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At the start of a new decade, four girls were brutalized and murdered at the frozen yogurt shop where two of them worked. In an all-too-familiar story, four boys were swept up in the tragedy when investigators decided they were the culprits, with no evidence linking them to the horrific crime.
Strange and Unexplained is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab & Three Goose Entertainment and is a journey into the uncomfortable and the unknowable that will leave you both laughing and sleeping with the lights on. You can get early and ad-free episodes and much more over at www.grabbagcollab.com
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Strange and unexplained with me, Daisy Eagle.
Thanks so much, and enjoy the show.
Strangers just before we begin,
please take note.
This episode covers some very difficult topics,
including the rapes and murders of young girls.
Please take care.
Remember being a teenager,
hug, am I right?
The drama, the lying, the angst,
wasn't it just maddening?
Now add to the experience a horrifying crime
befalling your community,
with limited evidence for authorities
to follow in their investigation of it.
You, a vulnerable knot of hormones and acne
are the closest thing to a suspect,
simply because you were there
being a mall rat with your friends.
Could you trust yourself to stand in your truth
against the feds,
or would you fold under pressure?
Welcome to Strange and unexplained with me, Daisy Egan.
My first real-person job was as a canvasser
for a nonprofit.
I went door to door,
asking for signatures for this bill or that.
Frequently, I was invited in to complete strangers' homes,
and you know what I did?
I went inside strangers' homes.
I am so lucky I made it out of that job alive, literally.
It used to be a part-time job
was a right of passage for teenagers,
whether you were saving up to pay for college
or to buy your own set of wheels,
or just for some pocket money to spend
at the very same mall you likely worked at.
Your first job was supposed to be the stepping stone
into your next 40 to 50 years of daily grind.
But for two young women,
one little sister and a friend,
a part-time teenage job was not the first step of many,
but was indeed their last.
And four young men would be haplessly swept up
into their story in a fight for their own lives.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
I'm a man.
17-year-olds Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas
met as members of future farmers of America.
Both girls were juniors at Linear High School
in Northwest Austin, Texas.
Jennifer was a driven and successful student.
According to one source quote,
she served as president of the school's
future farmers of America chapter,
competed on the track team,
and was a member of the Vikets drill team.
A classmate described her as very opinionated
along with her corny jokes.
And her geography teacher later said
she was more excited about life
than any kid I've ever known.
End quote.
Jennifer was working at,
I can't believe it's yogurt where she was saving up
to buy a car.
Eliza was an exceptional student.
She was described as, quote,
a devoted member of the band,
playing the clarinet and also sang in the school choir.
Friends described her as shy at first,
but deeply loyal and witty once you got to know her.
She had a love for animals,
particularly cats,
and was known for her artistic flare and gentle heart.
End quote.
I often took closing shifts
and I can't believe it's yogurt,
which was, quote,
a way to earn extra money
and take on responsibility,
something she did with maturity
beyond her years.
End quote.
End quote.
On Friday, December 6, 1991,
Eliza and Jennifer were both working
the closing shift and I can't believe it's yogurt,
on 2949 West Anderson Lane in Austin.
Jennifer's 15-year-old sister Sarah and her friend,
13-year-old Amy Ayers,
had been hanging out at the mall
where the yogurt shop was located
and both came by.
Amy was described as a bright,
free-spirited,
and endlessly curious teenager.
She was funny and kind and loved good prank.
She was an eighth grader
and had recently joined future farmers of America.
She loved animals.
Quote,
she was especially proud
of raising a lamb named Tutti
as part of her FFA activities.
Her dream was to one day become a veteranarian
combining her deep compassion
with a strong sense of purpose,
end quote.
Sarah was a freshman at Linear High
and she was a junior varsity cheerleader,
a student council representative,
a member of FFA,
and played on the freshman volleyball team
and the basketball team.
Sarah idolized her older sister
and the two were very close.
Quote,
Sarah was described by friends
as warm-hearted and spirited,
with a maturity beyond her years.
Like Jennifer,
she was involved in future farmers of America
and showed interest in animal husbandry,
including raising and showing livestock.
Her involvement in FFA
reflected her love of animals and nature
and she often participated in school
and forage activities
with enthusiasm, end quote.
The four girls had plans
to sleep over at Jennifer and Sarah's house that night.
