Crime Weekly - S3 Ep351: Austin’s Yogurt Shop Murders | 34 Years Later - New Break In the Case!

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

The brutal 1991 killing of four teenage girls at an Austin, Texas frozen-yogurt shop have taken a turn after advanced DNA testing identified a new suspect: Robert Eugene Brashers, a known serial killer who died in 1999. These killings were referred to as the Yogurt Shop Murders for decades, with many in the true crime scene and beyond waiting for a resolution in the case. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. https://www.UnCommonGoods.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 15% off your next gift!

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everyone back to crime weekly news. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And this week, we're heading back to Austin, Texas, to revisit one of the most haunting cases in the city's history, the yogurt shop murders. On a December night in 1991, four teenage girls were found bound.

shot and left inside a burning yogurt shop. The brutality of the crime shocked the community, and for more than three decades, investigators have been trying to uncover who was really responsible. Over the years, there have been arrests, overturned convictions, and endless theories, but no justice. Now, after more than 30 years, there have been some new developments in the case that could finally help move things forward. So let's talk about what's changed and what it could mean for one of Austin's most

infamous unsolved murders. Yeah, so I actually covered the yogurt shop murders in three parts on my channel in 2020. Yeah, we never covered it. We got requests for it, but never covered it. We did. When these new updates came out, I was getting inundated with messages. People are like, did you hear? Did you hear?

Yes, I did. And they wanted us to talk about it. So that's what we're doing. So for those who are not familiar with the case, I'm going to give you a quick breakdown. On December 6, 1991 in Austin, Texas, a fire was reported at a frozen yogurt shop, The frozen yogurt shop was called I Can't Believe It's Yogur. And this shop was located in a strip mall on West Anderson Lane in Austin. When firefighters entered the building, they discovered the bodies of four teenage girls,

13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison, and her younger sister, 15-year-old Sarah Harbison. Jennifer and Eliza worked at the yogurt shop that evening. Sarah and Amy had been at a nearby mall, and they'd come to the shop around closing time to meet up, the older girls. Now the crime scene was exceptionally brutal. The girls' hands were bound in some cases using their underwear. Their mouths were gagged. All four of them were shot execution style. All four girls had been shot in the head with the 22 caliber pistol and Amy Ayers was

also shot with a 38 caliber pistol. There was also evidence of sexual assaults. After the shootings, the shop was set on fire and the fire, as you would expect, severely damage the interior and many forensic leads. Although initially treated by investigators as a robbery gone wrong, the nature of the execution style killings, the bindings, the nudity, the fire, the fact that there wasn't much money missing, this all suggested something far more sinister, possibly a sexual or sadistic motive. Because the fire destroyed much of the scene and there were no surveillance cameras at that time, the physical evidence was very limited. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, right? You would, obviously there's a lot of DNA probably left behind based on what you're describing here

and how these murders were conducted and the possibility that there was a sexual assault that right there more than likely especially during that time there's going to be trace evidence there's going to be some indication as to who this person or people are and so the only way to try to hinder the abilities of law enforcement not only at that time but now here we are in 2006, right, is to cover everything in water or burn it down. So this was clearly something that was premeditated. It was planned. They had a thought going into it, how they were going to do it, and how they were going to potentially get away with it. And as you'll find out, there was DNA discovered at the scene under Amy's fingernails. Isn't it incredible DNA, man, solving cases? Well, immediately

after the fire and discovery of the bodies, the Austin Police Department launched a wide-ranging investigation, collecting thousands of tips, and interrogating many persons of interests. Because the store was set ablaze, like I said, many potential forensic leads were lost or severely degraded. The fire was suspected to be intentional, obviously. Investigators interviewed multiple suspects early on, including a teenager, Maurice Pierce, who had a gun matching the same caliber used, but his confession proved inconsistent and he was eliminated from being charged for the murders.

