The Yogurt Shop Killings

0:06Every year marks another year, you know, that there's no closure. I still have insomnia 30 years after the fact.

0:23I wish I'd solved a crime for the families. We tried.

0:38I was a cop for 32 years at Austin PD.

0:50I'll always be associated with that case. There's no getting away from that. I just hope one of these days we can put this thing to bed.

1:02Jonesy? Yeah. You hear about the call, 2900 West Anderson? Yeah, I'm headed over there. The call occurred at 1127 p.m. What's homicide for? Homicide for? Did you get my en route there? There was the lead investigator on the I Can't Believe This Yoga Shot murder case. On December 6, 1991, there was a robbery, fire, and murder committed. It's all right. I'll make the call on myself. Victims were Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, Eliza Thomas, and Amy Ayers. I can still see them. I can still see the inside of that place. That stuff's indelibly burned in my mind. There has never been in Austin a more grisly, ugly crime.

2:05There's four girls in there, and they're all beautiful girls, and they're very young. They're cleaning up, they lock up the yogurt shop, and then we believe it to be two individuals. Came in, they forced them to the back room at gunpoint. I lost my sister Eliza Thomas in the yogurt shop murders. I was 13. Yeah, I was 13 when my sister died.

2:35The whole city was in shock. Everywhere we drove, there were these billboards with a picture of my sister on it. And so it's like, you just hold on to anything you can to get through these moments that are so impossible. We went where the case took us. Open the door! Police! We're either going to charge some people and get them in jail or clear them from this case. I don't know how many murders I've tried. It's unlike anything I've ever done before. It's nothing but one unexpected twist after another. Do you believe that there is right now some evidence that could lead to the killers? Yes. Yes.

3:20I know who did this. I just don't know his name. Is this the end of the beginning or the beginning to the end?

3:38Erin Moriarty reports. The Yogurt Shop murders. So what is all of this here? These are my notes. It's been more than 30 years since John Jones began the painstaking search for the killers of four teenage girls in an Austin yogurt shop. Oh, that's the big book. This one is really from day one. He has long since retired from the Austin Police Department and moved out of Texas, but copies of some of the case files moved with him. Hypnosis, polygraph, confessions. You know, I notice this sitting here. Yep. We will not forget. You haven't. Nope, can't. The images of December 6, 1991 remain all too vivid.

4:32I can definitely still see it. What do y 'all got out there? I'm in round. Marathon is 35. We've got a five. We've got a five-sided. It started with that call from dispatch. Okay, I'm copying the fire part you cut out on the first part of that. To go to a scene of a fire that would turn into something far worse. Yeah, apparently a wrong way on the side is police brutality. Last 10-4, I'm going around.

5:10And then about halfway out there, they called me again on the radio and said, we found a fourth body. A local TV news crew happened to be filming Jones on a ride along that night. What place of business is this?

5:26This is the, I can't believe it, children. Okay. The fire department had just knocked down the fire. I mean, there was still a lot of water in there, a lot of smoke still. It was all muted grays and blacks. There was no color in there with the exception of the girls. The girls were quickly identified. Two had been working at the shop closing up that night. Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison were both 17 years old. Jennifer's 15 year old sister Sarah and their friend 13 year old Amy Ayers had met them there to head home the four girls have been gagged tied up with their own clothing and shot in the head investigators would learn that at least one of the victims had been sexually assaulted the yogurt shop had also been set on fire destroying potential evidence.

6:28There was smoke and soot on every surface, so it kind of made fingerprinting kind of difficult. This was a crime like none Austin had seen before. Jones knew he needed help and from the scene contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. As soon as we knew what type of guns we were looking for, That information went out nationwide. Gunshot wounds showed two different types of guns were used, leading investigators to believe that there were at least two killers on the loose. What were the two guns? A.380 and a.22. And we recovered all of the rounds.

7:13The weapons, though, were not found, and a task force worked to come up with potential suspects. They were from all spectrums. I mean, we looked at everybody from family members to drifters. And while police tracked down leads, the families and the city of Austin grieved. The Harbison family lost their only children, daughters Jennifer, a hardworking high school senior, and Sarah, who was enjoying sports and clubs as a high school freshman. Their mother, Barbara, spoke with us in 1992. My life was sort of focused around them from here until eternity. Someone took eternity away from me. I lost my daughter.

