Transcript of Yogurt Shop Murders

Is this on? Season 3 of Proof, murder at the bike shop is available now wherever you get your podcast. I'm scared to be sitting here in this damn chair talking about this shit. This is a guy confessing a murder to her, and she has no idea what day it happened. Everything I tell you is the truth. I hope I don't bring a ton of shit down on me. Listen to season 3 of Proof Now, wherever you get your podcast. There was evidence in the house that they would not listen to me. It's not me. I didn't do It was a cool evening. Of course, the city was getting into the holiday spirit at that time. Amy was going to the mall with Sara, and Jennifer went to work at the yoga shop. We believe that it was business as usual. The shift started about seven o'clock. It was set to close around 11: 00 PM. Two of the girls had left to go to the mall and were coming to the yogurt shop. They were going to have a big slumber party, a big sleepover. It's Friday night. They wanted to get out of there.

The girls were all picking up, cleaning up the yogurt store. Something horrific and evil was about to walk in that door. They were They were supposed to be home by 11: 00, but they were already dead by 11: 00. It all started late one Friday night with a police radio call to Detective John Jones. Jonesy? Yeah. You're about to call 2900 West Anderson? Yeah, I'm headed over there. Okay. I'll meet you out there. Homicide four. An Austin police Homicide Investigator happens to have a news crew riding with him in the car that night, and he gets a call and starts speeding to the scene. Homicide is the property. All I've got is a prison job. Last 10, four. Going around. Triple fatality. A murder. Great. The case that would become known as the Yogurt Shop Murders begins on a December night in 1991 in Austin, Texas. 8781. I believe that's the next to-There was a police officer, and he was just patrolling the neighborhood, and he noticed smoke coming out from one of the doors, and it turned out to be the yoga shop. So he pulled in to investigate and immediately called for fire officials to respond to the scene.

Fire suppression efforts were aimed towards trying to put out this fire. And while doing so, they happened to trip over a body. And that is when they discover a horrific scene. Then they recognize it's two, and then three, and then finally four. The yogurt shop, it's probably like a typical retail space in a strip mall. You have the consumer area at front, tables and chairs, and there's a counter in the middle, and then there's the back room where the storage and office and everything is. I got there right after the fire had been knocked down. Very smoky. There was water dripping from the ceiling. It was overwhelming. More than anything, I mean, a fire, four dead folks, young, burned, shot in the head. Three of the girls were just totally not identifiable. They were burned too much. As soon as the Austin Police Department realized the scope of what they were dealing with, they called in extra investigation investigators to help them, specifically the FBI arrived at the scene, the ATF arrived at the scene. It was an uphill battle to begin with, the processing that crime scene. Everything gets doused with water. Because they did such a good job in putting the fire out, a lot of our evidence was destroyed.

There was evidence of sexual assault at the crime scene on the victims as well. So all four girls were nude, and their clothing had used to tie each other up. They also took DNA from those victims. So part of your standard sexual assault kit at an autopsy, besides swaps, is you also would take fingernet clippings for that very reason, because you think if a woman is being sexually assaulted, good chance she's going to fight back. And the fact that we were able to get any DNA and any evidence from this scene is pretty remarkable, especially given the year, 1991. You know, DNA really was not something we talked about back then. Initially, it was thought that it was possibly a robbery gone wrong, a robbery that turned into a horrific murder because cash rub and pulled out and there was some cash missing. We're dealing with four beautiful teenage girls. Two of them were sisters, Jennifer and Sarah Harbison. Amy Ayers, and Eliza Thomas. Just beautiful girls, and it's just a tragedy. These girls were so innocent enjoying their high school years and their friendships and just having a really good time that night together.

So Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison were working the evening shift that Friday night. It was set to close around 11: 00 PM. But two other girls, Jennifer's sister, Sarah Harbison, as well as her dear friend, Amy Ayers. They were at the mall earlier that evening, but went to the yogurt shop. They were going to have a big slumber party, a big sleepover. They've swept, they've mopped, they've cleaned the yogurt machines, then put napkins in the napkin holders, all that good stuff. The girls were doing what they do every time they shut the shop down. They were putting the chairs up on the tables. They were taking the money out of the cash register. The girls were herded into the back of the shop where they were forced to strip. They were to tie each other up with their under clothes, bound and gagged. They were sexually assaulted. And then they were each shot in the back of the head, execution style. And the place was set on fire. So all four girls were shot with a 22. And then Amy, the youngest victim, was also shot a second time with a 380, a semi-almatic pistol.

And that shell-casing actually made its way to the floor drain. The fact that Amy had a 380 and a 22, that she was shot by two different weapons, still remains A very intriguing piece of this case. Logically, you would think two people, or at least two people. Why would you have two guns? So that was the working theory that was more than one person. It was a very limited amount of resources back in 1991 to devote to this case. We're talking about a six-man homicide unit. So they were stretched thin from the very beginning. I've been in homicide a pretty good time, and this is They were the worst one I have ever seen for the mere fact that it involved four young ladies all at the same time. Over three decades, after a horrible crime took the lives of four teenage girls and changed Austin forever, our hearts haven't healed. They're still broken for the precious girls we lost. The Austin police have announced that a significant breakthrough has been made in the Yogourt Shop murder case. Austin in 1991 was a sleepy college town. A third the size of it is now. People back then didn't lock their doors at night.

We all felt pretty safe and really never thought about anything bad ever happening because it was... Everybody just knew everybody. It was just small. But when the Yogurt Shop took place, it changed Austin forever. The Yogurt Shop murders have been repeatedly described as the day Austin lost its innocence. This is Jennifer's pin from the Yogurt store for her uniform. I didn't even know that was here. My name is Barbara Wilson, and I am the mother of Jennifer and Sara Harbison. Jennifer was, of course, my first born, and she was very vivacious and loving. Jennifer and Sarah were so close. They always called Sara, Sara Louise Little Knees. They made me feel secure. They raised me as much as I raised them. My sister was very social, energetic. She was really into fitness and fashion and had fantasies of modeling and doing lots of different things. She was 17, so she was trying to discover who she was. There's all of us with the horse. The youngest of the girls was 13-year-old Amy Ayres, still an eighth grader. Like her parents and big brother, Sean, little Amy was a rancher at heart. I see her riding her horse.