By 10 pm,
both of Eliza's parents had stopped
by to check in on the four girls.
The shop was scheduled to close at 11 pm.
Just before midnight,
though, a patrol officer noticed flames
coming from inside the yogurt shop
and notified dispatch.
The first fire truck arrived at 11.53 pm.
According to a piece from the Austin Chronicle,
quote,
fans of firefighters and police
responded to the two alarm blaze,
end quote.
Detective John Jones
was the first investigator on the scene.
He pulled up to find a quote,
chaotic scene of public safety officials
trampling in and out
of what they would soon learn
was a scene of a quadruple murder.
After the blaze was suppressed,
firefighters made the shocking discovery.
The bodies of the four girls stripped
and bound, shot in the head.
Some of them stacked together
and terribly burned from the fire
that investigators concluded was set
to cover the crime, end quote.
Another piece from the Austin Chronicle,
quoted Jones as telling reporters
that what he found inside was,
quote, wholesale carnage.
I looked in there,
and oh my god, end quote.
Austin firefighter Renee Garza
would later say, quote,
the firefighter with me tapped me
on the shoulder and pointed down.
He asked me, is that a body?
And I had to step back.
It was, and I saw another body.
I knew it wasn't right.
Something was not right, end quote.
News 8 Austin reported
that 13-year-old Amy was the first body
to be discovered.
She was found, quote,
lying in the middle section of the store.
She was without clothes
and on her side, face down.
Near her was an empty cash drawer.
The medical examiner determined her cause
of death to be strangulation
and gunshot wounds to the head.
A 22 caliber bullet was recovered, end quote.
Sarah Harbison was found in the back room
extensively burned
with her hands tied behind her back
and gagged at the mouth.
She had been sexually assaulted.
Eliza was found on top of Sarah
in a similar manner.
Her face and body were burned
beyond recognition.
She could only be identified
through dental records.
They were able to determine
that she had not been sexually assaulted.
Jennifer was found near Sarah and Eliza.
Investigators believed she had been stacked
on top of Eliza and had been pushed off
by the force of the fire hose.
All four girls it was determined were dead
before the fire began.
Now this arson clearly became
a quadruple homicide.
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The crime scene
was an absolute mess.
According to the Chronicle Quote,
water had puddled in the shop,
particularly in the rear
where the bodies were found.
And the high-powered
firehoses had inevitably
shifted elements of the scene,
perhaps including the bodies,
making it difficult at best
to identify and collect
what evidence remained.
End quote.
Detective Jones reached out
for help with the investigation
and soon the federal bureau
of alcohol tobacco
and firearms,
the FBI,
and the Texas Department
of Public Safety were on the case.
But as I previously noted,
the scene was chaos.
In the time
between the first
fire truck arriving
just before midnight
and about 4 a.m.
when the Department
of Public Safety arrived,
firefighters, paramedics,
arson investigators,
the medical examiner
and police had been coming
and going through the shop.
This, of course,
meant the scene had been
significantly disrupted,
making collection of evidence
infinitely more difficult.
Later, a trial
DPS investigator,
Irma Rios,
would testify that
the efforts of the crime scene
were not coordinated.
Evidence was not collected,
and areas of the shop
had never been processed
for physical damage,
including the bathrooms,
the front door,
and a dumpster out back.
In her testimony,
Rios said,
quote,
no one ever pulled out
everything that was
in the dumpster.
We just looked
at what was on top,
end quote.
I don't care how chaotic
the scene was.
You're telling me
they couldn't look
through the dumpster
at the scene of a horrific crime?
The interior of the shop
had not been properly plotted
for investigation either.
Just like
basic police work.
Despite all this,
eventually some evidence
was collected.
According to News 8 Austin,
using shovels
and sifter screens,
investigators found
bullet shells,
and a magazine
for a semi-automatic handgun.
Some burnt clothes,
including, quote,
remnants of denim fabric,
and clothing from all
the girls,
as well as a heart-shaped
belt buckle that had
belonged to Amy.
However,
police teams never
recovered the belt
that went with it.
A ring that belonged to
Sarah Harbison's
boyfriend was also
found,
end quote.
The Chronicle reported
that latent fingerprints
were found on the
cash register drawer,
and that, quote,
at least five hairs
were recovered
from the girls'
bodies or items
of their clothing.
