Murder In America - EP. 1 TEXAS - The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Four teenage girls found murdered, a slew of suspects, and no convictions- the story of the Austin Yogurt Shop murders is not only one of mystery, but a tale of anger, blood, false confessions & fire. And at its core is a crime that has gone unsolved for almost 30 years and has haunted the city in which it was committed. In the very first episode of "Murder in America", hosts Colin & Courtney delve deep into the story of the Austin Yogurt Shop Murders, an unsolved quadruple homicide that rocked the city of Austin, Texas back in December of 1991. This is one of the most shocking unsolved murders that the two have EVER researched, and it hits especially close to home since it occurred in the city in which the two currently live.  This episode will have you asking the question... the dead don't talk... or DO they? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash America for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash America. Four teenage girls found murdered, a slew of suspects and no convictions. The story of the Austin Yogurt Shop murders is not only one of mystery, but a tale of anger, lies, blood, and fire. And at its core is a crime that has gone unsolved for almost 30 years and has haunted the city in which it was committed. Welcome to Murder in America. Our story starts in Austin, Texas on December 6, 1991, when just before midnight, an officer on patrol named Troy G. gay, notices a cloud of smoke piling out of a local location of the I Can't Believe its yogurt

franchise. He called for backup, but as law enforcement arrived at the scene, they had no idea that what they were about to discover was so horrific that the community of Austin would be forever changed. First responders say that when they pulled up to the I can't believe it's yogurt building, the windows were black with smoke, and they noticed that the fire was coming from the back of the building. So they're going through, dousing the flames with water, as you would, any type of fire. Little did they know that in doing so, they would wash away most of the evidence that would have been crucial to this investigation. One of the firefighters noted later on that something he was never able to get out of his mind was a haunting visual he witnessed during the initial attempt to put out the flames inside the building. This firefighter recalled the exact moment that the team entered the building and how as they walked through the charred remains of the yogurt shop, he noticed a charred foot on the ground in front of him.

Before this moment, none of the investigators suspected foul play. But there in front of them was a body. And a few feet away, they find a second, then a third, then a fourth. Before long, investigators soon found out that they had a quadruple homicide on their hands. The deceased victims were Eliza Thomas, who was 17 years old, Jennifer Harbison, who was also 17, Sarah Harbison, who was 15, and the youngest of the victims, Amy Ayers, who was just 13 years old.

It was December 6, 1991. Only a year or so into the 1990s, times seemed pretty good for America. George H.W. Bush was the president, the Gulf War was ending, and the Soviet Union had essentially just ceased to exist. There was a sense of excitement in the United States, for the future, for what was to come, for what the world had come from. With new technology like mobile phones and computers becoming more and more integrated into the daily lives of Americans, there seemed to be a tangible sense of enthusiasm in the air. This was still a time in America where people trusted their neighbors, people wanted to see the good in others, and our people wanted to see the good in

others, and oftentimes doors and houses and apartments were left unlocked. Austin was a growing town at the time, a big city with a small town vibe. Even though it was the capital of Texas, Austin didn't have the crime rates of other cities in the state like Dallas and Houston, and people generally viewed it as a very safe place to raise a family. Just to note, though, in 1991, a few months before the yogurt shot murders, Jeffrey Dahmer had just been arrested. Murder was on the minds of a lot of Americans, and murder would be exactly what came to Austin that chilly December night. 6th, 1991 was an average night in Austin. Nothing big had happened that day, people were getting Christmas shopping done, and everything seemed pretty normal. It was an especially unremarkable

night at the North Austin franchise if I can't believe it's yogurt, a specialty shop that offered up frozen yogurt to hungry health aficionados and a generally younger demographic. The night had been relatively calm at the shop, and the store was being staffed that night by two young teenagers, Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison. As it approached 11 p.m., closing time, Eliza and Jennifer began to prepare the store for clothes, locking the doors and cleaning out the utensils used to serve the yogurt. Just before closing time, Jennifer and Eliza were joined by Jennifer's little sister, Sarah, and Sarah's even younger friend, Amy, who was only 13 years old on that fateful night. Sarah and Amy had come to the yogurt shop to help clean and close the store,

and the four girls were planning on having a slumber party afterwards. But this is where the story gets undeniably creepy. About 15 minutes before the shop closed, a couple came in to grab some late night yogurt. This man and woman would provide some of the most intriguing details from these murders. As they sat and enjoyed their yogurt, the woman of the couple said that the only two customers in the shop were these two men. And for whatever reason, these men gave her a really bad feeling. Something undeniable, something that sent a chill down her spine.

