Four teenage girls were killed at a yogurt shop in Austin, Texas, more than 30 years ago. Their deaths have never been solved. Before new DNA evidence made it less likely that the first people arrested were involved, they were arrested and convicted, but those convictions were later overturned on appeal.
Investigators have reached what seems to be a dead end in the case, but there is a theory that two men who were seen in the yogurt store the night of the murders may have been involved in the unsolved killings that have plagued Austin for decades, as “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty reported this week.
Inside the yogurt shop, the burned bodies of four young girls, ages 13 to 17, were found. Starting from the top left, the victims were Jennifer Harbison, who worked at the yogurt shop with Eliza Thomas, Sarah, Jennifer Harbison’s younger sister, and Amy Ayers, who was a friend of Sarah’s. Sarah and Amy went into the yogurt shop right before it closed on the night of the killings. All four of the women had been shot, tied up, and put on gags.
On December 6, 1991, Eliza Thomas, 17, Amy Ayers, 13, Jennifer Harbison, 17, and Sarah Harbison, 15, were tied up in a “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” store in Austin, Texas, when they were shot in the head.
It was a crime that the city had never seen before. Eliza and Jennifer had both worked at the yogurt business that night. As they were about to leave to go home, Sarah, Jennifer’s sister, and Amy, who is also their friend, met them there. Investigators think that at least two people broke into the store, did the horrible thing, and then set the building on fire to get rid of most of the evidence.
John Jones was a member of the Austin Police Department and the lead investigator on the case at the time of the crime. He hasn’t worked since then. Jones told Moriarty that he and his coworkers tracked down customers who were in the yogurt shop on the day of the incident to see if they saw anything strange. This was part of the early investigation. Jones says that many people saw two men sitting in the store right before it closed who “didn’t belong.” No one says that either guy bought frozen yogurt; only a drink.
“No one has ever called them by name. And we did everything. We also hypnotized a few other people. ” Jones told Moriarty.
Even though the detectives worked hard, the lead went nowhere, and the case was closed. When new detectives decided to look into a different old lead in 1999, almost eight years after the murders, the investigation stopped.
In October 1999, nearly 8 years after the deaths at the yogurt shop, police in Austin said that they had caught four suspects. From the top left corner, you can see Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Robert Springsteen, and Michael Scott. All four men were questioned about the killings days after they happened, but none of them were charged because there wasn’t enough proof to link them to the crime. AP Images
Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce, and Forrest Welborn were all teenagers when the crime happened. Jones was able to figure out who they were early on because one of them, Maurice Pierce, was found with a gun at a mall near the yogurt store in the days after the crime. Jones and his crew questioned the men at the time, but there wasn’t enough evidence to keep them in jail.
In 1999, the guys were questioned again by the new investigators. Two of them, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, admitted to killing people at the yogurt shop and put the blame on Pierce and Welborn. The police caught all four men the next day.
But Springsteen and Scott quickly took back what they had said, saying they had been forced to do so. Charges against Pierce and Welborn were finally dropped because there wasn’t enough proof.
Springsteen and Scott were the only ones who went to court. Even though both of them were found guilty, their sentences were eventually changed because of the Constitution. In Scott and Springsteen’s trials, the defendants’ own statements were used against them, which was against the Sixth Amendment right of defendants to face their accusers. However, they were not allowed to cross-examine each other in court.
Before retrying Springsteen and Scott, prosecutors had DNA tests done on vaginal swabs taken from the victims at the time of the murders. At this point, prosecutors planned to use Y-STR testing, which is a relatively new type of DNA testing, because they had reason to believe that at least one of the victims had been sexually abused. Only the DNA of men is looked for.
No one thought it would show what it did. As a result of the testing, a piece of a man’s DNA profile was taken from one of the victims. The prosecutor’s office was shocked to find out that the DNA sample didn’t match any of the four men who had been arrested. After Springsteen and Scott spent ten years in jail, the charges against them were dropped and they were set free.
Key points in the investigation into the killings in the Austin yogurt shop
Amber Farrelly was a lawyer who helped Scott and Springsteen’s defense teams. She is sure that the police made a huge mistake when they arrested Scott, Springsteen, Welborn, and Pierce. She told “48 Hours” that she thinks the investigation should focus on the two people who were in the yogurt shop but were not named.
As a member of the defense teams for Scott and Springsteen, Farrelly was asked to look through old police files. These files had interviews that Jones and his coworkers did with customers who came to the yogurt shop on the day of the killings.
Farrelly told Erin Moriarty of “48 Hours” that “52 people who worked in the yogurt business that day have been found and questioned by the police.”
Amber Farrelly is on the defense teams of both Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott. She suggested that the unidentified DNA might be from two men who were last seen sitting in the yogurt shop right before it closed and have never been found. The Austin police force
Farrelly said that many of the customers talked about the two men who were seen sitting in the yogurt shop right before it closed for the night.
“Their names are unknown to us. When you step back, you can see that they didn’t miss a beat from 4:30 to 11:00 at night, when they talked to 52 people. And when many people talk about one or two men, they all say the same things about them? Who exactly are those two people? And they’ve never called us?… Farrelly says that this makes me think that they are the ones who did it.
From what you know, were those two men you don’t know the last people in the yogurt shop? Farrelly was asked if he was Moriarty.
Farrelly said, “Absolutely.”
Farrelly says that the men were “kind of leaning over the table and kind of whispering to each other, like they didn’t want anyone to hear what they were saying.”
She said that one of the people had light, short hair that looked “like a dirty blonde.” He was also about 5’6″ tall and in his late 20s or early 30s, she said. She said that the second guy was described as “bigger,” and that both of them were seen wearing big jackets. She said that one is thought to have worn a green jacket that looked like “Army fatigue,” while the other is thought to have worn a black jacket. Farrelly says that the men might have been driving a green car that night.
Even though he has been retired for a long time, John Jones, who was in charge of the case, is still troubled by the unsolved killings at the yogurt shop. He told “48 Hours” that he still had questions about these clients who were not named.
He said, “Yeah, I guess I’m a little surprised that they haven’t been found yet. Is that proof that they did the wrong thing? No, but that’s why we need to talk to them.