In their interviews
of witnesses,
who'd been in and around
the yogurt shop
the night of the murders,
investigators found
some promising leads.
In 2009,
the Austin Chronicle reported
that on the evening
of the murders,
quote,
according to police
statements,
a couple saw two men
sitting at a booth
and acting strangely.
By watching their
reflections in the
plate-glass shop front,
the woman could see
the men from where she was
sitting.
The woman said
the pair made her
uncomfortable,
sources tell the Chronicle.
The couple left,
as the girls began to
close up shop,
leaving the two men
alone with them,
end quote.
Listen,
I'm sure this anonymous
couple already feels
horrible for not
doing more,
and I don't mean
too much,
but,
come on,
these were children,
these people
should have done more.
I saw a thing on
threads recently
where a woman
recounted being
hit on by a grown-ass
adult man in an
airport when she was
like 14 or so,
and an older
black woman
intervened and was
like,
until you get on that
airplane, I am your
auntie,
and ran that man off.
That's how you do it.
But it wasn't
just a civilian couple
that saw that
something wasn't right
at the yogurt shop
a former police
officer,
Durrell Croft,
who was,
by that time,
running a private
security company,
visited the shop
around 10 p.m.
that evening.
He recalled being
approached by a man
wearing a military
fatigue-style jacket
who was
loitering in the
line at the shop.
The man was
apparently letting
other customers go ahead
of him in line,
and gave the same
courtesy to Croft,
but not before
asking Croft
if he was a cop.
Croft said he
didn't take the man
up on his offer
and noticed when he
got to the counter,
that all he
ordered was a soda.
He then
watched the man go
behind the counter
toward the back of the
store.
Croft asked Eliza
what was going on,
and she said she
had let him back there
to use the restroom.
And then,
according to the
Chronicle Stranger,
quote,
Croft was uneasy
and testified that he
hung around the counter
for a few more minutes
to see if the man
ever returned.
According to Croft,
he never did.
End quote.
I can't with this.
I can't.
What the fuck
should be more urgent
to any adult person
let alone an officer
of the law
than waiting until
some strange dude
comes out from the
back of a store
where four teenage
girls are seemingly
alone.
Indeed, 17-year-old
Eliza was the
supervising manager
on the shift.
There were no
adults there
with them.
At least he paid
attention to what
little he saw.
According to the
Chronicle, quote,
days after the crime,
Croft was able
to give a fairly
detailed description
of the man he saw.
A white male
about six feet tall,
mid to late twenties,
medium build,
dark hair,
clean shaven,
clear deep voice,
and a long pointed
nose.
End quote.
An employee
at a nearby party
store said he
heard nothing at all
from the yogurt shop
except for some
props which were
assumed to be the
gunshots.
Criminal attorney
Amber Farley
would later point out
that the lack of
screams or commotion
coming from the
yogurt shop suggested
that whoever carried
out this gruesome
quadruple homicide
was able to maintain a
quote certain amount
of control over the
victims.
She said the killer
or killers likely
had previous criminal
records and that the
manner of the killings
suggested that they
were, quote,
experienced,
sadistic criminals.
End quote.
Despite all that
information, however,
police quickly focus
their attention on
four suspects who
are anything but
experienced sadistic
criminals.
End quote.
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Within a week of the murders,
16-year-old Maurice Pierce was arrested
for bringing a gun to North Cross Mall.
The gun was the same make and model
as one of the guns used in the murders.
Pierce was taken in and questioned
by Austin Police Department homicide detective
Hector Polanco.
Now, what they gleaned from Pierce
is all a little confusing because there's differing
information from a few sources,
so I'll just get through this as best I can.
According to a press release from 2025
on the Austin, Texas.gov website
after hours of interrogation from Detective Polanco,
Pierce confessed to the four murders.
However, according to the Austin Chronicle quote,
Pierce said in a written statement
that the 22 he was carrying at North Cross Mall
had been used by his friend Forest Wellborne
to commit the yogurt shop murders, end quote.
Forest Wellborne was 15 years old.
In this interrogation, Pierce also implicated
his friend's Robert Springsteen, 17, and Michael Scott, 17.
Before his days as the regional manager
of a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
At any rate, the day after whatever it was,
Pierce actually confessed to Detective Jones
interviewed Pierce and determined
that the information the teenager gave him
didn't match the details of the crime scene.