The difficulty of the scene, lack of surveillance. destroyed evidence, multiple false confessions. Over 50 people at one point have, you know, falsely confessed and kind of pushed themselves into this case. This all diverted significant resources and muddied the waters even further. Now in 1999, a special yogurt shop task force reopened the case. They arrested four men, Maurice Pierce, who we've already talked about, Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, and Forrest Wellborn. Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen confessed, implicating each other, Scott was convicted to life without parole, and Springsteen was sentenced to death. Well-born was not indicted. It was a grand jury no bill due to insufficient evidence, and Pierce's

charges were dropped. However, many raised concerns about the validity of the confessions. There was allegations of coercion, improper interrogation tactics, and perhaps more importantly, the lack of physical DNA evidence linking these men to the scene. Eventually, the Texas Court of criminal appeals granted new trials based on the president of Crawford v. Washington from 2004 and advancing DNA science and the convictions were overturned, the men were released in 2009. Now police in Austin, Texas, have said DNA technology has finally helped them identify the man who killed these four teenage girls. And we're going to talk about the new information, what they found, who they say is responsible for this. But first, we're going to take a quick break.

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That's Uncommongoods.com slash Crime Weekly for 15% off. Uncommon Goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Okay, we're back. So lead detective Daniel Jackson took over the case in 2022. And in June of 2025, he examined a 38 caliber shell casing from the scene that had never been uploaded to N-I-B-I-N, which for those who didn't know is the National Ballistic Database. So when he did upload it, a hit came back. The same gun had been used in a 1990 Kentucky murder with a similar

MO. Now, Jackson said that aside from the M-O and the N-B-B-I-B-N-Hit, there was no other obvious. links, so investigators in Texas and Kentucky began working together to see if the perpetrator or perpetrators of the crimes were the same. And Jackson also reached out to all labs in the country to do YSTR DNA testing, and a match was found out of a South Carolina lab that was connected to a 1990 assault and murder in Greenville, South Carolina. And this DNA led police to a man named Robert Eugene Brasher's, who had died by suicide in 1999. during a standoff with law enforcement at the time of his death, Brasher's was 40 years old. So what do we know about Robert Brasher's? Not a ton. But we do know that he has now been

connected to multiple solved and unsolved crimes all across the United States. So on November 22nd, 1985, Brasher's met 24-year-old Michelle Wilkerson in Fort Pierce, Florida. They were in his car, and obviously something he did or said was not settling right with her. she tried to leave his vehicle and he shot her in the head and neck. She survived, luckily, and Brasher's was arrested and convicted for attempted murder. This is his earliest documented violent offense, right? We don't know what he could have done before that. Now, the worst part about this is, and once again, I get so sick of talking about this, I get so sick of having to repeat it. It feels like Groundhogs Day every day. Brasher's was released in 1989.

He committed this crime in 1985. How many times we're going to hear these stories? Shot a woman in her head and neck, but she survived. And so he's released in 1989 after serving only three years of a 12-year sentence following good behavior. So first of all, 12 years wasn't enough for shooting somebody in their head and neck. Morning to kill him. Three years, dude, three years for shooting a woman in her head and neck. Disgusting.

So he gets out. And then from there, he appeared to move around a lot. Of course he did. On April 5, 1990, 28-year-old Jenny Zatriki was found bludgeoned, raped, and strangled in her Greenville, South Carolina apartment. This case went cold, and only in 2018 did DNA collected from that scene match Brasher's DNA via genetic genealogy. Then, obviously, we have the quadruple homicide at the yogurt shop in Austin, Texas in December of 1991, DNA taken from under the fingernail. of Amy Ayers has matched Brashers. Then on February 18th, 1992, Brasher's was arrested for grand theft auto, weapons possession, unauthorized police equipment use, and having a fake ID. In Memphis,

Tennessee, on March 11, 1997, a home invasion rape of a 14-year-old girl led to a composite sketch being created, and according to reports, an armed man forced his way into the home and tied up the occupants before committing his horrible act and leaving. Then, On March 28th, 1998, 38-year-old Sherry Shearer and her daughter, 12-year-old Megan Shearer, were both murdered in Portageville, Missouri. This crime occurred hours before another attempted home invasion in Dyersburg, Tennessee. 12-year-old Megan had been sexually assaulted and both victims had been shot. And ballistics connected the Tennessee incident to the Missouri murders

and then DNA later matched brashers to those cases as well as the Austin. yogurt shop cases and the ballistics also matched to the Austin yogurt shop murders. Lead Detective Daniel Jackson has said, quote, after he died, DNA linked multiple unsolved murders and sexual assaults across the country to him, end quote. Detective Jackson also goes on to say that these areas, they felt and they knew that they had a serial killer in these different jurisdictions, but they didn't know who he was, and now we know. And then obviously my question would be how many other unsolved murders?