These two men were wearing baggy clothes so she wasn't able to get a great description of them. But the description she gave was that one of the men had light hair was probably around five, six, and seemed to be in his late 20s, early 30s. The other man was only described by the woman as bigger than the other guy. Now, I kind of want to describe the layout of the room so you have an idea of what our scene looks like. So the cash register where the girls were was on the far left side of the room. There was a row of booths along the wall in front of the cash register, some tables in the

middle of the room, and another row of booths on the other side of the wall. Something that was really strange to me when I first heard this story was that the two men were sitting in the booth directly in front of the cash register where the girls were. Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm in a situation where I'm the only person in a restaurant full of open tables, I would never sit by the kitchen or close to the employees. I don't want people to hear my conversations or anything like that, so I would usually sit in the furthest table. Yeah, but I feel like it's not that weird. I mean, I think that can be explained away. Like maybe they didn't feel like walking across the store to go to another seat. Or maybe they just really wanted to eat their yogurt.

Okay, yes, agreed, but another thing that was really strange to me was that the men weren't even eating any frozen yogurt. They apparently weren't even talking to each other. The woman claimed that these two strangers were just sitting there, kind of messing with this bag on the table in front of them. Yeah, that's a little strange. I can even understand if maybe they already ate their yogurt and they were just talking before the shop closed, but the fact that they were just kind of sitting in silence not only seems a little strange, but that's very, very odd behavior. Especially you add in this fact that there's this bag that no one knows what was inside of it that's just sitting on this table.

They're sitting there playing with it, almost wondering what they're about to do if they can do this, maybe bringing themselves to the point of being able to execute this crime. That whole behavior is just, yeah, a very weird warning sign in this story. Exactly. And these men, to this day, have never been identified and are still a huge missing piece of this investigation. Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that police interviewed over, 50 customers who came into the yogurt shop that day, but the two guys in question never came forward, which makes it seem like they had something to do with the murders. And apparently these guys were

the very last customers in the yogurt shop that night, because the two men were the only ones in the store when the girls locked the front entrance. Meaning, no one was allowed to come in, but the people still in the store were allowed to leave once they were done eating. This is just general company policy, and this happens in a lot of restaurants. This is an interesting twist of fate, because that means that when these girls locked that door, to lock everybody out, they were essentially sealing themselves not only into this yogurt shop, but into their own tomb. Police were almost positive that these men were involved in the crime because when they were assessing the crime scene later that night, all the tables were cleaned

with their napkin holders refilled, except for the booth where the two men were sitting. This makes you wonder, did these guys stop the girl Sarah from cleaning this table? Why is this the only table in the restaurant that was not cleaned? And what we also know is that around 11 p.m. after the couple had left, the no-sale button on the cash register was pushed, meaning the cash register was opened, but nobody bought anything. And we later find out that there was around $540 taken that night. And after this, there's about an hour unaccounted for until just before midnight when the officer calls in the fire. And although we aren't completely sure of what happened within that hour, we do know that it was something horrific.

Investigators believe that after the money was taken from the cash register, the perpetrators forced the girls into the back room, where they made them take off all of their clothes. They tied Eliza and Sarah's hands behind their back and gagged them with items of clothing. Evidence showed that Amy and Sarah, the two youngest of the victims, had been raped, and Amy was even found mutilated and had been sexually assaulted with an ice cream scooper. The scooper was found lodged inside of Amy's body, inserted into her genitals. At some point, the perpetrators forced the girls onto their knees where they were shot execution style in the back of the head with a 22 caliber gun. When Amy was found, she had been shot in the head twice. The first bullet from the 22 didn't actually kill her. The second bullet came from a 38 caliber pistol.