Also, ballistic tests on the gun Pierce had on him
at the time of his arrest were inconclusive
as to matching the gun used in the murders.
Meanwhile, Detective Jones had an itchy feeling
about Detective Polanco.
Polanco had a reputation for employing coercive tactics
when trying to get confessions out of suspects.
It was Polanco whose interrogations
led to the wrongful convictions
of Richard Danzinger and Christopher Ochoa
for a 1988 rape and murder.
The two were exonerated in 2002,
but not before Danzinger suffered severe brain damage
from a beating by a prison inmate.
For his part under questioning,
the forest well-born denied any involvement in the murders,
but did say that he and Pierce,
along with Springsteen and Scott,
had gone to San Antonio several days later
in a stolen mise-on pathfinder.
As a result, both Springsteen and Scott
were brought in for questioning,
but were not at the time considered suspects.
After questioning Pierce and well-born himself,
Detective Jones determined
neither of them were good for the murders.
About well-born Jones direct quote was, quote,
forest had no clue.
He couldn't organize a two-car parade, end quote.
LOL.
And so having cleared these four kids,
it seems the police were like shrug and kind of gave up
until about five years later
when a new detective picked up the file
and gave it a new set of eyes.
Unfortunately, though stranger,
this new set of eyes decided to focus
on an old set of information.
5 years after the murders in 1996,
Detective Paul Johnson went about reorganizing
the old case file, and for some reason set his sights
back on Maurice Pierce and his 22 caliber pistol.
As the Austin Chronicle put it, quote,
exactly why that gun, out of all the others mentioned
by various suspects, some of whom had confessed
to the crime, caught his attention remains unclear.
Indeed, why Pierce was a victim,
indeed, why Pierce was vaulted to the top of the pack
of potential tips?
There were some 2,000 of them after his reorganization,
according to news reports from 1999,
remains a mystery to many involved in the case, end quote.
Pierce well-born Springsteen and Scott were brought back in.
Imagine as a teenager being accused
of a quadruple homicide with your boys.
Getting off the hook only to be put back on it years later
as a not yet done forming adult.
Growing up is enough of a trip,
oh, how I would regress into panic.
According to the Austin-Texas.gov piece,
Springsteen and Scott confessed and both implicated each other.
Forest well-born and Maurice Pierce did not confess.
Regardless, all four men were arrested for capital murder.
It's important to note here that there was no
physical evidence linking these four men to the murders.
The only thing the prosecution had to go on
were coerced confessions.
Springsteen's lead defense attorney, Carlos Garcia,
and detective Jones both believed
that the new investigative team had approached the case
file with a bias.
His counsel thought the new investigation led
with the assumption that they'd had the right suspects
to begin with, but it just screwed up the investigation.
Jones told the Chronicle quote,
That's what happens when you come up with a conclusion
and then you go about building a case to that conclusion,
other than going about it the other way around.
That's what happened in this case, really.
I think that certain people came up with what they thought
happened and then constructed a case around that theory.
End quote.
Maurice Pierce was living with his wife
and daughter near Dallas at the time of his arrest.
He was described by the new investigative team
as the mastermind of the four kids.
Please don't forget he was 16 at the time
the four girls were murdered.
Have you ever met a 16 year old mastermind of anything?
Most of the time they can't even remember
to wash their own balls.
So not a mastermind was Pierce, in fact,
that his case never even made it to trial.
Instead, he sat in jail for three years
awaiting trial before being released in 2003
due to a complete lack of evidence.
Tragically, in 2010, Pierce was stopped
for a traffic violation and took off on foot.
After a brief chase, he was caught by an officer
and the two tussled.
During the struggle, Pierce grabbed the officer's knife
off his belt and stabbed him in the neck.
The officer then shot and killed him.
On September 15, 1999, investigators traveled
to West Virginia to re-interrogate Robert Springsteen.
This was the third time in eight years
that Springsteen was questioned about the murders.
Now, I know this might come as a shock, stranger,
but police once again behaved badly
during this four hour interrogation.
According to the Chronicle quote,
during the interrogation,
Robert Springsteen is sitting in a straight-back chair
across from the door.
Detective Robert Merrill alternately sits in front of the door
or with his legs propped on the wall,
blocking the room's only exit.
Detective Ron Lara and occasionally alcohol tobacco
and firearms federal agent Chuck Meyer
sit across the table from Springsteen leaning in
and sometimes yelling at him just inches from his face.
