The 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders, a harrowing cold case that took the lives of four teenage girls, remains unsolved after 33 years. On the evening of December 6, four friends were brutally murdered in a yogurt shop where two of them worked. WFAA provides a detailed recount of the chilling sequence of events, describing how the last night of Jennifer Harbison, 17, her sister Sarah, 15, their friend Eliza Thomas, 17, and 13-year-old Amy Ayers ended in an atrocity that has etched itself into the memory of Austin residents.
Described as an act of "evil" by Amy's sister-in-law Angie Ayers in a statement obtained by WFAA, the young victims were tied, assaulted, and murdered before the assailant set the building on fire. It was through both flames and the water from firefighters' efforts to extinguish the fire that crucial evidence was lost, hindering the capability to swiftly bring justice to the families of the slain girls. The Austin Police Department has been reported to follow over 700 leads throughout the investigation.
Several arrests were made in connection with the crime over the years; first in Mexico, where three men were apprehended but later released, and then in 1999 when Austin police arrested four more suspects. Two of those, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, initially confessed to the murders but later claimed coercion. According to WFAA, a federal judge ruled in 2009 that the confessions were inadmissible as the suspects did not have the opportunity to confront each other in court, resulting in their release.
New DNA testing in 2008 called Y-STR analysis brought another twist to the case. It found that DNA on one of the victims did not match the DNA of either Scott or Springsteen. Even with such revelations, the case remains unresolved, leaving families and the community to continuously seek closure. According to KXAN, nearly a thousand community members gathered to mourn the losses, highlighting the case's profound impact on the city.
In remembrance, the victims' families and friends, alongside Austin's residents, look back at the incident not just as a grim chapter in the city's history, but as an open wound awaiting healing. The search for truth remains critical for families like Amy's, who will always remember the fight she put up against her assailant, as recounted by family to WFAA. Each lead, each break in the case, serves as a possibility to finally answer the haunting question that has lingered for over three decades: who killed these four innocent girls in a yogurt shop in Austin?