Her hair's blowing in the wind, and she's just riding and having fun. I see Sean holding her when she was a baby. He wanted a sister. I mean, that was the first time I got to hold her. So it's like that's when I became a big brother. She had strawberry blonde hair, She got the length of mine. And she wore a hat, used a straw hat in the summer. We were joint at hip, and she'd go out with me to take care of the animals. And we were always riding together. She was just a cattle girl. In December 1991, it was a cool evening. Of course, the city was getting into the holiday spirit at that time. Amy was going to the mall with Sarah, and Jennifer went to work at the yoga shop, and then they were going to go home to Sarah and Jennifer's house. I remember the doorbell ringing, and I looked at the bedroom window and saw police cars. Told him, I said, The police We were here, and we went to the front door. This all started at 5: 30 in the morning. I heard someone knock at the door, and I jumped up.

When I went to the door, there were three people standing at my door. They asked me about if I had a daughter, and I'd, yes. And those questions are just not... You don't want those questions to ask because you You know that there's something, and you don't know what it is, and it's bad. You don't want to feel that, but you know it's here. The devil has come to your door. I heard my mom scream. So I went to the living room and looked and asked my mom what was wrong. And she looked at me and said, Amy's dead. And I just went numb and then looked around me and there's cops everywhere. I just remember my body was started shaking and my teeth started chattering, and I couldn't really even hear what was being said. They were telling us some story about there being a fire. See, I'm still not processing any of this very well, that there was a fire, and the girls didn't make it. Did they get burned? Was it the cause of the fire? I mean, we didn't know anything. They were trying not to tell us that they had been shot.

The families had to reconcile reconcile two very different types of emotions. Number one, this profound grief and sadness and shock. But on the other hand, this desire and this question about who killed their daughters and why. We live between the bookends of time, and their short chapters have begun, and they have ended too soon. Let perpetual light shine upon them. There were hundreds of people at the funerals of these girls. I said, Look around. I said, Look what we've got behind us. Kids. That's all I see is kids. We had a lot of support. We really did. The victim's family say they're counting on community support to find the killers. They say if this call for help isn't enough, they'll put up 14 billboards throughout the city asking that justice be done. So there began this outpouring of tips to the Austin Police Department, quite literally thousands of tips from people who called in. There was this all-out effort by the Austin community to help solve this crime. It takes only eight days for one of those tips to produce the first solid lead. Detectives follow that tip to a shopping mall less than half a mile from the yogurt shop, and to a 15-year-old teenager named Maurice pierce.

Different individuals had seen Maurice pierce with a 22, firearms, that they had been bragging to other people about being at the Yogourt shop. 2020 is partnering with VYVs, open ear wireless headphones. That's V-Y-B-Z. If you listen to a lot of true crime, you probably like to listen with a good pair of headphones, but it can be tricky to find a pair that provides great sound quality that's not too immersive. Because when you're out with a podcast during a late night dog walk or a predawn run, you don't necessarily want noise cancelation that blocks out the sounds around you. That's why you want to get a pair of vibes, your perfect companion in audio. They're designed for maximum comfort with ultra lightweight ear buds that just sit outside the ear canal, and they offer crystal clear audio. No matter what you're listening to, whether it's your favorite song or a soundrich true crime podcast, it'll come across loud and clear and silky smooth. The battery lasts up to 10 hours per charge, and they come in a range of sleek modern colors and styles. So what are you waiting for? Order now and you'll be listening to better sound with better headphones before you know it.

For a limited time, our listeners can get more than 60% off a pair of Vibes wireless headphones. Just go to abcsecretsavings. Com/2020. Again, that's abcsecretsavings. Com/2020. Abcsecretsavings. Com. Com/2020. Okay, Nikola, quiz Frage. Homeoffice Barstado oder Fahrtkosten. Was bringt uns mehr? Moment, ich check das kurz. Oha, Homeoffice gewinnt. Bringt uns 150 Euro mehr im Jahr. Ja, richtig. Aber wieso weißt du so was? Weil, wieso Steuer die Erstattung live anzeigt? Das ist einfach die Steuer-App für alle Fälle. Ja, und Fragen beantwortet sie auch. 247 und ohne Beamtendeutsch. Das ist einfach die App, die uns versteht. Steuern erledigt? Safe. Mit WISO Steuer. Jetzt kostenlos ausprobieren. Shoal Creek is a creek that runs through Austin. And when people think of Austin, they think of Shoal Creek. There was a creek behind the yogurt shop. And as tips were coming in and witnesses were being interviewed, there came to be known the Creek people. So underneath the bridge, kids would congregate there, smoke weed, drink beer. There was a thought that possibly the murder weapon or weapons might have been disposed in the Creek, that people had been hanging out at the Creek prior to the murders and after. And so authorities, as part of the investigation, began trying to learn the names of some of those people and young men who were there.

Police are looking for your help in solving this murder because there's not a lot of evidence to go on. There began this outpouring of tips to the Austin Police Department. Quite literally, thousands of tips from people who said that they had seen various things. The fact that they didn't have suspects, that they didn't have someone who did this, and that they didn't solve this crime, terrified people. I felt sick. I mean, it scared me to death. How frightened that it's happened close to home, at home. As of This morning, the murderers are still at large. Who are they? Where are they? When will they strike again? The answer? Anyone, anywhere, anytime. The yoga shop was maybe a couple of blocks from North Cross Mall here in Northwest Austin. And so all the kids were congregated at the mall. About eight days after the murders, Maurice pierce is a teenager who is found at North Cross Mall with a 22. This is Maurice pierce. He was 15 in 1991. He was bragging about a gun, about a 22. And authorities initially became really excited that they thought maybe they had found the perpetrator. And they call him in for questioning, and he is questioned at length.

And it's during questioning that pierce tells investigators that on the night of the murders, another boy named Forrest Wellborn borrowed his gun and later returned, telling pierce he'd done something bad and that he smelled of smoke. They actually wired up Forrest. Forrest put a bug on him to see if he could get Forrest to tell the story again. Forrest was like, What are you talking about? And they did talk to Forrest, and Forrest says, No, the next day, me and Maurice and my other friends, Robert and Mike, we stole a car and drove to San Antonio together. And the police were drawn to the fact that these four original suspects, Maurice pierce, Force Wellborn, Michael Scott, and Robert Springsteen, had been involved and had staked out the yogurt shop earlier in the evening and planned to return to rob it. So the operating theory that the police are working with is that pierce and Wellborn, along with two other friends, Scott and Springsteen, all teenagers, robbed the yogurt shop, assault and kill the girls, set the store on fire, and then steal a car and skip town. To investigators, all the pieces seem to fit together.

