After more than three decades, police have identified a dead suspect in an infamous 1991 murder case in which four girls were slain at a yogurt shop in Austin, Texas.
Austin police revealed Friday that Robert Eugene Brashers had been identified as a suspect in the murders through “a wide range of DNA testing”. Brashers, who had a lengthy criminal history, died by suicide in 1999 at age 40 during a standoff with police in Missouri.
The Austin police’s announcement follows August’s release of a widely watched HBO docuseries that was based on the quadruple homicide and garnered renewed attention to the case.
The case’s victims were Amy Ayers, 13; Eliza Thomas, 17; and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, 17 and 15, respectively, who were bound, gagged, shot in the head and then set on fire inside an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt store in a strip mall. At least one of the girls had been sexually assaulted, authorities have said.
Jennifer and Eliza were working at the shop that night and preparing to close up when Sarah and Amy, her best friend, arrived to meet them for a ride home. According to investigators, someone snuck into the store through the back door around closing time, attacked the girls and set the store on fire. The girls, who were shot execution-style, were discovered by firefighters with their bodies bound by underwear and their mouths gagged with cloth.
According to the autopsy report, Ayers was wearing small white earrings; Sarah had on a gold necklace and a Mickey Mouse watch; and Jennifer wore a high school ring as well as a Timex watch. The fire had severely charred three of the four girls, rendering them unrecognizable.
The case, which shocked Austin and the US, saw hundreds of potential suspects over the years but remained unsolved until recently due to a lack of solid evidence. At the time, the store had no video surveillance, and most potential evidence was destroyed in the fire.
In 1999, investigators arrested four men in connection with the murders, including Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, who were teenagers at the time of the crime. Springsteen and Scott initially admitted guilt and implicated one another but later retracted their confessions, saying that they had made their statements under police pressure.
Nevertheless, the two men were tried and convicted. Their convictions, however, were later overturned when new DNA evidence identified a different male suspect, leading a judge to order their release from custody in 2009.
The newest suspect, Brashers, has been connected to several other cases, including the 1990 strangulation of a woman in South Carolina, the 1998 shooting of a mother and daughter in Missouri and the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee, according to the Associated Press.
In its statement Friday, Austin police said the case remains an open and ongoing investigation, adding: “Our team never gave up working this case. For almost 34 years, they have worked tirelessly and remained committed to solving this case for the families of Jennifer Harbison, Sarah Harbison, Eliza Thomas and Amy Ayers, all innocent lives taken senselessly and far too soon.”
Police said investigators “have been in touch with the families”.
“We ask for your patience as we continue this process and remain mindful of the many people whose lives have been deeply affected by this case,” police added.
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