released just for like wow.

[Ash]

A couple of.

[Elena]

What a animal.

[Ash]

In the years that followed, he drifted around the south and Southwest arrest committing various crimes including robberies, breaking and entering, sexual assault. And he was also suspected in multiple murders. In January 1999, police in in Missouri spotted a potentially stolen vehicle in the parking lot of a motel. And they were directed to one Robert Brasher's room. The man who registered the car. When he checked in, they broke down the door of the motel room, obviously intending to arrest him. But when they got inside they were immediately forced back out by the suspect who had crawled under the bed and was firing from his position there. So over the course of several hours police attempted to negotiate the release of his family.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Ash]

Who were being held hostage in the room with him until he finally gave up and shot himself in the head.

[Elena]

I hate that. That's how it ended.

[Ash]

1999. Later, when the ammunition was run through Nibbin, it came back as a match much for the 380 used in the other crimes.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

All of the other crimes.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Including the yogurt shop. What a piece of. So in late September of this year 2025, Daniel Jackson called a press conference to announce that after 34 years. It's literally almost your entire life.

[Elena]

Four years.

[Ash]

34 years of frustration and heartbreak. Investigators could conclusively identify Robert Eugene Brashers as the killer of Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, Jennifer Harbison, and Sarah Harbison.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Journalist Mike hall said. I kept expecting some outcry or something, but it was stunned silence. Oh, because it's been 34 years.

[Elena]

Yeah. Like, how do you even. Do you celebrate? What do you do?

[Ash]

I don't know what you do. And also, do you celebrate because you've been wronged before?

[Elena]

And also, he can't really face justice.

[Ash]

That's the biggest.

[Elena]

So it's like, that's even more frustrating.

[Ash]

That's the biggest thing. That is just so sad. Even though they now have identified Robert Brashers as the sole killer in the yogurt shop murders, investigators still have a lot of work ahead of them before the case can actually be considered completely closed. But in the meantime, there's a lot of questions that demand officers from the officers who were in charge of the case over the previous decades because their poor management misconduct and malpractice in general allowed a killer to go free while two innocent men spent nearly a decade of their lives in prison.

[Elena]

That's up.

[Ash]

Up. And for their part, Mike Scott and Rob Springsteen still continue to call attention to their case, and they're pursuing. Which they still haven't got, by the way. They're still pursuing a full declaration of innocence from the state.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

And if they do secure that declaration, they're both entitled to financial compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

[Elena]

Imagine.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Ash]

Those kind of things take a long time.

[Elena]

Yeah. If they ever make sure they do. Yeah.

[Ash]

Unfortunately, though, the identification of Robert Brashers as the killer in the yogurt chop case came too late to change the life of Maurice Pierce. In December 2010, he got into an altercation with an Austin police officer after a traffic stop, and he was killed when he attempted to stab one of the arresting officers.

[Elena]

Holy. He can't be stabbing people.

[Ash]

You definitely can't be stabbing people. He led a very tough life.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

After he obviously was, like, let go from prison when all of this fell through.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And he had a lot of run ins with the law.

[Elena]

Yeah. I mean, that whole situation is up.

[Ash]

That whole situation is very up. And allegedly, a lot of people felt like he was being targeted.

[Elena]

Yeah. But I don't. I'm not saying allegedly.

[Ash]

So after the press conference where Robert Broshers was identified as the killer, the district attorney, Jose Garza, announced his intention to Assemble what he called the convict, the Conviction Integrity Unit, a group that would be tasked with reviewing certain cases to ensure that confessions were given voluntarily and that no suspect was coerced or wrongfully detained.

[Elena]

That is so needed.

[Ash]

So. So at least, like, that little bit of justice comes from the lack of other justice that happened in this case.

[Elena]

Well, and that it shows you exactly what these, like, wrongful, you know, wrongfully coerced confessions, how much they fuck up a case. Because that once they fig. Once they thought they had these guys, they stopped looking.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

So it's like everything stops. It takes one person. Luckily, that was like. Like, I don't know about this and I should look into it. Thank goodness that person came in and did that, otherwise they would have stopped.

[Ash]

That's the thing.

[Elena]

This would have been it. We never would have found anything else about it. And we would have thought that, you know, Mike Scott and Rob Springsteen were.

[Ash]

Were the ones.

[Elena]

Were the ones who did it, and that was it.

