The Austin, Texas Yogurt Shop Murders
Sources:
https://time.com/7321492/yogurt-shop-murders-suspect/
https://people.com/austin-police-significant-breakthrough-murders-4-teen-girls-yogurt-shop-new-suspect-34-years-later-11820020?
https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/archives-no-dna-match-yogurt-shop-case-21069666.php?
https://allthatsinteresting.com/austin-yogurt-shop-murders
https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-eugene-brashers
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.
Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening.
Speaker 2: Now True Crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish,
Speaker 2: the strange in the darkly comic. A podcast that's about
Speaker 2: more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension,
Speaker 2: home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories,
Speaker 2: the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it
Speaker 2: all just so long as it's kind of murdery.
Speaker 3: Well, hey there, everybody. I've said it before and I'll
Speaker 3: say it again. Time is money, and things are so
Speaker 3: darn expensive these days that your time is worth more
Speaker 3: than ever. So I am flattered, I am humbled. I
Speaker 3: am grateful that you would choose to spend that time
Speaker 3: with me. Evan Odleberg And this is kind of murdery.
Speaker 3: And I've got another murder mystery here for you today,
Speaker 3: and I don't want a dottle so I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: right to it. Do me a favor and strap in
Speaker 3: kind of Murderies. The Austin, Texas Yogurt Shop. Murders starts
Speaker 3: now North Cross late night. On the night of December sixth,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one, the North Cross Shopping Center in Austin,
Speaker 3: Texas was closing down the way it always did. The
Speaker 3: parking lot lights hummed, the storefronts dimmed. One by one.
Speaker 3: Cars pulled out in slow arcs, headlights sweeping across brick
Speaker 3: and glass before turning toward Burnett Road. Inside the I
Speaker 3: can't believe it's yogurt shop, the lights were still on.
Speaker 3: The store sat along the strip facing the lot, its
Speaker 3: front windows wide and unobstructed, the interior visible from outside.
Speaker 3: Posters and pastel signage hung above the counter. Behind it
Speaker 3: were the machines, tall stainless dispensers for soft serve yogurt
Speaker 3: lined up against the wall, topping's bins, plastic cups stacked
Speaker 3: near the register. A narrow hallway led toward the back
Speaker 3: room and restroom area, partially out of sight from the
Speaker 3: front counter. Working that evening were two seventeen year olds,
Speaker 3: Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas. Jennifer had brown hair and
Speaker 3: a steady smile that friends later described as easy going
Speaker 3: and warm. Eliza Thomas was dark haired, and although she
Speaker 3: was the same age as Jennifer. She had a quiet
Speaker 3: composure that made her seem older than she was. They
Speaker 3: were employees closing the store at the end of the
Speaker 3: night shift. With them that evening were Jennifer's younger sister,
Speaker 3: Sarah Harbison, fifteen years old, and Sarah's friend, Amy Ayers, thirteen.
Speaker 3: Sarah had long, light hair and a quick laugh that
Speaker 3: carried Amy, the youngest of the four, had soft features
Speaker 3: in it and a shy presence that contrasted with the
Speaker 3: brightness of the shop's fluorescent lighting. It was not unusual
Speaker 3: for the sisters to spend time together after work. It
Speaker 3: was not unusual for a friend to tag along on
Speaker 3: a Friday night. The girls were friends, and they were
Speaker 3: together in a familiar place. At some point that evening,
Speaker 3: the front doors were locked to customers. Closing procedures began.
Speaker 3: Cash was counted, machines were cleaned, floors were swept, The
Speaker 3: registrar area was squared away for the next day's opening shift.
Speaker 3: The exact sequence of the girl's final hour has never
Speaker 3: been fully reconstructed, but it followed the structure of routine
Speaker 3: until it didn't. Shortly before midnight, a patrol officer driving
Speaker 3: his usual route noticed smoke rising from the yogurt shop.
Speaker 3: It was not a heavy blaze, yet not a roaring
Speaker 3: inferno visible from blocks away. It was just smoke pushing
Speaker 3: out of the yogurt shop. But the yogurt shop shouldn't
Speaker 3: have been smoking. The policemen called it in. Fire crews
Speaker 3: responded quickly. The glass storefront ref reflected flashing red lights
Speaker 3: as trucks pulled up. Fire Fighters forced jury and moved
Speaker 3: inside through smoke and heat hoses. Uncoiled water hit flame.
