November 13, 2025 • 50 mins
Join Robin as he tells Jules the details of the recently solved Austin Yogurt Shop Murders. (Ash is out this series of episodes but will be back when she is done her book tour). Part 3/3
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome back to part three of our series about the
Austin yogurt shot murders. We will finally be talking about
how this case was solved. And then things got really
ridiculous because in October of two thousand and three, several
months after the charges were dropped against Maurice, they decided
to charge Michael Scott's best friend Patrick Davison on the
charges of being an accessory after the fact, failing to
(00:50):
report a felony, making a false statement, and obstruction of
justice because during his original confession, Michael had claimed that
he had given Patrick a paper bag containing the pistol
used in the murders and told them to hide it.
And I know that after Michael confessed, he supposedly called
Patrick and told him to tell police about the gun
(01:10):
if they asked. And Patrick was questioned by investigators a
few days later, and he recalled that, oh yeah, I
kind of remember back in nineteen ninety one, Mike gave
me a paper bag and I threw it in a
trash container at his apartment complex. But he kept changing
his story over the next few years. He said he
couldn't really remember, and then when Mike went on trial,
the official story presented was that Patrick had tossed the
(01:33):
three eighty gun into Lake Austin. So by the time
Patrick was indicted on these new charges, he finally said that, no,
Michael never gave me a gun. I did not dispose
of it. But they pretty much told him that you
could face twenty years in federal prison and a million
dollar fine if you go on trial. So Patrick agreed
to a plea deal in which he could plead guilty
(01:53):
to lesser charges in exchange for only one year in prison.
And many people suspected that this was sour rapes, that
because they couldn't get a conviction against Maurice Pierce, they
were going after this so called accessory who had disposed
of the murder weapon. But now we know that these
four guys didn't do it. So Patrick never likely never
got rid of a gun, and it turns out he
(02:15):
accepted a plea deal and spent a year in prison
for nothing.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
This case is a nightmare. But honestly, all of these
innocent people being railroaded and they're thinking that they're getting
some kind of justice, Like you really have to question
if the investigators really and truly believe this. You're trying
to shore up your case more by going in charge
of him like way after the facts. I don't understand,
is it because you couldn't get convictions with Maurice and
(02:40):
Forrest that you're just trying to make it look like
this is a real sure thing, that like you did
the right thing and all of these people who are
tangentially involved are then going to be held responsible. It
seems like overkill.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It pretty much was, yeah, that they were just trying
to get vengeance on everyone they could. And I couldn't
even understand Patrick's decision because he's pretty much told you
can face twenty years in prison, but if you plead guilty,
you'll only get one year. So even if he's innocence,
he's probably thinking to myself, if I take a chance
at trial, I've already seen two of my friends go
to prison and one of them is on death row.
(03:17):
I'm going to take the plea even though it turned
out all along that he was completely innocent and that
this charge of him disposing of the gun was completely bogus.
So in two thousand and five, the United States Supreme
Court had a new ruling that juveniles should not be
executed for crimes they committed well under the age of eighteen,
and since Robert had been seventeen at the time that
(03:37):
the Yeowart Shop murders occurred, his death sentence was commuted
to a life imprisonment. But more things would happen with
the case because it would be heard in front of
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and in May of
two thousand and six they voted by a decision of
five to four to overturn his conviction. And in their eyes,
the state's decision to use excerpts of Mike's confession at
(03:59):
Rob's trial without having Mike testify violated the confrontation clause
of the sixth Amendment of the Constitution, because the exact
wording is quote in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall
enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against them.
And they figured because some light cannot be called to
the witness stand to be questioned about things in his
(04:20):
written confession, that meant that Robert received an unfair trial.
And the following year they did the exact same thing
with Mike's conviction, where they said, because you presented Robert's
confession is evidence, but you do not have Robert take
the witness stand to be cross examined. You did not
receive a fair trial, so his conviction was also overturned.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Well, you've got the right to confront your accuser, so
it kind of shocks me that they went ahead with
that anyways.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, I was thinking that they should have looked this
up before the trials and was not wasted everyone's time
and stuff. But it just seems like such a flag
and violation that someone can make accusations against them and
you can read their statement in court, but your defense
attorney can't cross examine them and try to destroy their credibility.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I feel like we've all watched enough law and order
by that point that you'd know that somebody can't just
go ahead and say anything in a confession and without
that cross examination option. The fact that that wasn't brought
up by the defense during the trial for either of
them is shocking to me.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It is. Yeah, I think they both got public defenders
just because they were not wealthy people. They couldn't afford
hard price to attorneys, and they probably just didn't even
think about that. But I'm thinking that if they had
gotten a more skilled lawyer, then the charges may have
been dropped against them before they even went to trial,
because if they couldn't use the other confessions, their case
would have had some huge damage to it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
What year were these trials taking place? Two thousand?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Ah, Yes, the first one was in two thousand and
the next one was in two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I would just think from watching legal procedural dramas that
just any average person by the year two thousand would think, Okay,
like this is something that is necessary. You got the
right to confront your accuser. And so the fact that
not one but two lawyers, whether they're public defenders or not,
(06:13):
that is so shocking to me that that wasn't addressed
at the time. That seems like that's ineffective.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Counsel pretty much. Yeah, so they would have had lots
of grounds in order to have their conviction overturns. And
I think that if they ever had gone to trial again,
I think some lawyer would have represented them pro bono,
thinking this case is outrageous and I want to help
you guys.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, you'd think like the Innocence Project, any number of
iterations of what the innocence project is in different states
could have helped them out because it's very clear that
the evidence here was very, very thin.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Pretty much. Yeah. So, back in nineteen ninety one, and
even in nineteen ninety nine when they originally charged, the
DNA testing in criminal cases was not yet a common thing.
So while both defendants were in prison and the defense said,
can we test the DNA, and of course the state thought,
well this could further our case, go right ahead and
do it. And of course this is going to turn
(07:09):
out bad for them. So the bodies have been set
on fire, and because water had been used, a lot
of the physical evidence was destroyed, so they were unable
to get a full DNA profile, but they were able
to get it by doing vaginal swabs, and since the
evidence was going to contain mixtures of male DNA and
female DNA, the an independent lab would perform y STR testing,
(07:31):
which is short tandem repeat testing specific to the male
Y chromosome. So they wound up finding a semen sample
from Jennifer's body and it actually matched the DNA of
her boyfriend at the time, Sammy Buchanan. But it turned
out this was because they had consensual sex a couple
hours before shift began at home. But of course they
(07:51):
found traces of Sammy's DNA on Sarah's body, which meant
that someone else had raped her and then somehow transferred
traces of Sammy's d DNA on to Sarah, so obviously
the presence of his DNA did not mean that the
perpetrator didn't leave it behind. They also found a y
sdr strand a male DNA on a vaginal swab taken
(08:12):
from Amy, and of course she was thirteen years old
at the time, so they're not going to use the
consensual sex thing for her and say that it belonged
to someone else. And because they also found this same
individual's DNA on Jennifer, they were able to establish that
unlikely belonged to one of the perpetrators. And surprise, surprise,
it turned out that the DNA did not match Robert
(08:33):
Michael forrest Or Maurice. And of course, the state completely
admitted their mistake and said they were wrong all along.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Not yeah, not a shocker.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
No, Instead, they said that, oh, maybe these four men
had a fifth conspirator who assisted with the crime, and
he was the one who raped the girl and left
the DNA behind, which the defense found completely ridiculous, saying
that Robert and Michael made these very detailed confessions, yet
they're somehow going to fail to mentioned that they had
a fifth co conspirator, the.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Good old unindicted co conspirator slash ejaculator theory. When it
doesn't work out and they have those four, let's just
add on that there's got to be another person, rather
than examined that, Okay, these guys, they might be innocent.
It's like that whole sunken cost fallacy. We've already put
so much energy and time and our reputations into these
(09:25):
cases that it's not possible that it could be somebody else.
What's more possible is there is an additional person.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
What, Yeah, pretty much, we're just I've seen this in
a lot of other cases where you talked about the
unindicted co ejaculator, where they'll just say, oh, they still
committed the murder, but they had this accomplice who committed
the rape and left the semen behind, even though we've
never mentioned this at all before this DNA testing. So
they will go to great lengths to avoid admitting the
wrong and they would try another strategy like this because
(09:55):
then they would say, oh, maybe it was cross contamination
and the DNA belongs to an evidence to technician or something. Well,
the defense tried to call their bluff because they kind
elected DNA samples from pretty much everyone who was at
the crime scene that night, like the firefighters, the police officers,
the evidence technicians, former employees from the shop, even friends
and acquaintances of the victims, and the DNA match none
(10:18):
of them. So it seemed pretty clear cut that this
DNA sample belonged to the real perpetrator, and because it
did not match any of the four defendants, that means
that they couldn't have done it. So finally, they had
been in jail like for years waiting for this DNA testing.
But in October of two thousand and nine, the state
finally said, well, with the evidence we have, there's no
(10:38):
way we can take Michael or Robert back to trial again,
so we're finally going to release them and drop the charges.
But by this point they had been locked up for
ten years, and it took forever to reach this point,
and at.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
This point it's not like they're saying that they're innocent,
So to be able to go after the state and
to get any kind of compensation would be exceedingly difficult.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Would it not pretty much? Yeah, I was just going
to talk about that. They tried to seek compensation for
the wrongful convictions, but they technically weren't exonerated. They only
had the charges dropped, so they pretty much the court says,
we cannot give you compensation until you prove your innocence,
and even though we have DNA that does not belong
to you, there are all these other possibilities like you
(11:23):
having an accomplice, which means we can't prove you didn't
do it. So they were pretty much trapped in limbo.