They have the motive, they have the opportunity, according to them, and the 22 caliber murder weapon, all except for one thing. There was absolutely no evidence at all. They didn't have the ballistics for the 22. They didn't have fingerprints, hair, DNA, nothing that tied any of these boys or anyone to this crime at all. They had, at the beginning, a lot of gossip, teenage gossip. We're talking about boys that are 15, 16, and 17 years old. The Austin Police Department administered polygraph exams of both peers and well-born, but essentially, they decided that any information that they had was not legitimate and that they were likely not involved in the Yogurt Shop murders. And then they test Maurice Pierce's 22, and it doesn't match. It's not the gun. Period. End of story. For the families, this just added to their pain and turmoil and grief grief. They were not able to get a simple, clear, direct answer about who killed their daughters. Today, the families of the 14-age girls murdered in a Northwest Austin yogurt Shop held their first joint news conference. We all were together for so many press conferences, trying to keep it alive and trying to deal with our own grief through that whole process.

Their message, together we can find and stop these vicious killers. As Police chase down every possible lead. The search for the killer or killers, drags on from days to weeks, and then finally to months, and still nothing. Billboards begin to go up all over Austin in a desperate effort to shake loose any clue. Every time we see those faces, it gives us hope and joy and sadness. We want those pictures up. We want people to know that these beautiful girls were alive, a part of this city, and they made a difference every day. On the six-month anniversary of the Yogurt Shop murders, people converged at the state Capitol. People were holding lighted candles. Investigators are still no closer to crack in the case. As hopes for an arrest begin to fade, public frustration begins to grow. For the Austin Police Department, it continued to put a bright spotlight on their investigation. The pressure for them to solve this case was above and beyond any case that they've ever experienced before, ever. And I dare to say that this was the biggest case that ever happened in Austin's history. Ten months after the crime itself, authorities became very excited after a man who was arrested in Mexico confessed to the murders.

The man on the right goes by the nickname the Terminator, and that's exactly what 24 Carlos Saavedra claimed he did when he raped and killed four Austin teenagers. I'm in the area. I'll just come. I just love to be able to touch something that's close to them. I shouldn't have to be out here. I'll be able to be at home with One day at a time. Some days it's one hour at a time. Knowing that people that did not know the girls or us or any of the families at all would care that much, it was eye-opening to see how many people actually it affected. We did a weekend where we were on the corner where the yogurt shop was. A lot of people had gone out and passed out flyers, asked people, Did you see anything? People that didn't know us were willing to try to help us. One of the breakthroughs in the Yogurt Shop investigation came about 10 months after the crime itself. Authorities from Mexico called Austin police and excitedly told them that they had obtained this confession. Two men, Cortés and Saavedra, they were Mexican nationals, and they were suspected of being the killers.

Apd flies down there to interview them. The man on the right goes by the nickname the Terminator, and that's exactly what 24-year-old Carlos Saavedra claimed he did when he raped and killed four Austin teenagers. I'm in the area, I'll just come. I just love to be able to touch something that's close to them. I shouldn't have to be out here. I'll be able to be at home with her. One day at a time. Some days it's one hour at a time. Knowing that people that did not know the girls or us or any of the families at all would care that much, it was eye-opening to see how many people actually it affected. We did a weekend where we were on the corner where the yogurt shop was. A lot of people had gone out and passed out flyers, asked people, Did you see anything? People that didn't know us were willing to try to help us. One of the breakthroughs in the yogurt shop investigation came about 10 months after the crime itself. Authorities from Mexico called Austin police and excitedly told them that they had obtained this confession. Two men, Cortés and Saavedra, they were Mexican nationals, and they were suspected of being the killers.

Apd flies down there to interview them. The man on the right goes by the nickname, the Terminator. And that's exactly what 24-year-old Carlos Saavedra claimed he did when he raped and killed four Austin teenagers. The problem is, as Austin police began studying the confession, many of the details did not match any details of the crime scene. They didn't know the details of the crime. They were false confessions. Got your hopes up a little bit. Somebody's going to be held accountable for this, finally. And then they come back and said it wasn't them. At the end of the day, there were something like over 50 confessions in this case, and hundreds of more tips beyond that. There was much desperation, I think, in trying to find who the killers were. There was posters, there was rewards. You'd see the posters of the girls on the billboards. There's a huge effort to try and solve the crime. We know all there is to know about the crime itself, and we've got everything ready except who to charge with. It was a fight. We got excuses like, Well, there's more homicides happening every day in Austin. I said, That's fine.

But just keep working on this one. Despite all efforts, there are no major breakthroughs, and more importantly, there are no arrests. In the late 1990s, there was a new effort to try to solve this crime. Investigators dust off the old files. They take a new, fresh look at the evidence and wind up going all the way back to square one. 33 boxes of evidence and video tapes and audio tapes and things. The police were drawn to the fact that these four original suspects, Maurice pierce, Force Wellborn, Michael Scott, and Robert Springsteen, were all involved in this. They bring in Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen for interviews and interrogations. What we're going to be talking about today is taking you back to 1991. I'll be honest with you guys, I have a piss-port in there. Well, and one of the reasons that we're here is to help you try and remember. We're just going back over things and trying to do the best we and talk to people that really want to talk to you that well. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Well, I'm married to a 46-year-old woman. I have two step kids and a step grandsons.

They were interviewed over and over and over again. Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen were subjected to 18 hours and 5 hours of interviews, respectively. I could tell you, if I was there and had saw that or participated in that, I would think that I would be a pretty good person. This is where the case takes a major turn. Michael Scott indicates that he and the other three boys were, in fact, involved in these horrific murders. He said that Maurice pierce was something of the ring leader of the crime. Forrest Wellborn was the lookout, and that he and Robert Springsteen were the primary offenders in terms of killing the young victims and and robbing the storm. Boris Wellborn and Maurice pierce never confess to the crime. In fact, they say emphatically they had nothing to do with the Yogourt Shop murders. After hours of unrelenting interviews, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen confess to these murders. Robert Springsteen, when he confessed, the last step of read interrogation is that you have them write the confession and sign it. Robert Springsteen refused to sign it. He immediately takes it back. Michael Scott takes it back, but he goes ahead and signs his.

Is it possible to kill those girls? I guess it's possible. It is possible. Anything's possible. That's what you said. All right. Is it possible Rob Springsteen, that you were present there while this took place? Is that possible? No. You just told me, Anything's possible. It is possible. Okay. Is it possible that you were there? Yes. Is it possible that you killed one or two or more of those girls? Could be. Could be. Is it possible that you were involved in planning? Is it possible? Yes. You know you did. He knows it, and I know it. You watched him, and you didn't want to watch him. I don't think so. I'm not going to say no anymore because you guys got a really compelling case, and I'm starting to remember a few things here and there. What's your turn? Because her strength. What else do you hear? Piss has got shot. Don't hold that now. I'm not holding that, guys. You all made a bunch of memories trigger. I remember being sick and disgusted with myself. I remember my ears ringing. I remember the one that I tried to rape, still being alive. Robbie handed me a gun.

