Hi, I’m Julie Mattson, your host of Pushing Up Lilies. In this episode, we’re going back to one of the most heartbreaking and haunting cases in Texas history, the Yogurt Shop Murders. Four teenage girls, ages 13 to 17, brutally murdered inside an Austin yogurt shop in 1991. For over three decades, their families waited for answers. And now, thanks to the incredible advancements in DNA technology, we finally have a break in the case. In today’s episode, I’ll walk you through the details of this chilling crime, the years of false leads, and how the truth eventually came to light. We’ll talk about how modern forensic science, something I see the power of every day in my work as a death investigator, played a key role in uncovering a serial killer who had managed to hide in plain sight. Join me as we honor the victims, examine the long road to justice, and explore how one tiny strand of DNA changed everything. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey friends, I'm super excited to say that the first annual Pushing Up Lilies murder mystery dinner is almost sold out. We continue to sell tickets every day.
00:46
I'm amazed at the number of people who have reached out and asked me questions and purchase tickets. And so, thank you. Thank you. It's going to be so much fun. The theme is going to be murder at the masquerade.
01:01
I don't know how the person's going to die yet. But I can tell you that the very first hour of the event is mingling. We're going to do hors d'oeuvres and drinks and the actors are going to mingle with the guests and determine who would be a perfect fit to actually take part in the show.
01:24
So, someone there is going to actually be chosen to be the person that's killed. And so, it's kind of interesting, because y'all actually get to take part in it, which I think is super exciting. I personally don't want to I want to be able to watch and enjoy.
01:41
And you don't have to if they choose you. If you have that outgoing personality, and they're like, hey, you would be perfect. If you can definitely just sit back, enjoy the evening, have drinks, have dinner, and have all kinds of fun without taking part in it.
02:00
And if you're interested also just tell them, let them know that you want to be a part of it, they would love that. So, there'll be actors and actresses there I'm trying to finalize a head count with the restaurant so if you are planning to buy a ticket now is your chance, we only have 12 days until the event, and so now is your chance to get in. You want to come to the first annual Pushing Up Lilie's murder mystery dinner and there will be prizes given so it's going to be all kinds of fun! I really want y'all to come and enjoy a good time and then mingle with people who love true crime. So, it's going to be a great time! My booth at the crime mercantile has been doing amazing some of you have come up there and shopped and I have sold t-shirts and all kinds of gifts that are also available the website, so don't forget you can go online www.pushinguplilies.com and purchase from the murder merch store.
03:09
Also, tickets to the murder mystery dinner are actually available on Eventbrite, E-V-E-N-T-B-R-I-T-E and that's a website where you can purchase tickets to local events. If you search Pushing Up Lilies Crossroads, Texas, you will see the event pop up and then you will have the option to buy tickets online.
03:32
It's going to be so much fun. I just really encourage you if you have planned to buy tickets, been putting it off, now's your chance because it's selling out fast. Only 12 days until the event and we're gonna have to wind it up so I know who all's coming.
03:49
The restaurant has already asked me how the murders are going to take place because they've wanted to make sure that they can let other people in the restaurant know if they can expect a shotgun, noise, and so it's kind of interesting.
04:02
I never thought that they would ask me that, but they've called me asking me how the murder is gonna happen and I don't know so I'm gonna need to reach out to the murder mystery company who's doing the event and ask them.
04:14
It is masquerade. You do not have to dress the part, but it's going to be a lot of fun if you do. Feel free to wear jeans or whatever you want to and a masquerade mask. I think many of us are gonna be wearing just lace dresses, velvet dresses, something with a romantic, mysterious vibe as my daughter said.
04:36
I think it's going to be a whole lot of fun. I want to talk to you a little bit about the Austin yogurt shop murders today. We try to honor the lives lost too soon and uncover the truths that time has tried to bury here at the podcast.
04:55
So, for more than three decades, the Austin yogurt shop murders are gonna be a whole lot of fun. shot murders which happened back in 1991 haunted the entire city. Four young girls, full of life, love and promise, were brutally taken from their families.
05:12
And for 34 years Austin has waited for justice. I don't know if y'all's ever been to Austin, but I absolutely love Austin. Now they called a city that I live in now, Denton, Texas, Little Austin because it's very similar, it's very eclectic.
05:30
Lots of universities, lots of music majors, lots of entertainment and lots of college students and it's just fun. Good restaurants, good food, lots of fun places to go. So, Austin's amazing. If you haven't been I highly recommend it.
05:50
Through the miracle of DNA and the determination of a new generation of investigators, the truth has finally emerged. Now the man behind the crime was a violent predator named Robert Eugene Brashers, and he'd been hiding in plain sight, leaving a trail of pain and death across multiple states.
06:16
We're going to walk through that long and painful road to justice. The tragedy, the false confessions, and finally the truth that revealed the monster behind the mystery. Now it was just before midnight on December 6th, this was back in 1991, when an Austin patrol officer noticed flames rising from the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt shop on West Anderson Lane.