And even though they are often listed on websites like
the Innocence Project, they were still recognized by the law
ask convicted murderers until they finally resolved this case a
month ago.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That is so wild to me. The system is totally
rigged to think that these individuals can do all of
this time behind bars, and you essentially have to prove
that you're innocent, which is damn near impossible unless you
find out who the actual killer is. But to task
a person who you've wrongfully incarcerated with something so weighty
(12:01):
when investigators couldn't even figure it out, prosecutors couldn't figure
it out, but you're going to expect this person. In
order for them to become an exonery, they've got to
solve the murder. Like the burden is insane.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
That's pretty much it, because by that point they were released,
it was eighteen years since the crime was committed and
they still had not found the real killers. But it
became apparent that the only way they would ever be
officially exonerated is if they finally identified who was the
source of that DNA. And there would be a sad
PostScript to Maurice Pearce because since he was released in
(12:36):
two thousand and three after the charges were dropped, he
apparently became very paranoid that the Austin police route to
get him and would do something bad to him as
revenge for not being able to get a conviction. So
on December twenty third, twenty ten, Maurice was pulled over
for a seemingly routine traffic stop after he failed to
properly stop at a stop sign, and while it was
(12:57):
going on, he was speaking to his daughter in his
solfe in the last words he said were quote, they're
after me again, before telling his daughter he loved her
and that he would never see her again before he
hung up, and almost immediately Maurice attempted to flee the
scene on foot until one of the officers, Frank Wilson,
caught up with them and he struggle ensued, in which
Maurice removed her utility knife from Wilson's belt and stabbed
(13:21):
him in the neck, so Wilson responded by pulling out
his gun and fatally shooting Maurice, and a toxicology report
would show that Maurice had a blood alcohol level of
zero point one point four at that time, which was
over the legal a limit, and Wilson survived his injuries,
and an internal investigation ruled that the shooting was justified,
(13:41):
and even though conspirators have said that they deliberately killed
him as revenge for the Yogurt shot murders, Wilson did
say I had no idea who this guy was when
I pulled them over. I just thought it was a
routine traffic stop and he ran away and attacked me unprovoked.
So I do believe him that the shooting was justified,
that he had no choice. But I think Maurice, because
of all the paranoia and his mental health struggles from
(14:03):
thinking that he was going to be re arrested for
the Yogret shot murders at any time, just snapped and
then just decided to attack this officer.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh, poor Maurice, And I feel bad for his daughter
who's on the phone he's essentially saying goodbye. It almost
becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy that you believe that
they're after you, and so you end up putting yourself
in a situation where he could have got away without
injury or without injuring somebody else. But because he was
(14:32):
so paranoid, and I'm sure all of those years that
he had to deal with all of this is just
such a weight on his shoulders, on his mental health.
To think that everywhere you look, when you're seeing police,
you're seeing somebody who you think is there to screw
you over. They're there to throw you behind bars, they're
there to hurt you. It's just one of the tragedies
(14:52):
of this story. We see the deaths of Sarah, Amy, Eliza,
and Jennifer, but then we also see this tragedy with Maurice,
and and we see what happened with Forrest and Robert
and Michael, and there's a lot of victims in this case.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Oh definitely, and just you can only imagine how the
victims' families felt when Robert and Michael were released from prison.
I remember watching like a forty eight Hours episode from
that era where they reported on the release from prison
and they interviewed some of the victims' family members and
they still said, we believe that these guys are guilty.
We don't care what the DNA says. They confess, like
(15:28):
how could they not have done it? And of course
you can't really blame them because they've been manipulated so much,
told that we got the right guys, and now they're
seeing them walk free from prison. And one of the
women who one of the family members who was most
outspoken was Eliza's mother, Maria Thomas, where she went on
this angry interview on forty eight Hours saying they've been
released because they said the rights were violated, But what
(15:49):
about my daughter's rights? What about the other victims' rights?
Like who cares about them? And even though like she's
totally wrong on this, you could understand her frustration because
she's probably not going to understand like why these people
that she's been convinced are guilty are suddenly walking free.
And sadly, Maria wound up passing away in March of
twenty fifteen at the age of sixty and was one
(16:11):
of the parents who did not live long enough to
finally see a resolution in this case.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's so sad, like it's such a tragedy for all
the families having to deal with this and not have
this resolution. I'm happy that the case eventually did get solved,
but so many years went by and so many lives
were destroyed in the process.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, and another one who passed away was Jennifer and
Sarah's father, Michael. He passed away last year in October
of twenty twenty four, and he was the one who
lost both of his children, his only children, and he
died well less than a year before they finally had
a resolution in the case. And it just makes me
so sad when I see the parents of missing and
murdered children have to pass away without receiving conclusive answers.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
We see it so often though, I think that the
trauma and the physical at the emotional told that the
death of a child takes specifically when it's an unsolved
murder and when you have two daughters that have been
murdered and you don't have a resolution and you don't
have any kind of justice because you feel like these
(17:17):
guys have been released. I don't know how Michael viewed
all of the evidence, if it was like these guys
could be innocent, or if he believed that they were
truly the guilty parties. But it's so sad that he
died just before the case was solved.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, it just so sad to see that. But thankfully,
I think they finally got more people in charge who
finally stopped going with the mentality that these four guys
did it and tried to look at other options and
tried to figure out who actually committed this crime. Because
in twenty seventeen, the DNA sample from Amy's vaginal swab
was entered into a public academic y SDR database from
(17:55):
the University of Central Florida's National Center for Forensic Science,
and it found up matching a male DNA sample which
had been anonymously submitted into the database by the FBI.
It had no name attached to it, and the FBI
declined to reveal the identity of the man because of
privacy laws, but it could have belonged to a federally
convicted offender. But the big problem is that the DNA
(18:17):
sample was not a complete profile because it only had
sixteen markers, whereas whenever genetic genealogy is used to help
solve a cold case, it usually involves DNA profiles which
have between sixty seven and one hundred and eleven markers.
So even though this DNA sample matched the guy in
the database, it could also potentially match thousands or even
millions of individuals. But they did perform further testing the
(18:40):
FBI in twenty twenty and they were able to produce
nine new markers on the sample, which brought it up
to twenty five and this time they resubmitted it into
the database to compare it to this offender, and one
of the markers was not a match, so they were
able to exclude this guy from being the perpetrator. And
you can see what's so frustrating about this, because even
though this profile is good for excluding potential offenders, you
(19:04):
can't really make a definitive match unless you have a
lot more markers. So it just seemed like they were
back to square one.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, that must have been really disappointing. They probably thought
like we've got our guy here. All we have to
do is just wait for more sophisticated testing. And then
they had those twenty five markers and then they run
it against him and it's not a match like that
would be incredibly, incredibly deflating.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Well, thankfully they did not give up. They still tried
to use that DNA to try to match to an offender,
and earlier this year they finally got a good break
when they entered it into a database and it wound
up matching DNA from another unsolved homicide which took place
in South Carolina in nineteen ninety and they're thinking, well,
this doesn't prove that who was responsible for this crime
(19:51):
was the responsible for the yogurt chop murders, but if
we keep looking at this lead, then we may have
something to work with here. So they found out that.
Eventually they solved this crimes from South Carolina and matched
it to an offender named Robert Eugene Brashers. But of
course the problem was is that he had been dead
since January of nineteen ninety nine. So it turned out
(20:13):
this guy was a serial killer, but at the time
he died, they didn't know he was a serial killer,
and in recent years, geneic genealogy has wound up matching
him to so many different murders and he seems like
a complete monster. But the first known crime that Brashers
committed was in November of nineteen eighty five in Port
Saint Lucie, Florida, where he sexually assaulted a twenty four
(20:36):
year old woman named Michelle Wilkerson, and when she tried
to fight him off, he shot her twice in the
neck and the head, and righteously she survived and managed
to escape from him, and because of a bad break
for him, he actually chased after on a beach and
got his truck stuck in the sand, so by the
time she was able to get help, he was still
(20:57):
trapped there and they were able to cock him down
and arrest him and charge him with attempted first degree murder,
aggravated battery, and using a firearm. He was convicted of
the crime and wound up getting a rather light sense
of twelve years imprisonment. But even more frustrating is that
he was released from prison on good conduct after only
serving for less than four years and May in nineteen
(21:19):
eighty nine. And this is another thing that makes me
tear my hair out, because if he had served the
full twelve year sentence, he still would have been in
prison in nineteen ninety one and the Austin yogurt shop
murders never would have happened.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
That is so ridiculous. That is an incredibly violent defense.
And I'm sure that Michelle lived just by the skin
of her teeth. The fact that he only got a
twelve year sentence for something so horrific. Did you say
it was two to the head and one to the neck.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Oh, one to the neck, yeah, two to the neck
and one to the head.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Like that is incredible to look at that and go, oh, well,
she didn't die. Well, it's by the grace of God
that she didn't die. And do you know what an
ended up happening to Michelle?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Not really, No, I haven't looked it up. I hope
she didn't live in too much terror, and if she
is still alive, she must be horrified to discover that
this was just the first of many, many crimes that
this guy would commit, and that if he had not
been released from prison early, many of these crimes could
have been prevented.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And is it so frustrating too when it's a man
that is committing violent crimes against women, and you put
him behind bars and he's with a bunch of men,
and he's on his best behavior. And it's like, of course,
he's on his best behavior. He's a violent offender who
commits these offenses against women and he's in a prison
with a bunch of men. Do you expect that he's
(22:40):
then going to completely change up his mo and act
like a monster. No, he's probably going to be on
his best behavior so he can try to get back
out there and keep committing crimes.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
And that's exactly what he did. But he still tried
to keep like a facade of being an ordinary family man,
because shortly after he was released, he wound up getting married.
He had a daughter named Deborah with his wife in
August of nineteen ninety one, and a later at a
later point, he wound up adopting two other girls. And
I don't know how that happened. A guy serving time
(23:11):
for attempted murder managed to adopt a two other girls.
But I think he lived under a number of false
names for a while, so maybe he was able to
fool the adoption system. But I know that his daughter
Deborah is very open about talking about her father, like
she didn't know him all that well, but of course
she is horrified to discover what he turned out to become.
(23:31):
But it is chilling to me that he had his
first daughter in August of nineteen ninety one, and then
just four months later in December, he's murdering four teenage girls.