End quote.
Springsteen continued to deny his involvement in the murders
until, quote, he finally began to break down
in front of the police and admitted to being involved
in the murders.
I don't know whether this is true or not
or whether I'm fooling myself.
Springsteen told his interrogators,
I'm so confused.
End quote.
When he did finally confess, said in quotation marks,
there were major discrepancies between the story he told
and the actual facts of the case.
He did not say the girls had been bound and gagged
or that the back room had been set on fire.
At trial, detectives blamed the omission
on Springsteen terminating the interview
before they could get to that point.
I mean, it was his third interview
and it went on for four hours.
It's hard to imagine how these basic facts
would have been left out.
He also told them he shot Amy first
with a 380 caliber gun and then when she didn't immediately die,
she was shot again with a 22.
But medical experts had determined
that the order of the shots were the reverse.
Now, look, one could definitely argue
that after so much time had passed,
he could have gotten confused
about which order the shots were fired in.
But he also never mentioned that Amy had been strangled
with a cloth ligature.
Springsteen did, however, seem to know facts
that had never been made public.
For instance, he knew about the second weapon
used in the crime and that it was a 380 caliber semi-automatic.
He knew that Michael Scott had tried
and failed to rape one of the girls
and he said while casing the shop earlier in the day,
he'd propped the back door open
with a pack of cigarettes or a small rock.
Why, he didn't know if it was a pack of cigarettes
or a small rock, I don't know.
Now that the back door has been brought up,
I do wanna say something that occurred to me earlier
going through the research.
Firefighters said they'd struggled to get through
the front door because it was locked
and someone had left a key in it.
So eventually they broke it down.
When I read that, my very first thought was,
shouldn't there have been a back door?
Not only that, but like, I'm pretty sure
the front wall of the yogurt shop was glass
as most mall storefronts are.
Why didn't they just break the glass?
I know none of this really matters
and the girls were dead before the fire started anyway,
but maybe they could have collected more evidence
if they'd gotten in sooner.
Anyway, Springsteen's trial got on your way
in May of 2001.
For some Foccata reason, the judge judge Mike Lynch
instructed the jury not to take notes
during the trial, which was expected to last weeks.
Have you ever heard of something like that?
I haven't.
Why shouldn't a jury be allowed to take notes?
What on earth?
Apparently something like 37% of state judges
bar note-taking during trial,
even though the American Bar Association is like,
a jury should absolutely be allowed to take notes WTF.
Once again, as with the initial investigation,
there was no actual evidence linking Springsteen
or Scott to the case.
You might be wondering why Forrest Wellburn
wasn't also being tried.
Well, a grand jury declined to indict him
because unlike his two friends, Forrest did not confess
and like his two friends, there was zero evidence
linking him to the crime.
Literally, all the prosecution had
were the coerced confessions.
Springsteen's attorney put forth the defense
that there was a predator stalking the streets
and alleys of Austin at the time of the murders.
Though they didn't name the predator,
most assume he was referring to Kenneth Allen McDuff
who was to put it succinctly, a truly awful person.
By the time of the yogurt shop murders,
McDuff had murdered six people,
raping at least three of them.
Three of those murders occurred less than two months
before the four girls in the yogurt shop.
He went on to kill three more women,
the first within 23 days of the yogurt shop murders
and the last within two months.
McDuff was executed in November of 1998,
three years before Springsteen and Scott's trial began
and some anonymous sources came forward to say
he confessed to the yogurt shop murders
on the day he was executed.
However, investigators didn't believe his confession
because he'd apparently gotten some details wrong.
So don't worry, this rapist and murderer
was not good for this crime,
but the two kids who'd never murdered or raped anyone
as far as we know definitely were.
Even with loads of other leads
and unexamined DNA evidence from the scene,
Springsteen and Scott would remain tangled up in this story
for years to come.
The story is about to begin.
The story is about to begin.
The story is about to begin.
The story is about to begin.
The story is about to begin.
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McDuff was not the only one to confess, however.
According to some sources, there were as many as 50
confessions containing credible details.
For some reason, only two of these confessions
were allowed to be introduced as defense
in Springsteen and Scott's trials.