there's got to be more in these areas are connected to him, right? Because there's no way that he gets out of prison in 1989 and then waits. So, yeah, I have to wonder how many of these other, even, yeah, even missing persons, missing young girls. I mean, he was all over the place, right? South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Austin, Texas. Well, they have to track his whereabouts. They have to go back, reverse engineer, his locations throughout that.

period and then correlate his location, anything that's verifiable with any unsolved crimes from those areas. Because in these cases, you have a lot, right? You have ballistics. You have DNA. You also have the victimology of it, right? And a lot of circumstances here, the victims are similar, right? There's a certain type that he's going for. And then there's obviously the M.O. itself, the way he's conducting these crimes are very similar as well. So you want to look at those, any crimes that have not been solved that fit a similar MO, maybe not the same ballistics, maybe not the same DNA in those cases, but something else that ties him to that location at that particular time.

With that, you have to bring him in, interview him, see what else you can get. Sometimes these idiots will confess because they know they're done and they actually get some type of gratification out of having those crimes be tied to them. I don't know if that's going to be the case here, but you don't know until you try. Overall, what this is going to come down to is a collaboration amongst multiple jurisdictions. You got to work together. That's why I've always said that we need one system that everyone has access to because in each police department, you have what's called IMC or something similar, where we have an internal database, a digital database that I can search a name or search a crime. and anything similar to that in my jurisdiction will pop up.

But that doesn't tie to the state authorities. It doesn't tie to the municipalities right next door. We could have two similar crimes with a similar MO, similar, whatever, and not know that they're connected. Now, if it's a DNA case or a ballistics case and you upload something, then that's where CODIS or something can give you a hit. But if it's just based on MO and the victimology of the case, there's really no system that's going to tie them together

unless you're boots on the ground, going out there and actually comparing cases by talking with your partners, with your neighbors. So that's why it's important. And they do sometimes do this. I know they do it in Rhode Island where there's a cold case unit. They'll get together and they'll discuss different cases. And there have been circumstances where two different detectives are discussing their cases independently and they realize that there's a pattern and that there's similarities. And that's when the collaboration starts. But to your point, absolutely, there's more murders out there that he's responsible for.

We just have to tie him to him because, yeah, we got him. He's not going to hurt anybody else. But those families deserve answers as well. They deserve justice. Now, here's an interesting thing that I found when I was looking through this because there's another case that people, when the Austin Yogurt Shop murders, was sitting here as a cold case. A lot of people compared this case to it. And it's called the, I hope I'm saying this right, the Las Cruces Bowling Alley massacre, which happened in New Mexico on February 10th, 1990.

Okay, so get this. So less than 48 hours after the yogurt shop murders, Brashers was stopped by border patrol at a westbound checkpoint between El Paso, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was driving a stolen car out of Georgia and was in possession of a 38 pistol. And it's been confirmed that this is the same gun. he used to commit suicide in 1999 and also the same gun that he used on Amy Ayers. So he was familiar with this area of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Obviously, he was around there.

Is it possible that he was responsible for what happened at the bowling alley because a lot of people have compared these two cases? You know what else is interesting in the Las Cruces case? The suspect burned down the building as well or attempted to. Yes, exactly. That's why they compare them. The only thing, and I apologize because it's been a while. since I've covered the case, I don't believe there was any attempted sexual assault.

And there were children there, unfortunately, where they had parents there that were working at the bowling alley. And it was all kind of compartmentalized to the office. And fortunately, one of the children did survive. They actually called 911. But there was no attempted sexual assaults in those cases. Now, that doesn't mean he's not connected to it. Maybe the circumstances didn't allow for that.