Speaker 3: The shop filled with steam and soot as the fire
Speaker 3: was attacked from within. What they found in the back
Speaker 3: room changed the nature of the call entirely. There were
Speaker 3: four bodies. The girls had been stripped. They had been
Speaker 3: bound and gagged. Each had been shot in the head.
Speaker 3: At least one showed signs of sexual assault. The fire
Speaker 3: had been set after the murders, and it had burnt
Speaker 3: hot enough to blacken the walls, melt plastic and char flesh.
Speaker 3: The back room, small and utilitarian, became the center of
Speaker 3: a crime scene that would define Austin for decades. The
Speaker 3: fire had already done damage. Water hoses did more. Surfaces
Speaker 3: were soaked, Debris shifted, potential trace evidence dissolved or moved.
Speaker 3: The building itself, though not fully collapsed, was compromised by
Speaker 3: flame and heat. Investigators arriving at the scene were forced
Speaker 3: immediately into triage. Preserve what remains, Document what you can,
Speaker 3: except what is gone. The bodies were burned beyond recognition.
Speaker 3: Store manager Reese Price, twenty four years old at the time,
Speaker 3: was called to the scene to identify her employees. She
Speaker 3: could not, the fire had left little to distinguish one
Speaker 3: from another. Later she would describe the moment plainly, saying,
Speaker 3: there wasn't anything there to identify. Fire is very destructive.
Speaker 3: It's not forgiving. By the early morning hours of December seventh,
Speaker 3: the yogurt shop was no longer just a business in
Speaker 3: a shopping center. It was a sealed crime scene. Yellow
Speaker 3: tape cordoned off the front. Fire investigators and homicide detectives
Speaker 3: stood side by side the parking lot hours earlier routine
Speaker 3: in quiet was now lit by portable lamps and crowded
Speaker 3: with uniforms, clip boards and cameras. News traveled fast. Four
Speaker 3: teenage girls bound, shot, burned. The brutality of the crime
Speaker 3: struck immediately. This was not a single shooting. It was
Speaker 3: not an impulsive act. It was a controlled sequence restraint
Speaker 3: execution style, gunshots, sexual assault, arson. The layering of the
Speaker 3: violence was deliberate. Inside the wreckage, investigators began to catalog
Speaker 3: what survived. Two different firearms had been used. Ballistics would
Speaker 3: later determine that the weapons involved were a three eighty
Speaker 3: pistol and a twenty two caliber revolver. More than one
Speaker 3: gun in the room suggested either multiple offenders or a
Speaker 3: single offender armed with more than one weapon. Money was
Speaker 3: missing from the register. The robbery theory formed quickly. It
Speaker 3: was the most immediate explanation available. Cash gone, Teen workers
Speaker 3: present a crime of opportunity escalating into murder and rape,
Speaker 3: but the scene did not present as hurried. The binding
Speaker 3: of four victims takes time, The movement of bodies into
Speaker 3: the back room takes control. The setting of a fire
Speaker 3: requires intent to destroy. Investigators walked through what remained of
Speaker 3: the interior. The machines were warped from heat. A melted
Speaker 3: phone lay useless near the counter. Topping's bins were fused
Speaker 3: and blackened. Plastic chairs had partially collapsed. The hallway leading
Speaker 3: to the back room was streaked with soot. Outside, neighbors
Speaker 3: from surrounding apartments gathered behind police lines. Parents arrived, called
Speaker 3: by words spreading through the night. The identities of the
Speaker 3: victims were not yet officially confirmed, but families knew who
Speaker 3: had been working, they knew who had been together. By dawn,
Speaker 3: Austin police had transitioned fully from fire response to homicide investigation.
Speaker 3: The shop's name, I can't believe its yogurt, appeared in
Speaker 3: early media coverage before the full details were public. Within hours,
Speaker 3: the city understood that something unprecedented, something truly horrible, had
Speaker 3: occurred inside a brightly lit storefront that had been part
Speaker 3: of ordinary life transformed into a terrible chapter of the
Speaker 3: city's hit. The four victims were identified as Jennifer Harbison seventeen,
Speaker 3: Sarah Harbison fifteen, Eliza Thomas seventeen, and Amy Aires thirteen.