According to the Chronicle, quote,
a confession given by Alex Briones,
who was already wanted in San Antonio
for raping a woman and setting her on fire,
told police in 1992 that the murders started off as a robbery,
that the girls were bound, gagged, and raped than shot,
that there were two guns used,
and the second looked like a silver semi-automatic,
and that napkins and cardboard boxes were stacked
on the bodies before the fire was set.
All these details correspond to the crime,
and were supposedly confidential, end quote.
And quote, Sean Smith described in court
as an Austin resident who in 1992,
voluntarily came forward to confess to the crime,
told police that he and some friends arrived
at the shop after hours, that they stripped and bound the girls,
and that one of the guns used was an automatic of some sort,
that the girls were stacked in the back room,
and that lighter fluid had been used to start the blaze,
end quote.
Apparently, police determined these to both be false
because of misinformation given of well-known facts,
including the number of victims involved.
The defense called one of the initial investigators,
Mike Huckabee, not, I don't think,
the former presidential candidate,
who admitted that the investigation was kind of a shit show
from the jump.
He said there was so much information coming in
and going out that at one point,
they thought there might have been a leak
from the police department.
Also, they questioned almost 60 teens,
and Huckabee said they were likely all talking
to each other and sharing information.
On the stand, Detective Jones testified,
quote, initially, information we would normally
keep confidential was coming back to us
with such frequency that we had to cross it off the list, end quote.
Additionally, the bullets found at the scene
did not match Pierce's gun and police
knew that months before arresting him.
The defense also called Dr. Richard Offsheh,
a professor of social psychology
at the University of California Berkeley.
Offsheh was there to testify to the coercive tactics
police used in their interrogations,
but apparently Judge Lynch was like,
uh-uh, no sir, you leave that up to the jury to decide.
And Offsheh was like, uh, how da fuck,
are they going to decide that
if you don't tell them what happened?
He told the Chronicle, quote,
I was severely limited in the testimony I might have given.
I know what happens in interrogations
and I can help a jury evaluate it fairly.
Because if a jury understands how interrogations work,
then they can understand those things
that elicit false confessions, end quote.
Michael Scott's confession was also used
as evidence in Springsteen's trial,
which was a major issue because he hadn't gone to trial yet.
So he couldn't be brought in to testify
about his confession.
And at that point, his confession was really just a thing
he'd said, probably under duress.
But later, at least one juror would say they considered
Scott's confession a, quote, key piece of evidence.
In his 2001 Austin Chronicle piece on the case,
someone has to die, reporter Jordan Smith said
the prosecution used redundant reminders
to, quote, overwhelm the lack of physical evidence.
The endless stream of photographs shown to the jurors
seemed to have their intended effect.
There were tears, horrified expressions,
and postures of recoil throughout the jury box.
But does the gruesome nature of the crime
demonstrate anything about the guilt of the suspect
at the defense table?
End quote.
On May 30, 2001, Robert Springsteen was convicted
and sentenced to die.
And then in 2005, his death sentence was commuted
to a life sentence when the Supreme Court ruled
executing juvenile killers is unconstitutional.
Michael Scott's trial began in September 2002
and followed pretty much the same bullet points
as Springsteens.
According to one source that I'm not going to name right now
because it's a spoiler alert, Scott's timeline
of at least 20 hours of combined interrogation hours
went like this.
Quote, in February 1998, with the case gone cold,
police decided to conduct a new investigation
of the crime.
They re-questioned Scott by telephone
and he denied involvement.
On September 9, 1999, Scott was questioned again,
this time in a police station.
At one point during a 12 hour interrogation,
Scott said he knew the identities of the killers.
On September 10, the interrogation resumed
and ultimately Scott said he had probably shot one
of the girls and they'd he fired a gun once
and that he set the fire.
On September 13, Scott was interviewed once more
and said he remembered seeing Pierce
with one of the girls in a separate room in the yogurt shop.
He said he thought he had gagged one of the girls
with paper towels or napkins.
Further, Scott said the 22 caliber pistol came
from Springsteen.
He remembered little about the other weapon
but thought it was a semi-automatic 38 caliber and, quote.
Melvin Stahl, the city's fire investigator,
believed the fire had started in a corner of the shop
where supplies were stored.
But Scott said he started the fire
on the girl's bodies using an accelerant.
Investigators solved that discrepancy
by seeking a second opinion from ATF agent,
Marshall Littleton, who was like,
oh, yeah, the fire was definitely started
on the bodies with an accelerant.
