The Yogurt Shop Murders: Could a DNA sample taken 31 years ago solve the infamous case?

When 4 teenage ladies have been murdered in an Austin, Texas, yogurt store in 1991, a heartbroken metropolis was left trying to find solutions. No one imagined that greater than 30 years later, the case would stay unsolved. 

But now, due to new advances in DNA know-how, there may be renewed hope that a piece of proof collected from the scene on the night time of the crime will likely be key to fixing the case as soon as and for all. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty reviews on the newest developments in “The Yogurt Shop Murders,” reairing Saturday, August 27 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

On December 6, 1991, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, 13-year-old Amy Ayers, and two sisters, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and 15-year-old Sarah Harbison, have been discovered gagged, tied up with their very own clothes, and shot in the head in an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! store in Austin. Whoever was accountable had additionally set the store on fireplace, compromising a lot of the proof. 

Eliza and Jennifer had been working at the yogurt store that night time. They have been on the brink of shut when Jennifer’s sister, Sarah, and their buddy, Amy, met them there to go residence. Investigators consider at the least two males entered the store and dedicated the brutal crime. 

Gunshot wounds revealed two several types of weapons have been used — however there was scant different proof at the scene, and particles from the fireplace sophisticated the early investigation. The Austin Police Department quickly developed a activity power devoted solely to fixing the crime. Government companies, together with the FBI, have been referred to as in to help, however the case in the end went chilly till 1999, when 4 males, Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn, have been arrested and charged with the murders.

The males have been solely youngsters at the time of the crime. They have been first questioned simply days after the murders when one in every of them, Maurice Pierce, was arrested at a mall not removed from the yogurt store with a .22 caliber gun — one in every of the identical forms of weapons believed to have been utilized in the killings. 

All 4 have been launched again then for lack of proof, however in 1999, when a new crew of investigators have been tasked with taking a recent take a look at the previous case, they obtained confessions from two of the 4 males, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott. Those confessions would later be referred to as into query after the two recanted, saying they have been coerced. 

Charges have been in the end dropped towards Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn attributable to lack of proof, and Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott have been the solely two to go on trial. The sole proof towards them have been their very own phrases. They have been each convicted, however a few years later, their convictions have been overturned on constitutional grounds. The Sixth Amendment provides defendants the proper to confront accusers and in Scott and Springsteen’s trials, their confessions have been used towards each other, however they weren’t allowed to query one another in court docket.

Rosemary Lehmberg, the Travis County, Texas, district legal professional at the time, was intent on retrying Springsteen and Scott. But earlier than doing so, her workplace determined to benefit from what was then a pretty new kind of DNA testing referred to as Y-STR testing. It was a method of trying to find and extracting male DNA solely. Y-STR testing was ordered on vaginal swabs taken from the victims at the time of the murders. By this level, investigators had come to consider that at the least one in every of the victims had been sexually assaulted. As a results of the Y-STR testing, a partial male DNA profile was obtained from one in every of the ladies, however to the shock of the district legal professional’s workplace, the DNA sample didn’t match any of the 4 males who have been arrested.

CeCe Moore, a DNA knowledgeable and genetic genealogist whom we interviewed for this week’s “48 Hours,” advised correspondent Erin Moriarty that Y-STR DNA is a software generally utilized in prison circumstances. Moore defined it “can eliminate almost everyone. … Everyone but the suspect.”

“If their Y-STR does not match, they did not contribute that DNA?” Moriarty requested Moore.

“Because of… where that DNA was found, yes, in this case, it’s very important,” Moore stated.

Still, prosecutors have been decided to retry Springsteen and Scott. But earlier than doing so, they needed to determine who that thriller DNA belonged to. 

District Attorney Lehmberg says greater than 100 males — comparable to crime scene investigators and personnel from the health worker’s workplace who may need are available in contact with the physique and probably been a supply of contamination — have been examined. It was all to no avail. In 2009, with no matches, the costs towards Springsteen and Scott have been dropped. After practically 10 years behind bars, they have been launched, however not exonerated, leaving open the risk they could possibly be retried at a later time.

For years, officers saved making an attempt to trace down the supply of the thriller DNA. Then, in 2017, an Austin police investigator searched a public on-line DNA database used for inhabitants research to see if he may get a hit. Unbelievably, he did. It gave the impression to be the most promising lead in years, however there was a drawback. The seemingly matching sample in the public database had been submitted anonymously by the FBI and had no identify hooked up to it. When officers in Austin contacted the FBI in an effort to get a identify, the FBI wouldn’t present it, citing privateness legal guidelines. 

Frustrated, metropolis officers reached out to U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul, who’s from Austin, for assist. McCaul pressed the FBI, and “48 Hours” has realized that in early 2020, the FBI agreed to work with the Austin Police Department to see if additional testing could possibly be finished on that Y-STR DNA from the crime scene.

“48 Hours” has realized that originally, the sample from the crime scene was not very detailed and had solely 16 markers, however extra superior testing in 2020 got here up with an extra 9 markers, bringing the whole marker depend to 25. However, this extra superior testing revealed that the sample from the crime scene not proved to be a match to the sample in the public DNA database. In a letter to Congressman McCaul obtained by “48 Hours,” the FBI defined the new outcomes “conclusively exclude the male donor of the FBI’s sample … as such, the FBI Y-STR profile is not an investigative lead.”

“And that was the greatest disappointment because we really thought we had it,” Congressman McCaul advised Moriarty.

Still, McCaul says that he and Austin officers is not going to relaxation till they decide who that DNA from the crime scene belongs to.

“We’re waiting for… the DNA science to improve to then resubmit what we have left in the crime lab for further testing,” McCaul stated.

According to McCaul, a few of the precise Y-STR DNA from the sample discovered on the sufferer in the yogurt store case nonetheless exists.

“It’s very limited and … that’s why we’re waiting for the science to improve on this, because there’s very little left,” he stated.

With DNA analysis advancing so shortly, McCaul hopes that someday that sample of DNA obtained 31 years ago will lastly solve the case.

“It’s everything,” he says.