I'm like, Look at that guy. This is wrong. I remember hearing, You're a doer. You're next. I've pointed that gun and I pulled the trigger. Early this morning, the Austin Police Department, with assistance from other law enforcement agencies, served four arrest warrants charging four individuals with capital murder. These charges stem from the murder during the robbery of a yogurt shop on December 6, 1991. Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott confessed. So they charged the two of them with four counts of capital murder. It's important that these young men get all they deserve in our judicial system so that we never have to go back through this again. Austin breathed a collective sigh of relief. The families were relieved to get to the truth of what happened the night of December 6, 1991. My son, Michael, is a yogurt shop suspect. Almost as quickly as the relief came from these arrests. They know the four boys didn't have anything to do with us. There was no physical evidence linking them to the scene. No DNA, no fingerprints, nothing. There is something definitely wrong with this case. In Texas, police say they have solved a sensational eight-year-old murder case.

That is what this case is about, bringing to justice four individuals for the brutal murder of four little girls. Michael Scott, Forrest Wellborn, Maurice pierce, and Robert Springsteen are arrested for the four yoga shop murders. You have been charged with the offense of fugitive from justice from the state of Texas for capital murder. We want to know where these young people came from. We want to know their backgrounds. We want to know how their lifestyle became a murderous one. I'm going to have to get my attorney to make a statement or I don't know what else to tell you. From By time of the murder to the arrests, the four men have had rather unremarkable lives. Robert Springsteen is now living in West Virginia. Maurice pierce is married and a father. Michael Scott, also a father. There. Meanwhile, to the south of Austin, Forest Wellborn has developed a business and is seemingly doing well. District attorney obtained indictments against three of the four defendants. Yet at the same time, two separate grand juries failed to bring an indictment against Forest Wellborn. The second Travis County grand jury refused to indict Forest Wellborn, forcing the state to drop charges against him.

A ballistics report, provided by the ATF, also set the The gun that Maurice pierce had on him that night at North Cross Mall was not the firearms that was used in the commission of the murders. There are now all of these cracks and misgivings in the case. Additionally, the defense claims the interrogations were coerced using a controversial high pressure interrogation method called the Reed technique, developed in the '50s and still used today, but criticized by many in the legal community for possibly leading to false confessions. The Reed technique, I view as a form of psychological warfare. When Michael Scott was interrogated, was over a series of days, they had his brain so messed up that he didn't know which way was up or down. He believes them when they say he were involved. He believes it. That's why he's so scared. But the whole point is, he begins to doubt his memory. What you're doing to yourself is just putting yourself in the predicament that you're just digging deeper and deeper. I'm going to dig myself in the head trying to remember who you're talking about. You're not doing any of that. Robert Springsteen comes in.

He had just gone off work. He worked the night shift, and he is just done with this. I'm just so confused about everything because I guess my version of what happened and everybody else's version of what happened is two completely, totally different things, which I don't understand. When the confessions don't match, then they keep at them. So it's making him change to match what they believed happened. So in this portion of the interview, investigators present false information to Robert Springsteen, a common and legal method of the read technique. Well, the read method says you can lie to people. I ended up going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show that night. Would you be surprised if I told you that the Rocky Horror Show wasn't even showing that night on Friday, December 6, 1991? Yeah, I went there. Really? But the movie was indeed planned the Night of the Murders. Questioning throws off his memory and why he could say he wasn't at the yogurt shop. Scott begins to believe all this stuff they're telling him. He's like, Okay, so now I'm trying to get these memories out. What were they tied up with? It's not hard.

I want to say extension cord. Really? Why do you say that? I remember it being white. Something white. Okay, it was something white? It was real hard. Napkins? No, not napkins. You can't turn it up with a napkins. Was it an electrical cord? Can you tell us? I can't remember. Finally, he hits on something that was actually like underwear, socks or whatever. There you go, Mike. Now you got it. Now you're working. Now you remember. You remember, right? One of the detectives is trying to get him to confess and goes behind him and puts his gun behind his head. Does that look like a gun you've seen before? It looks like a gun I've seen before, but I'm not positive. Is that the gun you shot somebody with, Mike? No. Is that the gun you walked up behind somebody with and shot the head? Is that the one? Talk to me, Mike. Yes. You did that, didn't you? Yes, sir. He doesn't have to say, I'm going to shoot you, but anyone who is in that situation, I think, would feel scared. Between the feeding of facts, the threat and this false memory belief, plus the fear they put into them.

They basically scared them to death. What happened at trials is they tried Springsteen first. And at Springsteen's trial, they used part of Scott's confession against him. And then at Scott's trial, they used part of Springsteen's confession against him. So they used their confessions against each other. Despite the confessions being recanted soon after they were given, they were still used as a key piece of evidence. The trials were horrible, by the way. They were just horrible. We were trembling. I mean, just trembling for the verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Robert Springsteen IV, guilty of the offense of capital murder. Is this what you wanted, Barbara? Well, we want some ending. Michael Scott is also found guilty. The juries believed the statements and ultimately returned convictions. And in compliance with the laws of the state of Texas, I hereby assess your punishment at death. Robert Springsteen was sentenced to death by lethal injection, and Michael Scott was sentenced to life in prison. Maurice pierce sits in the Travis County Jail for about three years, awaiting trial, and prosecutors dropped the charges against him. All they've got is that they were together, so they have to let him go.

I am innocent of all charges pertaining to the Yogurt Shop case. Fifteen years after the crime, the cases of Springsteen and Scott are remanded to be retried after the US Supreme Court rules in a separate case that two men's statements could not be used against each other in separate trials. So if you accuse me of something, then by God, get up on that stand, and I'm going to cross-examine you about that. You can't cross-examine a written confession. The Criminal Court of Appeals in Texas said, because of this Supreme Court case, that they deserve a new trial. And so they send it back to district Court to be retried. In 2008 and 2009, prosecutors are wrestling with what they are going to do. The state says they will retry the case. But when prosecutors test the crime scene DNA with an approved technology called YSTR, which looks at male genetics only, they find none of the four boys match the DNA recovered from the crime scene. That evidence made clear that there was no physical evidence tying the boys to the crime. And the convictions are dismissed. And so as of October 2009, both guys were now free, but the cases are dismissed pending further investigations.

