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A
Okay. I know it's kind of cliche, but I really, really love fall. I just do. Partly because I get to break out my fall wardrobe. And this year I know I'm going to be leaning on my favorite clothing brand, Quince. They're going to help me refresh my wardrobe, get some new pieces and help me feel a little bit more luxurious.
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B
Quints has good stuff that'll last and stay in style. Plus their pieces are half the cost of that of their competitors. This year we're looking to get more cool pieces and we'll keep you all posted on what exactly those are. Last year, of course, I got their suede bomber jacket. I love it and I'm looking forward to wearing it again. I think it's very warm and comfortable and Anya thinks I look great in it and she tells me her opinion is important.
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A
It is. It just frankly is. And I'm excited to look into getting some more Mongolian cashmere sweaters, maybe some new colors. We're going to mix it up and I'd like to add those to my Quince collection. They start at just $50, so it's a steal. All Quint's pieces are like half the cost of similar brands, so check them out today. Quince saves you money by cutting out the middlemen.
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B
Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.com msheet for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com msheet to get free shipping and 365 day returns.
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A
Quince.com msheet content warning this episode contains discussion of suicide, murder, violence and rape, including the murder and rape of children. So Today is Monday, September 29, 2025, and Kevin and I just got done watching the press conference that authorities in Austin, Texas held officially announcing that they believe that Robert Eugene Brashers is the suspect is the person who murdered four young girls at a yogurt shop in Austin, Texas, back years and years ago. So today we're going to talk about what we learned at the press conference, questions we have going forward, and what we're sort of thinking as we continue to look at this case. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee.
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B
I'm an attorney.
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A
And this is the Murder Sheet.
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B
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
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A
And this is the Yogurt shop murders. The press conference on Robert Eugene Brashers. I guess to start off with, let's just do a quick recap of the yogurt shop murders. You did a great summary of that in yesterday's episode, Kevin. I think we'll just repeat that. Okay, so it's December 6, 1991. Four young girls are closing up the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt shop in Austin, Texas. Two of them are employees and then one of the employees, sisters and her friend. So the two employees are 17 year olds Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison and then Jennifer's 15 year old sister Sarah Harbison and her 13 year old friend Amy Ayers. The building is found on fire. The girls are found murdered in the store and they'd each been shot in the head and there was evidence of sexual assault. The two weapons used in the attack were a.22 and a.380 pistol. And they, it was just a horrible, horrible situation. And Amy was sort of found separate to the others. She'd been shot twice. And then the other three were sort of closely together. They'd been bound and gagged with their own clothing. And this was a case that just obviously was horrific and really shattered the people of Austin, Texas. As you can imagine, there were a number of pretty important developments over time because for a while people thought this was solved because there had been convictions. So what happened with that is four young men, Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborne were looked at and I, I'm not going to get, it's complicated. But there was a series of confessions where they're implicating each other. They're, they're doing these marathon long interrogation sessions with police, including Hector Polanco, who became infamous. He was with Austin police department's homicide unit and became infamous for garnering false confessions through coercive tactics. So they're, they're confessing and ultimately two of them are convicted mostly on the strength of the confessions implicating one another. So that's Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott. But ultimately they were released. And the reason they released is there were Supreme Court issues that sort of saw their cases reopened. But then at that point DNA technology was able to clear them, so they were released. So I mean, but they spent years in prison. So obviously a really horrific outcome all around because not only do you have these, this case going unsolved, but then you have the wrong people doing time for it. So it's just a nightmare. So today this press conference was meant to Give more details on the serial killer that Austin police now believe did these this crime. So that's serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers. He's connected to crimes in South Carolina, Missouri, Florida.
- [06:36]
B
Yeah. And of course, word of him being implicated in these crimes came out late last week. And as we will hear, the manner in which that information was released upset at least one family member.