And this is what led investigators to believe that there was more than one person involved in the crime. After this, the perpetrator started a fire and attempted to get rid of any evidence, and they made an exit out of the back door. When first responders found the scene, they found the back door propped open. Jennifer was lying in front of a shelving unit, and a few feet to the right of her body, Eliza and Sarah's corpses were stacked on top of one another. It was said that after the fire, the girls' bodies were so badly burned that they kind of became one with the floor. Then the furthest away from the three girls lay Amy, who was the least burned of the victims. She was found lying in front of the bathrooms.

And most people don't know this, but the building where this took place is now a nail salon. The frame is still there, even though the interior is obviously different. So the other day, while Courtney and I were in North Austin, eating lunch, Courtney had been doing the research for this podcast, and we really wanted to get a feel for the story, so we decided to go get a pedicure at the building where this happened, and I'm not kidding, when you walk in, you're overcome with emotion. Now, a lot of you that are listening are obviously going to know me from the paranormal files, my YouTube channel where I travel the world looking for evidence of paranormal activity.

And in my opinion, the strongest paranormal activity is left in locations like these, where they've been affected by these not only great tragedies, but very painful mysteries. This place has an unsolved murder, and it was four people that were killed in the same night, and not only were they killed, but they were put through some horrible things apparently based on what the corpses looked like when they were found. So at the end of the day, I'm not going to rant about, you know, ghosts and, you know, ghosts and everything here, but being there in person with Courtney, you can really feel that almost thick sadness that permeates a location like this and a building. It's almost like these murders leave

a sort of a permanent stain on the environment within the building, even the walls or the materials, something that you can feel. And I think that that's still there in the building to this day. Yeah, and it's super strange because the room is still set up almost exactly the same as it was when it was a yogurt shop. Like, the bathrooms are still in the same place. You can kind of see where the cash register would have been. They even have the little back area just like they did when the girls were murdered. And I couldn't help but get chills when we were there because at one point I had to go to the restroom and I remember just staring at the floor right in front of the bathroom thinking to myself that Amy's body was found right here, right where I'm standing. And then when you look back a few feet,

you can almost picture the crime scene while you're standing there. It was definitely. Definitely very eerie. Now going back to our crime scene, in addition to the fact that firefighters washed away a bunch of the evidence from the murders, law enforcement officials also did a terrible, terrible job at assessing this crime scene. Now keep in mind, Austin was a way smaller town back then and they weren't used to dealing with this type of crime, but they completely botched this investigation. They didn't check for fingerprints in all of the rooms.

Items that should have been put in evidence were literally thrown away in the back alley. They didn't check to see if Accelerant was used on the girls' bodies. First responders were walking all through the crime scene without taking proper precaution or attempting to preserve potential evidence. I mean, you can literally go on and on about how poorly they processed this crime scene. It's nuts. This is crazy to me because they had four dead teenage girls and you would think that they would follow protocol and take every precaution in trying to collect evidence. But they didn't. And later on, this would come back to bite them right in the ass. Investigators did find DNA evidence at the crime scene, but

but back in 91, our abilities to process DNA evidence weren't that advanced, so there was nothing they could do with it at that very moment. This is where, once again, the story of the yogurt shop murders takes a dark and honestly infuriating turn. About a week after this tragedy took place, police brought a man by the name of Maurice Price into the police station because he was found a few blocks away from the yogurt shop with a 22-caliber gun, which is the same gun used at our crime scene.

When police questioned his involvement in the murders, he told them that he let his friend Forrest well-born borrow his gun, and he was the one that murdered the girls. Now when police heard this, they were elated, finally a lead that sounded promising. But when they brought in Forrest for questioning, he adamantly denied killing the girls. Forrest told investigators that he, Maurice, and two other guys named Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott took a stolen vehicle to San Antonio that night in question. Investigators doubted his story and asked him to take a polygraph. and what do you know, he passes.

