The Chilling Yogurt Shop Murders: Who Killed 4 Texas Teens—and Why the Case Went Chilly
HBO docuseries The Yogurt Shop Murders chronicles the investigation into the 1991 killing of four Austin kids and the nice looking aftermath of the chilling crime.
On Dec. 6, 1991, Jennifer Harbison used to be working at I Can't Mediate It's Yogurt! in Austin, Texas, with Eliza Thomas.
Amy Ayers and Sarah Harbison had been at the shop ready to fetch a breeze with Sarah's older sister.
But none of them ever made it home. Responding to a document of a blaze at the business rapidly earlier than lifeless night time, firefighters stumbled on the our bodies of the four teenage ladies.
The Yogurt Shop Murders, a brand unique HBO docuseries premiering Aug. 3, delves into the chilling crime, as well to the investigation that resulted in four men being charged with capital assassinate eight years later—and why the case remains unsolved to at the 2d.
“The complete family members in any appreciate times acknowledged to me, ‘There by no scheme is closure,’” sequence director Margaret Brown told the Austin American-Statesman in March. “‘You be taught dwell alongside it, nonetheless it no doubt by no scheme loses its efficiency.’”
Here’s what to perceive referring to the cool case that continues to cling-out Austin:
Who had been the victims of the 1991 yogurt shop murders?
At 11:47 p.m. on Dec. 6, 1991, a patrol officer reported seeing flames inner I Can’t Mediate It’s Yogurt! in northwest Austin. Inside, firefighters stumbled on the burned our bodies of Jennifer Harbison, 17, her sister Sarah Harbison, 15, Eliza Thomas, 17, and Amy Ayers, 13.
Police acknowledged they believed the fireplace used to be purposely space to murder evidence.
Travis County Clinical Examiner Robert Bayardo told newshounds a couple of days later that the kids had been already needless when the fireplace started. Amy had been shot twice, while the other ladies had been every shot as soon as within the wait on of the head.
The entrance door used to be locked, per investigators, nonetheless the wait on door used to be open and there had been no indicators of compelled entry. Money used to be missing, Austin Police Lt. Andrew Waters acknowledged at the time, per the Austin American-Statesman, so robbery used to be “the ideal conception.”
But, he added, “it’s that that you simply would be succesful to perchance perchance mediate of there may maybe perchance perchance perchance had been one thing else and they also tried to device it discover about like a robbery.”
Were there any suspects within the yogurt shop murders?
Eight days after the murders, Maurice Pierce, 16, used to be arrested at Northcross Mall, a couple of blocks far off from the crime scene, carrying a .22-caliber revolver.
Pierce told police his gun used to be serious about what came about at the yogurt shop and that he drove a getway automobile, retired detective John Jones, who used to be the lead investigator on the case, told Forty eight Hours in 2022.
Jones acknowledged Pierce “implicated” Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen IV in his assertion to police.
However the other three boys denied any involvement, Jones outlined, and there wasn't enough evidence to file charges.
In the early days of the investigation, detectives interviewed many of of of us and accrued a protracted list of suspects, Jones counting 342 at one point.
When did police first device arrests within the yogurt shop assassinate case?
Scott used to be re-interviewed by Austin cool case detectives in September 1999.
First and well-known he denied shimmering the relaxation referring to the murders earlier than he told police, nonetheless over the course of what his attorneys acknowledged used to be a 20-hour, multi-day interrogation, he admitted to participating. Authorities acknowledged he also implicated Pierce, Welborn and Springsteen within the crime.
Springsteen used to be arrested days later in West Virginia. He too at the origin denied being alive to earlier than he told detectives at some stage in a videotaped interview that he sexually assaulted and shot one amongst the ladies.
Welborn and Pierce had been arrested that October and all four had been charged with capital assassinate.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson acknowledged at a press convention announcing a shatter within the case, “On Dec. 6, 1991, we—as a metropolis—misplaced our innocence. This present day, we receive our confidence.”
What came about to the yogurt shop assassinate suspects?
Springsteen and Scott recanted their confessions, retaining that they had been coerced (which police and prosecutors denied), and pleaded no longer guilty at trial.
Tried individually for the assassinate of Ayers—which left the door open for them to be prosecuted for the other murders in case of an acquittal—each men had been stumbled on guilty.
Springsteen used to be sentenced to demise in 2001, while Scott used to be given lifestyles in detention heart the following 365 days.
Meanwhile, ballistics testing couldn’t shriek that Pierce’s .22 used to be one amongst the 2 guns historical within the murders. He spent three years in prison attempting forward to trial—retaining his innocence at some stage in—and used to be launched in 2003 when prosecutors acknowledged they didn’t possess the evidence to convict.
Two sizable juries handed on indicting Welborn, who also insisted he used to be innocent, and the case in opposition to him used to be dropped in 2000.
Springsteen’s conviction used to be overturned in 2006, the Texas Court docket of Felony Appeals ruling that Scott’s confession—allowed into evidence at Springsteen’s trial for corroboration—had been historical in violation of the defendant’s Sixth Amendment factual to confront or inquire of of his accuser at trial.
Scott’s conviction used to be thrown out in 2007, the appellate court docket issuing the the same ruling referring to clips of Springsteen’s confession being played at Scott’s trial.
Travis County prosecutors acknowledged they deliberate to retry each men, nonetheless each walked free in 2009 after newly examined DNA easy from crime scene samples wasn’t a match to Springsteen, Scott, Welborn or Pierce (who died in 2010).
The put does the yogurt assassinate shop case stand now?
The 1991 case remains open.
“We're awaiting…the DNA science to toughen to then resubmit what we possess left within the crime lab for extra testing,” U.S. Accumulate. Michael McCaul, whose district contains Austin, told Forty eight Hours in July 2025. The DNA, he illustrious, “is all the pieces.”
Source credit : eonline.com
