Police officials in Texas revealed during a press briefing on Monday how they connected a man previously tied to homicides in other states to the 1991 unsolved murders of four teenage girls at an Austin yogurt shop. The breakthrough in the long-standing case came through DNA evidence, shedding light on a crime that has haunted the state’s capital for decades.
According to Austin police, a reanalysis of DNA tests in June led them to identify Robert Eugene Brashers as the suspect. Brashers, who died by suicide in 1999 during a standoff with law enforcement in Missouri, has since been linked to multiple killings and rapes in various states.
The brutal slayings of the four girls—Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison—shocked the city of Austin, becoming one of the region’s most infamous crimes. Over the years, investigators and prosecutors grappled with the case, sifting through numerous leads, false confessions, and severely compromised evidence from the crime scene.
The connection of Brashers to the murders was officially announced on Friday, bringing closure to a case that has lingered unresolved for nearly three decades.
Family members of the victims expressed a mix of emotions during the news conference. Barbara Wilson, the mother of the Harbison sisters, expressed gratitude for the breakthrough, stating, “It has been so long.” Sonora Thomas, sister of Eliza, acknowledged the community’s support but lamented the irreplaceable loss her family had endured.
The tragic events unfolded on December 6, 1991, when the girls were bound, gagged, and fatally shot at the yogurt shop where two of them were employed. The crime scene was further marred as the building was set ablaze following the murders.
The autopsy report revealed the extent of the violence inflicted on the victims, detailing how they were restrained and gagged before being shot. Notably, DNA evidence found under Ayers’ fingernails played a crucial role in identifying Brashers as the perpetrator.
Brashers, with a history of violent crimes across multiple states, had a criminal record that included a conviction for a 1985 shooting in Florida and subsequent crimes in Georgia. Missouri authorities linked him to the 1998 murder of Sherri Scherer and her daughter, as well as to other heinous offenses in South Carolina and Tennessee.
Despite the progress made in solving the Austin yogurt shop murders, questions remain about Brashers’ motive and activities in the city at the time of the killings. Authorities disclosed that he was briefly detained by Customs and Border Patrol in El Paso shortly after the murders, possessing a firearm later tied to the crime.
The latest developments in the case coincide with the recent release of an HBO documentary series, “The Yogurt Shop Murders,” renewing public interest in the tragic events that unfolded over 30 years ago.
