Austin Police identify suspect in yogurt shop murders

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Police have linked a suspect to the 1991 deaths of four teen girls at the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” shop off Anderson Lane in north Austin, according to a statement shared with KXAN from Austin Mayor Kirk Watson’s office.

The note from the Austin mayor’s office called the development a “significant breakthrough” in the cold case. Police identified the suspect through DNA and ballistics testing.

APD is expected to hold a news conference on Monday to provide a timeline of how the events unfolded.

The suspect was identified by officials as Robert Eugene Brashers, who is connected with several other violent crimes across the southeast U.S. Brashers died by suicide in 1999.

He was accused of murder in the 1990 death of a South Carolina woman. Brashers was also linked by Memphis police to the rape of a Memphis teen, according to previous reporting from WREG in Memphis.

Authorities accused Brashers of a 1998 double homicide in Missouri. He was convicted of attempted murder in Florida in 1986, Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a 2018 press release.

It has been 34 years since the Austin murders.

On Dec. 6, 1991, Austin firefighters responded to a fire at the yogurt shop. The structure call would evolve into a quadruple homicide case, when the bodies of four teenage girls were found.

The victims were identified as 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and her sister, 15-year-old Sarah, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas and 13-year-old Amy Ayers.

The nature of the case was gruesome, former Austin firefighter Rene Garza told KXAN in 2016. All four girls were discovered tied up, stacked on top of each other, each shot in the head. Evidence indicated some had been sexually assaulted.

“You can’t help but relive those images and I still see the images,” Garza said.

Investigators said much of the evidence at the crime scene was destroyed when the perpetrators set it on fire.

Arrests and overturned convictions

Almost eight years after the crime happened, and hundreds of suspects throughout the years, including “devil worshippers” and so-called “people in black,” Austin Police arrested four men in 1999.

APD arrested Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, Maurice Pierce, and Forest Welborn. Prior to their trials, Springsteen and Scott each confessed to the murders, but defense attorneys accused APD officials of coercion. Charges against Pierce were dropped, while a Travis County grand jury opted not to indict Welborn. Both Springsteen and Scott were convicted, with Springsteen sentenced to death and Scott sentenced to life in prison. Springsteen’s sentence was later commuted to life in prison, due to his status as a minor at the time of the murders. Then, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned both Springsteen and Scott’s convictions in separate rulings in 2006 and 2007, respectively. In each case, the TCCA’s rulings noted constitutional violations found in both Springsteen and Scott’s confessions.

Grace Reader contributed to this story.