They went back to Stahl who was suddenly like,
oh, yeah, you're right, oops, haha,
somehow I missed that the first time around, my bad.
According to a piece from 2001 in the Texas Monthly,
Detective Robert Merrill held a gun to Scott's head
during his interrogation on September 10th, 1999.
There is indeed a still image of it
from the interrogation room's video camera.
Now, you know me, stranger,
I'm no desperate Austin detective
trying to put a check in the solved box
so my bosses don't fire me,
but I'm pretty sure holding a gun to your suspect's head
is never considered legal.
I may be a dummy, plenty of people have said as much,
but what kind of answers do you expect to get from someone
with a gun pointed to their head?
Oh, that's right, the answers you want.
Sorry, duh.
Duh.
Scott was convicted on September 22nd, 2002,
and sentenced to life in prison.
Forrest Wellborn, who was only 15 at the time of the murders
had opened his own auto repair shop
and was married by the time he was arrested
in 2000.
According to News 8 Austin, quote,
on Friday, June 30th, 2000, a judge dismissed
the four Capitol murder charges against him
because a grand jury failed twice to indict him.
End quote.
Despite that, quote, he lost his business
after being arrested and could not find a job
after being released on $375,000 bail.
End quote.
The only difference between Springsteen and Scott
and Pearson Wellborn is that Pearson Wellborn
never confessed.
There was no evidence on any of them.
The only reason Springsteen and Scott were indicted
and convicted was because they confessed.
Springsteen, of course, immediately appealed,
and in May of 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
overturned his conviction.
Not being able to admit they were wrong,
the state tried to appeal the ruling,
but the Supreme Court was like, get the fuck out of here
and refuse to even consider it.
In April of 2008, according to the Austin-American Statesman,
the defense team disclosed that there was, quote,
previously undiscovered DNA that did not come
from either Scott or Springsteen
that was taken from one of the victims.
End quote.
Indeed, there were multiple samples
from unidentified males taken from three of the victims.
In 2009, seven former jurors said they wouldn't have voted
to convict an either trial if they had known
about the DNA evidence.
Despite all that, though,
according to a piece in the AP from 2010,
prosecutors had their heels deeply dug in
and said they stood by their case, quote,
despite the DNA results.
They noted previous jury verdicts and confessions
by Scott and Springsteen, end quote.
In a press conference, Travis County District Attorney
Rosemary Lemberg said, quote,
she still hopes to try Scott 35 in Springsteen 34,
but must first determine who's DNA was recently found
in vaginal swabs taken from 13-year-old victim
Amy Ayers, end quote.
You think?
Sergeant Ron Lara, a chief investigator on the case,
said, quote, our focus continues on the suspects at hand
referring to Scott and Springsteen.
He also said that detectives are still investigating
Maurice Pierce 34 against whom charges were dismissed
in 2003 for lack of evidence, end quote.
Dude, let it go.
You were wrong.
It takes a big man to admit that.
Through all of this, however, Springsteen and Scott
remained in prison.
Listen, I don't know how this facocked a system works.
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On Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 10 years after being imprisoned, Springsteen and Scott were
released on bond pending new trials, which would never happen.
According to the statesman, quote, prosecutors faced an ultimatum by Judge Lynch.
Proceed to trial or he would consider a defense motion to dismiss the cases based on the
defendant's rights to a speedy trial.
Prosecutors move for dismissal at a short hearing Wednesday.
Lynch complied.
End quote.
But please don't think for a moment stranger that the state was eating crow.
Nope.
CDA, Lemberg, maintained she still believed Scott and Springsteen to be guilty.
She stood in front of a throng of reporters and told them the new DNA evidence did not
exonerate all four original suspects.
Pierce, well-born Springsteen and Scott, it just meant that there was a fifth suspect
who helped them carry out the crime, that they hadn't been able to identify.
Jesus Christ.
Lemberg clung on to this fifth-man theory despite evidence of yet another unknown man found
on the victim's clothing.
The statesman reported, quote, in addition to the DNA found on Ayers, defense lawyers say
they found DNA from the same male in a vaginal swab taken from Jennifer Harbison.
They also found another partial DNA profile in Sarah Harbison, which is not complete enough
to determine who it belongs to, according to defense lawyers.
