Robert Eugene Brashers, a serial killer and rapist who died by suicide during a police standoff in January 1999, has been identified as the suspect in the infamous 1991 murders of four teenage girls at an Austin, Texas yogurt shop, according to investigators. The breakthrough connection came through DNA testing that linked Brashers to the crime scene where Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers, Jennifer Harbison and Sarah Harbison were found shot to death and the shop was set on fire.
Background
On Dec. 6, 1991, the four teenage girls were working and visiting at the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin when they were gagged, tied up with their own clothing, and executed with gunshots to the head. The killer then set the establishment ablaze in an effort to destroy evidence. Eliza Thomas was 17; Amy Ayers was 13; sisters Jennifer Harbison was 17 and Sarah Harbison was 15.
The Austin Police Department established a dedicated task force, with assistance from the FBI, but the case went cold for years until 1999 when four men—Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn—were arrested. All four had been initially questioned just days after the murders when Pierce was apprehended at a mall near the yogurt shop carrying a .22 caliber weapon similar to those believed used in the killings.
Two of the men, Springsteen and Scott, ultimately provided confessions that would later be challenged as coerced. They were convicted and spent nearly a decade behind bars before their convictions were overturned on constitutional grounds—their Sixth Amendment right to confront accusers had been violated when their separate confessions were used against each other without opportunity for cross-examination.
The Investigation
Before retrying Springsteen and Scott, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg's office ordered Y-STR DNA testing on evidence collected from the victims at the time of the murders. This relatively new technique allowed investigators to isolate male DNA only. To their surprise, a partial male profile was extracted from one victim but did not match any of the four arrested men.
Prosecutors persisted in trying to identify whose DNA this belonged to before proceeding with retrial. By 2009, after years without a match, charges against Springsteen and Scott were dropped and they were released after serving approximately ten years behind bars.
Investigators continued searching for the mystery DNA donor until this month when a match was finally achieved through advanced genetic genealogy techniques that identified Robert Eugene Brashers as the source. According to retired Austin detective John Jones, who worked the case from its inception, Brashers' connection was further supported when ballistics analysis determined the gun he used to kill himself during an officer-involved standoff in January 1999 was consistent with a bullet casing recovered from a drain inside the yogurt shop.
Brashers is known to have committed at least three murders and multiple rapes between 1990 and 1998 across South Carolina and Missouri before his death. His DNA profile now confirms what investigators had long suspected—that an unknown serial killer was responsible for the Austin killings, not the four men who spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
On Feb. 19, 2026, a Travis County judge formally exonerated all four wrongfully convicted men—Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn—and declared them innocent of the murders. The City of Austin subsequently agreed in May 2026 to pay a $35 million settlement to be distributed among the four men.
Key Takeaways
- Robert Eugene Brashers, deceased since January 1999, identified as suspect through DNA linking him to the 1991 yogurt shop killings
- Four teenage girls—Eliza Thomas (17), Amy Ayers (13), Jennifer Harbison (17) and Sarah Harbison (15)—were shot and killed at an Austin yogurt shop in December 1991
- Ballistics evidence connects Brashers' suicide weapon to a bullet casing found in the yogurt shop drain
- Four men wrongfully convicted—Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn—served nearly a decade combined before release
- City of Austin agreed to $35 million settlement with exonerated men in May 2026
What's Next
While Brashers cannot face criminal charges due to his 1999 death, the identification brings closure to one of Texas' most notorious unsolved cases and formally clears the names of four men who spent years wrongfully imprisoned. The Austin Police Department is expected to release additional details about the investigation in coming weeks as prosecutors work with investigators to officially close the case file on the yogurt shop murders.