Mug shot of suspected serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers
The only physical evidence located at the scene of a quadruple assault and homicide of teenagers has been linked to known serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers who, years later, died by suicide during a police standoff—with the same gun he used to murder 13-year-old Amy Ayers on that night in 1991.
On Dec. 6, 1991, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and 17-year-old Eliza Thomas were closing the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! Shop they worked at in Austin around 11 p.m. Jennifer's 15-year-old sister Sarah and her friend Amy were also at the shop to get a ride home from Jennifer.
Around midnight, a police officer noticed a fire at the shop, where first responders soon discovered the bodies of the girls inside. All four were found nude and bound, shot in the head execution style with a .22 caliber bullet. Sarah, Eliza and Jennifer were all gagged and bound with their own underwear. All three had been severely charred due to the fire.
Amy's body was found in a separate part of the shop. She was not charred but had burns on 25–30% of her body. She was found with a sock-like cloth around her neck. She had been shot in the same way as the others; however, the bullet had missed her brain. Amy was then shot a second time with a different gun—the evidence of which ended up solving the case.
The only physical piece of evidence recovered from the scene was the .380 cartridge casing—found in a floor drain. As intended, the fire that Brashers allegedly set after the murders made evidence collection extremely difficult. All four victims had vaginal swabs taken at both the scene and the autopsies.
False confessions and new testing
This devastating case was marred by false confessions and false convictions from the very beginning.
A few days after the murders, 15-year-old Maurice Pierce was caught with a weapon of the same caliber used in the killings in a nearby shopping mall. He implicated three friends— Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn—as taking part in the murders with him. However, the boys, none older than 17 at the time, were ultimately eliminated as suspects by detectives.
In 1999, a new task force was created to help solve the case. They reviewed the confession and deemed them credible. Again, confessions were obtained from Springsteen and Scott. There was no DNA or physical evidence linking any of the four men to the 1991 crimes. Still, Springsteen was sentenced to death and Scott was sentenced to life imprisonment since he was 15 at the time of the murders.
In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Springsteen's conviction based on Crawford v Washington (2004), which reformulated when hearsay states can be admitted in criminal cases.
As part of the new trial, the District Attorney’s Office and the police reviewed DNA evidence to try to gather physical evidence. By this time in 2008, DNA testing had come a long way. The swabs from the sexual assault kits on the girls were processed, and an unknown Y-STR profile was developed.
All four of the original suspects were excluded contributors for this unknown profile. In 2009, all charges were dropped.
Over the next several years, hundreds of reference samples were collected as elimination or suspect DNA profiles. The Austin Police Department estimates 13 different labs conducted testing over a 20 year-period.
However, precautions had to be taken as the DNA recovered from the crime scene was only a few picograms. Still, technology kept advancing and becoming more and more sensitive. In 2019, the unknown Y-STR samples were submitted for retesting and returned with 27 markers—up from 16.
The profile remained unknown, though.
The .380 cartridge casing and Y-STR
In 2022, Detective Daniel Jackson—who the families of the victims praised during the press conference Monday—was assigned to the case. He quickly met with DNA/genetic genealogy experts and created a plan for potential retesting that included Amy’s belt buckle, an ice cream scooper, fingernail clippings and other clothing. None of these generated actionable leads at the time.
One seemingly random morning in late-June 2025, Jackson decided to research the spent .380 casing that was found in the floor drain to see if there was anything that could be done with it. He realized it had not been submitted to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) in many years. The NIBIN database can link crime scenes and firearms through the digital imaging of spent bullet and cartridge case evidence.
“I don’t know what made me go down that rabbit hole that morning, but I did—and I’m glad I did,” said Jackson.
A few hours after Jackson submitted the request, ATF notified him of a “hit” to an unsolved 1998 murder in Kentucky. Upon further review, the investigators found that the two sets of murders shared a similar MO.
Trying to solve both these murders now, Jackson turned to the unknown Y-STR profile. Knowing that time had passed and Y-STR databases had grown, he requested a Y-STR search against the unknown profile for all labs in the U.S. that keep such information.
There was one hit. The South Carolina State Lab said they had a complete Y-STR match to the Austin unknown profile—a 27-to-27 match. The hit was to a Robert Eugene Brashers, who allegedly committed a rape and murder in Greenville, S.C. in 1990.
Before the Greenville detective knew anything about Jackson’s case, he asked if the victims were bound with their own clothing—and that’s when Jackson knew they had something.
Confirming the lead
A 1-1 Y-STR comparison and populations statistics indicted that Brashers’ Y-STR profile was unique, occurring in only 0.12% of the U.S. population. So, the Austin Police Department launched an investigation into Brashers.
They were able to place him at a nearby Border Control checkpoint a day after the murders. At this routine stop, Border Control realized that the car Brashers was driving was stolen. When they arrested him, they found a .380 “backup” model gun in the car—the same make/model ballistics identified as the weapon used in the yogurt shop. That gun was later released to Brashers’ father after the son was sentenced to four years in prison for grand theft auto.
Now knowing Brasher was in Austin at the time of the crime, the Austin Police ordered even more re-testing.
“We were trying to get from ‘I’m pretty sure it’s him’ to ‘I know it’s him,’” said Jackson.
The lab confirmed Brashers’ Y-STR profile in the sexual assault kits of Jennifer, Sarah and Amy. They then retested the fingernail clippings of Amy, and generated an STR profile. That STR profile was compared directly to Brashers—and matched. DNA from the Kentucky murder was also directly compared to Brashers and he cannot be excluded. The final report is still pending.
Where to go from here
Brashers died by suicide on Jan. 13, 1999 in Kennett, Missouri. As per his MO, he had two guns on him, but chose the same AMT .380 that he was stopped with the day after the yogurt shop murders.
“This is a combination of technology, good police work from multiple agencies, cooperation and timing,” said Jackson. “This is something that could not have happened until 2025, and I’m sorry it took 34 years for us to get here but we’re here now. Amy’s final moments on this Earth were to solve this case for us. It’s because of her fighting back.”
The Austin Police Department say the case is active and ongoing. Updates can be expected as further testing and reports are completed and released to the public. Additionally, law enforcement will continue to examine cold case assaults and murders that match Brashers’ MO of assaulting young female teens, carrying multiple weapons, tying victims up with their own closing and shooting victims in the head.