And you wonder, how could someone with a little girl
at home, a little child like be able to do
something like that to other people's children.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
It's terrific, and it also makes you question the motivation
of his adoption of those two young girls.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I haven't heard any details about
him sexually assaulting her, but it might be because he died,
because because before they got old enough. But I think
that if they had become teenagers or something, he might
have done some horrific things. But I think they were
also saved from him because he would be arrested for
some other crimes in late nineteen ninety one, like grand theft, auto,
(24:13):
unlawful possession of a weapon, and theft. And what's crazy
is that he wound up getting arrested on December the eighth,
nineteen ninety one in al Paso two days after the
Austin yogurt shop murders, because I think he had been
visiting his father in Arizona and he was pulled over
near the Texas New Mexico border and it turned out
(24:34):
he was driving a stolen car and he actually had
the murder weapon from the yogret shop murders, and they
pretty much when he was arrested and charged with the
car theft, they gave the gun to Brasher's father, who
held it for him while he was serving time in
prison for this other crime, and then gave it back
to him after he was released. So it's crazy to
(24:54):
me that they caught the offender only two days after
the yogurt shop murders, had the murder weapon in their
possession and didn't even know it at the time and
actually just passed it around between numerous people.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh my god, how nineteen ninety one was that. I
would sure as hell hope that you're never going to
see that happen today. And I think just the policies
around these types of things, like it seems wild to
just give this weapon to his dad to hold. Aren't
you going to test this weapon and just see if
there's anything else, like any other crimes that it could
(25:28):
match ballistically, because if you look at this guy's criminal history,
it's obvious that he's got a violent passed. So there's
a potential that you could tie him to a litany
of other crimes with this gun, and you're just going
to hand it over to his dad.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, It's like makes me wonder did none of these
border patrol people in olpass so had they not heard
about the Austin yogurt shot murders, this huge homicide that
took place like a couple one hundred miles away, Like
you would think that you would be on the lookout
for anyone who was can carrying a firearm because this
was an unlawful weapon. It was not a gun that
he was supposed to own, and they just give it
(26:06):
back to his father, not realizing that it been used
to kill like four girls two days earlier. So he
wound up serving five years in prison for a variety
of crimes such as unlawful possession of a firearm and
grand theft auto and was released in February of nineteen
ninety seven. Thankfully, his children only had to live with
him for less than two years. But his daughter Deborah
(26:28):
has says that he had some unstable behavior, like one
time he made a tape recording of himself making cuts
on his neck and his arm with a saw just
to see if he was capable of withstanding pain. He
just seemed like someone who had a lot of mental
health issues, though I haven't heard anything about abusing his children, thankfully.
But the big breaking point came in January of nineteen
(26:49):
ninety nine because he stole a car, and according to
his family, he spent a lot of the time like
traveling on the road as part of his job because
he was in construction, So I guess he just randomly
decided to steal a vehicle. And they noticed it was
in the parking lot of a Super eight hotel in Kennet, Missouri,
and Brashers was staying there with his wife and three daughters.
(27:10):
And after the police broke down the door, they found
him hiding under a bed with a loaded gun holding
it to his head, and he started opening fire and
said that I will kill myself and my family if
he don't go away. So there was a big police
standoff for several hours with a bunch of negotiating going on,
and he finally decided to release his wife and three children,
(27:31):
but before police could go and arrest him, he shot
himself in the head and he remained alive for six
more days in the hospital, but finally passed away on
January the nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine, and his death was
ruled to be a suicide. And at that time they
knew of him as having one attempted murder under his
belt and a lot of other crimes, but they did
not realize that the guy was an horrific serial killer.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Wow, his life that he's lived and what he's been
able to get away with, the fact that he had
a daughter, the fact that he adopted two more right,
that he had the murder weapon and was arrested two
days after the yogurt shop burners, and it was just
handed over to his father. There's just so many shocking
details about Brashers.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
It is, and it's even going to get even more
shocking because he pretty much nobody really knew who he
was for the next twenty years. He just kind of
languished an obscurity. But then they started using genetic genealogy
in twenty eighteen, and that's how they were able to
link him to a whole bunch of other unsolved homicides
which had taken place in the United States during the
(28:37):
nineteen nineties. The first one they matched him to was
the murder of a twenty eight year old woman named
Jenny ZiT Ricky, who had been bludgeoned, raped, and strangled
with pantyhose at her apartment in Greenville, South Carolina. And
he had left his DNA behind and they wound up
linking it to him like nearly twenty years after he died.
And then they also linked him to the double murder
(28:58):
of a mother and daughter, which took place in the
town of Porridgeville, Missouri, in March of nineteen ninety eight.
The victims were thirty eight year old Sherry Sheer and
her twelve year old daughter, Meghan, and both victims have
been tied up and the twelve year old daughter, Meghan,
was raped before Brasher shot and killed them both with
a twenty two caliber gun. And what's crazy is that
(29:20):
he then drove across the state line into Dysburg, Tennessee,
and broke into the home of a twenty five year
old woman two hours after he committed this double homicide
and tried to sexually assault her, but thankfully she resisted
and he wound up fleeing the crime scene. But he
also would get linked to the rape of a fourteen
year old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, which took place in
(29:42):
March of nineteen ninety seven. So they just kept linking
using his DNA to link him to more and more crimes.
And because he spent a lot of time traveling, it
just seems that he left his family at home, would
drive to all these different states, select random victims, and
then kill them or rate them, and then just go
back to his normal life as a fan man.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
This is almost looking like a Ted Bundy like crime
spree pretty much.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah, that's what he did. He would just go to
That's probably why he was able to get away with it,
because he would go to all these different towns and
cities they had no connection to and then immediately flee thereafter.
But the big difference is that Ted Bundy didn't have
a wife and a bunch of children at home while
he was doing it. So it's just sonda crazy that
he's living this double life and then just returning home saying, hi, honey,
(30:26):
I've been on the road doing my construction stuff when
he's actually been murdering and raping twelve year old girls.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, he's like a combination of BTK and Ted Bundy.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, pretty much. So it would not be until September
the twenty six, twenty twenty five, when the Austin Police
Department finally announced that they had identified him as the
perpetrator of the Austin yogurt shop murders. They had been
working on this case for a long long time. Like
I mentioned, when they entered the y str profile into
(30:58):
a DNA database, it wound up matching the murder of
Jenny's ZiT Ricky, which took place in South Carolina in
April of nineteen ninety. So they started looking at Brasher's
profile and thinking, Wow, he definitely seems like the type
of person who could have been responsible for the yogurt
shop murders. So they tried looking for other evidence to
build a case against him, because obviously, because it only
(31:19):
had twenty five markers, they could just use the DNA
profile alone. So they found out that there was some
skin cells underneath Amy Errers's fingernails, and they didn't want
to test this one for the longest time because it
was so small that once they did testing, it would
use the entire sample up, So they pretty much said,
we have to make it count. But they did the
(31:41):
test on the skin and it wound up matching Brashers,
and they pretty much said that the odds are two
point five million to one that he's the source of
this DNA. So that just seemed like too much of
a coincidence that we have these two separate DNA samples
that were matching him.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
E yeah, I think that those are pretty good odds.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And they finally got their One more piece of evidence
is when they decided to do ballistics testing on a
shellcasing from the three to eighty gun which had gotten
caught in a drain on the floor in the back
room of the yogurt shop. And I didn't even notice
this know this till this case, but there's actually a
database called NIBBIN, which stands for the National Integrated Ballistic
(32:21):
Information Network, and they decided to enter the shellcasing the
ballistics information for it in the database and almost immediately
got a match, and it wound up matching the weapon
that Brashers had used to kill himself in the middle
tel room in Missouri in nineteen ninety one, and that
was pretty much like the bullseye where they have these
two DNA samples and a ballistics test that matches the
(32:44):
gun he used to shoot himself, and they were confident
saying this is the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Well, that is a pretty good piece of evidence. I
would say that beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's
pretty clear that his Brashers. It's just too bad that
he wasn't alive to be held accountable for his crime.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It is a shame, yeah, that he pretty much did
serve much time in prison. He only served a few
light sentences for the attempted murder charge and like the
grand theft auto charge. But of course this only opens
up some unanswered questions. I mean, for the longest time,
I was convinced that two people had been responsible. I
thought it was the two men sitting at the table
(33:23):
right before closing. But they are absolutely confident now that
Brashers committed this crime completely alone, because he never worked
with an accomplice, and he doesn't match the description of
the two men scene sitting at the table. And it
seems like, for whatever reason, he decided to use two
separate guns. The twenty two caliber weapon and the three
eighty to commit this crime. But I think alarm bell
(33:45):
started going off my head when I watched the Yogurt
Shot murders documentary and they didn't even mention the two
men at the table, even though I expected this to
be like one of the big leads that they would
use to solve it. So I have a feeling that
while they were filming this documentary, they were pretty much
much working on it and were convinced that Brashers was
the guy. They just couldn't publicly announce it yet, And
(34:05):
they just didn't want to mention the two men because
it now seems apparent that they're nothing more than a
red herring and were probably just regular customers who left
the shop right before closing and had nothing to do
with it.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I think it's so easy, depending on the perspective you take,
to go, okay, well, this table, the napkins haven't been filled,
it hasn't been cleaned, the chairs aren't up on there,
So two guys were seen there. It seems logical that
it would take two people to control four girls, so
those guys are the likely the ones who did it,
(34:37):
when in actuality, they probably left and the girls didn't
have time to get to the table before Brashers came
in did what he did, and like we mentioned earlier
in the episodes that it seems to me personally that
it would be pretty easy to control four teenage girls
if you have a weapon, if you were threatening the
(34:58):
lives of any one of them, especially, it makes it
a lot easier when you tell those girls to strip
down and then you bind them, so if they're to
run out of there, they're not only really vulnerable because
they're naked, but they're also bound, So could they even run,
Like I don't know how their hands in their feet
were bound or if it was just their hands, but
(35:20):
either way, if you've got somebody that they clearly love,
one either a friend or sister, who's being raped at
that point in time, and you're saying I'm going to
shoot her in the head if you don't comply, then
I think you're going to get compliance from a lot
of teenage girls.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And I think that's exactly what happened. And we know
that he had experienced at this sort of thing, he
had killed and attempted to kill before. And the back
door was found broken open, so he probably got in
that way We'll probably never know why he selected this
particular yogurt shop, because that's probably the main reason it
was so hard to solve this is he had no
ties to Texas or to Austin. He didn't know anyone there,
(36:00):
like he was just on a road trip to visit
his father in Arizona and decided, I'm going to stop here,
I'm going to rob this random yogat shop, and I'm
going to kill whoever's inside. It's unclear if he knew
that four girls were in there. He might have initially
only thought that there were two in there, Jennifer and Eliza.