Which means that at any time, these charges can be brought back to them again, and they can be arrested at any time for these. It's been a long time in coming, and I'm happy to be here. No comment right now, please. For the families, this was yet another aspect of this terrible emotional roller coaster. That was pretty bad because we thought we had the guys that did it. Our fear was, will they do it again? Now, in many ways, they felt as though the investigation was back to square one. Somebody had done this before. At that point, they realized this was a much bigger case. They called in and said, There's been a break in the case. He said, I know who killed your daughter. I loved my father, and then I find out that he was a serial killer. I'm R. J. Decker, a private investigator, uncovering the Sunshine State's Darkest Secrets. Tuesday, it's the premiere of ABC's hottest new crime show. R. J. Freaking Decker as I live and breathe. He's a private eye. It's not a standard murder. Someone bigger. And a public mass. Trying to get some back to prison today.

You go to prison one time, and suddenly it's all the jokes. R. J. Decker, series premiere, Tuesday on ABC and stream on Hulu. Abc Wednesdays, the Emmy-winning Comedy Scrubs is all new. This is a whole new chapter for me. No, One more sad sack. That's what I'm talking about. I want both of our sacs to be fun. You two idiots are perfect for each other. From executive producers of Ted Lasso and Shrinking. We were all a part of this victory. Now, get those nachos out of the premium warmer. Nachos. It feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech. The new season of Scrubs, Wednesdays 8: 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu. Here, guys. Amy Harris. Amy Harris, don't out. This is a day that we brought Amy home from the hospital. And he was proud of her. Sean wanted his sister. He's just beaming, looking at her. He was a good big brother to her. Played with her, loved on her. This is the first day of school picture, her and Sean. This is the Ag one that we talked about showing her hog, that she won a trophy for showmanship the first year she ever showed.

She was proud of that, wasn't she? We were, too. Not many kids can say they rode a world champion cutting horse? That's where they stop. Okay. Some more. I had virtually given up on solving our case. I mean, I'd just come to the resolution we weren't going to solve it. I would know when I died, what happened, but I would have to live with that. How about thanks to Angie. We've made it this far. For me, it was the right thing to do. I wanted to help them. I wanted to help my sister-in-law because it was not right what was done to her and her friends. Angie Ayers is a fiery force. She also brings this deep and rich passion on behalf of the sister-in-law she never met. It's not an easy road to travel. You got to pick yourself up by the boots to have the guts to go down and talk to the police Department and talk to the district attorneys. It's been a fight, and it takes an emotional and a physical toll trying to find the answers that you deserve. And there are others joining this long battle to find answers for Amy and the Girls.

The heirs meet Travis County prosecutor Mindy Montford, who is now working the cold case investigation for the district Attorney's office. As someone who has followed this case from living here and remembering when it happened, and that's my neighborhood. So I've known about this for so long and had so much empathy and respect for you all. We were nervous because we had gone through so many people before But I do remember after the meeting, you took the chance to walk us down, and you turned to us, and you had tears in your eyes. You said, I'm always going to be here. I'm going to continue to fight no matter what. Shana and I talked about that on the way out when we were walking, and I was like, I hope she stands up to it, and you have. I meant it. I know you did. You had DNA, and so many of these cases don't have that. And so I knew it was just a matter of time, but that we had to try everything. So remember Remember, back in 2009, the Austin authorities released the suspects because the DNA technology had advanced, and they were finally able to obtain something called a YSTR profile, and neither Springsteen nor Scott's DNA matched.

So now the hope is, can the latest science help match who this DNA actually belongs to? We have tested hundreds, hundreds of people, first responders, serial killers, family members, police officers, against that YSTR profile we've had to try to identify the individual without success for years. Four teenage girls bound, gagged, and shot in the head in an I can't believe it's yogurt shop. And now on this 30th anniversary of this heartbreaking crime, a case that to this day still has more questions than answers. But at some point, the Austin Police Department formally requested that the newly formed cold case unit within the AG's office assist APD with this investigation. I was told you're going to really be excited because we've got this new detective coming on board. And enter Dan Jackson. So this is the entryway to the cold case office. The first thing you see when you start your day is this here. And what we have is a to scale diorama of the strip mall where the yogurt shop is located. Then we also have here is pictures of the four girls and a short biography about each girl, and then a short synopsis of the case.

It reminds you while we're out here and what we're doing here and why this unit was actually starting to begin with was to work this case. Mindy introduced us and I said, Oh, I don't remember my exact words, but I know that I said something to the effect, Oh, so you're only the next investigator later 200 and something. And he was like, I would like to make the last one. But Dan took this. He looked outside the box. He told us he never seen crime scene photos, never read any of the confessions. None of that stuff. He was looking for evidence. When I took the case over, I was like, This case will never progress until you figure out who that unknown profile is. We had sent a couple of things off that didn't result in anything promising. So all the leads ended up going nowhere. And then at the end of June of 2025, I don't know why I went down this rabbit hole, but I was thinking about that 380 Cartridge that was pulled from the drain, thinking about what we could do with it. The ATF maintains this database, and now you can take your expended shell casing, give it to Niven, and they will do one of these computer searches, and they will search this database of thousands and thousands of other expended shell casings.

And remarkably, every once in a while, you to get a hit. One of our detectives submitted it, and that afternoon, my phone rang, and he was like, Hey, you got a second? So he called, he goes, Hey, I'll put you on speaker phone with a couple of people. He goes, Are you sitting down? I said, Yeah. He goes, We got a hit. From a 1998 unsolved case out of Kentucky. I still get chills thinking about it because when Dan started reading me the police report, and I'm hearing this victim was shot in the head with a. Possibly sexually assaulted, and the business was burned. But we could find no connection between... Other than that gun, it was still on the name. So we still don't know who did it. At that point, Dan Jackson asked crime databases across the country if they would do something called a manual search, upload only the strand of DNA that they have into their databases to see if there is a possible match. Match. So we reached out to all the labs and asked them to do this. All the states returning information saying no hits, no matches, except one state, South Carolina, said yes, and that was a huge break.