- [06:50]
A
A number of them actually called it out. And that's upsetting. So we're going to talk about that and talk about perhaps what are best or better practices for media around these things, because it's complicated. It's not like there's one answer all the time. So before the conference started, it was noted that we watched on K View, an Austin television channel. So we just watched live with everyone else, and it took place in the Austin city council chamber, and it featured a number of different officials. And. And we're going to kind of, I guess, go through each speaker, sort of summarize what the big things they said were and then move along. But there was some really interesting information about this case that I think will be helpful for all of us as we follow along going forward. I should note that Robert Eugene Brashers is dead. There's not going to be a trial. He died by suicide on January 19, 1999, after taking his family hostage in a motel. And what we learned. This is shocking, but what we learned is that the weapon he used to kill himself was likely the same one he used to kill at least one of the victims in the yogurt shop. So that's made my. Like, I just got, like, my blood froze when I heard that. It was just like. Like, it was just. Oh, God. First speaker Austin mayor Kirk Watson started with a moment of silence for the victims and their families. Said that he apparently said Austin lost its innocence way back in 1991 when this first happened. He hopes her closure now. He said Austin's changed a lot. There's been a lot of development in Austin. It's a different city than it was in 91, but the heartbreak has remained. And he sort of then just sort of threw it to the people who kind of were more closely working the case. Awesome. Police chief Lisa Davis spoke next. So she's the Austin police department chief. She talks about how, as a mother, it really affects her. She can't imagine the grief of these families. It's a very devastating and haunting case. And she said the only physical evidence located at the scene has been tied to Robert Eugene Rashers. She went into his. His suicide, but also Noted that he's connected to murders and rapes across the country. This is not a serial killer who was praying in an area that he was necessarily familiar with. This was. This guy was mobile. And we've seen cases like that. The one that I thought it was the donut shop murders, those that family of serial killers would travel from state to state, Texas, Utah, Florida, and do these rape, homicide, robbery type things. So it's kind of like almost a type of serial killer where they're not just saying, okay, I'm going to look at this neighborhood. They're saying, I'm going to basically go around and do whatever. She's talked about how the police will keep working with the attorney general's office, prosecutors and other partners and trying to move forward with responsibility, integrity. What did you think about the focus in this press conference on integrity and doing things right this time?
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B
Well, obviously they were leaving a lot unspoken. I think those were some references to what happened to those four people you mentioned earlier, the people who were earlier charged with the case or attempted to be charged with the case in at least one instance, as you mentioned, there were some confessions that we now know to be false that were elicited by an Austin police officer. So obviously, I think some people for a while thought, well, maybe those confessions were true after all. But at this point, we now know beyond all doubt that those four men are innocent of this crime. They paid a pretty heavy price for it nonetheless. And so when they talk about doing it right this time, I think that's an implicit acknowledgment that it was not done right the last time.
- [10:58]
A
It's almost like trying to restore trust in this case because you have cases. And I just read a really, really good book on one famous case, and Kevin's sick of hearing me talk about it, but it's the best. It's such a good book. You should all read it. But what I got shades of was the book is Bind, Torture, Kill, the inside story of btk, the serial killer next door. It's by Roy Wenzel, Tim Potter, Hearst Labiana and Elle Kelly. These are three, four Wichita Eagle reporters who did a great job writing about the case of Dennis Rader, who of course was the serial killer that called himself B2K. Bind, torture, kill, murdered a whole lot of people in the Wichita, Kansas Park City area, including children. I think it was like at least 10 people. So, you know, that's a situation where that task force, those investigators, over time, they worked it from the 70s, you know, up until, I think 2004 when he was caught, but there was no conviction in the interim. There was no, like, we got him. Oh, wait, no, we didn't. So I think in that case there was maybe anger at law enforcement or like, why can't they catch this guy? They need to catch him. But in this case, it's not just that. It's that some people were, you know, wrongfully convicted over it. And those wrongful convictions perhaps speak to a dark history in Austin police department of perhaps having some officers that were coercive in their tactics. You know, you have wrongful confessions, false confessions that are not necessarily due to anyone trying to push someone too hard and may just be because somebody is mentally ill or attention seeking or they're trying to game something, or they're maybe pointing the blame at someone else and they want to get them in trouble and drag them down with them. You can have that or. Because an inexperienced interviewer is, is accidentally feeding someone information. How many times did you stab her? Well, you know, now I know that she was, you know, stabbed.
- [13:07]
B
Stabbed more than once. And you know that she was stabbed and I know she was stabbed more than once, perhaps.
- [13:10]
A
Yeah. And so like, you can kind of, you know, piece it together almost like a magician trying to cold read somebody. So, you know, but then there's other situations where it's like, we really need this guy to be guilty and you have someone really apply a lot of heat. And in cases where I think there's questionable confessions, include ones where the victims are. The people doing the wrongful confession are young, that tends to be a risk factor. And I think another one is marathon long interview sessions where it's just like hours and hours and hours and hours of grilling. And you think, well, why would anyone admit it? I would never admit it. Yes, but you're probably because you're a murder sheet listener, a very well adjusted and smart person. But not everyone is like you. And some people will crack. And it's. And it's unfortunate, but we've seen it happen again and again. So those are cases that you want to look at. Is. Is this a false confession?
