December 6, 1991, two girls, Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas are visited by Jennifer’s sister, 15-year-old Sarah, and Sarah’s friend, 13 -year-old Amy Ayers. It’s getting late and they ask Jennifer for a ride home. Then, strangers walk into the shop sometime close to 11 pm, presumably a little later. This would be the last time they were seen alive.
Later, smoke billows from the yogurt shop, I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt. Sergeant Jones got the call and responded to the fire after an Austin Police Department officer radioed it in. As they enter the crime scene, they could not imagine what they would find. 4 girls shot in the head with a .22 caliber gun, bound with their clothes, at least one of them raped, and the scene torched to cover up evidence.
Immediately, Austin’s public immensely pressured the police force, as this was unheard of in Austin, Texas. Three girls practically stacked on each other, the crime so brutal it would scar the investigating officers for the rest of their lives.
Only four suspects were brought in and charged with the crime, eight years after the murder: Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Robert Springsteen, and Michael Scott.
The Accused
Maurice Pierce was killed after stabbing a police officer, Officer Frank Wilson, in the neck with a knife, severing his carotid artery, which showed clear aggressive behavior from at least one of the suspected killers in the case. Wilson survived.
They arrested Robert Springsteen along with four other suspects on October 6, 1999. Only the cases against Michael Scott and Springsteen went to trial. Springsteen was sentenced to death in 2001, but DNA evidence later would be his savior when the state of Texas’ highest criminal appeals court overturned Robert Springsteen’s case, and on October 28, 2009, all charges were dismissed against Scott and Springsteen. Charges against Forrest Wellborn and Maurice pierce were also dropped.
Later, Springsteen would seek compensation from the state of Texas for his “wrongful imprisonment.” Texas courts later decided on December 21, 2016, that he was not eligible for compensation because they never proved it without a doubt that he didn’t commit the crime.
Michael Scott confessed to the killings when detained, but later his confession would be ruled as inadmissible in court. However, not before they convicted him of Capital Murder in a trial that would sentence him to death before being mitigated to a lower sentence of life in prison. Once again, this case was overturned.
Lack of Evidence
Although the case lacked solid physical evidence, and DNA did not link any of the teenage boys at the time to the crime, they got a hit from the FBI database. However, they could not get the records from the FBI because of laws protecting the person’s identity, which has meant cruel and unnecessary punishment for the victim’s families, who have already suffered major setbacks since the murders. How the FBI has handled not releasing the information to the families and local police has been nothing but deplorable, and they have a lot to answer to.
As of 2020, there are no more leads on the murders, but the families still hope that the FBI will make the right choice and release the records and bring the girls’ killer, or killers, to justice.
References
https://www.kxan.com/news/man-convicted-released-in-yogurt-shop-murders-wont-receive-compensation/
austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2010–12–24/former-yogurt-shop-suspect-killed-by-apd-updated/
https://wickedwe.com/robert-springsteen/