8:00I lost my first dance. Bob Ayers is the father of the youngest victim, Amy, a country girl with a love for animals. I want to see her graduate. I want to see her become a veterinarian. She was a daddy's girl. I remember the shock. Sonora Thomas, 13 years old, when her only sibling, Eliza, was murdered, had a hard time dealing with the loss of the sister she looked up to. I remember fantasizing for days that my sister had somehow escaped and run away and that she was going to come back. And so that's what I was kind of holding on to. Her parents struggled as well. My family never talked about my sister after she died.

8:50Never? No. It's too... It's too painful. Sonora did as best she could, picking up some pieces of her sister's life. Eliza, an animal lover, had a pig she planned to enter in a livestock show. Just a few months after the murders, Sonora took over those duties. While Sonora may have seemed to be coping, the reality, she says, was far different. You had to grow up quickly. Very quickly. I would say I fell apart under that pressure. We knew they were hurting because, you know, we were hurting too. Here you go, open your little mouth. Jones, a parent himself, felt the family's grief. He promised to do all he could to help them.

9:45We told them what we could, and I assured them that we would keep them apprised as to everything that was happening, and we did. Jones also made a pledge to the families involving the shirt he wore on the night of the murders. I kind of made a promise to them. The next time they saw me with that green and white shirt on, that was a signal to them that, you know, we knew who did it. And Jones seemed assured they would find the killers. We stayed in constant contact with the behavioral science unit at the FBI in Quantico. They said that I should, as the face of the investigation, project an air of confidence that would cause the bad guy to shiver in his boots.

10:28So look in the camera and be confident. And when we followed him working the case in 1992, He did just that. You know, let me just say this. Whoever you are out there, you're going to be mine one of these days. Where are you at? Okay. Right here. But trying to figure that out was daunting. 342 people that have been listed as suspect. But we're looking at pages and pages of suspects here. One of those early suspects was a teenager named Maurice Pierce. He was arrested eight days after the murders at a mall near the yogurt shop, carrying a.22 caliber gun, the type used in the murders. The.22s were unmatchable.

11:14So you can't say it wasn't his gun? No. But there was no way to match it? To prove that it was his gun. He gave a statement. In fact, I took his statement. and he implicated three other boys. Joan says Maurice Pierce claimed that he was driving a getaway car and that three acquaintances, Forrest Wellborn, Michael Scott, and Robert Springsteen, were involved in the murders. But Pierce's story began to fall apart. It started to crater when we wired him up to go talk to Forrest. and we were listening in on the wire and it was pretty obvious Forrest didn't know what Maurice was talking about. And when Wellborn, Scott and Springsteen were brought in for questioning, they too denied any involvement.

12:10It was decided there was just not enough evidence to charge them. Stop right here. Right here. And the search for other suspects continued. Get that on the ground. Get that on the ground. Get on the ground!

12:39Two months after the yogurt shop murders, with no viable suspects, police were chasing leads no matter where it took them. They're into vampires, the occult, graveyard and riots. The task force became aware of a counterculture-type group of local residents known to be into the supernatural. They go out and dance and take pictures on tombstones. And investigators began to hear that this group might be connected to something far more serious. The tips were that they were talking about murders. Talking about the yogurt shop murders. The yogurt shop murders, yes. There was one woman in particular whose name kept coming up in connection with these tips.

13:28She got stopped at Oakwood Cemetery. The task force planned a raid on her home, hoping to see if any evidence might be found there. Stop right here. Right here. Unlock the door! Police! Police! Police off! Police off! Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground! Police! It was creepy in there. All that stuff back there. But as it turns out, a lot of that stuff was rat bones and theatrical parts. But it was a good lead until we finally figured out that they're just living a make-believe life. Just Sergeant Hook will be out of the task force. The raid may have been a bust, but it wasn't long before the task force had its eyes on another person of interest.

14:23This sketch shows a man that multiple eyewitnesses told police they saw sitting in a car outside the yogurt shop on the night of the murders. And it was somebody we really wanted to talk to. So we put it out there. And the response they got came from an unexpected source. A couple of other investigators from the sex crimes unit came up and go, we have a sketch that looks just like that. Three weeks before the yogurt shop murders, a young woman in Austin had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Police had released this sketch of three men wanted in connection with that crime. One of those suspects bore a striking resemblance to that man witnesses reported sitting in a car outside the yogurt shop.