- [14:07]
B
And now we know in this case they were false confessions.
- [14:10]
A
Yeah, now we know these were false. And it's. It's very. It's a shame. So I think there. This was an attempt to restore some of that trust in, in this. And, and also what Chief Davis said was that, you know, they're. These detectives never gave up and their work is going to have a ripple effect and possibly help other investigators in other States maybe crack some cold cases, which is great. I want to say one thing too. I think it's really important to talk about the failings of the Austin Police Department and talk about what went wrong here because it, it led to such an adverse outcome for everyone, including these four young men who did not do it. And I think one of them died in sort of tragic suicide by cops situ, you know, circumstances.
- [14:50]
B
It was unrelated to this, unrelated to this case.
- [14:52]
A
But like still, I'm sure adversely affect life in a very extreme way. But at the same time, that's important. We need to flag that. I don't necessarily hold the individual investigators currently working on the case responsible for that happening. I think I, I separate that. I think you need to criticize the institution. But this, this lead detective on this, Daniel Jackson, he only came into this in 2022. So I don't feel like collective guilt here feels super helpful, nor do I feel it's super accurate. What do you think?
- [15:28]
B
Yeah, I think one thing we've learned in our coverage of cases is that law enforcement is not a monolith. It's not one body acting as one. It's a group of people just like any other group of people. It's unfair to blame the entire group for what some people in that group do.
- [15:53]
A
Yeah, we can blame the institution and say let's talk about this for Austin police Department. But like, I don't necessarily need to pick out the guy who's in 2022 coming into this and starting over and saying, well, it's your fault too. It's not really his fault. You know, he, he just works at that place. We all love true crime. That means getting to know a ton about some scary stories and situations. We are all aware of the danger, but that means we can prepare for the worst and possibly protect ourselves and those we love.
- [16:22]
B
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- [16:50]
A
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- [17:20]
B
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- [17:27]
A
Right now my listeners can save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system at simplisafe.com/msheet. That's simplisafe.com msheet there's no safe like simply safe. I imagine there's been a lot of cultural shifts within the department since the 90s. And without knowing the specifics of how exactly all these wrongful confessions went down, I don't even feel comfortable necessarily assigning blame to like investigators who were with it for a long time. Because you can have situations arise where, you know, the investigators think, I think it's this guy. And then other people maybe get a hold of the case and they're like, no, it's this, we're doing this. And someone might be like, okay, you know, like it. You don't necessarily have a lot of control on that depending on the circumstances. So I guess that's what I'm saying. But you do need to hold the institution accountable and talk about how do we prevent this from happening again. And Jackson Rather Davis went into that a little bit later on. So next up was lead detective Daniel Jackson, who was there to walk us through a timeline. He'd been on the case since 2022. He shouted out help from other agencies that I wanted to list out. Although I'm pretty sure I wrote some of these down wrong. So apologies. The Texas Attorney General's Cold Case Unit, the Texas Rangers and dps, DNA Labs, International Signature Science. Something about a case manager. I think I wrote that one down wrong. The Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agency Bureau, AKA the atf, the Missouri State Police, the Greenville, South Carolina Police, Kentucky Police in a city that he could not name. More on that later.
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B
More on that later.
- [19:05]
A
Steve Kramer at Indigo Solutions. I may be wrong on that one. ANN Marie Schubert, Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, a very notable pioneer in the realm of investigative genetic genealogy. Dr. Bruce Foley may have written his name down wrong, but this is an opportunity to thank all the people and to show that this is a crime. Solving is a team sport. It's not one per. Just like you don't have your quarterback in a football game, win the game. The whole team is doing things to get it across the End zone. I don't really know football, but yeah.
- [19:41]
B
Tell us about the timeline in the case that he walked us through.
