A Long Road to Cold Truth
Imagine a serial killer who is so skilled at what they do that they leave no trace. Everything was
planned down to the minute, from the time of the murder, to the fire meant to burn away the
evidence. When a crime has no room for failure, law enforcement gets desperate. They need
someone to confess. To suspect. But, in that time of desperation, who do you actually catch?
Near midnight on December 6, 1991 in Austin, Texas, an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! store was
found to be engulfed in flames. When firefighters entered the store, they discovered that it had
been robbed, and there were four dead teenage girls. 17 year old Jennifer Harbison, 15 year old
Sarah Harbison, 17 year old Eliza Thomas, and 13 year old Amy Ayers. They were all found
naked, had been shot, tied up, and gagged. Jennifer and Eliza were both employees at the store,
while Sarah and Amy were just in the store with them as they closed up. Because the fire and
water had severely damaged the crime scene, collecting physical evidence was nearly
impossible.
The Austin Police Department (APD) received thousands of tips and ‘confessions’,
but most led nowhere. People were terrified a monster was walking among them. The police
needed to do something, or find something, but they could not. The case remained cold until it
was reopened in 1999. The Yogurt Task Force had viewed the case files in further detail, and
then interrogated four suspects that were possibly involved. Maurice Pierce, Robert Springsteen,
Micheal Scott, and Forest Welborn. During being interrogated, Springsteen and Scott confessed
and both implied the other was involved in the crime. Welborn and Pierce did not confess. Either
way, they were all arrested for Capital Murder in 1999. Scott and Springsteen were put on trial
and found guilty based on their confessions implicating one another. Scott received life with no
parole, while Springsteen was given the death penalty. Welborn was not charged, as the decision
made by the grand jury was not enough because of insufficient evidence. The charges against
Pierce were dropped. There was no physical evidence linked to any one involved. Or supposedly
involved.
Because of a new ruling (Crawford v. Washington), the Court of Criminal Appeals granted a new
trial for Scott and Springsteen. While preparing for the new trial, more DNA evidence was
reviewed. They used swabs from the Sexual Assault kit and what came back was unknown.
None of them matched the unknown profile. The charges were dropped pending further
investigation. In 2022, Detective Daniel Jackson was assigned to the case. On August 22, 2025,
he received the South Carolina Lab report that linked the unknown profile to a known 1990
Greenville, South Carolina Sexual Assaulter and Murder. It belonged to serial killer and rapist,
Robert Eugene Brashers.
Before the murders in the yogurt shop, Brashers had been in prison for shooting a woman, and
was granted parole in 1989. The DNA also linked him to multiple unsolved murders and SA’d
across the country. Now, we’d all hoped that they caught the guy and put him in jail, but
unfortunately that was not the case. He died by suicide in 1999 after a standoff with officers.
References
Blog • The Yogurt Shop Murders. (2020). Roanokecountyva.Gov.
Significant Breakthrough Made in 1991 I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt Murders. (2025).
yogurt-murders
Shapiro, E. (2025, September 29). DNA helps solve “haunting” yogurt shop quadruple killings
more than 3 decades later. ABC News.
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