And because investigators had no physical evidence that linked any of the men to the crime, they had to release them. And do you want to guess how many false confessions police had in this investigation? You know, I'm just, I'm looking at my arm right now. I'm going to go 13, because I think that's quite a few confessions if you'd ask anybody off the street.

Oh, well, there goes the mic. Sorry. No, not even close. 50 false confessions, over 50 false confessions. And there were like inmates who confessed random people off the streets who just said that they did it. I mean, it was insane. I can understand a false confession if you're being like badgered by investigators or even like inmates who can make certain deals based on their confessions. But this was random people coming in saying that they did it and they had absolutely nothing to gain from it. You know, I,

got to agree, just as an objective observer reading the story and putting myself in their shoes, I don't know why they would have done all that they did. But when reading into the story, I also found it interesting that about seven years after the murders, the new detective that had been assigned to the case, a man by the name of Paul Johnson, decided to do a ballistics test on Maurice Price's gun to see if it was used in the murders. And this must have been a shock to Detective Johnson. it was not a match.

Despite it not being a match, though, Detective Johnson was dead set that these men were the ones that killed the four girls and he was determined to make their lives a living hell. After the ballistics test, Johnson decided to bring in one of the guys, Michael Scott. And I don't know if Johnson thought that he was the weakest of the group or that he would give a confession the quickest, but he interrogated Michael for five days straight. And at certain points of the interrogation,

he even held a gun to Michael's head. These scare tactics led to a forced confession where eventually Scott told investigators that Maurice made him kill one of the girls that night. And I feel like for a lot of people, it's difficult to wrap your head around a false confession. And before I understood the psychology behind it, I didn't really either.

Like, why would somebody admit to something and risk spending their entire life in prison if they didn't actually do it? But there have been plenty of cases where a suspect will be interrogated for days, on end, they're being broken down, disrespected, they have their sanity question, they're exhausted, and sometimes in rare cases they're met with physical violence. In Michael's situation, I could totally understand why he would confess. He had been interrogated for five days straight with a gun

to his head at points in the investigation, and I feel like I would admit to just about anything if someone in authority was holding a gun to my head. I want to play you guys a bit of the audio from this interrogation just so you can see the dynamic of it. You want the truth, and you know what the truth is. You know I'm having trouble with the memories and flashbacks. You know what happened. You're scared to tell us. I don't blame you.

That's a horrible thing once you saw in there. But can I tell you how to you see it in my head? Tell us what you see in your head. I keep seeing you feel like. Right. Tell us what that looks like. Tell what you see specifically. How about getting shot and you shooting them.

Come on, I didn't do it good. Tell it, let's do this today. We're doing it. Let's see it in town. I remember one girl's screaming terrified. Okay? I don't know if this is... You remember what happens if you were inside there, right?

I don't... You're remembering what happened. I don't actually remember going into building. If you were in the building, you went in there with me. I don't believe that, Michael. You don't remember in there. And you know you were in there. Did you shoot any in the deal?

No, sir. But tell us what fucking happened. What do those two people do with those girls? Do you live with this rest of your life? You don't like? No, I don't. Get it out right now. They're fucking you over.

They're the ones that shot the girls. Do it. What did you see happen? At some point where he's handing his, that revolver, what does he say to you? Either shoot him or you're next. That's what he said to do. Right. Either shoot him or you're next.

What do you want to hear him or you're next? What do you remember you're in? This girl, I cry. I hear me. Robert is saying, do it, do it. Do it. I had the gun go off. I only pulled the shirt once.

I turn around. He's his stupid gun. What happens next, Mike? That brought back to memories, didn't it? I remember looking at the gun. You ever seen that gun before? I'm not positive. Does that look like a gun you've seen before? It looks like a gun I've seen before, but I'm not positive.