- [19:43]
A
Yeah, so he talked about how he wasn't going to go into the early part of the investigation. He's going to talk about what he did. He showed us a diagram of the store. This diagram showed us where the bodies of the girls all were and showed the general setup. So they're sort of in the back. He talked about the modus operandi. He talked about the perpetrator entered the I can't believe it's yogurt shop. Very likely close to closing. When there were no other customers in the store that he sexually assaulted some of the victims. He bound them with their own clothing, shot them with used two weapons, a.22 caliber pistol and a.380 pistol, and then set the building on fire. So the, the timeline really starts in the beginning in 1991. Talked about how DNA technology back then was primitive at best, but the detectives did have the foresight to collect what evidence they could, and they swabbed the victims at the scene and at autopsies. Here's a crucial piece. When you have an arson homicide, the nature of firefighters responding to the scene and putting out the fire and the fire itself. So water and flame are going to destroy evidence in a very real way. So that makes those cases often especially challenging. And that is what they faced here. They did get a spent3.80 shell casing from a floor drain. They did not find any.22 caliber casings. And then he basically said fire and water destroyed. Destroyed everything else. They get thousands of tips. And then we get into the sort of Scott Pierce, Springsteen, Wellburn situation, which we don't need to reiterate.
- [21:22]
B
Yeah, we already discussed that.
- [21:24]
A
Talks about that and sort of how all of that happened. And I just think it's notable. I mean, Scott got life without parole. Springsteen got the death penalty. So let's not. Let's.
- [21:35]
B
Yeah, let's. Let's not. Let's not go past that too quickly. I don't want to spend too much time on it. But we on this program are often skeptical of so called wrongful confection. Wrongful. We're often skeptical of so called wrongful convictions. We're often skeptical of. Of false confessions. And I think there's a reason for that because I think a great deal of the time the ones you hear.
- [21:58]
A
About in the media are often just basically marketing, but they do happen.
- [22:04]
B
And we can't be blinded to that. We can't let our reasonable skepticism about wrongful convictions and our reasonable skepticism about allegedly false confessions. We can't let that skepticism blind us to the fact there really are wrongful convictions convictions. And one of the reasons I get so upset and frustrated by so many of the obviously fraudulent claims is because those claims tend to obscure the real cases where it does happen.
- [22:33]
A
And, and it obviously happened here in a, in a really horrible way. And he, again, he was facing the death penalty, so that was overturned. Fortunately, they were, you know, let out. But still, I mean, what a horrible experience. Jackson noted that some evidence collected was fragmented pieces of, I guess, a.22 bullet and noted that it's so fragmented that ballistics experts say they really can't do anything with that. So that's, that was some. That was a dead end for them. But anyways, so what. What's happened since is that YSTR testing? I'm not a, I'm not an expert in this, and I'm sure we'll have at some point a DNA expert on to talk more about this, but YCR testing is something you can do with DNA from male subjects because it's like the Y chromosome, so the male chromosome only. And you can get a profile from a sexual assault kit. And there's different markers and alleles that kind of match up. But here's the problem with this. It's great for ruling people out, but it's. You can't use it if there's possibly a female suspect, first of all. And you, you can't really conclusively say it's one person or another, because what the, the example that Jack, that Jackson gave was that he and his brother will have the same YSTR profile because they're brothers. It's from their father, it's from the paternal line. So Kevin may have one that then matches other men in society. So if the YSTR comes and it doesn't match Kevin, then it rules him out. But it doesn't necessarily say it's just this one person.
- [24:07]
B
Right?
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A
So the yscr, they had, that they had the, they had a YCR profile and they started collecting and, and that YCR profile is what freed Springsteen and Scott because they didn't match it. So it was like, okay, doesn't match any of the known suspect, doesn't match the other two. Well Burned and Pierce. So they're all cleared, charges dropped. They start collecting hundreds from, you know, the first responders who were at the scene that night. Detectives, lab people, families, friends. They're testing 300 and 400 y str profiles and it's, it's difficult to test these. Often they were MI mixed up with the victim's DNA, which makes it more difficult. But once again. So in 2018 they went back and they initially had a YSCR profile that had 16 markers. They were able to get more DNA and expand that out to 27 markers. That's a more complete profile. And they kept finding that same profile and other swabs taken from the girls. So it's. This is like all over everything. June 2022, Jackson takes the case. He spends a few months just getting caught up, reviewing it, meets with subject matter experts to say basically what his approach was is what do I have and what can I do with it? Let's look at the evidence we have and go forward. There's nothing else we can, you know, like that. We like. We're not going to sloop this out. We're going to, we're going to look and say this is the evidence and where do we follow it? So late June 2025, they have this spent casing and they start re. He. So Jackson says he just randomly went down a rabbit hole one day and started research, researching the chain of custody for that and found that it had not recently been submitted to nibin. So Nibin is what he described as essentially the CODIS of ballistics. It's the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network and it compares ballistic evidence in different cases to help law enforcement solve crimes. And it's run by the atf. It's very important in cases.
