An Austin courtroom is poised to take a major step in one of the city's most painful chapters, with a hearing that could formally clear four men long tied to the notorious 1991 yogurt shop murders. The proceeding follows a key move by county prosecutors and months of fresh forensic work that now points to a different, deceased suspect. For two men who spent years in prison and the families who lost daughters, the hearing could finally nudge the case toward official closure.
According to KVUE, a Travis County hearing has been scheduled to consider court filings that would appoint counsel and formally disclose exculpatory evidence to the men once accused in the case. The station reports that prosecutors filed paperwork in December to begin the exoneration process, setting the stage for the upcoming court date.
In a press release from the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, District Attorney José Garza detailed a Texas Disciplinary Rule 3.09 notice of exculpatory evidence and a motion to appoint counsel for Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, Maurice Pierce and Forest Welborn. “Thirty-four years is too long for anyone to have to wait for the criminal legal process to be over,” Garza said in the release.
City records and local coverage recount that the murders occurred on December 6, 1991, at an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt shop on West Anderson Lane, where firefighters later discovered the four teenage victims. The City of Austin lists the address as 2949 West Anderson Lane and notes that the shop had been set on fire after the victims were bound and shot.
How investigators linked the case to a new suspect
Investigators say new analysis of preserved evidence has connected the crime to Robert Eugene Brashers, who died by suicide in 1999, following a combination of DNA testing and ballistics comparisons, according to reporting from The Associated Press and CBS News. Officials have said that DNA recovered from beneath a victim's fingernails and a shell casing collected at the scene were among the matches that spurred the renewed effort to formally clear the original suspects.
What the legal process looks like
The Rule 3.09 notice asks the court to appoint attorneys for the four men so prosecutors can make timely disclosure of any evidence that “tends to negate the guilt of the accused,” the DA’s office wrote in its December release. If a judge later issues formal declarations of innocence, the surviving men could seek state compensation under Texas’ Tim Cole Act, which generally provides roughly $80,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment, along with certain additional benefits. Court rulings and statutory summaries describe how the Tim Cole Act is applied.
Family, lawyers and what's next
Local reporting indicates that victims’ families and defense attorneys are meeting the developments with cautious relief as the legal process grinds forward. Survivors of the earlier prosecutions say formally clearing the men’s records would mark a crucial step after decades of public suspicion, according to KUT News, which has followed the DA’s filings and family statements.
The upcoming hearing is procedural but loaded with significance: it triggers the formal machinery to appoint counsel, review the new evidence and potentially close the book on one of Austin’s longest-running cold cases. Prosecutors say additional steps will follow once attorneys are appointed and the exculpatory records are officially disclosed.