Finally, they found unknown male DNA on clothing used to bind the wrists of Thomas.
End quote.
Lemberg complained that the DNA testing had cost more than $200,000.
Ooh, fuckin' who?
You should have done your job right in the first place.
Also, I'm pretty sure those are tax dollars.
Fun.
The cost was due, in part, to having to send the samples to a private lab, quote, until
this summer when the State Department of Public Safety Crime Lab began conducting the testing,
end quote.
That was 2010.
Apparently, until this summer actually meant 15 years.
It wasn't until 2025 that the unknown DNA sample was finally identified as belonging to
Robert Eugene, Braschers.
Braschers had an attempted murder in Florida in 85, for which he was imprisoned, and then
paroled in 89.
Through the DNA testing, it was discovered that after that attempted murder, he then raped
and murdered a woman in South Carolina in 1990, but somehow remained under the radar
enough to assault and murder the four girls at the yogurt shop in 91.
He went on to commit three more rapes and two more murders.
On January 13, 1999, police found Braschers at a super-rate motel in Missouri.
He was holding his wife, daughter, and two-step daughters hostage with a 380 pistol.
He released his family and then shot himself in the head.
He survived for six days and then died from the injuries.
The gun, with which he shot himself, was the same makin' model as the one used to kill
Amy Ayers.
Now do you want to get really mad stranger?
According to the City of Austin's website, detectives learned, quote, that on December 8,
1991, less than 48 hours after the yogurt shop murders, Braschers was stopped by border
patrol at a westbound checkpoint between El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico.
He was driving a stolen car out of Georgia and was in possession of a 380 pistol, end quote.
It was the same caliber gun, according to the bullets at the scene, and the same gun
he would use to kill himself eight years later.
A smoking gun found just days after the murder and border control couldn't be bothered
to, I don't know, flag it?
Finally, in 2025, the new District Attorney, Jose Garza, said quote, there are still investigative
steps that are underway.
That being said, the overwhelming weight of the evidence points to the guilt of one man
and the innocence of four.
If the conclusions of that investigation are confirmed, the Travis County District Attorney's
office will take responsibility for our role in prosecuting these men, and sending one
to death row and one to serve life in prison.
If the conclusions of APD's investigations are confirmed as it appears that they will
be, I will say I am sorry, though I know that will never be enough, end quote.
For his part though, Springsteen's lawyer was quick to remind people that the real victims
of this whole awful thing are Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, Jennifer Harbison, and Sarah Harbison,
who were brutalized and murdered in the yogurt shop that night in 1991.
And of course, that's the hardest truth of the matter.
These four girls died in the innocent age of working their first jobs, sneaking fro
yo samples to friends who loiter them all long enough for you to clock out on a Friday night.
It's the time and space of life just getting started.
Adolescence fueled by anticipation and sugar.
Obviously, I imagine what happened to Amy, Eliza, Jennifer, and Sarah was horrifying.
But imagining them that night, hanging around the shop just before their deaths, hits
me even harder in the stomach.
I picture Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott just a few years older hanging around
the same mall, burning away the hours until adulthood hit them with those initial calls
from police, requesting interviews they'd inevitably clam up in.
The feeling is one of loss for their futures, and as is often the case, a renewed disgust
for authorities who don't take care with the lives affected in the chaos of crimes like
these.
My only hope is we remember these mistakes and learn from them.
What a gift it is to grow up and have the opportunity to change.
If given the chance, we're responsible to do so.
Next time on Strange and Unexplained, in the midst of World War II, three girls were
recruited by a Dutch resistance group fighting the Nazis.
The girls were tasked with extremely unusual jobs.
The kind of jobs only suited to young women.
They were very, very good at it.
The dainty Nazi killers.
Strange and Unexplained is a production of three goose entertainment and grab bag collab.
This episode was written by me, Daisy Egan, with research by Joe Gwerdet, sound mixing
and designed by Jeff Devine.
If you have an idea for an episode or want to submit a question for an ask me anything
episode, it had to strange and UnexplainedPod.com and fill out the contact form.
I will write back, eventually.
I need an assistant.
You can follow me on social media at Daisy Egan or follow the show at SNUPod and grab
bag collab.
Stay Strange.

Strange and Unexplained with Daisy Eagan

Strange and Unexplained with Daisy Eagan

Strange and Unexplained with Daisy Eagan