Over three decades after four teenage girls were shot and killed inside an Austin, Texas yogurt shop, police say they have made a “significant breakthrough” in the case and identified a new suspect.
Austin police named the suspect as Robert Eugene Brashers in a statement released Friday, Sept. 26. Brashers died by suicide in 1999 during a standoff with law enforcement in Kennett, Mo. He was previously linked to multiple killings and rapes in other states, according to the Associated Press.
Brashers had not been considered a possible suspect during the 34-year investigation and had no known connection to Texas’ capital city, the Austin Statesman reported.
“This remains an open and ongoing investigation,” Austin police said. A press conference is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 29, to share further details.
The gun Brashers used to take his own life is allegedly consistent with a bullet casing discovered in a drain inside the yogurt shop, retired Austin detective John Jones told CBS News’ 48 Hours.
On Dec. 6, 1991, a fire broke out at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop in Austin. After firefighters extinguished the flames, they found the bodies of Eliza Thomas, 17, Jennifer Harbison, 17, Sarah Harbison, 15, and Amy Ayers, 13, all of whom had been gagged and shot in the head.
In the aftermath of the murders, police detained teen Maurice Pierce, who was carrying a pistol matching the caliber used in what the media dubbed the Yogurt Shop Murders. His arrest led authorities to three other male suspects: Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, and Forrest Wellburn.
Maurice, Robert, and Michael all confessed to the crime at different times over the following eight years. Michael and Robert were convicted in 2001 and 2002, respectively, but both convictions were later overturned due to a lack of DNA evidence and controversial police questioning, which led some of the young men to recant. The suspects were eventually released in 2009.
“They’re not forgotten,” Angie Ayers, the wife of Amy’s brother Shawn Ayers, told PEOPLE in 2023. “They’re not given up on.”
Public interest in the cold case was renewed when HBO Max released the first installment of a four-part docuseries on Aug. 3. The Yogurt Shop Murders features interviews with the investigative team and the victims’ families, as well as footage of the suspects from an unfinished documentary.
Brashers, a serial killer and rapist, has been linked to several crimes across the South, from Tennessee to South Carolina. New DNA evidence also connects him to the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee, the AP reported.
Austin police have met with the victims’ families to update them on the latest developments in the case, according to the Statesman.