But it's just crazy to me that he was just
passing through. He probably got out of Austin immediately thereafter,
(36:21):
and as we just talked about, he got arrested at
nerol Passo near the Texas New Mexico border two days later,
had the murder weapon, but they just didn't put two
and two together.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
What's wild to me is that there seems to be
no rhyme or reason for why he decides to kill,
because we saw after Brasher's killed that mother and daughter,
the thirty eight year old and twelve year old. He
then went a couple hours later and tried to sectually
assault that twenty five year old wasn't able to perform
when she got away or he ran out of the scene,
(36:54):
he didn't kill her. And then he also didn't kill
that fourteen year old where he was tied to a
rape or attempted rape with his DNA, So it's not
like he killed in every scenario. So it seems so extreme.
In a scenario where there's four, you got to wonder
if his objective was to kill, was it to rape,
was it for the money, was it for all three?
(37:17):
And if so, like in what order?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, And that's why it's such a bittersweet feeling that
he can't be arrested to explain his side of the
story about why he did what he did, because that's
why I was kind of hoping he had an accomplice,
because if he had an accomplice who was still alive,
at least this person could provide some insight into how
this crime was carried out. But sadly, we're just never
going to know. And it's just one of those reasons
(37:40):
why genetic genealogy is a godsend, because if they didn't
have the ability to link unsolved crimes to suspects who
were already dead, then this case would have been unsolved forever.
But because they had DNA and were able to link
it to someone who died like twenty six years ago,
we finally know who did this. But and we've seen
this with a lot of other cold cases, but it's
(38:01):
just so frustrating when they're already dead and you just
don't have any insight on why they did what they did.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
And I mean, even if he buzz alive, it doesn't
mean that we're automatically going to get any insight into
why he did what he did, because what are the
chances that he's going to take the stand and he
might not want to give the families or the public
the satisfaction of knowing the why and knowing what his
underlying motivations are. Some killers are happy to talk and
(38:28):
they like the notoriety, but others don't and they're not
going to give the public what they want or what
the families feel like they deserve, which would be an explanation.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, pretty much like he maybe one of those people
who just wants to torment the families just by not
giving them any answers. So we would probably never know
because he only ever got arrested for one violent crime
and an attempted murder, and back then he didn't have
any confirmed murders under his belt. But I'm interested to
see if they link into any other crimes, because they
have said that they've also got a DNA match from
(39:01):
a crime that took place in Kentucky during the late
nineteen nineties, and they don't want to specify any details
about who the victim was or what happened because it's
still an open investigation, but they did say that there
are striking similarities to this Kentucky crime to the Austin
yogurt chop murders. So at the moment he has I
think it's seven confirmed murder victims, at least one attempted
(39:24):
murder victim, and a couple other victims who have been raped.
So it'll be interesting to see how many other crimes
they will be able to link them to before they're
done this investigation.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
It sounds like there's really no limit to what this
man could have done. He doesn't seem to discriminate. It
seems like he'll commit crimes in every state, and I
mean that has to have been part of his strategy,
like you said earlier, the fact that he's doing this
across county, across state lines, and the fact that in
the nineties you aren't having law enforcement speak to each
(39:55):
other and the way that they do now through all
the different databases. It was like in the early nineties
you might not have people across county lines sharing stories.
So the fact that he did all of this separated
by space and time, I think is probably what led
to him not getting convicted or not getting tied to
(40:17):
all of them. And the fact that they involved strangers
as well.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, pretty much. And like so many people were investigated
during the early stages of the case and they never
paid close to this guy because he was not from
out of state. We had like people like Mexican bikers
and a drag queen and people who were involved in
Satanism who were investigated, but the real guy was like
(40:40):
right near the Texas New Mexico board or under the
nose all along, and they just never even looked at
him because he was someone who was not familiar with
the area and would just passed through states killing whoever
he wanted to. So we finally have a resolution in
this case, and it'll be interesting to see what happens
with Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, and Forrest Wellborn, and obviously
(41:00):
Maurice Pierce can't get any compensation because he's dead. But
we talked about how they could not get any compensation
because they cannot prove they were factually innocent. But now
that they have linked the crime to a real killer,
they will finally will be declared factually innocent and exonerated,
and will be interesting to see how much compensation they get.
But man, this crime took place thirty four years ago.
(41:23):
They were arrested in nineteen ninety nine, so they have
waited just so long for vindication.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Well, I truly hope that they get the compensation that
they deserve because they are all victims and it changed
the trajectory of every single one of their lives. And
the thing is this crime Brasher's selfishness, what he decided
to do. It changed the lives of so many people.
It's just so sad to think that it took this
(41:48):
long to be solved. Like you said, genetic genealogy is
a godsend. The fact that we're able now to be
able to link these crimes to these partial profiles. Of
DNA and f of who these people are. That was
impossible years ago, but now the impossible is possible, and
we're seeing a lot of cases get solved. We're seeing
(42:10):
John and Jane Does get their names back. It's incredible
to think what the landscape of DNA and what criminal
investigation is going to be in the coming years.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, because this is one where I'd almost lost hope
that it would get solved because they had evidence, but
I just didn't know if they would have enough to
link it to a suspect, but turned out they did.
And I also have a personal connection to this because
two years ago I went to the True Crime podcast
Festival in Austin, Texas, and whenever I attend these events,
I often like to do my trail and cold episodes
(42:42):
about cases from the host city. And that's when I
finally decided to do the Austin Yogurt Shop murders. And
I discovered that the strip mall where the crime took
place was not that far from the hotel. It was
only a ten minute drive away, so I decided to
pay it a visit. And the yogurt shop is long
on It's been replaced by a nail Slon, but they
do have a memorial plaque for the four victims in
(43:05):
the parking lot. So I went over there and took
a picture and send it to you on an email
before we recorded this.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, I remember, it was like twenty twenty three, right,
it was, Yes, Yeah, I remember when you went and
you talked about going because I had a vague recollection
of the case, but I obviously didn't know nearly as
much as you did about it. So it's really interesting
that you were able to go there and you were
able to see the plaque. And it's haunting to think
(43:31):
that the time passes and you know, structures are knocked down,
we could very easily forget, but the fact that nobody forgot,
everybody remembered. Everybody still cared that Sarah and Jennifer and
Amy and Eliza, that their memories were important to people,
that their lives were taken too soon, and that people
(43:53):
still doggedly pursued justice and the truth and in the
end finding out that is the person who is responsible.
There's a resolution there, there is a type of justice.
There isn't a justice in that we get to punish him,
but there's a justice in giving the family members who
are surviving that information, and those who were rungfully convicted
(44:17):
now can be exonerated and deemed factually innocent and hopefully
get compensation from the state.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, it was heartwarming to see that these four victims
were not forgotten. And the whole thing has been such
a wild ride because, like I mentioned, it started off
with John Jones, who was a great investigator who wanted
justice but just couldn't do it. Then we had a
bunch of bad, corrupt cops for the next several decades
who botched the case. But in recent years we have
finally got some good cops again who were so devoted
to finding the right killer and finally conclusively solving this one.
(44:47):
And I'm awfully glad that it did happen. And on
a side note, this is kind of a crazy coincidence,
but the month after I went to the True Crime
podcast Festival in Austin, I went to Crime con in
Orlando and decided to visit the site of the Tommy
Ziegler's furniture store in Winter Garden. And it's kind of
a crazy that both these old cases have had major
(45:08):
developments in twenty twenty five. Then I happen to go
to these places within one month of each other. And
I know that Tommy's Eagler has a hearing in December,
and with any luck, we might be revisiting that case
on a future episode sometime next year if all goes well.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Well, I hope so, because that is somebody who I
truly prayed that he's going to eventually get out of
prison because I do not believe he's responsible for it,
and that, as everybody who's listening knows, that is Robin's
pet pet case. And gosh, we went through that in
our first six months probably of our podcast, and it
(45:44):
was such a tangled web of a case. It was
so confusing, and it was like five parts and I
think that we recorded them all in.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
One day we did back in the pandemic when you
and I and actually had enough time to speak for
five hours about one case.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Oh my gosh, that was crazy, Like that was unhinged
of us pretty much.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Yeah, we should never do that again, never again. Yeah.
But it's great to see the Austin Yogurt shot murders
for falsely Q suspects finally achieve vindication this year, So
hopefully the same thing will happen for Tommy Ziggler, So
time will tell there. So, any final thoughts on the
Austin yogurt shot murders.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
No, I think I've said everything that I have to
say about this case. There's obviously there's always more, but
you've given me a lot of interesting facts, things that
I had no idea, and I'm glad that I didn't
watch the documentary. I'm glad that you were able to
go through it all with me and take me on
(46:44):
a really wild ride. And I'm just truly, truly thankful
the Brashers has been named as the perpetrator because it
brings a lot of freedom to those wrongfully convicted, and
it gives a name to be able to say that
this is the person that did that to the girls,
and for that reason alone, and for the peace of
(47:07):
mind of the family members and the loved ones and
the community and Austin as a whole, because this is
a case that affected them all. Everybody who lives there.
I'm sure who was alive around nineteen ninety one would
have been affected by the yogurt chop murders. So I'm
really happy that there's a resolution and really thankful for
genetic genealogy and all the work that investigators did behind
(47:28):
the scenes here.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Yeah, definitely. It's so surreal to see this one finally solved,
because it has always been cited as one of the
most heinous cold cases of the modern era. So it's
great to finally see a resolution and it gives me
hope that no crime is truly unsolvable and that maybe
some other high profile cases will finally have a resolution
in the future. So if you haven't watched the documentary,
it's called The Yogurt Chop Murders. It's available on HBO
(47:53):
Max in the US and Prave here in Canada, and
I highly recommend checking it out because you can finally
get the faces to a lot of the names we've shared,
and maybe one of those days they'll produce an additional
episode which finally shows the ending and goes into more
detail about Robert Eugene Rashers. So that's about it for
our extensive multi part series about the Austin yogurt shot murders.
(48:13):
Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll be
back again next week to talk about another case.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
about the Trail Went Cold? Patreon?
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
which I talk about cases which are not featured on
(48:45):
the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
Patreon and if you join our highest tier, tier three,
the ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer
is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
where you can downlo load an audio file and then
boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime
or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing
(49:08):
in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids
about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the
very first episode that I did a commentary track over
was the episode featuring this case. So if you want
to download a commentary track in which I make more
smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to
join Tier three.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
So I want to let you know a little bit
about the Jeules and Nashty patreons, So there's early ad
free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
We'll link them in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
So I want to thank you all for listening, and
any chance you have to share us on social media
with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter the Pathway.