Speaker 3: Their names would be repeated for years. The immediate questions
Speaker 3: were blunt and overwhelming. Who entered that shop, how many
Speaker 3: when did the encounter turn from confrontation to execution, why
Speaker 3: burn the scene afterward? And how much evidence had the
Speaker 3: fire erased? Detectives began with what they had They canvassed
Speaker 3: the shopping center. They interviewed employees of nearby stores. They
Speaker 3: gathered statements from anyone who had seen vehicles in the
Speaker 3: lot near closing time. They documented the physical layout of
Speaker 3: the shop in detail, aware that any reconstruction would depend
Speaker 3: on accuracy. In the first hours mid morning December seventh,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one, the yogurt shop was sealed behind layers
Speaker 3: of tape and uniformed presents. Fire crews had cleared out.
Speaker 3: What remained was the work of homicide detectives, crime scene technicians,
Speaker 3: and arson investigators, moving carefully through a space that had
Speaker 3: been both a murder site and a burn sight. The
Speaker 3: fire had not consumed the entire building, but it had
Speaker 3: done exactly what it was likely intended to do, disrupt
Speaker 3: the investigation. Heat had warped surfaces, plastic had melted into
Speaker 3: irregular shapes. The ceiling tiles in the back room were
Speaker 3: charred and partially collapsed. The floor was slick from water
Speaker 3: ash coated walls and counters. Electrical wiring hung exposed where
Speaker 3: insulation had burned away. The back room was small, barely
Speaker 3: large enough for storage, shelving, cleaning supplies in a cramped
Speaker 3: work space. It was here that the girls had been
Speaker 3: found bound shot, placed together. The bindings were documented. First,
Speaker 3: gag materials were collected, where intact rope fibers and fabric
Speaker 3: remains were bagged separately. Even partially burned fibers could later
Speaker 3: reveal composition. Technicians photographed each victim from multiple angles before removal.
Speaker 3: Burn patterns were sketched. The relative positioning of the bodies
Speaker 3: was measured. The medical examiner's early assessment confirmed execution style
Speaker 3: gunshot wounds to the head. Each of the four girls
Speaker 3: had been shot at close range. The tight clustering of
Speaker 3: the wounds suggested control. The presence of two calibers three
Speaker 3: eighty and twenty two would later be confirmed through recovered
Speaker 3: bullets and casings. The sexual assault evidence was compromised by fire,
Speaker 3: but not entirely.
Speaker 2: Lost.
Speaker 3: Swabs were taken where possible clothing remnants were cataloged. Forensic
Speaker 3: science in nineteen ninety one did not yet possess the
Speaker 3: sensitivity it would develop decades later, but technicians collected with
Speaker 3: the understanding that future technology might extract what current methods
Speaker 3: could not. In the front of the shop, the register
Speaker 3: was examined. The drawer was open, cash was missing. The
Speaker 3: exact amount missing was uncertain at first. Accounting would determine
Speaker 3: that money had indeed been taken, though not in a
Speaker 3: sum large enough to explain the scale of the violence.
Speaker 3: The robbery theory held immediate weight in absence of a
Speaker 3: clearer motive. The store had been closing, teen employees were present,
Speaker 3: an offender or offender's interer demand money, lose control, and escalate,
Speaker 3: But investigators noted something else. The fire had been set
Speaker 3: in a way that suggested intent to destroy the scene
Speaker 3: rather than escape. Unnoticed accelerant patterns were evaluated. The blaze
Speaker 3: had originated in the back area where the bodies lay.
Speaker 3: It had not spread outward from a random source. It
Speaker 3: had been placed. The decision to burn after killing shifted
Speaker 3: the profile away from simple theft. Outside. The shopping center's
Speaker 3: surveillance capabilities were minimal in nineteen ninety one. Widespread digital
Speaker 3: camera systems were not yet standard in strip malls. Detectives
Speaker 3: canvassed surrounding businesses for any form of security recording, but
Speaker 3: the visual record was thin. Witness memory became critical. Several
Speaker 3: individuals reported seeing cars in the lot around closing times,
Speaker 3: varied a light colored sedan, a darker vehicle idling, no
Speaker 3: license plates recorded, no definitive identification, detectives widened the perimeter.
Speaker 3: North Cross Mall was nearby, and foot traffic from the
Speaker 3: mall area into adjacent storefronts was common. Officers interviewed mall employees,
Speaker 3: security staff, and anyone who had been in the area
Speaker 3: late that evening. The timeline narrowed gradually. The girls were
Speaker 3: believed to have been alive some time before eleven p m.