Is that the gun you shot somebody with, Mike? I don't... Is that the gun you walked up behind somebody with and shot in the head? Is that the gun? the one? Talk to me, Mike. Yes, sir. You did that, didn't you? Yes, sir. We could start him some more doors, haven't we, Mike? Not really. You sure? Yes, sir. Now, Robert Springsteen was interrogated by a different detective than Michael was, but his interrogation lasted five days and was incredibly intense. Here's another clip to kind of illustrate how weird and messed up these interrogations were.

Well, then I'm in it. I don't know. That's what I keep telling you guys. I mean, my God, this was seven years ago. But this is one of the most significant things that ever happened in your room. That's why I keep trying to explain to you. If I was there and I partook in this, I would remember these things. And you do remember these things.

No, I don't. No, I do not. You're the coldest guy I've ever talked to in my life. Are you a cold-blooded murder? No, sir, I'm not. I think you are. I think Maurice is absolutely true about you. Well, then...

You're the coldest guy I've ever talked to... Okay to take, pardon me, then let's take whatever actions we need to take. If that's what you believe, then that's where you think this case needs to go, then let's go. We don't want to go there. But I'm doing everything I can and have exceeded my limits of helping you guys. Where do we go now? That audio made me feel really bad for Robert because you can just tell that he feels extremely hopeless and like there's no real way out of this situation, almost like he just wants it to end.

Another thing about Robert's interrogation is that the Texas were basically feeding him details of the case so that his confession would match facts and things discovered at the crime scene. There were certain details of the crime that investigators never released to the public. And during questioning, a lot of Robert's confession didn't seem to match up with what happened at the crime scene, so investigators would kind of steer the confession so that it would match, which is obviously a huge breach of ethics when interrogating someone in that position, and also an injustice to the victims because you aren't actually attempting to find the real killer. But to investigators, these confessions were enough to arrest all four men in connection to the quadruple homicide.

Maurice, Michael, and Robert were all indicted, but Forrest, who never actually confessed, was eventually released after two grand juries decided there wasn't enough evidence to indict Forrest, so his charges were dropped. Michael and Robert eventually recanted their confessions, saying that the only reason they confessed in the first place was because they were coerced. But investigators didn't care. They had their confession and they were ready to take the men to trial. Robert's trial didn't occur until 2001, which was 10 years after the murders. Robert was being charged for Amy's murder because that's the murder he confessed to. The issue with this trial was that the prosecution used Michael's interrogation tapes where he was accusing Robert of the murders as evidence in his trial.

But the prosecution didn't put Michael on the stand because he would basically have gone backwards and said to the jury that everything in the tapes was a lie. Shockingly, Robert was found guilty of the murders and he was sentenced to death. Michael's trial was a year later. The prosecution used Robert's interrogation tapes as evidence, but in another situation similar to that of the trial that came before, they didn't want to put Robert on the stand because he would then nullify his own confession. Michael was found guilty and sentenced this time to life.

I personally believe that Robert got the death sentence because he was the guy accused of killing Amy, the girl who was mutilated and sexually assaulted with the ice cream scoop, because her death was so much more brutal than the deaths of the other girls. So basically, both of these guys were found guilty solely off of the confessions of the other guy. Another issue with this is that when you have a trial, you have a right to confront your accuser. Because neither man had the chance to confront their accuser, both men appealed and ended up having their convictions overturned. Maurice Price was never even brought to trial because of a lack of evidence.

For years after these men were released from prison, the case just went cold. Then in 2009, after DNA technology had become more advanced, investigators decided to compare the DNA at the crime scene to all four men, and they were all cleared. None of the DNA samples from any of the four suspects who had been put through absolute hell matched the DNA found at the crime scene. And for some reason, this still wasn't enough for detectives. They took this to mean that there was a first thing.

