The Trail Went Cold - Episode 343 - The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders (Part 2)

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2023

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

December 6, 1991. Austin, Texas. After responding to a fire at a local yogurt shop, the authorities discover the burned nude bodies of four victims who have all been shot in the head: 17-year old employees Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison; Jennifer’s 15-year old sister, Sarah Harbison; and Sarah’s 13-year old friend, Amy Ayers. Nearly eight years later, investigators arrest four suspects for the murders and while the charges against two of them are eventually dropped, the other two – Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott – had confessed to the crime, so they wind up being convicted at their respective trials. However, both men’s convictions are overturned due to civil rights violations and forensic testing reveals the presence of DNA on the victims which does not match any of the alleged perpetrators. In 2009, the charges against the two defendants are dismissed and they are released from prison, but there are no conclusive answers about who actually committed the crime. Last week, in Part One of our series on the Austin Yogurt Shop Murders, we shared the basic facts about the case. This week, in Part Two, we will attempt to analyze and break down this crime by sharing all the different theories about what happened. If have any information about this case, please contact the Austin Police Department at (512) 472-TIPS (8477). Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Austin_yogurt_shop_killings “Who Killed These Girls? The Unsolved Murders That Rocked a Texas Town” by Beverly Lowry “Murdered Innocents” by Corey Mitchell https://www.cbsnews.com/news/innocence-lost-the-yogurt-shop-murders-09-01-2010/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yogurt-shop-murders-are-two-never-identified-customers-key-to-solving-austin-texas-case/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-yogurt-shop-murders-austin-texas-families-investigators-haunted-by-unsolved-case/ https://www.statesman.com/picture-gallery/news/2021/11/30/yogurt-shop-murders-austin-cold-case-photos/8798254002/ https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3622 https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3658 “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is doing a weekly livestream show on Vokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon” at the World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida on September 22-24, 2023. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to the event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD23”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.com. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Oh, And the Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the Trail Went Cold.
0:39.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today we're going to be presenting the second of our two-part series was I appeared at the True Crime Podcast Festival in Austin and since the yogurt shop murders was one of my most highly requested cases which I had not yet covered, I thought now would be a good time to finally tackle it.
1:01.5	But since it is such a convoluted story I decided to make it a two-part episode.
1:07.1	We released Part 1 last week which outlined the most important facts of the case and if you haven't heard that episode yet I
1:13.4	suggest you go back and listen to it since I'm going to be discussing a lot of the
1:17.6	information I previously shared as well as my own theories and analysis.
1:21.8	So as a brief recap, this crime took place at an I can't believe it's not
1:26.2	yogurt shop in Austin, Texas on the evening of December the 6th 1991.
1:30.8	Two of the victims were 17-year-old Eliza Thomas and 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison,
1:37.0	employees who were both working the closing shift.
1:40.0	The other two victims were Jennifer's 15-year-old sister Sarah Harveson and Sarah's 13-year-old best friend Amy Airs,
1:47.0	who were hanging around the yogurt shop because Jennifer had promised to drive them back to her house for a sleepover after her shift ended.
1:54.3	The four girls were last confirmed to be alive right before closing time, but shortly thereafter,
1:59.5	one or more perpetrators likely forced them to strip before they were bound with their clothing, sexually
2:04.4	assaulted, and shot in the head, and their bodies were also burned when the responsible
2:09.2	party started a fire inside the shop.
2:12.4	The case remained cold into the fall of 1999 when four suspects,
2:16.9	Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce, and Forrest Wellborn were arrested for their
2:22.2	alleged roles in the murders.
2:24.6	The age range of these suspects at the time they supposedly committed this crime was between
2:28.9	15 and 17 years old and the case against them was based largely on confessions which were made by Rob and Mike, who both wound up being convicted at their respective trials.
2:40.0	However, both men recanted their confessions, claiming they had been coerced by law enforcement,
	...

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