So until next time, be sure to bundle up because
cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy
Welcome back to part three of our series about the
Austin yogurt shot murders. We will finally be talking about
how this case was solved. And then things got really
ridiculous because in October of two thousand and three, several
months after the charges were dropped against Maurice, they decided
to charge Michael Scott's best friend Patrick Davison on the
charges of being an accessory after the fact, failing to
(00:50):
report a felony, making a false statement, and obstruction of
justice because during his original confession, Michael had claimed that
he had given Patrick a paper bag containing the pistol
used in the murders and told them to hide it.
And I know that after Michael confessed, he supposedly called
Patrick and told him to tell police about the gun
(01:10):
if they asked. And Patrick was questioned by investigators a
few days later, and he recalled that, oh yeah, I
kind of remember back in nineteen ninety one, Mike gave
me a paper bag and I threw it in a
trash container at his apartment complex. But he kept changing
his story over the next few years. He said he
couldn't really remember, and then when Mike went on trial,
the official story presented was that Patrick had tossed the
(01:33):
three eighty gun into Lake Austin. So by the time
Patrick was indicted on these new charges, he finally said that, no,
Michael never gave me a gun. I did not dispose
of it. But they pretty much told him that you
could face twenty years in federal prison and a million
dollar fine if you go on trial. So Patrick agreed
to a plea deal in which he could plead guilty
(01:53):
to lesser charges in exchange for only one year in prison.
And many people suspected that this was sour rapes, that
because they couldn't get a conviction against Maurice Pierce, they
were going after this so called accessory who had disposed
of the murder weapon. But now we know that these
four guys didn't do it. So Patrick never likely never
got rid of a gun, and it turns out he
(02:15):
accepted a plea deal and spent a year in prison
for nothing.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
This case is a nightmare. But honestly, all of these
innocent people being railroaded and they're thinking that they're getting
some kind of justice, Like you really have to question
if the investigators really and truly believe this. You're trying
to shore up your case more by going in charge
of him like way after the facts. I don't understand,
is it because you couldn't get convictions with Maurice and
(02:40):
Forrest that you're just trying to make it look like
this is a real sure thing, that like you did
the right thing and all of these people who are
tangentially involved are then going to be held responsible. It
seems like overkill.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It pretty much was, yeah, that they were just trying
to get vengeance on everyone they could. And I couldn't
even understand Patrick's decision because he's pretty much told you
can face twenty years in prison, but if you plead guilty,
you'll only get one year. So even if he's innocence,
he's probably thinking to myself, if I take a chance
at trial, I've already seen two of my friends go
to prison and one of them is on death row.
(03:17):
I'm going to take the plea even though it turned
out all along that he was completely innocent and that
this charge of him disposing of the gun was completely bogus.
So in two thousand and five, the United States Supreme
Court had a new ruling that juveniles should not be
executed for crimes they committed well under the age of eighteen,
and since Robert had been seventeen at the time that
(03:37):
the Yeowart Shop murders occurred, his death sentence was commuted
to a life imprisonment. But more things would happen with
the case because it would be heard in front of
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and in May of
two thousand and six they voted by a decision of
five to four to overturn his conviction. And in their eyes,
the state's decision to use excerpts of Mike's confession at
(03:59):
Rob's trial without having Mike testify violated the confrontation clause
of the sixth Amendment of the Constitution, because the exact
wording is quote in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall
enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against them.
And they figured because some light cannot be called to
the witness stand to be questioned about things in his
(04:20):
written confession, that meant that Robert received an unfair trial.
And the following year they did the exact same thing
with Mike's conviction, where they said, because you presented Robert's
confession is evidence, but you do not have Robert take
the witness stand to be cross examined. You did not
receive a fair trial, so his conviction was also overturned.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Well, you've got the right to confront your accuser, so
it kind of shocks me that they went ahead with
that anyways.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, I was thinking that they should have looked this
up before the trials and was not wasted everyone's time
and stuff. But it just seems like such a flag
and violation that someone can make accusations against them and
you can read their statement in court, but your defense
attorney can't cross examine them and try to destroy their credibility.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I feel like we've all watched enough law and order
by that point that you'd know that somebody can't just
go ahead and say anything in a confession and without
that cross examination option. The fact that that wasn't brought
up by the defense during the trial for either of
them is shocking to me.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It is. Yeah, I think they both got public defenders
just because they were not wealthy people. They couldn't afford
hard price to attorneys, and they probably just didn't even
think about that. But I'm thinking that if they had
gotten a more skilled lawyer, then the charges may have
been dropped against them before they even went to trial,
because if they couldn't use the other confessions, their case
would have had some huge damage to it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
What year were these trials taking place? Two thousand?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Ah, Yes, the first one was in two thousand and
the next one was in two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I would just think from watching legal procedural dramas that
just any average person by the year two thousand would think, Okay,
like this is something that is necessary. You got the
right to confront your accuser. And so the fact that
not one but two lawyers, whether they're public defenders or not,
(06:13):
that is so shocking to me that that wasn't addressed
at the time. That seems like that's ineffective.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Counsel pretty much. Yeah, so they would have had lots
of grounds in order to have their conviction overturns. And
I think that if they ever had gone to trial again,
I think some lawyer would have represented them pro bono,
thinking this case is outrageous and I want to help
you guys.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, you'd think like the Innocence Project, any number of
iterations of what the innocence project is in different states
could have helped them out because it's very clear that
the evidence here was very, very thin.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Pretty much. Yeah. So, back in nineteen ninety one, and
even in nineteen ninety nine when they originally charged, the
DNA testing in criminal cases was not yet a common thing.
So while both defendants were in prison and the defense said,
can we test the DNA, and of course the state thought,
well this could further our case, go right ahead and
do it. And of course this is going to turn
(07:09):
out bad for them. So the bodies have been set
on fire, and because water had been used, a lot
of the physical evidence was destroyed, so they were unable
to get a full DNA profile, but they were able
to get it by doing vaginal swabs, and since the
evidence was going to contain mixtures of male DNA and
female DNA, the an independent lab would perform y STR testing,
(07:31):
which is short tandem repeat testing specific to the male
Y chromosome. So they wound up finding a semen sample
from Jennifer's body and it actually matched the DNA of
her boyfriend at the time, Sammy Buchanan. But it turned
out this was because they had consensual sex a couple
hours before shift began at home. But of course they
(07:51):
found traces of Sammy's DNA on Sarah's body, which meant
that someone else had raped her and then somehow transferred
traces of Sammy's d DNA on to Sarah, so obviously
the presence of his DNA did not mean that the
perpetrator didn't leave it behind. They also found a y
sdr strand a male DNA on a vaginal swab taken
(08:12):
from Amy, and of course she was thirteen years old
at the time, so they're not going to use the
consensual sex thing for her and say that it belonged
to someone else. And because they also found this same
individual's DNA on Jennifer, they were able to establish that
unlikely belonged to one of the perpetrators. And surprise, surprise,
it turned out that the DNA did not match Robert
(08:33):
Michael forrest Or Maurice. And of course, the state completely
admitted their mistake and said they were wrong all along.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Not yeah, not a shocker.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
No, Instead, they said that, oh, maybe these four men
had a fifth conspirator who assisted with the crime, and
he was the one who raped the girl and left
the DNA behind, which the defense found completely ridiculous, saying
that Robert and Michael made these very detailed confessions, yet
they're somehow going to fail to mentioned that they had
a fifth co conspirator, the.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Good old unindicted co conspirator slash ejaculator theory. When it
doesn't work out and they have those four, let's just
add on that there's got to be another person, rather
than examined that, Okay, these guys, they might be innocent.
It's like that whole sunken cost fallacy. We've already put
so much energy and time and our reputations into these
(09:25):
cases that it's not possible that it could be somebody else.
What's more possible is there is an additional person.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
What, Yeah, pretty much, we're just I've seen this in
a lot of other cases where you talked about the
unindicted co ejaculator, where they'll just say, oh, they still
committed the murder, but they had this accomplice who committed
the rape and left the semen behind, even though we've
never mentioned this at all before this DNA testing. So
they will go to great lengths to avoid admitting the
wrong and they would try another strategy like this because
(09:55):
then they would say, oh, maybe it was cross contamination
and the DNA belongs to an evidence to technician or something. Well,
the defense tried to call their bluff because they kind
elected DNA samples from pretty much everyone who was at
the crime scene that night, like the firefighters, the police officers,
the evidence technicians, former employees from the shop, even friends
and acquaintances of the victims, and the DNA match none
(10:18):
of them. So it seemed pretty clear cut that this
DNA sample belonged to the real perpetrator, and because it
did not match any of the four defendants, that means
that they couldn't have done it. So finally, they had
been in jail like for years waiting for this DNA testing.
But in October of two thousand and nine, the state
finally said, well, with the evidence we have, there's no
(10:38):
way we can take Michael or Robert back to trial again,
so we're finally going to release them and drop the charges.
But by this point they had been locked up for
ten years, and it took forever to reach this point,
and at.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
This point it's not like they're saying that they're innocent,
So to be able to go after the state and
to get any kind of compensation would be exceedingly difficult.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Would it not pretty much? Yeah, I was just going
to talk about that. They tried to seek compensation for
the wrongful convictions, but they technically weren't exonerated. They only
had the charges dropped, so they pretty much the court says,
we cannot give you compensation until you prove your innocence,
and even though we have DNA that does not belong
to you, there are all these other possibilities like you
(11:23):
having an accomplice, which means we can't prove you didn't
do it. So they were pretty much trapped in limbo.