[Ash]

And Rob Springsteen could have been executed. Yeah, he was supposed to have been executed. I also can't imagine coming to grips with that as a person that, like, holy shit. I was almost executed for something I didn't do. Oh, yeah, like that. That's insane.

[Elena]

I mean, that was Damien Echols.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Sitting there on death row. Yeah. Like, that's crazy.

[Ash]

That's got to change your life.

[Elena]

It's very similar. It's shocking.

[Ash]

This whole case really is. When I was getting to the end, I was like, I feel like I've heard this before, which is sad.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Because you hope that something like that, like, never. It's like a once in a lifetime thing. But fortunately it's not.

[Elena]

I'm happy for the family members of the four victims that.

There'S a name.

[Ash]

There's a name, you know, But I.

[Elena]

Know it doesn't bring any. It doesn't bring them back. It doesn't make it easier.

[Ash]

Doesn't.

[Elena]

Like, we've heard closure is a hard thing to come by.

[Ash]

I was just gonna say, like, we've heard so many times that there's really no such thing as closure.

[Elena]

But I'm glad for them that they at least have a name. Yeah. You know, if that helps. And I.

[Ash]

And I hope it does.

[Elena]

It does in some way.

[Ash]

But, yeah, it's a very devastating case.

[Elena]

Horrific case. But it shows you no case is cold.

[Ash]

Nope. No case.

[Elena]

There's no such thing as an ice cold case.

[Ash]

It's merely chilly. It's merely chilly. 34 years. 34 years, and finally somebody figured it out. And now it's even easier to crack these crimes because we got all these advancements in DNA and technology.

[Elena]

We got to know.

[Ash]

I didn't even know about Nibbin. That is one of the coolest things to me.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

That you can.

[Elena]

Ballistics.

[Ash]

Ballistics is so fascinating. I mean, you said you took a ballistics class.

[Elena]

I did take a ballistics class. It was very like a anthropology class. Had a ballistics element.

[Ash]

That's cool.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Yeah, it was pretty interesting.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So we decided, because it's sometimes so tough to just like, transition into, like. Okay, bye. We love you.

[Elena]

Keep it weird.

[Ash]

Yeah, we're gonna start doing a random fun fact at the or just like a random fact at the end of episodes. And I found a random fact generator just now.

[Elena]

Love that.

[Ash]

So to leave you on a random note, Durian, which grows in southeast Asia, is known as the smelliest fruit in the world.

[Elena]

Oh, my God. You know, I actually knew that.

[Ash]

Well, you.

[Elena]

I knew what a durian was.

[Ash]

Well, those of you who don't know.

[Elena]

I heard you say it under your bra, and I was like, did she say durian? It's supposed to smell like shit.

[Ash]

It's supposed.

[Elena]

It.

[Ash]

It's supposed to smell like rotten eggs, sweaty socks, or straight up garbage socks.

[Elena]

That's the thing that like feet.

[Ash]

So we're gonna start calling, like, we are obviously gonna continue using wet lettuce, but we can add durian into it.

[Elena]

Yeah, durian for you.

[Ash]

Wet lettuce. Durian fruit.

[Elena]

Hell yeah.

[Ash]

And with that being said, we hope you keep listening.

[Elena]

I was like.

[Ash]

I was like, sorry, we changed the end a little bit.

[Elena]

Confused what's going on. We hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it.

[Ash]

But not to worry that you smell like durian.

[Elena]

Don't be a durian fruit like Robert Brashers.

Hey, neighbor. This holiday season, Birch Lane is here.

[Ash]

To help you celebrate with friends and family. From guest ready dining tables to cozy sofas that fit the whole crew, our classic furniture and decor are crafted to last. And with fast free delivery, you can be ready for holiday hosting in days, not weeks. So you can spend time on what matters most. Its classic style for joyful living shop Birch Lane, a wayfair specialty [e-mail] holiday PSA from DSW. This is your reminder that shoes are a gift.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Literally.

[Ash]

So unwrap something good, like boots that inspire your next big adventure. Or cozy slippers that give you an excuse to stay in. Or sneakers that feel like pure joy. Because shoes aren't just shoes. They're exactly what you wanted. Let us surprise you so you can surprise them. Find shoes that get you and everyone on your list at prices that get your budget at DSW stores or dsw dot com.