Who killed these girls?
This is the question that accompanied the photos of Amy Ayers, sisters Jennifer Harbison and Sarah Harbison, and Eliza Thomas on display panels around Austin, Texas, to ask the public to solve their brutal murders from 1991 inside a local yogurt shop. The last episode of documents in four parts of HBO The murders of the yogurt store Fight with the sustainable tragedy of the case because, more than three decades later, investigators are still trying to answer the same question.
During four episodes, director Margaret Brown simultaneously dug the twists and turns of the 34 -year -old cold affair while mainly focusing on the lasting trauma felt by the members of the surviving family who tried to make peace with such an unimaginable loss. Admittedly, the details of the case are captivating, but, in the end, it wanted the series to “manage trauma in our lives, and how we can and cannot be remembered and all its facets”.
To accomplish this involved in -depth interviews with the most affected by the death of Amy, Jennifer, Sarah and Eliza – their parents and brothers and sisters.
“It’s really difficult because you don’t know what will trigger people, and really, really different, things have triggered everyone … You are starting to think:” Oh, I can predict this. You can’t, ”said Brown. “One thing I learned is that sorrow is different for everyone.”
The murders of the yogurt store
With the kind permission from HBO
More than Brown released his expectations and gave in to discomfort in this process, she realized that the most important part of the process was to conduct with the appropriate intentions.
“You have to do it anyway. So you could disturb someone. They could cry out on it. You could say the bad thing,” she said. “As long as you come from a place of curiosity and authentic care, it is the best you can do, but it was really difficult because I walked in the fear of re-tapping people. I often think that if I said something and that it was a false step … I would just say:” I’m sorry. I didn’t think it. This is my intention. “It generally disseminated him, in a way.”
Regarding the encouragement of families to participate, Brown adds that it has not pushed them as much as it has previous subjects, in particular Barbara Ayres-Wilson, mother of Jennifer and Sarah Harbison. Although she finally made Ayres-Wilson participated, Brown says that she was particularly slightly lightly when she just learned all that she and the other members of the surviving family had suffered.
“I had spoken to Barbara for a long time, and I thought I could never do it, because she had just finished with the media. She said to me once she spoke to the media now, she took her weeks to recover and she was just going to stay in bed, “said Brown. “When she told me that … my producers were like:” Are you going to ask Barbara? ” And I would feel, “F * CK, no, I’m not going to ask Barbara. It was both her children.
If there is one thing on which everyone can agree in this convoluted affair, it is that these families have succeeded. Over the years, there have been countless breakthroughs that seemed to promise only to lead to an impasse. A decade after the murders, two men went to prison so that the crimes were released until 2009 when these convictions were canceled.
“I make a point of keeping families as updated as possible. I think, more than you would do it normal, just because I think that after these 34 years, they deserve to know that this case is not in a basement somewhere, and this is actively worked,” said the detective Austin Dan Jackson on the deadline. “I work on this business every day of my life.”
Jackson says that families “know that I cannot say everything to them”, but everything he can share, he does. It is as open as possible in the press, also admitting that there are “other ways that we attack in this case” that he will not be able to share, but he gives details on the only avenue he can: DNA evidence.
Among the tracks that Jackson continues to continue involves a very small DNA sample of a vaginal stamp from one of the victims, which remains unidentified. The tests y-str carried out on this small quantity of DNA played a decisive role in the reversal of convictions against the previous suspects and does not correspond to anyone known for having been on the crime scene, including the investigators. To date, those who work in the case that he can one day help resolve it.
DNA test technology has quickly progressed since 1991 and, soon, Jackson says that it may be possible to build a much brighter DNA profile with the amount they have left from this swab. At the time of the murders, it would not even have been difficult.
“The quantities of DNA you need are tiny compared to what they were only a few years old,” he said. At the time of the murders, the investigators would needed “a blood swimming pool” to extract an achievable amount of DNA to build a profile.
“Now we are a few cells, and we can even do it with mixtures that we couldn’t even do a year ago,” he added. “We are carefully optimistic about what we can do.”
For all the frustrations in the yogurt store case, detectives have shown a fairly incredible amount of foresight concerning the DNA component of the case. The documentary details how, by discovering the macabre scene, the first investigators on the premises convinced the coroner not to move the bodies before having been listened to for DNA, even if he went against conventional wisdom at the time.
Adding Brown: “The fact that [the detectives] convinced them to stay and sell the bodies was – thank God, because there would be nothing now, if that had not happened. “”
This is why, although there may be reasons to feel discouraged about the case given that there are so few answers after 34 years, Jackson says that he remains full of hope and convinced that there is more to discover in the investigation into the yogurt shop.
“We came so far that there is hope that we can progress the case. If there was no hope or nothing that could be done, then why work there anyway? ” He said. “I feel good about it. There is something we can do here. ”
Detectives are still looking for details on the murders of the Yogurt store. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact www.austingrimestoppers.org or to yogurtshop@austintexas.gov. People can also submit advice anonymously via the QR Crime Stoppers code below.