And even though they are often listed on websites like
the Innocence Project, they were still recognized by the law
ask convicted murderers until they finally resolved this case a
month ago.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That is so wild to me. The system is totally
rigged to think that these individuals can do all of
this time behind bars, and you essentially have to prove
that you're innocent, which is damn near impossible unless you
find out who the actual killer is. But to task
a person who you've wrongfully incarcerated with something so weighty
(12:01):
when investigators couldn't even figure it out, prosecutors couldn't figure
it out, but you're going to expect this person. In
order for them to become an exonery, they've got to
solve the murder. Like the burden is insane.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
That's pretty much it, because by that point they were released,
it was eighteen years since the crime was committed and
they still had not found the real killers. But it
became apparent that the only way they would ever be
officially exonerated is if they finally identified who was the
source of that DNA. And there would be a sad
PostScript to Maurice Pearce because since he was released in
(12:36):
two thousand and three after the charges were dropped, he
apparently became very paranoid that the Austin police route to
get him and would do something bad to him as
revenge for not being able to get a conviction. So
on December twenty third, twenty ten, Maurice was pulled over
for a seemingly routine traffic stop after he failed to
properly stop at a stop sign, and while it was
(12:57):
going on, he was speaking to his daughter in his
solfe in the last words he said were quote, they're
after me again, before telling his daughter he loved her
and that he would never see her again before he
hung up, and almost immediately Maurice attempted to flee the
scene on foot until one of the officers, Frank Wilson,
caught up with them and he struggle ensued, in which
Maurice removed her utility knife from Wilson's belt and stabbed
(13:21):
him in the neck, so Wilson responded by pulling out
his gun and fatally shooting Maurice, and a toxicology report
would show that Maurice had a blood alcohol level of
zero point one point four at that time, which was
over the legal a limit, and Wilson survived his injuries,
and an internal investigation ruled that the shooting was justified,
(13:41):
and even though conspirators have said that they deliberately killed
him as revenge for the Yogurt shot murders, Wilson did
say I had no idea who this guy was when
I pulled them over. I just thought it was a
routine traffic stop and he ran away and attacked me unprovoked.
So I do believe him that the shooting was justified,
that he had no choice. But I think Maurice, because
of all the paranoia and his mental health struggles from
(14:03):
thinking that he was going to be re arrested for
the Yogret shot murders at any time, just snapped and
then just decided to attack this officer.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh, poor Maurice, And I feel bad for his daughter
who's on the phone he's essentially saying goodbye. It almost
becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy that you believe that
they're after you, and so you end up putting yourself
in a situation where he could have got away without
injury or without injuring somebody else. But because he was
(14:32):
so paranoid, and I'm sure all of those years that
he had to deal with all of this is just
such a weight on his shoulders, on his mental health.
To think that everywhere you look, when you're seeing police,
you're seeing somebody who you think is there to screw
you over. They're there to throw you behind bars, they're
there to hurt you. It's just one of the tragedies
(14:52):
of this story. We see the deaths of Sarah, Amy, Eliza,
and Jennifer, but then we also see this tragedy with Maurice,
and and we see what happened with Forrest and Robert
and Michael, and there's a lot of victims in this case.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Oh definitely, and just you can only imagine how the
victims' families felt when Robert and Michael were released from prison.
I remember watching like a forty eight Hours episode from
that era where they reported on the release from prison
and they interviewed some of the victims' family members and
they still said, we believe that these guys are guilty.
We don't care what the DNA says. They confess, like
(15:28):
how could they not have done it? And of course
you can't really blame them because they've been manipulated so much,
told that we got the right guys, and now they're
seeing them walk free from prison. And one of the
women who one of the family members who was most
outspoken was Eliza's mother, Maria Thomas, where she went on
this angry interview on forty eight Hours saying they've been
released because they said the rights were violated, But what
(15:49):
about my daughter's rights? What about the other victims' rights?
Like who cares about them? And even though like she's
totally wrong on this, you could understand her frustration because
she's probably not going to understand like why these people
that she's been convinced are guilty are suddenly walking free.
And sadly, Maria wound up passing away in March of
twenty fifteen at the age of sixty and was one
(16:11):
of the parents who did not live long enough to
finally see a resolution in this case.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's so sad, like it's such a tragedy for all
the families having to deal with this and not have
this resolution. I'm happy that the case eventually did get solved,
but so many years went by and so many lives
were destroyed in the process.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, and another one who passed away was Jennifer and
Sarah's father, Michael. He passed away last year in October
of twenty twenty four, and he was the one who
lost both of his children, his only children, and he
died well less than a year before they finally had
a resolution in the case. And it just makes me
so sad when I see the parents of missing and
murdered children have to pass away without receiving conclusive answers.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
We see it so often though, I think that the
trauma and the physical at the emotional told that the
death of a child takes specifically when it's an unsolved
murder and when you have two daughters that have been
murdered and you don't have a resolution and you don't
have any kind of justice because you feel like these
(17:17):
guys have been released. I don't know how Michael viewed
all of the evidence, if it was like these guys
could be innocent, or if he believed that they were
truly the guilty parties. But it's so sad that he
died just before the case was solved.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, it just so sad to see that. But thankfully,
I think they finally got more people in charge who
finally stopped going with the mentality that these four guys
did it and tried to look at other options and
tried to figure out who actually committed this crime. Because
in twenty seventeen, the DNA sample from Amy's vaginal swab
was entered into a public academic y SDR database from
(17:55):
the University of Central Florida's National Center for Forensic Science,
and it found up matching a male DNA sample which
had been anonymously submitted into the database by the FBI.
It had no name attached to it, and the FBI
declined to reveal the identity of the man because of
privacy laws, but it could have belonged to a federally
convicted offender. But the big problem is that the DNA
(18:17):
sample was not a complete profile because it only had
sixteen markers, whereas whenever genetic genealogy is used to help
solve a cold case, it usually involves DNA profiles which
have between sixty seven and one hundred and eleven markers.
So even though this DNA sample matched the guy in
the database, it could also potentially match thousands or even
millions of individuals. But they did perform further testing the
(18:40):
FBI in twenty twenty and they were able to produce
nine new markers on the sample, which brought it up
to twenty five and this time they resubmitted it into
the database to compare it to this offender, and one
of the markers was not a match, so they were
able to exclude this guy from being the perpetrator. And
you can see what's so frustrating about this, because even
though this profile is good for excluding potential offenders, you
(19:04):
can't really make a definitive match unless you have a
lot more markers. So it just seemed like they were
back to square one.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, that must have been really disappointing. They probably thought
like we've got our guy here. All we have to
do is just wait for more sophisticated testing. And then
they had those twenty five markers and then they run
it against him and it's not a match like that
would be incredibly, incredibly deflating.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Well, thankfully they did not give up. They still tried
to use that DNA to try to match to an offender,
and earlier this year they finally got a good break
when they entered it into a database and it wound
up matching DNA from another unsolved homicide which took place
in South Carolina in nineteen ninety and they're thinking, well,
this doesn't prove that who was responsible for this crime
(19:51):
was the responsible for the yogurt chop murders, but if
we keep looking at this lead, then we may have
something to work with here. So they found out that.
Eventually they solved this crimes from South Carolina and matched
it to an offender named Robert Eugene Brashers. But of
course the problem was is that he had been dead
since January of nineteen ninety nine. So it turned out
(20:13):
this guy was a serial killer, but at the time
he died, they didn't know he was a serial killer,
and in recent years, geneic genealogy has wound up matching
him to so many different murders and he seems like
a complete monster. But the first known crime that Brashers
committed was in November of nineteen eighty five in Port
Saint Lucie, Florida, where he sexually assaulted a twenty four
(20:36):
year old woman named Michelle Wilkerson, and when she tried
to fight him off, he shot her twice in the
neck and the head, and righteously she survived and managed
to escape from him, and because of a bad break
for him, he actually chased after on a beach and
got his truck stuck in the sand, so by the
time she was able to get help, he was still
(20:57):
trapped there and they were able to cock him down
and arrest him and charge him with attempted first degree murder,
aggravated battery, and using a firearm. He was convicted of
the crime and wound up getting a rather light sense
of twelve years imprisonment. But even more frustrating is that
he was released from prison on good conduct after only
serving for less than four years and May in nineteen
(21:19):
eighty nine. And this is another thing that makes me
tear my hair out, because if he had served the
full twelve year sentence, he still would have been in
prison in nineteen ninety one and the Austin yogurt shop
murders never would have happened.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
That is so ridiculous. That is an incredibly violent defense.
And I'm sure that Michelle lived just by the skin
of her teeth. The fact that he only got a
twelve year sentence for something so horrific. Did you say
it was two to the head and one to the neck.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Oh, one to the neck, yeah, two to the neck
and one to the head.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Like that is incredible to look at that and go, oh, well,
she didn't die. Well, it's by the grace of God
that she didn't die. And do you know what an
ended up happening to Michelle?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Not really, No, I haven't looked it up. I hope
she didn't live in too much terror, and if she
is still alive, she must be horrified to discover that
this was just the first of many, many crimes that
this guy would commit, and that if he had not
been released from prison early, many of these crimes could
have been prevented.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And is it so frustrating too when it's a man
that is committing violent crimes against women, and you put
him behind bars and he's with a bunch of men,
and he's on his best behavior. And it's like, of course,
he's on his best behavior. He's a violent offender who
commits these offenses against women and he's in a prison
with a bunch of men. Do you expect that he's
(22:40):
then going to completely change up his mo and act
like a monster. No, he's probably going to be on
his best behavior so he can try to get back
out there and keep committing crimes.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
And that's exactly what he did. But he still tried
to keep like a facade of being an ordinary family man,
because shortly after he was released, he wound up getting married.
He had a daughter named Deborah with his wife in
August of nineteen ninety one, and a later at a
later point, he wound up adopting two other girls. And
I don't know how that happened. A guy serving time
(23:11):
for attempted murder managed to adopt a two other girls.
But I think he lived under a number of false
names for a while, so maybe he was able to
fool the adoption system. But I know that his daughter
Deborah is very open about talking about her father, like
she didn't know him all that well, but of course
she is horrified to discover what he turned out to become.
(23:31):
But it is chilling to me that he had his
first daughter in August of nineteen ninety one, and then
just four months later in December, he's murdering four teenage girls.