15:13You know, I just kind of went when I saw the composite. A tip came in that the men wanted in the kidnapping and sexual assault case had fled to Mexico. Two were caught and arrested, one who resembled the person of interest in the yogurt shop sketch. The development made national news. When they got caught in Mexico, we went down there to interview them. Jones' team questioned the men, and so too did the Mexican authorities. The Mexican government announced to the whole world that they confessed and they were going to try them for the murders down there. They confessed to the yogurt shop. Yes, they did.

15:57But Jones learned those confessions had details that didn't match the crime scene. Even the caliber of guns they claimed to use was wrong. There was too many inconsistencies in the confession. So Jones' team re-interviewed the men, and he says this time they recanted just about everything. It made Jones and other investigators wonder if those confessions were coerced by the Mexican authorities. The once promising lead fell apart. It was depressing. Over the following years, there would be other confessions, ones that were willingly given. You know, we faced six confessions. Six people who confessed.

16:47Yeah, written. That confessed to this crime? Yes, they did. And they didn't do it? Nope. In 1994, after nearly three years of leading the investigation, John Jones was moved out of the homicide division. He says it was a mutual decision. Austin police wanted fresh eyes working the case, and Jones felt it was time to move on. Other detectives took over and as time passed, the victims' families were left wondering why no one had been arrested. Amy Ayers' mother Pam spoke to us in 1996. They're probably up there leading the life as normal as they've ever had. And ours is never going to be the same.

17:36That same year, Eliza Thomas' mom moved away from Austin and the painful reminders. Running into people who were constantly asking how the case was going was very hard on me and especially my daughter, Sonora. Sonora's life had taken a downward spiral. In my high school years, things really deteriorated. deteriorated. Drugs, using alcohol, being hospitalized, going to a boarding school for, you know, disturbed teenagers, things like that. The case seemed stalled until October 1999. Some breaking news. Austin police have arrested four men in connection with the yogurt shop murders of 1991. There were finally arrests, but would it answer the question on the billboard that had been haunting Austin for nearly a decade.

18:46After nearly eight years, Austinites are getting some answers in the case of the yogurt shop murder. I want to start off by thanking y 'all for joining us here today. For almost eight years, we've all waited to hear the words that our police department is close to a point of solving a crime that has haunted our very souls. Today, we finally get to hear those words. When four men were arrested in the fall of 1999 for the yogurt shop murders, relief was felt citywide. Sarah, Jennifer, Amy, Eliza, we did not forget. The girls' families struggled to take it all in. There had been so many false leads for such a long time.

19:38It was hard to know how to think about it and how to feel about it. But there were finally names and faces to blame. Maurice Pierce, Forrest Wellborn, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. To the task force, they were familiar names and faces. They were the same young men that John Jones and his investigators questioned just eight days after the murders. Did you do this? I have no comment. And ultimately released for lack of evidence. I was confident and remain confident this day that we got as far with them as we could then. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't something developed later that would cause them to actually go out and arrest them.

20:26So I was going, yes, good job. I was ready to dig out the hideous green and white shirt. But before that shirt could come out of the closet, the one he promised the girls' families he would wear when the case was solved, Jones wanted to know more about what led to the arrest. There was no physical evidence, nothing. Joe James Sawyer was appointed as Robert Springsteen's attorney. What made them go back and charge these guys? Because the new officers, when they reopened the cold case, convinced themselves that we let them slip through our fingers. We had to have had the murderers in the beginning.

21:12In part, they decided that because they had nothing else. There was no new physical evidence suddenly tying any of the four men to the crime. But what police did have were two newly obtained confessions, one from Michael Scott and another from Sawyer's own client, Robert Springsteen. Michael Scott's confession came first. He was questioned over four days. Come on, Michael, you're doing good. Tell us. Let's do this today. Let's do it. Same girl. I remember one girl screaming, terrified. Scott told investigators that he and the others only intended a simple robbery. He said they cased the yogurt shop earlier that day.

21:58And then after dark, he said, they came back armed with two guns. I heard a gun go off. I only pulled a trigger once. I heard another gun go off. Investigators claimed that Springsteen later corroborated much of what Scott said. How you doing? This is very loud, is that correct? But after intense questioning, he went further. You f***ing know, I've been f***ing raised your heart. Didn't say it, but I'm here to f***ing raise her. Springsteen told them he shot one girl and raped her. He was so tired of this. He'd already been questioned. and he'd already been through that mill. He thought, you know what?