Bingo. A lead 34 years in the making. And suddenly, we've got a serial killer on our hands. After 34 years, Austin authorities have gotten a big break, like nothing else in this investigation so far. But little do they know, it's been years in the making, thanks to a new science called genetic genealogy. There's one name in this area that really stands out, and that's C. C. Moore. I have been involved in over 360 law enforcement cases that I've been able to help law enforcement resolve. Genetic genealogy is the combination of using documentary sources and DNA to learn more about someone's family history. I started filming a series with ABC News called the Genetic Detective. The work I did laid the foundation for the investigators who identified the killer in the Yogurt Shop murders. Cee C. Moore's investigation actually kicks off with a different cold case from 1998 in a Midwestern town 800 miles away from Austin. March 28, 1998, a teenager and his father came home and made a terrible discovery. Megan and Sherry Sheer, a mother and young daughter, had been viciously murdered. It was definitely the worst crime scene at the time that I had seen.

Sherry had three gunshot wounds to the head. Megan Sheer was laying near Sherry. She also had a gunshot wound to the head. Her hands had been bound behind her back with an extension cord. Unfortunately, Megan was sexually assaulted, and so they were able to collect DNA from the perpetrator off of her body. Investigators got their first big break in the case, and it came about 40 miles south in Dyersberg, Tennessee. About nine o'clock, At night, on the same evening that Sherry and Megan had been murdered, a mother in Dierre County, Tennessee, describes coming home with her kids, and a maroon van pulls in. The man walks up, and she describes the man pulling a gun from the waistband of his pants and pointing it directly at her. She tries to start shutting the door on his arm. That's when he shoots. The bullet goes through the door and hits her in the shoulder. She survived, and he pulled back out to the van and took off. The crime laboratory technician was able to match the bullets and say that the same gun was used in both crimes. What's amazing to me is that that wasn't enough for him.

Two murders and a rape wasn't enough. He tried to go and victimize somebody else in the very same day, and I think that tells us something important about him. The survivor, the woman who fought him off, she was able to describe him to law enforcement, and so that was a really key piece of information. So in 1998, we were interviewing suspects that had criminal histories, that had been involved in assaults and sexual assaults and looked similar to the composite that we had posted on the media. Nothing worked. The Sheer family was beloved in their community and Zuri State Police. This was a really important case to them. But years passed until they were able to do more with that biological evidence. And once DNA technology advanced, they were able to get that DNA profile created and uploaded into the law enforcement database, CODIS. Our hope was when we submitted this profile, it would send us a name back of a suspect that had been arrested in the past. But instead, we were linked to a cold case that occurred in 1990 in Greenville, South Carolina. In South Carolina, in April of 1990, a young woman named Genevieve Zatriky was found murdered in her apartment.

Jenny was 28 years old. She had been strangled. She had been sexually assaulted. When I arrived at a crime scene, there was blood everywhere. Jenny's body was in a bathtub with her hands behind her back. What we inferred from the crime scene was somebody had done this before. During the autopsy, there was a rape kit administered. There was a cervical swab made that produced a DNA sample. We stored the DNA in hopes that science would eventually catch up. They now realized they were dealing with a serial killer, and it covered a much bigger area than they had ever imagined. We thought we had a decent lead, and we exhausted that lead, and we turned up nothing. It was frustrating for them. It seemed like such a big development. How could they not find this guy? After we exhausted all those leads, we didn't know exactly where we were going to go from there. A lot of jurisdictions across the country, there was a backlog of processing rape kits. In 2013, the Memphis Police Department did an inventory of all of their sexual assault kits. The Memphis Police Department found that 6,179 needed DNA testing. And so there was a rape from 1997 where the kit had not been processed.

Once that was processed, they were in for a big surprise. And in May of 2017, a third CODIs hit matched the crime in Greenville, South Carolina, and Portageville, Missouri. There was nothing substantial to go on that would help us find out who he was. When law enforcement runs out of all of their avenues of investigation, investigation, investigative genetic genealogy can step in and help solve it. Well, the good news about the Memphis crime being tied to the others is there was an abundant amount of DNA to work with from that rape kit. They take this degraded old DNA, and they help to make it viable for genetic genealogy so I can do my job. So from the DNA that Parabon was able to develop, Ceeci Moore was able to create this family tree. A lot of times I'm lucky, and I'm able to narrow it down to just one immediate family, one candidate or a set of siblings. But in this case, there were quite a few cousins who could potentially be our DNA contributor. So I started looking at each of them, and this one person had a history that made me really sit up and take notice that this had to be the guy.

When I saw this man, I immediately recognized him from sketches. Abc Wednesdays in Comedian Nate Breggetzi's new game show. To win, you don't need to know the right answer. Just what most Americans think is right. It's not about being the smartest. You just have to be the most average. We asked 100 average Americans, do they keep an empty gas can in their car? No. Have they ever broken a bone? No. I said a lot of no. That's all right. My wife says a lot of no as well. The Greatest Average American, Wednesdays, 9: 8 Central on ABC, and stream next day on Hulu. It's The Paradise podcast. I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bethe, with my husband, Sterling. What's up? Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shaline Woodley, Julian Nicholson, and Sterling Calvi-Brown. Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Cee Cee Moore is working to solve multiple cold cases using genetic genealogy and building this family tree that eventually will help detectives back in Austin solve the Yogurt Shop murders.

I zeroed in on a man named Robert Berchers. When I started digging into him, I very quickly found a newspaper article that he was charged and convicted of a violent crime in Florida in 1985. He had attacked a woman, shot her, attempted sexual assault, but she had gotten away. And so I started digging further on him. I was looking at one of Robert Brochier's daughter's Facebook pages, and on that page was a picture that really jumped out at me. And it didn't have any labels, but he was wearing what looked like the exact same hat. Look at that. And the glasses faces. So that told me that I was looking at the right person. When I communicated my findings to law enforcement, I actually laid out these pictures. Robert Eugene Berchiers, a name law enforcement had not heard up until the point she said it to them. In just hours, she gave them the answer that they've been looking for this whole time. They found out that they'd been chasing a ghost because Berchiers had been long dead. And I learned that Robert had killed himself during a police standoff in January 1999. Law enforcement was very hopeful they would be able to get DNA directly from Robert to compare against their crime scene DNA.

That's the ultimate match. So we got a court order to exhume his body and take samples of his remains to have DNA tested. From Greenville, South Carolina. Days turned into weeks, weeks to months, months to years. To Portageville, Missouri. We've traveled all the way across the United States, done countless interviews. The search for a serial killer and rapist. This is a terrible, terrible thing. Officially ended Friday when three departments said they got their guy. Robert Brashers. Robert Brashers. Robert Brashers was the suspect. I was so overwhelmed. I cried. I laughed. I was thankful that the family had closure. Usually, when I work these cases, once they're resolved, I'm able to set them down and move on. But I was never able to let this one go. In the hundreds of cases I've been involved in, there are no others that have stood out to me in the same way that this one did. He really haunted me. He haunted my dreams. I woke up thinking about him hundreds of times over the I just couldn't let him go. I felt that there was a lot more to his story, and I believed wholeheartedly there were other unsolved cases.