Well, it looks like it was a robbery, right? because it was too unidentified, so he could have been working with somebody in this case. Maybe it was a robbery. We have him doing things like that before, getting arrested. They have a description of that guy in that one as well. Someone saw them leaving the bull in alley. There is some, they could probably figure out pretty quickly if this person's tied to it. They probably could.

Yeah. I mean, it's just interesting that, you know, we kind of, it's like, okay, we got to place him in certain areas. Well, we placed him in Las Cruces where this happened. And he was actually pulled over by a Border Patrol agent in a stolen car days after the yogurt shop murders with the same gun he used to kill Amy Ayers. And he managed to escape that as well somehow. I couldn't tell you why. Yeah. And that's not the only case where that's happened either, where you're so close to solving it and so close to preventing him from hurting other people.

And yet it just doesn't fall your way. But that's why it's so frustrating when you hear about him being apprehended, him being convicted of a crime. him being given a light sentence, right? Nobody agrees with 12 years. Light to begin with, yeah, 13, yeah. But, okay, we'll take it, 12 year, whatever, but then letting him out after serving a quarter of it. Like, what are we doing?

Like, your three years of good behavior in prison has completely negated your horrible behavior of trying to sexually assault a woman and when she got away, trying to kill her. Yeah, okay. Brashers should have never been out before the ending of his sentence. He shouldn't have been out after the 12 years, but definitely not beforehand.

know it's about rehabilitation and the level of likelihood that they're going to reoffend, but we can't tell the future. I'd rather be safe than sorry. He already did it to one person. He could do it again. You're staying in prison. Sorry, buddy. Yeah, and it looks like this guy had like a whole family, you know, a wife, kids,

yep, that he was living this double life. It's absolutely insane. So we'll see what else comes out about it. But I guarantee you that there's several task forces. now combining their resources and their knowledge to see if they can take some of these cold cases that we know there's hundreds and honestly tens of thousands of them around the United States and put a face to name or a name to a face. Now that they have them, like I just said a little while ago, they're going to reverse engineer it. They can track where he was during different periods of time and, you know, put him on a map. If you go old school, put little pins on a map and see where he was living during those particular times and then make a small.

radius around each pin and see if there were any crimes in those areas that are that are unsolved but fit the M.O. Fit the pattern of brashers. Then you look deeper into it. See if there was witness testimony. See if there were any sketches. See if there were any DNA. Where was he living at the time? And then you go from there. And it shouldn't be that hard to do at that point. If the preservation of evidence was done correctly, you should be able to tie him pretty quickly to those crimes as well, if he's involved. Yeah, it's really difficult to say what he was doing, how he was moving around the United States so often.

Was he just actually moving residences or was he performing a job like a truck driver that gave him the ability to travel around a lot to different places? I don't know yet. I can't really find anything about that, but we will see. I'm sure more is going to come out in the future. Yeah, and I think we let the, let the, thing kind of unfold and then we go back and cover it kind of break it down i know you've covered it before i don't know the specifics of this case i would love to learn about it and

for me covering this on crime weekly news and potentially covering it on crime weekly it's a good thing obviously it's a sad story we can't bring these people back but i've said it multiple times before and it makes me very happy the ability to get away with these types of crimes that that window is slowly closing. It's getting more and more difficult every single second to get away with these types of crimes. Science and technology, a couple that with AI is going to make it damn near impossible within I can't wait to see 10, 15 years from now.

It's going to make it damn near impossible to get away with it. And that's a good thing. So I love covering these cases and talking about the updates on them because for anybody out there who may be potentially listening to this because I don't know, thinking about doing something, understand this, your day's coming. It's not the time anymore. It's not the time anymore. It's not, it's not your time. It's not your time. It's not the golden age of serial killers or, you know, unprecedented violence. Take up knitting, crochet. Do something else because. Yeah, do something else. I don't know.

You got to be perfect. And even when you're perfect, you can still be caught. And I haven't even talked about cameras and cell phone pinging and GPS. Like, there's so many on star on these cars. Like, it's getting damn near impossible. And if the detectives working the case have half a brain, the case is solved for them. Yeah, exactly. I'm not trying to discredit law enforcement. No, no, no. But it's like you don't have to be some Sherlock Holmes anymore to solve a crime.