- [26:07]
B
So he says they talked to the ATF and the ATF guy said, well, you know, you may as well resubmit it because the technology has gotten so much better. So even if it was submitted a while ago and didn't get much of a result now, perhaps it would.
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A
Yes, it had been submitted twice before, but as you said, timing was everything here. So he, he also noted that the.380 spent thing was, was, was linked to an AMT brand backup model handgun. So they had an idea of what the gun was. So on July 2, 2025, ATF sent the.380 cartridge and got a hit out of Kentucky and an unsolved murder. And he was very clear he could not name the city at this point, but that they, those people did a fantastic job. And there were similar details in the case, in the Kentucky case and in the Texas case. And I think I know, perhaps I have.
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B
You have, you have some speculation.
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A
I have, I have speculation on what case this is.
- [27:12]
B
We'll talk about that later.
- [27:13]
A
I guess, yeah. Can I say the name that I think it is?
- [27:17]
B
Sure. And again, this is not confirmed. This is just speculation on our part.
- [27:23]
A
This is completely speculation on my part. I have no inside knowledge to this. I just want to be really clear about that. So I just am guessing here. And based on what he said, that the cold case occurred in 1998 and had similar circumstances to this case, I believe that it is the murder of Linda Rutledge. And we'll do some more on that. But it occurred on honor around Saturday, November. I'm sorry, Friday, Nov. 6, 1998, in Lexington, Kentucky. And the murder of Linda Rutledge has a lot of similarities to yogurt chop. I could be totally off base, but that's what I think it is.
- [28:12]
B
But we'll talk more about that later.
- [28:13]
A
Sure. So same gun correlation between the cases. He talked about how NIBIN has crazy high accuracy records. And. But other than that, they. So they have the modus operandi and they have the ballistics matchings. No other known links between the two cases. They. He starts making a testing strategy, so, like, getting items resubmitted and retested sexual assault kits, and basically going around to different labs and saying, hey, do you guys have any YSTR profiles that match ours? They tried this in 2018, 2019, before he took the case. And they were manually having labs search against their unknown profile, and they found nothing. But this time around, South Carolina State Lab came through and they had 27. So they're 27 markers. So 27 markers match 27 markers between the South Carolina case and the Texas case, every allele was the same. And South Carolina state lab, like, took two weeks to work on this to make sure they had it right. And this was from a homicide rape out of Greenville, South Carolina. And they sent the information on August 22, 2025. And in that case, when someone, you know who was familiar with that case asked, you know, in yogurt shop, were they bound with their own clothing? Jackson realized, okay, this could be it. So the lab found that the profile was pretty rare. Signature science specifically was. Was a lab working on this, and they found it was a rare Y profile. Estimated only 0.12% of the US population in terms of males have this. And this was Parabon labs. CC Moore came in, and for this South Carolina case, you know, there had been knowledge in the early 2000s until, you know, 2017, 2018, that there had been a serial killer, but they couldn't figure out who it was. But they used genetic genealogy to figure out that it was Robert Eugene Brashers. And they put him into codis. So, you know, he was found to be a guy with known criminal history in multiple states. He had traveled for work, gone weeks at a time. And when this name came up for Jackson, it stopped him cold because he was able to look up the records and find out that this guy was in Texas 48 hours after the yogurt chop murders. So on. The murders occur on December 6th. On December 8th, 1991, again, less than 48 hours later, Border patrol stops Brashers at a westbound checkpoint between El Paso and Las Cruces. He's driving a stolen car stolen from Marietta, Georgia. And he has a.380 caliber pistol. And it's a backup model, serial number A75213. And that's the same make and model identified by ballistics as the weapon in yogurt shop. And as a result of this, he's charged with auto theft. He's charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. And that gun was later released to Brasher's father after his sentencing for that crime. So what Jackson said was that his family had to fight to get this gun back very hard, because there's a lot of loopholes. But they still got it back, and it later went back to Brasher's and he killed himself with it. So, I mean, I just. Like what. I mean, what do you think about this? When I heard this again, I was just like, oh, my God.