Speaker 3: Smoke was observed shortly before midnight. That window less than
Speaker 3: an hour contained the murders, the assault, the binding, the shooting,
Speaker 3: and the ignition of fire. The speed of its suggested coordination.
Speaker 3: The use of two firearms reinforced that impression. Ballistics technicians
Speaker 3: would later confirm that the three eighty and the twenty
Speaker 3: two were distinct weapons, the twenty two revolver commonly small
Speaker 3: and concealable, and the three eighty semi automatic more powerful
Speaker 3: and typically associated with deliberate carry two guns in a
Speaker 3: small back room with four restrained victims. Investigators also considered
Speaker 3: the possibility of prior contact. Did the girls know their attackers,
Speaker 3: was there familiarity that allowed proximity without immediate alarm, or
Speaker 3: had the assailants forced injury after closing the front door
Speaker 3: locks were examined, there was no clear evidence of forced injury.
Speaker 3: That detail did not conclusively rule out force. Heat and
Speaker 3: water could obscure marks, but it opened the possibility that
Speaker 3: the door had been opened voluntarily, perhaps after hours. If
Speaker 3: the girls were closing, the doors would have been locked
Speaker 3: from the inside. Anyone entering after that would have required
Speaker 3: the girls to unlock the door. The question lingered, who
Speaker 3: would they open it for. Autopsy results would provide additional
Speaker 3: clarity in the days that followed. Each victim had been
Speaker 3: shot in the head at close range. The trajectory and
Speaker 3: powder residue indicated close proximity. At least one victim had
Speaker 3: been sexually assaulted before death. The order of the killing
Speaker 3: could not be definitively established, but forensic pathologists attempted to
Speaker 3: reconstruct sequence based on blood patterns and burn overlays. The
Speaker 3: brutality of the act shaped the early investigative posture. Austin
Speaker 3: Police Department brought an assistance from the Texas Rangers and
Speaker 3: the FBI. The scale and nature of the crime exceeded
Speaker 3: the resources of a routine homicide team. The FBI began
Speaker 3: developing a behavioral profile. The early profile described the likely
Speaker 3: perpetrators as males in their late teens to early twenties,
Speaker 3: individuals who may have resented authority, possibly under the influence
Speaker 3: of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crime.
Speaker 3: Individuals with prior criminal behavior, potentially escalating. The word used
Speaker 3: internally was blunt. They called them thugs, but profiles are scaffolding,
Speaker 3: not evidence. Detectives continued to work outward from physical facts.
Speaker 3: The firearms became a focus. Twenty two caliber revolvers were common,
Speaker 3: three eighty pistols somewhat less so, but still widely available.
Speaker 3: Ballistic signatures were entered into state databases where possible, though
Speaker 3: the system was limited compared to modern capabilities. Investigators looked
Speaker 3: for recent reports of stolen firearms matching those calibers. They
Speaker 3: examined recent robberies in the area. Were their similar patterns,
Speaker 3: young female employees, late night retail use of restraints. None
Speaker 3: matched the scale or sequence seen in the yogurt shop. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the families were entering a different phase of reality funerals,
Speaker 3: media attention, national headlines. The image of four teenage girls
Speaker 3: murdered inside a frozen yogurt shop became shorthand for vulnerability
Speaker 3: in suburban spaces. Eight days after the murders, police arrested
Speaker 3: a sixteen year old named Maurice Pierce near North Cross Mall.
Speaker 3: He had been found carrying a twenty two caliber revolver.
Speaker 3: The caliber matched one of the weapons used in the murders.
Speaker 3: Under questioning, Pierce claimed that he and three other boys
Speaker 3: had committed the crime. His statement generated immediate momentum, but
Speaker 3: there was a problem. There was no physical evidence tying
Speaker 3: Pierce or the three others he named, Forrest Wellborn, Michael Scott,
Speaker 3: and Robert Springsteen to the yogurt shop. Ballistic comparison would
Speaker 3: later show that Pierce's gun was not a definitive match
Speaker 3: to the twenty two used in the murders. The confession
Speaker 3: narrative lack detail consistent with the crime scene. Investigators ultimately
Speaker 3: concluded that Pierce's story was unreliable, possibly fabricated. The arrests
Speaker 3: did not hold. The case moved forward without a suspect
Speaker 3: in custody. By the end of December nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 3: the yogurt shop stood empty, boarded up. Four funerals had
Speaker 3: been held. The city had absorbed the shock. Inside the
Speaker 3: police department, the file thickened Ballistic reports, autopsy findings, interview transcripts,
Speaker 3: witness statements, fire analysis, behavioral profiling. What they had was brutality,
Speaker 3: two weapons, a burned room, and a timeline under an hour.