fifth accomplice, which literally doesn't make any sense. These guys were already throwing each other under the bus when none of them were even involved. So why would they just decide to leave out another person? But DNA does not lie. Based on the DNA evidence, these men are not responsible, and there's somebody out there that is. There were several other suspects that were looked into for this crime, one of them being a serial killer in Texas named Kenneth Allen McDuff. He spent time in prison after murdering three teenagers and for some reason he was paroled in 1989 and let loose into Texas. After he was released, he went on to kill again and was eventually sent to death row. On the day of his execution, McDuff confessed to the yogurt shop murders. A lot of criminals will

do this in order to postpone their execution date so law enforcement wasn't sure if he was telling the truth, but DNA eventually ruled him out as being a suspect. Another suspect that police looked and too was a strange man that was in the yogurt shop the day that the girls were killed. A security guard went inside the shop and noticed that this man kept letting people go ahead of him in line. When the man noticed that the security guard was in the room, he got really aggravated and asked him if he was a cop. The security guard told him no, and then the man got back in line, but when he got to the front, all he ordered was a soda. This is strange to a lot of people, because why would you go into a yogurt shop and just order soda?

Right before the security guard left, he noticed that the man went into the bathroom at the back of the shop. This man was described as wearing an army jacket and the security guard said that he had a big nose. But that's pretty much all we have of this guy. Although he was never identified, I think a lot of people believe that he wasn't the perpetrator of this crime. And we personally believe that the men responsible were the two men in the yogurt shop that night just before closing. And we still have no idea who these men are. To wrap up this whole story, wow. It's hard to believe that people can commit such heinous crimes against others,

especially young girls that are just trying to make it through their teenage years. But unfortunately, this kind of stuff does happen and it happens all the time, especially here in America. And still to this day, it's haunting to think that the families of those killed that night still do not have justice. I've got to add in as well, I would love to have the opportunity to investigate this building for paranormal activity. This to me would be almost a gold mine of a location.

Not only do you have these horrible acts that happened here, but you also have these unsolved questions and answers that you could potentially get from the other side if that's even possible. I just think that would be interesting if the dead were able to talk. What in this case they would have to say? It's crazy because when Colin and I visited the location of the murders, there's a plaque outside that reads, in loving memory of Amy Ayers, Sarah Harbison, Jennifer Harbison, and Eliza Thomas, forever in our hearts. And even though this happened nearly 30 years ago, the plaque was covered in flowers.

We even ran into someone who came to visit the plaque while we were standing there looking at it, and while we were there, he started tearing up while he was talking to us about the murders. He said that he remembered his dad taking him by the shop when he was just five years old, and how it had such a huge impact on him, even at such a young age. This truly was a crime that affected the entire community. Austin's mayor at the time even called it the crime that took away Austin's innocence. And I think in a way it did. I think after this crime, people looked over their shoulders a lot more.

People weren't as trusting, and they questioned everyone. And I think that there's someone out there walking around in the very city where Colin and I live, who got away with murder. and who's to know if they ever killed again? Or what if they just got really good at hiding it? Or what if they're the guy that's sitting next to us at dinner? Or what if he's the guy walking behind us at night as we had home after a night out? The one thing that I do know is that four innocent girls were murdered

and their killer has never been brought to justice. Maybe one day they will solve this crime. But until then, there will not be justice. There will not be a resolution. and there will only be questions. Well, everybody, thanks for watching, or I should say listening to the first official episode of Murder in America. Courtney, how did that feel? It felt great, honestly.

I thought we did a great job telling this story. The story means a lot to us. If you guys would like to become patrons of the podcast, we are starting a Patreon for the podcast. We're going to be producing exclusive content just for the podcast. This week, we're going to head to the location of the Austin Yogurt Shop. murders and we're going to do a spirit box out back where the perpetrators most likely ran out where some of this evidence was thrown it could potentially be buried somewhere out back and we're going to be bringing you guys crime scene photos all this different juicy stuff on the patreon that's

just starting cordney how about next week's episode a saturday's actually on saturday we will be telling you guys the story of the texas killing fields and yeah this one is crazy and don't forget to follow us on instagram at murder in america that's us baby. Yeah, yo. One thing I'll leave you guys to think about. If only the dead could give us answers. If only they could help us figure out

who committed these atrocious acts, it really does make you question. The dead don't talk. Or do they? Good night, everybody. Sweet dreams.