- [31:58]
B
Yeah, it was very. It was fascinating to hear all these details.
- [32:04]
A
Yeah, he talked about. So, yeah, I mean, I just. I don't know. I mean, God, I. The fact that he was there, and. And we'll go into more about some of the details. I mean, I guess I'll just say now. So what they said was that he stole this car on November 9th, 29th, in Marietta. Then he's December 8th, gets the stop. The murders occur on September. December 6th. And Jackson later speculated he might have been maybe trying to visit his dad in Glendale, Arizona, where his dad was at the time. His dad was Dulas. Was it duelist Woodrow Rashers Senior or Woody? But he would have had to kind of go out of his way to get to Austin either way. So it's not really clear why he was going through Austin, but. But, yeah. So unfortunately, this gun was lost in evidence after Brashers killed himself in Missouri. So they don't know where the gun is. And the markings that were crucial to making this match were markings on the bullet head stamps.
- [33:19]
B
Right.
- [33:20]
A
So anyways, gosh, it's just. I mean, he was. They were so close. I mean, if. I don't. I don't know. He was so close by me still in Texas two days later, you know, but this is a. This is the MO That Jackson kind of went over, and he wanted this really out there for people to be talking about this, because possibly other cases could be identified. So Brashers was known through his other crimes to carry multiple weapons. That's crucial because people have always assumed that at least two people had to be involved in yogurt shop because there.
- [33:56]
B
Was two guns involved.
- [33:57]
A
And, you know, frankly, that's what I would think, too. I mean, if I heard two guns, I'm thinking, okay, well, that's multiple people. But rashers always carry. I mean, he was. He. That was his thing. He was carrying multiple weapons. He would tie up his victims. He would often use ligatures fashioned from their own clothing to do so. He targeted women and girls. He would often sexually assault young female victims. We saw that in some of his other crimes. And he would often shoot them in the head. And in the Kentucky murder, again, same gun and similar details. So that's. That's a big deal. So that. That's what you're going to be looking at. Jackson reiterated, there's no physical evidence that can convict that links any of the four young men to any of this. There's no evidence that any of them knew Brashers when surviving victims of Brasher's violence, because there were some people who survived his attacks. They said he was always alone. He did not have an accomplice. He did not. And you wouldn't really expect him to because he was seemingly like a sexually motivated serial killer. Some of them do, I guess. But like people said, he was able to control groups of people at the same time. For instance, There was a 1997 Memphis home invasion and sexual assault that he did. He controlled four young women, or rather four women. He bound them and sexually assaulted one of them. He didn't kill any of them. That's an instance where it's four people. He's able to get control of them with fear, tie them up, and then attack one of them sexually. So, you know, as he wrapped up.
- [35:37]
B
He made a point that I felt was very emotional and very well said that some of the more critical DNA that led to confirming that it was Brasher's came from underneath Amy's fingernails because she obviously fought back against her killer. And so he made the point that in Amy's final moments on this earth. She helped solve the case by fighting back and getting that DNA.
- [36:07]
A
And that DNA, it, there's two and a half million to one that it's him versus some random guy.
- [36:15]
B
Yeah.
- [36:16]
A
So I think it's, it's, it's. So after he spoke, one of the victim's family members actually came up and I think, pinned something to his lapel and they hugged. It was obviously, obviously a very emotional moment for these families. So he was kind of, I think, the longest speaker, understandably, because he was really going over the evidence and why they think this guy did it. So it's a, it's not just DNA. It's DNA, but the DNA being ystr can't prove anything conclusively, but the circumstantial evidence of him having the same gun and it being linked and I mean.
- [36:51]
B
Yeah, it all, it all fits together.
- [36:53]
A
It's the classic police work. It's the classic ballistics work and DNA all fitting together totality wise. And that's what Dr. Dan D. Dana Kabi from the Austin Forensic Science.
- [37:03]
B
She was the next speaker.
- [37:04]
A
Yeah, that's what she said. She said the totality, the DNA doesn't change. The DNA is objective. And, you know, thanks to the due diligence of that South Carolina state lab, they're able to, they were able to compare it and the totality and the consistency of the evidence really piles up. And after she spoke, Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza spoke. He talked about how his office has never forgotten Amy, Jennifer, Eliza and Sarah. Their hearts will always be broken for the families. And this is, this can't make right what happened, but they will continue to support the families any way they can. He said. He thanked the Austin Police Department and the Attorney General's cold case unit and the forensic experts and said they never gave up. And he talked about how, he talked.
