Yogurt Shop Murders Solved? After 33 Years And Recent HBO Series, Link To Serial Killer Revealed – Blavity
Police in Austin, Texas, used new DNA technology to identify the suspect in the 1991 yogurt shop murders of four teenage girls, a case that has haunted the community for decades and recently drew renewed attention with an HBO documentary series released in August, titled The Yogurt Shop Murders.
Who were the victims of the yogurt shop murders?
Eliza Thomas, 17, Amy Ayers, 13, and sisters Jennifer Harbison, 17, and Sarah Harbison, 15, were attacked at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop on Dec. 6, 1991. Two of the girls had worked at the shop. They were nude, bound, gagged and each shot in the head, and at least two of them had been sexually assaulted. The building was later set on fire before the killer fled the scene, according to Blavity, ABC News and NBC News.
What did police say about the ballistic evidence at the scene?
On Monday, lead detective Daniel Jackson, who took over the case in 2022, discussed at a news conference that all four girls were “shot in the head with a .22 caliber pistol, and Amy was also shot with a .380 pistol.” However, one bullet shell casing left at the scene led Jackson and police to reexamine DNA and other ballistics evidence.
“Some of the only physical evidence that was recovered was one spent .380 shell casing that was located in the floor drain,” Jackson said, per NBC News. “There were no .22 caliber casings recovered, and the fire — and then the water from the fire department — basically destroyed pretty much anything else that you were going to try to collect or try to process this crime scene.”
For years, police have relied on DNA and other database systems to round up potential suspects linked to the case. Although four men were arrested in connection with the murders, only two, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, were eventually found guilty and convicted in the early 2000s after initially confessing to it, per Blavity.
Their convictions were later overturned on appeal due to constitutional errors. Advanced DNA analysis later pointed to another suspect at the scene, preventing a retrial and prompting the release of both men in 2009, ABC News reported.
New evidence links 1991 murders to a serial killer
The breakthrough in the decades-long case came in June when Jackson reexamined a spent .380 casing and entered it into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. That led to a hit in Kentucky involving a similar unsolved murder.
Alongside decades of failed DNA testing attempts, investigators finally found a match through Y-STR DNA typing in South Carolina.
“The South Carolina state lab was the only lab in the country that responded that they had a match … the full profile and every allele was the same,” Jackson said, per ABC News.
The DNA identified Robert Eugene Brashers, a man linked to multiple murders and sexual assaults across the country. Brashers, who had a violent criminal history, died by suicide in 1999.
‘I can see them, I can still see the inside of that place’
After this groundbreaking discovery, former detective John Jones, the first investigator on the 1991 case, marked a moment of long-awaited closure on Monday by wearing a green and white striped shirt for the second time in 34 years, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Per the Austin American-Statesman, he explained the significance of the shirt to 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty in 2017. “I kind of made a promise to them [the victims’ families]. The next time they saw me with that green and white shirt on, that was a signal to them that, you know, we know who did it,” he said.
Jones recounted the lasting impact of the case: “I can see them, I can still see the inside of that place. That stuff’s … indelibly burned in my mind.”
Even after retiring and leaving Texas, he maintained his case files and kept his commitment to the victims’ loved ones.
“I told the families, ‘Well, when you see me in this shirt again, it’ll be because the case is solved,’” Jones told the outlet. “I made a pact with my kids: If it doesn’t get solved before I pass myself — because I’m an old man — if it doesn’t get solved before I ‘check out,’ then you guys are in charge of finding the families.”
Jones flew to Austin for the press conference, stating that he wanted to see law enforcement take responsibility for the four men that were initially suspects in the case, with two of them serving time before being released.
The post Yogurt Shop Murders Solved? After 33 Years And Recent HBO Series, Link To Serial Killer Revealed appeared first on Blavity.
Source link
#Yogurt #Shop #Murders #Solved #Years #HBO #Series #Link #Serial #Killer #Revealed #Blavity
powered by Auto Youtube Summarize
Tags Blavity HBO Killer Link Murders Revealed Serial Series Shop Solved Years Yogurt