Speaker 3: What they did not have was a clear face. The
Speaker 3: scene had been burned away, the questions had not. By
Speaker 3: the second week after the murders, the case had shifted
Speaker 3: from shock to saturation. Austin police were finding hundreds of tips.
Speaker 3: Some were specific names, vehicles, rumors overheard at school. Others
Speaker 3: were vague. Someone acting strange, someone who owned a gun,
Speaker 3: someone who had once said something disturbing. Every call was logged,
Speaker 3: every lead was assigned. The North Cross Mall became a
Speaker 3: focal point. Teenagers gathered near the yogurt shop on Friday nights.
Speaker 3: Detectives mapped the social geography of that block, who hung
Speaker 3: out there, which groups overlapped, which rivalries existed. They began
Speaker 3: with proximity, who had been physically near the shop. On
Speaker 3: December sixth, patrol officers canvas department complexes within walking distance.
Speaker 3: They knocked on doors and asked residents if they'd heard gunshots,
Speaker 3: seen vehicles speeding away, noticed smoke earlier than reported. Gunshots
Speaker 3: were difficult to isolate in a commercial corridor where car
Speaker 3: back fires and distant construction were common. Smoke had been
Speaker 3: seen only when the fire was already established. The girl's
Speaker 3: final movements were reconstructed in granular detail. Eliza Thomas and
Speaker 3: Jennifer Harbison had been scheduled to close the shop that evening.
Speaker 3: Their shift logs were reviewed. Telephone calls made from the
Speaker 3: store were traced. Sarah Harbison and Amy Ayers had arrived
Speaker 3: earlier in the night to spend time there. It was
Speaker 3: not unusual for friends or siblings to stop by during
Speaker 3: closing shifts. Detectives interviewed classmates, teachers, boyfriends, former boyfriends, parents
Speaker 3: of friends. They asked about disputes, threats anyone who had
Speaker 3: expressed hostility toward any of the four girls. Nothing immediately
Speaker 3: escalated beyond adolescent friction. The robbery angle remained active. Investigators
Speaker 3: cataloged every known robbery in Austin over the preceding six months.
Speaker 3: They polled case files where young employees had been targeted.
Speaker 3: They compared methods. None matched the combination of binding, execution
Speaker 3: style shooting, and sexual assault alongside arson. The FBI profile
Speaker 3: was circulated internally, but not publicly. Detailed. It suggested multiple offenders.
Speaker 3: It suggested impulsivity fueled by alcohol or drugs. It suggested
Speaker 3: that the perpetrators might boast afterward. Detectives monitored talk in
Speaker 3: high schools, in neighborhoods, in juvenile detention facilities. The arrest
Speaker 3: of Maurice Pierce had been an early jolt. When he
Speaker 3: claimed involvement, Detectives pressed him for specifics lay out of
Speaker 3: the store, placement of the bodies, sequence of events. Some
Speaker 3: of his statements were consistent with publicly known facts, others
Speaker 3: were not. Inconsistencies accumulated. His possession of a twenty two
Speaker 3: revolver had drawn attention, but ballistic comparison could not conclusively
Speaker 3: match it to the bullets recovered from the victims. The
Speaker 3: other three teenagers named Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott, and Robert
Speaker 3: Springsteen fourth were brought in for questioning. They denied it involvement.
Speaker 3: Their alibis were checked, no physical evidence tied them to
Speaker 3: the scene. After review, prosecutors declined to move forward on
Speaker 3: charges based solely on the statements. The case receded from
Speaker 3: that initial surge of arrests back into uncertainty. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 3: forensic backlog grew. The lab examined fibers collected from bindings.
Speaker 3: They tested for accelerants in the burned room. They evaluated
Speaker 3: the recovered bullets for rifling characteristics. Each report added data,
Speaker 3: but no identity. The city did not retreat from the story.
Speaker 3: Media coverage intensified. National outlets carried the image of the
Speaker 3: charge storefront and the yearbook photos of the four girls.