You don't have to like find these little trail of breadcrumbs. It's like, okay, you've got technology, you've got DNA, you've got cameras, you've got freaking cameras out there on the roads, on the highways, tolls, cell phones, everything. You can't go nowhere. We can't go anywhere without being watched. And then if you go anywhere, you're leaving. something behind, some type of digital or trace evidence. Your marker is there. Yeah, I mean, look at, what's his name, Brian Coburger. He left his phone at home, thought he was going to be

covered. What an idiot. And I hate to even say this. I cringe when I say it. But on paper, a smart guy, someone who did his research, who had an educational background in this field, still got caught, right? It's getting harder and harder. I love it. I'm smiling. I'll even go As far as saying in the future, we're going to find that people with backgrounds in forensics, whether it's digital or physical forensics, those people are going to be the most sought after because you're not going to need to be some, like you said, Sherlock Holmes, where just the ability to use a computer, use artificial intelligence. To write a report, yeah, question people. Have a background in genealogy, science, all that stuff. Those are going to be the people who come in who don't necessarily. have a law enforcement background and are critical to cracking these cases. But then what if we have the forensics peoples are the ones committing the crimes now because

they don't have to get around it like Dexter. That's the thing, right? Like, I don't even know how you do it. You'd have to go into a crime scene with a human size condom on. You would just have to basically, that's a tough visual. I don't know. I could have picked a better. It hit right into my brain.

There's a movie I'm thinking of, and it's right now in the comments, there's an old movie. I want to say it's naked gun. where there's a sex scene and they're like we should use protection and they both put on plastic condom suits you don't talk about

I think you're right I think it is naked that's what I was thinking about if I'm wrong hit me in the comments but I'm thinking about weird weird anyways I digress

even if you know what you have to do it's still like almost scientifically impossible to get away with it unless you're lucky unless you're lucky and that does happen

remember that one case where the person like walked by the fence right at the exact moment Jennifer Cassie yes Jennifer Cassie And that's why I love covering all these cases. We've developed such a library of different types of crimes that we can reference

and talk about what was done in that case, what was done right, what was done wrong, how we can do better. This is a sad story. Like I said, we can't bring them back. At least they're going to get justice for the people involved in this one, maybe other cases as well. But the overall takeaway here is we're hearing about these types of stories more and more every day. And that's a good thing for true crime. Yes. And I will say, if you want us to cover the Austin Yogurt Shop Mirren

I think that, I think it would be great. Let us know because there's more to this case than the murders, right? The case provides, I believe, a stark lesson in wrongful convictions. It demonstrates the danger of relying on confessions, coerced confessions. And then, I mean, what you have to understand is they had this DNA evidence. And the DNA evidence ruled out all four of the men that were arrested for this. And for some, I don't know how. And I talked about this during my three-part series.

It's like, I don't know how you could see that DNA evidence not match any of your suspects and say, well, it's probably still them because they confessed. When you know you were the police officers who were a part of coercing their confessions, we talk all about it. It's just absolutely disgusting. And I know they said, oh, well, that DNA under Amy's fingernails could have been from somebody else that she had, you know, touched or come in contact with before her murder. How? You guys took DNA from every single person who lived in that town and none of them matched. So how could that have been the case? You know, there's just so many, so many injustices done because even though these men eventually their convictions were overturned, they don't get those years back. They spent time. They spent time in prison. And now, now that this has come out, they should sue. That's all I'm going to say. Of course. No, I mean, listen, every one of these cases for me is a textbook. It's an ability to learn what was done right, what was done wrong. How

I can become a better investigator. That's why I love covering cases, even when they're solved, because you get to see the full arc of the story. So we'll keep up with it. I have my hand up to cover yoga shop murders. I'd love to talk about it, break it down, and learn about it so I can put it in my toolbox. But let us know what you think. We're going to be back later this week with part two of Dr. Fred Jablin.

You guys really enjoyed part one. And enjoyed is a tough word, but enjoyed the breakdown of the case. And we're looking forward to getting into part two. So audio will be out on Friday, YouTube out on Sunday. Until then, everyone stay safe out there, and we'll see you soon.