And you wonder, how could someone with a little girl
at home, a little child like be able to do
something like that to other people's children.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
It's terrific, and it also makes you question the motivation
of his adoption of those two young girls.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I haven't heard any details about
him sexually assaulting her, but it might be because he died,
because because before they got old enough. But I think
that if they had become teenagers or something, he might
have done some horrific things. But I think they were
also saved from him because he would be arrested for
some other crimes in late nineteen ninety one, like grand theft, auto,
(24:13):
unlawful possession of a weapon, and theft. And what's crazy
is that he wound up getting arrested on December the eighth,
nineteen ninety one in al Paso two days after the
Austin yogurt shop murders, because I think he had been
visiting his father in Arizona and he was pulled over
near the Texas New Mexico border and it turned out
(24:34):
he was driving a stolen car and he actually had
the murder weapon from the yogret shop murders, and they
pretty much when he was arrested and charged with the
car theft, they gave the gun to Brasher's father, who
held it for him while he was serving time in
prison for this other crime, and then gave it back
to him after he was released. So it's crazy to
(24:54):
me that they caught the offender only two days after
the yogurt shop murders, had the murder weapon in their
possession and didn't even know it at the time and
actually just passed it around between numerous people.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh my god, how nineteen ninety one was that. I
would sure as hell hope that you're never going to
see that happen today. And I think just the policies
around these types of things, like it seems wild to
just give this weapon to his dad to hold. Aren't
you going to test this weapon and just see if
there's anything else, like any other crimes that it could
(25:28):
match ballistically, because if you look at this guy's criminal history,
it's obvious that he's got a violent passed. So there's
a potential that you could tie him to a litany
of other crimes with this gun, and you're just going
to hand it over to his dad.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, It's like makes me wonder did none of these
border patrol people in olpass so had they not heard
about the Austin yogurt shot murders, this huge homicide that
took place like a couple one hundred miles away, Like
you would think that you would be on the lookout
for anyone who was can carrying a firearm because this
was an unlawful weapon. It was not a gun that
he was supposed to own, and they just give it
(26:06):
back to his father, not realizing that it been used
to kill like four girls two days earlier. So he
wound up serving five years in prison for a variety
of crimes such as unlawful possession of a firearm and
grand theft auto and was released in February of nineteen
ninety seven. Thankfully, his children only had to live with
him for less than two years. But his daughter Deborah
(26:28):
has says that he had some unstable behavior, like one
time he made a tape recording of himself making cuts
on his neck and his arm with a saw just
to see if he was capable of withstanding pain. He
just seemed like someone who had a lot of mental
health issues, though I haven't heard anything about abusing his children, thankfully.
But the big breaking point came in January of nineteen
(26:49):
ninety nine because he stole a car, and according to
his family, he spent a lot of the time like
traveling on the road as part of his job because
he was in construction, So I guess he just randomly
decided to steal a vehicle. And they noticed it was
in the parking lot of a Super eight hotel in Kennet, Missouri,
and Brashers was staying there with his wife and three daughters.
(27:10):
And after the police broke down the door, they found
him hiding under a bed with a loaded gun holding
it to his head, and he started opening fire and
said that I will kill myself and my family if
he don't go away. So there was a big police
standoff for several hours with a bunch of negotiating going on,
and he finally decided to release his wife and three children,
(27:31):
but before police could go and arrest him, he shot
himself in the head and he remained alive for six
more days in the hospital, but finally passed away on
January the nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine, and his death was
ruled to be a suicide. And at that time they
knew of him as having one attempted murder under his
belt and a lot of other crimes, but they did
not realize that the guy was an horrific serial killer.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Wow, his life that he's lived and what he's been
able to get away with, the fact that he had
a daughter, the fact that he adopted two more right,
that he had the murder weapon and was arrested two
days after the yogurt shop burners, and it was just
handed over to his father. There's just so many shocking
details about Brashers.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
It is, and it's even going to get even more
shocking because he pretty much nobody really knew who he
was for the next twenty years. He just kind of
languished an obscurity. But then they started using genetic genealogy
in twenty eighteen, and that's how they were able to
link him to a whole bunch of other unsolved homicides
which had taken place in the United States during the
(28:37):
nineteen nineties. The first one they matched him to was
the murder of a twenty eight year old woman named
Jenny ZiT Ricky, who had been bludgeoned, raped, and strangled
with pantyhose at her apartment in Greenville, South Carolina. And
he had left his DNA behind and they wound up
linking it to him like nearly twenty years after he died.
And then they also linked him to the double murder
(28:58):
of a mother and daughter, which took place in the
town of Porridgeville, Missouri, in March of nineteen ninety eight.
The victims were thirty eight year old Sherry Sheer and
her twelve year old daughter, Meghan, and both victims have
been tied up and the twelve year old daughter, Meghan,
was raped before Brasher shot and killed them both with
a twenty two caliber gun. And what's crazy is that
(29:20):
he then drove across the state line into Dysburg, Tennessee,
and broke into the home of a twenty five year
old woman two hours after he committed this double homicide
and tried to sexually assault her, but thankfully she resisted
and he wound up fleeing the crime scene. But he
also would get linked to the rape of a fourteen
year old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, which took place in
(29:42):
March of nineteen ninety seven. So they just kept linking
using his DNA to link him to more and more crimes.
And because he spent a lot of time traveling, it
just seems that he left his family at home, would
drive to all these different states, select random victims, and
then kill them or rate them, and then just go
back to his normal life as a fan man.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
This is almost looking like a Ted Bundy like crime
spree pretty much.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah, that's what he did. He would just go to
That's probably why he was able to get away with it,
because he would go to all these different towns and
cities they had no connection to and then immediately flee thereafter.
But the big difference is that Ted Bundy didn't have
a wife and a bunch of children at home while
he was doing it. So it's just sonda crazy that
he's living this double life and then just returning home saying, hi, honey,
(30:26):
I've been on the road doing my construction stuff when
he's actually been murdering and raping twelve year old girls.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, he's like a combination of BTK and Ted Bundy.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, pretty much. So it would not be until September
the twenty six, twenty twenty five, when the Austin Police
Department finally announced that they had identified him as the
perpetrator of the Austin yogurt shop murders. They had been
working on this case for a long long time. Like
I mentioned, when they entered the y str profile into
(30:58):
a DNA database, it wound up matching the murder of
Jenny's ZiT Ricky, which took place in South Carolina in
April of nineteen ninety. So they started looking at Brasher's
profile and thinking, Wow, he definitely seems like the type
of person who could have been responsible for the yogurt
shop murders. So they tried looking for other evidence to
build a case against him, because obviously, because it only
(31:19):
had twenty five markers, they could just use the DNA
profile alone. So they found out that there was some
skin cells underneath Amy Errers's fingernails, and they didn't want
to test this one for the longest time because it
was so small that once they did testing, it would
use the entire sample up, So they pretty much said,
we have to make it count. But they did the
(31:41):
test on the skin and it wound up matching Brashers,
and they pretty much said that the odds are two
point five million to one that he's the source of
this DNA. So that just seemed like too much of
a coincidence that we have these two separate DNA samples
that were matching him.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
E yeah, I think that those are pretty good odds.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And they finally got their One more piece of evidence
is when they decided to do ballistics testing on a
shellcasing from the three to eighty gun which had gotten
caught in a drain on the floor in the back
room of the yogurt shop. And I didn't even notice
this know this till this case, but there's actually a
database called NIBBIN, which stands for the National Integrated Ballistic
(32:21):
Information Network, and they decided to enter the shellcasing the
ballistics information for it in the database and almost immediately
got a match, and it wound up matching the weapon
that Brashers had used to kill himself in the middle
tel room in Missouri in nineteen ninety one, and that
was pretty much like the bullseye where they have these
two DNA samples and a ballistics test that matches the
(32:44):
gun he used to shoot himself, and they were confident
saying this is the guy.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Well, that is a pretty good piece of evidence. I
would say that beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's
pretty clear that his Brashers. It's just too bad that
he wasn't alive to be held accountable for his crime.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It is a shame, yeah, that he pretty much did
serve much time in prison. He only served a few
light sentences for the attempted murder charge and like the
grand theft auto charge. But of course this only opens
up some unanswered questions. I mean, for the longest time,
I was convinced that two people had been responsible. I
thought it was the two men sitting at the table
(33:23):
right before closing. But they are absolutely confident now that
Brashers committed this crime completely alone, because he never worked
with an accomplice, and he doesn't match the description of
the two men scene sitting at the table. And it
seems like, for whatever reason, he decided to use two
separate guns. The twenty two caliber weapon and the three
eighty to commit this crime. But I think alarm bell
(33:45):
started going off my head when I watched the Yogurt
Shot murders documentary and they didn't even mention the two
men at the table, even though I expected this to
be like one of the big leads that they would
use to solve it. So I have a feeling that
while they were filming this documentary, they were pretty much
much working on it and were convinced that Brashers was
the guy. They just couldn't publicly announce it yet, And
(34:05):
they just didn't want to mention the two men because
it now seems apparent that they're nothing more than a
red herring and were probably just regular customers who left
the shop right before closing and had nothing to do
with it.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I think it's so easy, depending on the perspective you take,
to go, okay, well, this table, the napkins haven't been filled,
it hasn't been cleaned, the chairs aren't up on there,
So two guys were seen there. It seems logical that
it would take two people to control four girls, so
those guys are the likely the ones who did it,
(34:37):
when in actuality, they probably left and the girls didn't
have time to get to the table before Brashers came
in did what he did, and like we mentioned earlier
in the episodes that it seems to me personally that
it would be pretty easy to control four teenage girls
if you have a weapon, if you were threatening the
(34:58):
lives of any one of them, especially, it makes it
a lot easier when you tell those girls to strip
down and then you bind them, so if they're to
run out of there, they're not only really vulnerable because
they're naked, but they're also bound, So could they even run,
Like I don't know how their hands in their feet
were bound or if it was just their hands, but
(35:20):
either way, if you've got somebody that they clearly love,
one either a friend or sister, who's being raped at
that point in time, and you're saying I'm going to
shoot her in the head if you don't comply, then
I think you're going to get compliance from a lot
of teenage girls.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And I think that's exactly what happened. And we know
that he had experienced at this sort of thing, he
had killed and attempted to kill before. And the back
door was found broken open, so he probably got in
that way We'll probably never know why he selected this
particular yogurt shop, because that's probably the main reason it
was so hard to solve this is he had no
ties to Texas or to Austin. He didn't know anyone there,
(36:00):
like he was just on a road trip to visit
his father in Arizona and decided, I'm going to stop here,
I'm going to rob this random yogat shop, and I'm
going to kill whoever's inside. It's unclear if he knew
that four girls were in there. He might have initially
only thought that there were two in there, Jennifer and Eliza.