And C. C. Moore was right, but it's going to take another seven years for this to come full circle back in Austin. Detective Dan Jackson and his team decided to ask every single crime lab in the country that collects YSTR DNA data, which focuses only on the male Y chromosome to manually search the sample collected from the yogurt shop crime scene. I got an email that said that you've got a YSTR profile matched in Greenville, South Carolina, and it had an offense date. So of course, I googled murder with that offense date, Greenville, South Carolina, and the name Robert Eugene Berciaers pops up. Well, what are the odds that the same Y profile comes back to a serial killer? And when you start researching this guy, you find out that this MO is very similar to a yogurt shop on more than one occasion. Now we have a face. Now we have a name. So at that point, we decided, let's take the fingernael scrapings from Amy Ayers. Amy Ayers was a fighter. We knew that there had been a Y profile identified in those scrapings. However, it just was a very small amount. It was degraded.

We wanted to wait till the perfect time when technology had improved. So we sent the scrapings and we waited. They said, Robert Brochers is under Amy Aire's fingernails. This is him. That's what's so scary about serial killers. Is that you can't spot him. He just looked like a normal person. The date is September 26th, 2025. Something tells me my son would tell me I need to capture this moment. We are going to deliver some news and tell the families who is responsible for the deaths of their children. So the families aren't going to get justice necessarily, but they're going to get answers. And we promised them that years ago, and we're delivering on that today. They were in Brian, Texas, at a horse show. And we caravanned to the rodeo arena, and we pulled up, and they're waiting for us in the parking lot. We all had a gut feeling that this was going to be good news this time. I didn't know just what good news, but something good. I broke down When the first words first came out of my mouth. And he sat down and he didn't say anything for a long time.

Then he finally tears running down his eye and his cheeks. He said, I know who killed your daughter. The room changed to me. Dan, everybody else disappeared. Time stopped when he said that. I said to Dan, Are you 100% I walked through where we started and where we finished and just laid it all out in detail, starting with the shell-casing that matched Kentucky to the DNA underneath Amy's funerals. She's scratched and she fought back. Because her fighting back, that preserved DNA and led us to solve this case 34 years later. We told them in the very beginning, check Amy's finger nails. We knew that she would have fought. We always thought she fought, now we know for sure she did. And he looked at me, he said, he's a serial killer. Rochers is the face of evil. He's manipulative, he's smart, but he is sadistic. When he is not in prison, he is murdering and raping. Authorities have already linked Robert Eugene Brashears to a trail of crime across the Southeast. But many questions remain, including how he came to choose the yogurt shop and those victims. Was there a reason he was in Austin, or was it a spontaneous sidetrack from his original destination?

His father lived in Glendale, Arizona at that time, and so it makes sense it might be driving through Texas. But that wasn't something that law enforcement had found when I was working with them. Authorities do a search of Brochier's name in a criminal database and discovered that his name had been in the federal files for decades. Brochier's was stopped a little less than 48 hours after the murders at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Los Cruises, New Mexico. Border Patrol had the wear all to think, This guy is just not acting right, and to pull him over. The Border Patrol agent, he had a Bereshears step out of the truck, and he reached in to get the registration, see whose truck it was, and he saw a gun. He removed the gun. Somehow, Bereshears gets in the truck and takes off. This area is in the middle of the desert, so it's pitch black out there, and then just stops, gets out, and puts his hands up, gives up. He was driving a stolen car, and he was in possession of a 380. So we can put him basically getting the hell out of his state right after the Yogert Shop murders occurred.

We believe Rochers threw out the 22 and any, possibly any other evidence he had kept from the Yogert Shop, out the window when he was driving for a mile in the dark. Remember, all four girls in the Yogert Shop have been shot with a 22 caliber pistol. But only Amy was shot a second time with a different gun. There had been that spent 380 showcasing found in the yogurt shop drain. But back in 1991, Border Patrol doesn't know any of this. The way state and federal authorities shared information was limited back then and less sophisticated. Border Patrol confiscates Berchere's 380 and nothing at the time links Berchers to this horrible Austin murder case. He ends up making bail. Please get stopped in February in Georgia. Another stolen car and burglary tools, police scanner ends up getting charged federally for all this. Once he's sentenced, his father petitioned to get the gun back and was released to him. Now we know why. The gun was pretty important to him. But Pashir wanted it back because it linked him to a yoga shop. Robert Pashir is sentenced to five years in prison for stolen property and unlawfully possessing a firearms.

This was not a straightforward type of criminal who was following the exact same pattern each time. He was in different locations, different MOs. Brochers seems to have been on the move for decades. After graduating high school, he joined the Navy in 1976. He was soon discharged, and by 1980, was living in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the things that really intrigued me when I was researching Robert Brochers was that he faked his own death. He had two obituaries that were almost 20 years apart. One of them was when he died in January 1999. And then the other was in November 1980. It talked about how he lived in New Orleans. It named all his family members. And so what I immediately thought was he was trying to hide from something. This was a guy who was trying to cover his tracks. And the more authorities investigate this case, the crazier it gets. Not only did Berchier's appear to fake his own death, he was turning out to be one of the most elusive serial killers of the entire 1990s. That's what's so scary about serial killers, is that you can't spot them. It's not like TV.

They are among us. They have families. They have church groups. They have jobs. These are functional human beings. I loved my father. I held him on a pedestal. There is nobody else in this world that could have ever been better than my father. This family picture, this was in the summer of 1997. He's smiling. You can see his teeth in the picture. He is happy. He has his girls, and he's taken them to another state. By 1997, Robert Bercia is released from prison, and by all appearances, he seems to be settling down. He's working in construction and moves to Arkansas with his longtime girlfriend, Rose, and the five-year-old daughter, Deborah. I remember my daddy being very muscular, or if he wore a T-shirt, he'd have his T-shirt rolled up holding a cigarettes in his shirt. He just looked like a normal person. Life was great at first. We had about two acres of land. The best part of my childhood was when my father was around. But I feel like it was all a lie. Behind this all-American portrait, Berchere's dark past is lurking, and it's about to catch up with them. My grandmother said the moment my mother met my father, She met the devil.

