The burnt remains of four young females, ages 13 to 17, were found inside the yogurt store. The victims are Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, Sarah Harbison, and Jennifer Harbison, clockwise from top left.
Eliza and Jennifer were manning the yogurt counter. On the night of the killings, Sarah, Jennifer’s younger sister, and Amy Ayers, Sarah’s friend, stopped by the store just before it closed. The four females had all been shot, tied up, and gagged.
The Harbison sisters
In this unidentified photo, Sarah Harbison, left, and Jennifer Harbison are seen with their mother. In the Yogurt Shop Murders, Jennifer was 17 years old when she died, while her sister Sarah was 15 years old..
Amy Ayers and family
Amy Ayers, who was 13 years old, was the youngest of the yogurt store murder victims. In an earlier, undated image, she is shown with her family.
Sonora Thomas with her sister Eliza
When Eliza Thomas, seen on the right, was killed inside the yogurt business, she was 17 years old. Eliza is shown with her younger sister Sonora, who was 13 at the time of her sister’s death, in this picture that was shot a few months before to her passing.
“I can still recall daydreaming for days that my sister had somehow managed to flee, run away, and was hiding. Sonora said to “48 Hours” that she was “constantly thinking about coming back.” “in 2021
“She was always taking care of me”
In this family portrait from 1981, Sonora Thomas, age 3, is shown hugging her sister Eliza on the left. Sonora remarked of her older sister that “She was constantly looking after me, as shown in “48 Hours” She was either in the center or the background of every time and memory you can think of.”
Charred debris inside yogurt shop
The fire inside the yogurt shop was so intense that it made collecting evidence very difficult. Seen here is a charred and collapsed shelving unit from the back of the shop.
Charred debris inside yogurt shop
Inside the yogurt business, a melted phone is still hanging on the wall.
John Jones at the scene
At the site of the murder, Detective John Jones, visible on the left, is talking with other detectives. He oversaw the investigation for the Austin Police Department for over four years. Although he has been retired for a while, he is still thinking about the case. “I can still make out the inside of the building. He told “48 Hours” that “such material is… indelibly burnt in my head.” “in 2021.
Constant reminders
Public appeals for help
A Mexico connection?
Two guys were detained in Mexico in the autumn of 1992 after being sought after in Austin for an unrelated abduction and sexual assault. One of the individuals in this photo was eerily similar to a man that witnesses claimed to have seen outside the yogurt store the night of the killings. The guys first denied any participation in the yogurt store killings when questioned by Austin police, but they confessed when questioned by Mexican officials. When Austin police re-interrogated the guys, they changed their stories since the information they had provided didn’t line up with the evidence discovered at the murder scene.
Suspects arrested
Nearly eight years after the deaths at the yogurt store, Austin police announced the arrest of four suspects in the case in October 1999. Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Robert Springsteen, and Michael Scott are seen going clockwise from top left. Days after the killings, all four men had been interrogated, but none of them had been prosecuted since there was no concrete evidence linking them to the crime.
Police were able to get admissions from Scott and Springsteen eight years later. Welborn and Pierce were originally accused, but the accusations were later dismissed for lack of proof; however, Springsteen and Scott would both go to trial.
Confessions and convictions
Michael Scott, photographed in 1999 sitting to the right, is seen being questioned by Austin police. Over the course of a four-day, 20-hour questioning, Scott acknowledged participating in the slayings of the yogurt store owners. Robert Springsteen also confessed when being questioned a few days later. Both men would ultimately be found guilty despite subsequent claims that they were pressured into confessing.
Convictions and the Constitution
In 1999, Robert Springsteen addressed the Austin police. At their respective trials, Springsteen and Scott’s confessions were used against one another, but they were not permitted to cross-examine one another. In light of this, five years after each individual was found guilty, his convictions were reversed on the basis that his constitutional right to face his accusers had been breached.
Surprising DNA results
None of the four males who were initially detained for this murder matched DNA discovered at the crime site, according to a new method of DNA testing called Y-STR, which was introduced in 2008. The Austin district attorney withdrew the charges against Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott upon the receipt of those findings.
A promising lead?
An excerpt of a letter the FBI sent to Texas Congressman Michael McCaul in April 2020 is seen below. It makes mention of what was at first considered to be the most promising lead in decades- the finding of what seemed to be a “match” between a DNA sample collected from the murder site and a DNA sample that the FBI had sent to a specialist Y-STR (male only) database in 2014.
The letter states that further testing carried out in early 2020 revealed regrettably that the DNA sample supplied by the Austin Police Department was not a match. The Congressman is still optimistic despite their being just a “very little” DNA sample remaining, according to McCaul. He said on “48 Hours” that “We’re waiting for DNA technology to improve before resubmitting what we have in the crime lab for further testing.”
30th anniversary vigil
Austin residents decorated the memorial plaque that is located across from the location of the old yogurt store with flowers in December 2021, which marks the 30th anniversary of the unsolved deaths of Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, Jennifer, and Sarah Harbison.