22:42I'll tell you any damn thing you want. Sawyer maintains his client is innocent and says the confession was coerced. In 2009, Robert Springsteen explained to 48 Hours why he would admit to doing something so horrible, something he says he didn't do. I was berated and berated and berated by the police officers until they obtained what it was they wanted to hear. they were not going to allow me to leave. And I basically, they broke me down. Let me just ask you, did you have anything to do with the murders at the yogurt shop? No, never. Even though Joe James Sawyer didn't have Michael Scott as his client, he says he has serious concerns about his confession, too.

23:28Is that the gun you shot somebody with, Mike? Is that the gun you walked up behind somebody with and shot the head? I frankly couldn't believe it. They terrorized him, and he was afraid to say no. Forrest Wellborn denied having anything to do with the murders, but police were convinced he was the lookout that night, and Michael Scott placed him at the scene. Hi, I'm Erin Moriarty with CBS. I spoke to Wellborn in 1999 in jail shortly after his arrest. Were you there that night? No. Were you there as a lookout? No. I missed it. You had nothing to do with this? Nothing at all. Wellborn had been questioned multiple times by investigators over the years, and he never wavered.

24:23He, like the others, first came on police radar when in 1991, just days after the murders, Maurice Pierce had been caught with that.22 caliber gun at the mall near the yogurt shop. Pierce told the detectives back then that he had given the handgun to Wellborn and that it had been used in the yogurt shop murders. Why would he say that? I don't know. Wellborn has always maintained his innocence, despite pressure from the police. They'd get right in my face and, you know, tell me everything I said was a lie. Remember, false confessions in this case were nothing new. Jones said that six written false confessions were obtained when he was in charge.

25:12So when he learned that the two confessions were all the new investigators seem to have, It gave him pause. I go, well, maybe I shouldn't get that shirt out just yet. It wasn't long before the case against the men began crumbling. Charges against Forrest Wellborn were dismissed after two grand juries failed to indict him. And later on, charges were dropped against Maurice Pierce for lack of evidence. Everything fell apart except the cases against Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. And with Scott and Springsteen's confessions, the victims' families felt prosecutors had a strong case. These young men have been implicated and they have confessed and they can withdraw it, but the truth is they actually were there and they actually did the murders.

26:18In 2001, nearly 10 years after the murders of Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers, and Sarah and Jennifer Harbison, the Yogurt Shop murder trials began. Both defendants, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, faced the death penalty. The only thing that ever tied Robert or Mike Scott to that crime scene were their confessions. Confessions that both defendants said were coerced. The two were tried separately. Springsteen's trial was first. Neither of the men would testify against one another. So instead, prosecutors used their confessions against one another, reading parts of the confessions to the juries. Springsteen's lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, was frustrated that he couldn't cross-examine Scott.

27:09I thought the trial was massively unfair to my client and that it was being done systematically and with deliberation. The trial lasted three weeks. The jury deliberated for 13 hours. Defendant, please rise. And then reached a verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Robert Springsteen IV, guilty of the offense of capital murder. Guilty. Springsteen was condemned to death row. In 2002 Michael Scott went on trial. He was convicted as well. He was sentenced to life in prison. But the case didn't end there. 15 years after the murders came a shocking turn of events. In a 5-4 decision the court behind me said that Michael Scott's constitutional rights were violated during his trial and therefore should get a new one.

28:02Both Scott and Springsteen's convictions were overturned on constitutional grounds. The Sixth Amendment gives defendants the right to confront accusers. And remember, in Scott and Springsteen's trials, their confessions were used against one another, but they weren't allowed to question each other in court. And the relief, the relief was incredible. But that relief for the defendants came as a devastating blow to the victims' families. We later spoke to Eliza Thomas' mother, Maria, about that moment. Every time I hear those words, that their rights were violated, I just feel like I'm going to go insane.

28:50Their rights are violated. Our girls were murdered. It ruins your sense of fairness. It ruins your sense of that we live in a just world. Even though their convictions were overturned, Scott and Springsteen were not released. A new district attorney, Rosemary Lemberg, was determined to retry them. In an effort to find more evidence, her office had ordered DNA tests on vaginal swabs taken from the victims at the time of the murders. It's called YSTR testing and was fairly new in 2009 when we spoke with D.A. Lemberg. This technology searches for male DNA only. A partial male DNA profile was obtained from one of the victims believed to have been sexually assaulted.