On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls—Amy Ayers, 13; Eliza Thomas, 17; and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, 17 and 15—were bound, gagged, and shot in the head inside the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” shop in Austin, Texas, where two of them worked. Investigators said the attacker set the building on fire before fleeing. Firefighters found the bodies amid the blaze, which damaged critical evidence at the scene, as per news agency AP.The crime stunned the city. Some of the girls had been sexually assaulted, and three bodies were found in a back room covered with Styrofoam cups. Despite thousands of leads and multiple confessions, the case went cold for years.
False convictions and the cold case years
In 1999, four men who had been juveniles at the time were arrested. Two confessed and were convicted, with one sent to death row, though both convictions were later overturned due to constitutional errors and lack of physical evidence. Charges were dropped in 2009 after new DNA evidence excluded the men and pointed to an unknown male suspect.
The breakthrough: DNA and ballistics
Cold case detectives, led by Daniel Jackson of the Austin Police Department, revisited the physical evidence in 2022. Advanced DNA testing, including Y-STR testing, which targets male DNA, allowed investigators to isolate a profile from under Amy Ayers’ fingernails, a belt buckle, and an ice cream scoop.In June 2025, Jackson resubmitted a .380 calibre shell casing found at the scene to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). In July, it matched an unsolved 1998 murder in Kentucky with similar details. By August, South Carolina officials informed Austin detectives that DNA from a 1990 sexual assault and murder in Greenville matched the same profile. That man was identified as Robert Eugene Brashers, who had died by suicide in 1999 after a standoff with police.
Linking Brashers to the yogurt shop
Brashers had a history of violent crime across several states, including murder and sexual assault. Evidence showed similarities in his crimes, such as victims being tied up, sexually assaulted and fires being set at crime scenes. Police found no indication of an accomplice in the Austin killings.Detectives noted that Brashers had been arrested two days after the Austin murders while driving a stolen vehicle with a pistol at a border checkpoint near El Paso. The firearm was later linked to him, and forensic comparisons confirmed it was the same calibre used in the yogurt shop murders.
Official statements and closure for families
Travis County District Attorney José Garza said the “overwhelming weight of the evidence points to the guilt of one man” and affirmed the innocence of the men previously convicted. Families also expressed relief after decades of uncertainty. Sonora Thomas, sister of Eliza, was quoted by AP as saying, “I now know what happened, and that does ease my suffering.” Barbara Ayres-Wilson, mother of Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, said, “We never wanted anyone to go to jail or be charged with anything that they didn’t do — vengeance was never it. It was always the truth”.The case remains open as authorities continue to explore whether Brashers may be connected to other unsolved crimes across the country.