- [37:50]
B
About Welburn, Pierce, Springsteen and Scott. And he said, quote, I will say I'm sorry, although I will know that will never be enough.
- [38:00]
A
He said that the, his office only learned about these results, like a week ago, and the families learned even more recently. So, I mean, it, this is all very new for everybody. Next up was Tex Mindy Montford of the Texas Attorney General's office. She thanked Ken Paxson, the Texas Attorney General, and First Assistant Brent Webster and Josh Reno for building a cold case unit and recognizing that it was, was important to do so. And she talked about how the forensic people she worked with never turned on a request for lab testing. Testing as soon as she said the words yogurt shop, she talked about how she first met with some of Amy Ear's family, with then Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore. And she's lived in Austin since 1976, and, you know, just basically became immersed in this case, like, left with tears in her eyes from that first meeting and promised the family that she would never give up. And she got very emotional speaking about this and credited the Ayers family in particular for help in creating the cold case unit and saying that it's helped other families, too. She talked about how the Austin Police Department never stopped. She said that people have watched the HBO docu series on the case and been like, wow, it's great that the Austin Police Department is looking at it again. And she noted, like, they never stopped looking at it. It's been constant looking at it for years. And she talked about how if anyone has information on Robert Eugene Brashers or similar circumstances for a case, they need to kind of get in touch with authorities. And next.
- [39:44]
B
And some family members started talking.
- [39:46]
A
Yeah, family members talked.
- [39:47]
B
Next.
- [39:47]
A
So it was Barbara Wilson, the mother of Sarah and Jennifer Harbison. She lost two daughters that night. I can't even imagine. That's just horrifying. She hugged Mindy, got up to speak. She said she was really excited about being there. There'd been crazy couple of days. She was full of gratitude and said that basically they always just wanted the truth. They never wanted anyone charged for something they didn't do, and they just wanted to know what happened to these girls. She talked about how police have been very supportive of them from the beginning. She singled out Mike Huckabee, who she said is in bad health and needs your prayers, and as well as John Jones. She said those are the first people they fell in love with on the force. And every officer and every person that's kind of gotten involved, you know, they appreciate them, and people don't understand how hard they've worked. Then Sonora Thomas, a sister to Eliza Thomas, got up. She was 13 when her sister was murdered. She was very emotional. Again, as you can understand. She talked about when her mom died 10 years ago. She went to a cemetery in Hancock to fill out paperwork. And the clerk looked up the plot, clearly saw Eliza Thomas's name. And this clerk paused and then said, I've lived in Austin for so long. Please know that your family has always been in my prayers. And at that point, Sonora hadn't lived in Austin for 20 years, but she found very much, you know, comfort in those words. And Just has felt that there's always been an outpouring of love from strangers, from advocates, from people against violent crimes, from police officers, from people at the Christie center, taking care of her family, letting her mom sleep on a couch when she was too scared to go home, taking her, when she was 13, out clothes shopping, taking them out to lunch to sort of distract them from the tragedy. And a memorial company donated a headstone to her sister. A Lanier student. Student played Taps at the funeral. She talked about how John Jones, one of the original detectives, still answered her phone calls and just there were a million kindnesses extended to her family. So while you would expect her to have a lesser view of humanity based on what this man did to her sister and her friends, she actually has a more positive view of humanity because so many people have. You know, she talked about her. Her brain was always split in two. One part was always screaming, what happened to my sister? And the other part was saying, I will never know. I will die not knowing, and I'll have to be okay with that. And that Saturday, two parts of her brain melted into each other. And so it's brought. It's eased her suffering, even though it will never bring back her sister or bring growing old with her sister, meeting her nephews, grandchildren, you know, all. All these things. So it's eased her suffering, knowing. And we've heard that from a lot of families.
- [42:23]
B
We have.
- [42:24]
A
Closure's a myth. But knowing does help.
- [42:28]
B
And I want to just jump back a moment. You mentioned that her thoughts. She mentioned Mike Huckabee, who is apparently in bad health. Just to clarify, that is an Austin police officer named Mike Huckabee and not the former Arkansas governor, Micah Huckabee, who is, I believe, now an ambassador to Israel.
