Austin police resolved the “Murders of the 1991 yogurt workshop” using advanced DNA technology, identifier Robert Eugene Brashers as a suspect.
Austin, Texas – Monday, the Austin Police Department (APD) held a press conference detailing how advanced DNA tests led them to identify the suspect responsible for the murders of four girls from 1991 in the infamous case of murder of “yogurt boutique”.
Friday, September 25, sources of application of the law confirmed that the 1991 affair had been resolved using genetic genealogy technology. The author was identified as Robert Eugene Brashers, an American serial killer who died by suicide in 1999.
The DNA profile of Baughers has already been linked to a number of other serious crimes, including murder in 1990 in Greenville, South Carolina; the 1997 rape of a 14 -year -old in Memphis; And the double murder in 1998 of a 12 -year -old woman and daughter in Missouri.
The breakthrough in the case intervened after almost 34 years thanks to the Y-Str tests, which analyzes the male chromosome. This test technique uses DNA data accessible to the public and the mapping of genealogical trees to identify the suspects through parents.
Austin Det Police. Daniel Jackson, who was assigned this case in 2022, explained how the case arrived where it is now, connecting the fire in a shop “I cannot believe that it is yogurt” to North Austin with several other cases of similar reasons.
The investigators presented the scheme of the yogurt store, the fire started at the rear of the store.
The perpetuator, determined to be Babyrs, entered the nearby workshop when no other customer was in the company at that time. The four victims – Jennifer Harbison and her younger sister, Sarah Harbison, Eliza Thomas and Amy Ayers – were all found naked, linked to their own clothes like “ligatures and bindings”.
Investigators said there were evidence of sexual assault and that the four girls were slaughtered in the head with a .22 caliber pistol. Ayers was determined to have also been killed by a caliber pistol. 380, and it was revealed that the building had been burnt down before the suspect left the yogurt shop.
When the incident occurred in 1991, detectives entered the store and collected evidence with possible DNA exchange tests not only on the scene, but also during autopsies.
The investigators said that the only physical evidence that had been recovered on the scene was a shell envelope of .380 spent which was found in the drainage of the soil. No socket .22 was found in the shop.
The fire and the water of the fire service “have essentially destroyed almost everything else” of the scene.
Current survey
In the days following the murders, the police received thousands of advice and several false faiths. Among them, there was a statement by Maurice Pierce, a 16 -year -old who had been found bearing a pistol of .22 near the Northcross shopping center, which was in the rue de la Boutique de Yogurt. Under interrogation hours by a homicide detective, Pierce admitted and involved his friend, Forrest Welborn. Welborn, in turn, said that Pierce, as well as Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, went to San Antonio after the murders.
The four adolescents were initially interviewed and released. But in 1999, the police reviewed the pierce confession. Scott and Springsteen were re -examined and finally confessed under distinct interrogations. Both were charged and then found guilty of capital murder. Springsteen received the death penalty; Scott was sentenced to perpetuity without parole.
However, no physical evidence has ever linked men to the crime scene. Their convictions strongly relied on their confessions, which were then questioned.
During their calls, a historic decision of the United States Supreme Court, Crawford c. Washington, changed how hearing evidence could be used in court, judging that the declarations made by a non-coherent co-defender could not be used against another defendant. Since neither Scott nor Springsteen took a position in their own trials, the two convictions were canceled.
In preparation for new trials, prosecutors continued to seek physical evidence. A new form of DNA test, Y-Str, which analyzes the specific chromosomes for men, has been used on a sexual assault kit in the case. The profile that emerged excluded the four original suspects: Scott, Springsteen, Welborn and Pierce.
In 2009, the accusations against Scott and Springsteen were rejected, pending a more in -depth investigation.
Investigators say that many DNA test strategies have been used, with more than 300 to 400 people tested in this case. Investigators say that “the most difficult part is most of the evidence collected was only a few picograms”. A picogram is a small quantity of a few cells found in the test.
In 2018, the unknown-there profile was submitted for rewards with new progress in tests. The Y-Str has widened the markers to 27 genetic locations for a more full profile of the suspect.
Jackson said he was able to meet several genealogy experts after being assigned to the case in 2022.
Jackson said the .380 cartridge had not been subjected to the national integrated ballistic information network, and with more widely available tests, he determined that it was necessary to test it again. In the initial survey, ballistics reported according to the probability that the weapon used in the murder of Ayers was a semi-automatic pistol .380.