But it's just crazy to me that he was just
passing through. He probably got out of Austin immediately thereafter,
(36:21):
and as we just talked about, he got arrested at
nerol Passo near the Texas New Mexico border two days later,
had the murder weapon, but they just didn't put two
and two together.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
What's wild to me is that there seems to be
no rhyme or reason for why he decides to kill,
because we saw after Brasher's killed that mother and daughter,
the thirty eight year old and twelve year old. He
then went a couple hours later and tried to sectually
assault that twenty five year old wasn't able to perform
when she got away or he ran out of the scene,
(36:54):
he didn't kill her. And then he also didn't kill
that fourteen year old where he was tied to a
rape or attempted rape with his DNA, So it's not
like he killed in every scenario. So it seems so extreme.
In a scenario where there's four, you got to wonder
if his objective was to kill, was it to rape,
was it for the money, was it for all three?
(37:17):
And if so, like in what order?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, And that's why it's such a bittersweet feeling that
he can't be arrested to explain his side of the
story about why he did what he did, because that's
why I was kind of hoping he had an accomplice,
because if he had an accomplice who was still alive,
at least this person could provide some insight into how
this crime was carried out. But sadly, we're just never
going to know. And it's just one of those reasons
(37:40):
why genetic genealogy is a godsend, because if they didn't
have the ability to link unsolved crimes to suspects who
were already dead, then this case would have been unsolved forever.
But because they had DNA and were able to link
it to someone who died like twenty six years ago,
we finally know who did this. But and we've seen
this with a lot of other cold cases, but it's
(38:01):
just so frustrating when they're already dead and you just
don't have any insight on why they did what they did.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
And I mean, even if he buzz alive, it doesn't
mean that we're automatically going to get any insight into
why he did what he did, because what are the
chances that he's going to take the stand and he
might not want to give the families or the public
the satisfaction of knowing the why and knowing what his
underlying motivations are. Some killers are happy to talk and
(38:28):
they like the notoriety, but others don't and they're not
going to give the public what they want or what
the families feel like they deserve, which would be an explanation.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, pretty much like he maybe one of those people
who just wants to torment the families just by not
giving them any answers. So we would probably never know
because he only ever got arrested for one violent crime
and an attempted murder, and back then he didn't have
any confirmed murders under his belt. But I'm interested to
see if they link into any other crimes, because they
have said that they've also got a DNA match from
(39:01):
a crime that took place in Kentucky during the late
nineteen nineties, and they don't want to specify any details
about who the victim was or what happened because it's
still an open investigation, but they did say that there
are striking similarities to this Kentucky crime to the Austin
yogurt chop murders. So at the moment he has I
think it's seven confirmed murder victims, at least one attempted
(39:24):
murder victim, and a couple other victims who have been raped.
So it'll be interesting to see how many other crimes
they will be able to link them to before they're
done this investigation.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
It sounds like there's really no limit to what this
man could have done. He doesn't seem to discriminate. It
seems like he'll commit crimes in every state, and I
mean that has to have been part of his strategy,
like you said earlier, the fact that he's doing this
across county, across state lines, and the fact that in
the nineties you aren't having law enforcement speak to each
(39:55):
other and the way that they do now through all
the different databases. It was like in the early nineties
you might not have people across county lines sharing stories.
So the fact that he did all of this separated
by space and time, I think is probably what led
to him not getting convicted or not getting tied to
(40:17):
all of them. And the fact that they involved strangers
as well.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, pretty much. And like so many people were investigated
during the early stages of the case and they never
paid close to this guy because he was not from
out of state. We had like people like Mexican bikers
and a drag queen and people who were involved in
Satanism who were investigated, but the real guy was like
(40:40):
right near the Texas New Mexico board or under the
nose all along, and they just never even looked at
him because he was someone who was not familiar with
the area and would just passed through states killing whoever
he wanted to. So we finally have a resolution in
this case, and it'll be interesting to see what happens
with Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, and Forrest Wellborn, and obviously
(41:00):
Maurice Pierce can't get any compensation because he's dead. But
we talked about how they could not get any compensation
because they cannot prove they were factually innocent. But now
that they have linked the crime to a real killer,
they will finally will be declared factually innocent and exonerated,
and will be interesting to see how much compensation they get.
But man, this crime took place thirty four years ago.
(41:23):
They were arrested in nineteen ninety nine, so they have
waited just so long for vindication.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Well, I truly hope that they get the compensation that
they deserve because they are all victims and it changed
the trajectory of every single one of their lives. And
the thing is this crime Brasher's selfishness, what he decided
to do. It changed the lives of so many people.
It's just so sad to think that it took this
(41:48):
long to be solved. Like you said, genetic genealogy is
a godsend. The fact that we're able now to be
able to link these crimes to these partial profiles. Of
DNA and f of who these people are. That was
impossible years ago, but now the impossible is possible, and
we're seeing a lot of cases get solved. We're seeing
(42:10):
John and Jane Does get their names back. It's incredible
to think what the landscape of DNA and what criminal
investigation is going to be in the coming years.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, because this is one where I'd almost lost hope
that it would get solved because they had evidence, but
I just didn't know if they would have enough to
link it to a suspect, but turned out they did.
And I also have a personal connection to this because
two years ago I went to the True Crime podcast
Festival in Austin, Texas, and whenever I attend these events,
I often like to do my trail and cold episodes
(42:42):
about cases from the host city. And that's when I
finally decided to do the Austin Yogurt Shop murders. And
I discovered that the strip mall where the crime took
place was not that far from the hotel. It was
only a ten minute drive away, so I decided to
pay it a visit. And the yogurt shop is long
on It's been replaced by a nail Slon, but they
do have a memorial plaque for the four victims in
(43:05):
the parking lot. So I went over there and took
a picture and send it to you on an email
before we recorded this.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, I remember, it was like twenty twenty three, right,
it was, Yes, Yeah, I remember when you went and
you talked about going because I had a vague recollection
of the case, but I obviously didn't know nearly as
much as you did about it. So it's really interesting
that you were able to go there and you were
able to see the plaque. And it's haunting to think
(43:31):
that the time passes and you know, structures are knocked down,
we could very easily forget, but the fact that nobody forgot,
everybody remembered. Everybody still cared that Sarah and Jennifer and
Amy and Eliza, that their memories were important to people,
that their lives were taken too soon, and that people
(43:53):
still doggedly pursued justice and the truth and in the
end finding out that is the person who is responsible.
There's a resolution there, there is a type of justice.
There isn't a justice in that we get to punish him,
but there's a justice in giving the family members who
are surviving that information, and those who were rungfully convicted
(44:17):
now can be exonerated and deemed factually innocent and hopefully
get compensation from the state.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, it was heartwarming to see that these four victims
were not forgotten. And the whole thing has been such
a wild ride because, like I mentioned, it started off
with John Jones, who was a great investigator who wanted
justice but just couldn't do it. Then we had a
bunch of bad, corrupt cops for the next several decades
who botched the case. But in recent years we have
finally got some good cops again who were so devoted
to finding the right killer and finally conclusively solving this one.
(44:47):
And I'm awfully glad that it did happen. And on
a side note, this is kind of a crazy coincidence,
but the month after I went to the True Crime
podcast Festival in Austin, I went to Crime con in
Orlando and decided to visit the site of the Tommy
Ziegler's furniture store in Winter Garden. And it's kind of
a crazy that both these old cases have had major
(45:08):
developments in twenty twenty five. Then I happen to go
to these places within one month of each other. And
I know that Tommy's Eagler has a hearing in December,
and with any luck, we might be revisiting that case
on a future episode sometime next year if all goes well.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Well, I hope so, because that is somebody who I
truly prayed that he's going to eventually get out of
prison because I do not believe he's responsible for it,
and that, as everybody who's listening knows, that is Robin's
pet pet case. And gosh, we went through that in
our first six months probably of our podcast, and it
(45:44):
was such a tangled web of a case. It was
so confusing, and it was like five parts and I
think that we recorded them all in.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
One day we did back in the pandemic when you
and I and actually had enough time to speak for
five hours about one case.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Oh my gosh, that was crazy, Like that was unhinged
of us pretty much.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Yeah, we should never do that again, never again. Yeah.
But it's great to see the Austin Yogurt shot murders
for falsely Q suspects finally achieve vindication this year, So
hopefully the same thing will happen for Tommy Ziggler, So
time will tell there. So, any final thoughts on the
Austin yogurt shot murders.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
No, I think I've said everything that I have to
say about this case. There's obviously there's always more, but
you've given me a lot of interesting facts, things that
I had no idea, and I'm glad that I didn't
watch the documentary. I'm glad that you were able to
go through it all with me and take me on
(46:44):
a really wild ride. And I'm just truly, truly thankful
the Brashers has been named as the perpetrator because it
brings a lot of freedom to those wrongfully convicted, and
it gives a name to be able to say that
this is the person that did that to the girls,
and for that reason alone, and for the peace of
(47:07):
mind of the family members and the loved ones and
the community and Austin as a whole, because this is
a case that affected them all. Everybody who lives there.
I'm sure who was alive around nineteen ninety one would
have been affected by the yogurt chop murders. So I'm
really happy that there's a resolution and really thankful for
genetic genealogy and all the work that investigators did behind
(47:28):
the scenes here.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Yeah, definitely. It's so surreal to see this one finally solved,
because it has always been cited as one of the
most heinous cold cases of the modern era. So it's
great to finally see a resolution and it gives me
hope that no crime is truly unsolvable and that maybe
some other high profile cases will finally have a resolution
in the future. So if you haven't watched the documentary,
it's called The Yogurt Chop Murders. It's available on HBO
(47:53):
Max in the US and Prave here in Canada, and
I highly recommend checking it out because you can finally
get the faces to a lot of the names we've shared,
and maybe one of those days they'll produce an additional
episode which finally shows the ending and goes into more
detail about Robert Eugene Rashers. So that's about it for
our extensive multi part series about the Austin yogurt shot murders.
(48:13):
Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll be
back again next week to talk about another case.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
about the Trail Went Cold? Patreon?
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
which I talk about cases which are not featured on
(48:45):
the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
Patreon and if you join our highest tier, tier three,
the ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer
is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
where you can downlo load an audio file and then
boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime
or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing
(49:08):
in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids
about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the
very first episode that I did a commentary track over
was the episode featuring this case. So if you want
to download a commentary track in which I make more
smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to
join Tier three.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
So I want to let you know a little bit
about the Jeules and Nashty patreons, So there's early ad
free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
We'll link them in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
So I want to thank you all for listening, and
any chance you have to share us on social media
with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter the Pathway.
So until next time, be sure to bundle up because
cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy
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