She let the devil in. I look nothing like my father. This is my baby picture. Growing up, I was told he was arrested the night that I was born. That's why he couldn't be there. Deborah first learned about her father's history as a serial killer in 2018 after authorities connected him to unsolved murders in South Carolina and Missouri. It gave me answers, so I couldn't be mad. Just all of it. It made sense. In 1998, when Deborah is just seven years old, her father disappears from home, going on the run for a series of crimes, including breaking into an Arkansas woman's home while armed with a gun. We went to see my father. He was staying in a hotel in Kenneth, Missouri. We went to sleep one night and woke up, and the police were there. They were looking at tags in the parking lot. He had a car in the parking lot of the motel that had stolen plates. The police had no idea that this was a serial killer. He was not willing to turn himself in, so he shot himself there in that motel room. This is the note the police found in my father's pocket.

And in it, it says, In the event of you reading this, I am dead. Do not contact my father. It will kill him if the cops tell him. Thank you. It was very calculated when he chose to kill himself. He knew that it would overshadow what could really come out. The. The 380 that Berchers used to shoot himself was the same model of gun used to shoot Amy Ayres in that Austin, Texas, yogurt shop all the way back in 1991. Brochier's death is ruled suicide, and authorities don't confiscate his gun, Berchers may have known that if they did, the gun could have connected him to the yogurt shop murders. Authorities believe that Robert Eugene Berchers is responsible for at least eight murders in four different states, but they are not ruling out the possibility that he could be connected to many more. Tonight, a major break in an unsolved murder case that made national headlines for decades in this country. Let's begin today with a moment of silence for Amy, Jennifer, Sarah, and Eliza, and for their dear families. The September Our year, 2025, press conference was a remarkable moment for the city of Austin.

Leaders from law enforcement and criminal justice communities, they believe they have finally solved the Yogurt Shop murders. Robert Eugene Brashers. He is a perfect match to our unknown profile in Yogurt Shop. It has been so long, and all we ever wanted for this case was the truth. Our families are still Too small. Still missing an essential ingredient. And we are lesser for it. My whole life has really been shaped by this experience. I'm 47 now. I was 13 at the time. What a relief it will be to get some distance. Investigators also describe Rochir's MO. All of his crimes that we know of, he was alone in all of them. He used ligatures to tie up his victims. He used a firearms, most often a 380 or a 22, with gunshot wounds to the head of his victims. He sexually He assaulted his victims, often young girls. Sometimes, as we've seen, he set fire to the crime scenes. The evidence points to the innocence of Maurice pierce, Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, the fourth and Doris Wellborn. I am confident that Robert Rocheers is the only person responsible for this crime, and that is part of the responsibility that the district attorney's office has now is to lift the cloud of guilt off of these men.

Four lives were changed forever. Prosecutors are holding a hearing to at last formally clear the names of the four men originally charged with the Yogurt Shop murders. Over 25 years ago, the state prosecuted four innocent men, teenage boys at the time of the crime. The state did all this believing we were right, but we could not have been more wrong. In a rare move, the current Austin police chief declares that the four men should be exonerated. The position of the Austin Police Department is Robert Brashers as responsible for these murders. It's time for the falsely accused in their families to finally speak. A litany of emotional testimony about how this case and the aftermath ruined so many of their lives. When the Yogurt Shop murders occurred, I was 17 years old. No court ruling can return the years and the love that were taken from me, but it can acknowledge the truth. I did not commit these crimes. Forrest never confessed to this crime, nor did he say he knew others who were involved. Robert Springsteen spent 10 years in prison. Let us not forget that he could be dead right now, executed at the hands of the state of Texas.

Robert Springsteen, who isn't at the hearing, has his attorney read his statement. I have lived every single day since October 6, 1999, being seen as a monster for something I did not do. Maurice pierce died in 2010 during a confrontation with an Austin police officer. His daughter speaks about growing up with a father who lived under constant suspicion for a crime he did not commit. Accountability must come. Reform is coming. It has to. And finally, the man who made me who I am today, my best friend, My daddy. Daddy, you have your name back. Shit. I don't have to love you more? And finally, the words these families have waited decades to hear. You are innocent. After 34 years, four boys, now men, exonerated. Today's decision is not an act of generosity. It is an obligation to the an obligation to the truth, an obligation to the rule of law, an obligation to the dignity of the individual. But is the case of Robert Pershears truly closed? The question is, what other murders has he committed? Where else has he been? And that's where we're focusing now. When people in Austin look back at the Yogurt Shop murders, it's a tragedy all the way Of course, there were so many people impacted by the murders themselves, the families of the four young victims.

But at the same time, there's a cloud that four young men have lived with for decades as well. The evidence is clear. Robert Eugene Rashears committed the Yogurt Shop murders. To Amy, Eliza, Sarah, and Jennifer, We are so sorry that we have failed you for so long. May you rest in peace knowing that the truth of that horrific night has been revealed. To Mr. Forrest Wellborn, on behalf of the Office of the Travis County district Attorney, I am sorry for what you have been through. You are innocent and you were wrongfully accused. To Mr. Springsteen and to Mr. Scott. You were wrongfully accused, and you are innocent. I am so sorry for the role that our office played in that tragedy. I am so sorry that Maurice isn't here today. He is innocent, and he was wrongfully accused. It's not a celebration. Just glad that they finally found the guy, and then I could be cleared of all this. I'm sorry that this happened to girls. It was a terrible thing. It's heartbreaking. I'm sorry that it took this long. The case ultimately represents one of the biggest tragedies in often this history. What we think we need organizational team-wise.

Mindy and I and Sean would like to start a cold case foundation in order to be able to help other families and bring law enforcement, forensics, and families and victims together in one spot. I think that's a very excellent thing to have in here. No one else has had that, and I think people would respond to that very well. The fact that there's over 300,000 unsolved homicides in the United States, I think that's important. We just need to get it out there so people know about it. We need to scream it from the rooftops. It could have helped our case had we had it earlier. And while the families of those young girls may now have a sense of justice, they'll always wonder what their girls may have gone on to become. She's 48. She'd probably still be doing something with horses, doing something with animals, for sure. Anything she wanted to do, she could have done. Being finished with the case has let my heart open up that I could have more love. And I wasn't expecting that because I thought I'd done a pretty good job of keeping it open. But I I felt a difference.

I felt more love. There's definitely a sense of relief that now we know what happened. I went to the cemetery yesterday to see my sister's grave, and in my mind, I was telling her, I know what happened to you now. After more than three decades, David, the families of those four murdered girls finally have some answers. As for Robert Pershears, law enforcement agencies across the US are now expected to continue to review unsolved cases for any possible connections to him. In the meantime, that is our program for tonight. Thank you for watching. I'm David Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at ABC News and 2020, good night.

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