In July 2025, the working group asked to receive a cartridge box. 380 licensed, because the software to test DNA had improved from 1991.
The murders of Kentucky and the “Merders of the Yogurt Workshop” shared a similar MO, according to the investigators. A positive correlation would have been linked, because the two envelopes found in the two crime scenes indicated that the same pistol had been used.
After doing a Y-Str test to find the unknown y chromosome, Jackson said there was a match after manual research throughout the country. The South Carolina State Lab was the only laboratory in the country to report a match with the unknown Y-Str in the case.
In August 2025, a 1990 murder case in Greenville, in South Carolina, determined that the Y-Str unknown test of the murders of the yogurt store equaled 27 out of 27 with accidents.
After the death of Bruhers in 1999, DNA was able to link several unresolved murders and sexual assaults that occurred across the country, investigators said.
DNA was able to connect the accidents of the highs to the following cases:
- Murder in Greenville, South Carolina
- Double homicide in New Madrid, Missouri
- Attempt to attack Dyersberg, Tennessee
A sexual assault kit was submitted for tests in 2016 concerning a sexual assault in 1997 on a 14 -year -old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, who was attached with four other girls during a home invasion.
In 2017, the Memphis affair was linked to the cases of Missouri, in South and the other case in Tennessee.
The genealogy was able to identify with precision the Baughters as the potential suspect through members of the family of the Bories outside the Huntsville, in Alabama.
The bull’s body was exhumed from Arkansas following the ordinance of a judge to determine the biological evidence. After the tests in 2018, all cases paired with accidents were confirmed.
The investigators later found that Brashers had several false identity documents and even simulated his own Bill and put it in the newspaper.
How were the Bories have been appointed suspects?
On December 6, 1991, the night of murders of the yogurt store, four teenage girls were killed in a Austin ice cream store shortly before 11 p.m., less than 48 hours later, on December 8, Brashers was arrested at an American border border patrol on the Interstate 10, between El Paso and Las Crucs, New Mexi.
According to investigators, a border agent became suspicious of the answers of the B decails during the routine issue. A control of his license plate revealed that the vehicle he was driving had been reported in Georgia on November 29.
During the judgment, Brashers was found in possession of an AMT relief pistol. 380, the same brand and model used in the murders of the yogurt store. He was arrested for auto and criminal theft in possession of a firearm.
At the time, the authorities did not connect Barshers to the murders of Austin.
Decades later, Retetet evidence using Y-Str DNA tests provided that revolutionary investigators had long waited. The samples taken under the Ayers nails during its 1991 autopsy were reteteted and produced a Y-Str profile.
This profile corresponded to the DNA of B decaches with a likelihood ratio of 2.5 million to one, indicating that it was 2.5 million times more likely that DNA belonged to accidents than of an unknown person.
“Amy’s last moments on this land were to resolve this affair for us,” said Jackson. “It was because of his fight” that they were able to identify the accidents of Bories as the attacker.
Investigators believe that Bruhers acted alone during the 1991 attack. They noted that he had a history of control of several victims, including a home invasion and a sexual assault from 1997 in Memphis, where he was able to dominate four women.
The criminal history of Brashers lasted several states and cases, and he died by suicide in 1999.
What are the murders of the Yogurt store?
On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were linked, gagged and killed in a I cannot believe that it is a yogurt store off West Anderson Lane in North Austin. The building was then burnt down, destroying what could have been a mine of medico-legal clues.
The victims were identified as Jennifer Harbison, 17, and her younger sister, Sarah Harbison, 15 years old; Eliza Thomas, 17,; And Amy Ayers, 13 years old. Thomas and Jennifer Harbison both worked in the yogurt store, while Ayers and Sarah Harbison stopped before the crime is closed time.
The quadruple murder had a significant impact on the growing city of Austin and has hungry responses for decades.
Four men were arrested and accused of capital murder in 1999, but two of their cases were canceled. The other two have never gone in judgment.
In recent years, there have been numerous thrusts to an additional investigation into the case, including DNA evidence found on the body of the Ayers, as Kvue reported in 2020.
Documentation centered on murders, entitled “The Yogurt Shop Murders”, was published on HBO Max earlier this year.