- [42:48]
A
Okay. Yeah. Same name, different guy. The next speaker was Sean Ayers, the older brother of Amy Ayers. He thanked God. He thanked God for the strength to do this. Thanked the leaders and those who were. This was. This was more sarcastic, actually. So he was angry and kind of sarcastically thanked those who leaked out news of this development to the media. And he said that they were responsible for the parents of these girls being called up by the media before Austin Police Department could even get to them and tell them the news, and that they forced the press conference to move up in time. And he said, quote, you should know better. This has to stop. End quote. What do you think about that? That was kind of shocking to me that that happened.
- [43:39]
B
Yeah, it. I wouldn't say it's shocking, maybe shocking.
- [43:44]
A
But it's more of, like, disappointing.
- [43:47]
B
I think a lot of people have had a lot of interest in this case for a long time, and I'm not surprised that once police started notifying people and started reaching out with this information, that it would get out there. It's unfortunate, but it's not particularly shocking, I guess.
- [44:05]
A
I mean, shocking as far as not an ideal thing and kind of upsetting for the families rather than, like, surprising.
- [44:11]
B
Yeah, I would agree with that.
- [44:13]
A
But he said, he thanked Dan Jackson, said he was one of the few detectives on the case who has no ego and will look you in the eye with good or bad news. He called Mindy the last of the Mohegans, I guess, because she'd been there for a long time and said that she would never stop fighting and the world needs more of her, and thanked all the law enforcement agencies and thanked his wife. And so then Angie Ayers, the sister in law of Amy Ayers, spoke. This is Sean's wife. She seemingly has been doing a lot of advocacy around this case over the years and talked about how she was also upset with the leakers and said they needed a day to basically cope with this, and they didn't get that. She talked about how two days after the murders, she. She was friends with one of the Harbison's cousins. And, you know, she's been kind of, you know, as she's gotten to know this family, she's been basically, I guess, the person kind of calling for updates and kind of like pushing for answers and helping to push for this cold case unit. So she said Dan was her favorite detective for now, and, you know, she knew he'd been warned against her, but he never wavered and he put all his ego aside and did what was right for the girls. She had, I thought, was a powerful calling for cold case units around the country. And this is what she said, quote, open the cold case boxes, please. Put the evidence in the databases, run the rape kits. Do not wait. Do it today. You could help ease someone's pain today, end quote. She also called for authorities to, you know, basically our judicial system, to stop letting habitual offenders out of prison. She asked for an audience with United States President Donald Trump, saying that, you know, she wants to have a conversation on how to fix a broken system. And she thanked her family, the families of the girls, including her in laws, for trusting her with the task and said she was sorry it took so long. So the one thing I was interested in, she. She mentioned this, like, put it. Put all this evidence in I, that, I think that is really important. I think what she said hit the nail on the head.
- [46:12]
B
I agree completely.
- [46:13]
A
She, we need to do this and we need, we need to take these, this seriously. There's rape kit backlogs in a lot of states. There's kind of like a reluctance sometimes to kind of go into this because there's so many modern day homicides that people are working. But cold cases can end up, if you really investigate a cold case, you never know, you could end up hitting on a bunch of other cases and solving other sexual assaults and solving other murders and it's worth doing. Then it went back to Kirk Watson. He kind of closed things up. There were a bunch of questions at the end from local reporters.
- [46:51]
B
I think you've already covered some of the substance of those.
- [46:53]
A
Erin Moriarty who we just had on the show, she was one of those, I loved that. I was like, hey, we just talked to her. So she was asking a question. And yeah, I think looking over this, we, you know, they, there's, I think we covered most of it, but that's what happened at this press conference. So some, some new, new answers. And perhaps, you know, one thing I should note is the case is not over and it's a situation where like Garza noted that like once they get the almost final conclusion then his office may be doing something as far as like, I guess, official acts around for wrongfully, you know, wrongfully accused people. But it's not, it's not officially over yet. But as long as it stays this way, as long as they're thinking this, which, I mean it sounds like, of course they are because this guy obviously did it, you know, yeah, that's kind of what's going to happen. But yeah, I think this is, this is huge news and I, I, I pray for those families. What they've been through is unimaginable. Is that all we have to say?
- [48:03]
B
I think that's all we have to say.
- [48:04]
A
All right, well, thank you guys for listening.
- [48:09]
B
Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [48:29]
A
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
- [48:53]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [49:04]
A
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.