Speaker 3: Community meetings were held. Parents demanded answers. A reward was
Speaker 3: offered for information leading to an arrest. In January nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety two, investigators began re examining the fire origin with
Speaker 3: a narrower lens. Arson specialists concluded that the blaze had
Speaker 3: been intentionally set after the killings, not as an act
Speaker 3: accidental by product. The accelerant had been applied in the
Speaker 3: area where the bodies were located. That sequencing mattered, It
Speaker 3: suggested forethought Beyond panic. The two weapons remained a central thread.
Speaker 3: Detectives requested records of recent gun purchases in the region.
Speaker 3: Private sales were harder to track. They looked for reports
Speaker 3: of stolen three eighty pistols and twenty two revolvers in
Speaker 3: the weeks leading up to December sixth, Several thefts were identified,
Speaker 3: but none linked directly to the case. Attention turned to
Speaker 3: the mall itself. North Cross Mall security logs were reviewed.
Speaker 3: Off duty officers who had been working security details were interviewed.
Speaker 3: Foot traffic patterns were reconstructed from witness memory. The difficulty
Speaker 3: lay in the ordinary nature of the setting. A Friday
Speaker 3: night in a suburban shopping center did not stand out
Speaker 3: to most observers. Investigators also considered whether the girls had
Speaker 3: been targeted specifically, or whether the shop had been selected
Speaker 3: as a target of opportunity. That distinction influenced the subtle
Speaker 3: spect pool. If targeted, the offenders would likely have prior
Speaker 3: connection through school, social circles, or employment. If random, the
Speaker 3: pool widened to include transient offenders, individuals passing through the area,
Speaker 3: and frankly, who knows who else. The possibility of out
Speaker 3: of town perpetrators was discussed, but not yet emphasized. The
Speaker 3: brutality and arson suggested boldness, but there was no clear
Speaker 3: evidence of travel or serial pattern at that stage. In
Speaker 3: February nineteen ninety two, detectives revisited the initial witness reports
Speaker 3: with fresh eyes. They conducted follow up interviews with individuals
Speaker 3: who had been near the shop that night. Memory degrades quickly,
Speaker 3: but sometimes details emerged. After shocks of sides, A description
Speaker 3: of a vehicle became slightly clearer. A recollection of two
Speaker 3: males entering the shop earlier in the evening surfaced, though
Speaker 3: no one could identify them definitively. The girls' families lived
Speaker 3: in a suspended state between grief and vigilance. They attended
Speaker 3: press compasses, They appealed for information. They repeated the names
Speaker 3: of their daughters in public spaces to keep them from
Speaker 3: becoming abstractions. Inside the police department, the file expanded. The
Speaker 3: early months of nineteen ninety two were consumed with sifting.
Speaker 3: The case team organized tips by category firearms, suspects, vehicles,
Speaker 3: prior sexual offenses, known burglars. They crossed reference names against
Speaker 3: arrest records. They compared DNA limited and partial to available samples,
Speaker 3: though the technology of the time restricted what could be
Speaker 3: meaningfully tested. The arrest of Peers and the collapse of
Speaker 3: that lead created an undercurrent of caution. Detectives understood the
Speaker 3: danger of building a case around statements unsupported by physical evidence.
Speaker 3: The magnitude of the crime demanded certainty Springsteen and Scott
Speaker 3: remained on the radar, but without corroboration. The focus broadened again.
Speaker 3: By spring of nineteen ninety two, the investigation had entered
Speaker 3: a slower phase, not inactive but methodical. The initial flood
Speaker 3: of tips had thinned. The public's immediate shock had settled
Speaker 3: into a long term expectation of resolution. In the squad room,
Speaker 3: the evidence board remained crowded. Photographs of four girls, a
Speaker 3: diagram of the yogurt shop interior, ballistic summaries, fire origin notes,
Speaker 3: names circled then crossed out. There were four victims, two guns,
Speaker 3: one fire, and no arrest. That held. We're going to
Speaker 3: wrap up episode one there. Please join me next Thursday,
Speaker 3: March fifth, for part two of the Austin, Texas Yogurt
Speaker 3: Shop Mergers. And Hey, if you know any one who
Speaker 3: likes a true crime podcast, friends, family, acquaintances, somebody you
Speaker 3: happened to bump into, please tell him about the show.
Speaker 3: I sure would appreciate it. I'm Zevan Odleberg, and this
Speaker 3: has been kind of Murdery.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, review and tell your friends.
Speaker 1: You can find us on social media at kinda Murdery
Speaker 1: or email at Kindamurdery at gmail dot com,
Podbean