06:45
When firefighters extinguished the blaze, they made a horrifying discovery. The bodies of four teenage girls, Jennifer Harbison, who was 17, her sister Sarah, who was 15, Eliza Thomas, who was 17, and Amy Ayers, who was just 13 years old.
07:07
The girls had been bound with their own clothing, sexually assaulted, and shot in the head. And the fire obviously was intentionally set, which was an attempt to try to erase the evidence. We see this a lot, and that's one reason why fire fatalities come to the medical examiner's office.
07:32
When you think about it, sometimes it's obvious that the death was related to a fire. They've inhaled smoke, and they died of asphyxiation. Many times, though, that's not the case. Many times, someone has been murdered, whether it be a stabbing or a gunshot wound, and then the fire is set.
07:53
And when those bodies come into the medical examiner's office, for autopsy. And that's one thing that the doctors look for. Sometimes what seems obvious is not always obvious. So, these bodies get a thorough examination.
08:09
These bodies are going to get x-rays to see if there are any bullet fragments present. And they're going to do a thorough investigation to determine what the cause of death is. Now, even in a city that's used to tragedy, this crime stunned the community.
08:29
Now, Austin's a pretty big city. And so even in a large city, this kind of shakes people up. Four young girls sexually assaulted, murdered. Can you imagine it in a small town or in a smaller town where something like this happened?
08:46
It's devastating either way. Jennifer Harbison was a responsible young woman. She had dreams of becoming a veterinarian. Her younger sister, Sarah, was outgoing, full of laughter, and just adored her big sister.
09:04
Eliza Thomas was mature beyond her years. She was a dependable worker and a loyal friend. And Amy Ayers, the youngest, was just beginning to blossom into her teenage years. So, she was bright, kind, and filled with curiosity.
09:23
So, they were doing something completely innocent that night. They were closing up the yogurt shop after a normal work shift, and there was no way to know that evil was waiting around the corner. The investigation that followed was massive.
09:40
Thousands of leads poured in, detectives were working around the clock, and the media covered every single development. Within a week, police arrested a 16-year-old by the name of Maurice Pierce. Now he had been caught with a .22 caliber handgun, the same make as one used in the murders.
10:05
And Pierce, strangely enough, after hours of questioning, actually confessed, but he later recanted. Still, investigators focused on him and three of his friends, Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, and Forrest Welburn.
10:28
Now years later, Springsteen and Scott would be convinced based on confessions that experts later concluded were coerced. Neither man's DNA matched the evidence at the scene, and both convictions were eventually overturned.
10:47
Four innocent men were accused, while the real killer actually remained free. Decades later, in 2022, Detective Daniel Jackson joined Austin's cold case unit and reopened this file. And I love that. I love that when new officers are gung-ho and they get in there and they reopen files, and they investigate like they're supposed to.
11:15
Advances in DNA technology also had a lot to do with this and made new testing possible. A YSTR DNA profile from a sexual assault kit excluded all four original suspects. Now you all know that I was a sexual assault nurse examiner for about 23 years.
11:40
I absolutely loved doing that. Although it sounds like a difficult job, it was so rewarding. I love talking with people and hearing their stories. But I also love that they trusted me. They wanted to tell me everything.
11:59
I mean, they spilled their guts, things that the police never would have known. For some reason, I think they trusted the nurses more than they trusted the police officers. We would wear scrubs. They would know we're nurses.
12:16
They would know and understand that we were there to help them. I feel like a lot of them were intimidated by law enforcement and intimidated by the uniforms and even the suits when the detectives would come in and talk to them.
12:33
And so, I feel like that we were at a more real level. We were viewed more as people just like they were. And so, they shared their stories, things that they would never tell the police and that the police had zero knowledge of would reveal to me when I was doing the sexual assault exam.
12:54
And so, I loved this. I loved just being able to pull the stories from people without even trying, y'all. I didn't even have to try. They just could see, I guess, the humanity in us. And I'm like, whatever works.
13:13
I mean, the more information we can get, the quicker we can find justice. But the great thing is with all the advances in DNA, they were actually able to go back and retest these rape kits that were collected so many years ago.
13:32
Thank God, they kept them. I mean, just think if we just threw evidence away, just think years from now, how many crimes might be solved by even bigger advances in DNA and bigger advances in YSTR DNA profiles?
13:48
It's amazing now that they're able to do this. Touch DNA. wasn't a thing back then. When you touch someone, your skin cells are deposited on whatever it is you touch. And that couldn't be tested before, it had to be a liquid, but not anymore.
14:07
So, it's amazing how much has improved when it comes to DNA testing. In 2025, Detective Daniel Jackson entered a 380-cartridge casing found at the scene into a national ballistic database, and a hit came back.
14:26
This hit, with this particular ammunition, matched a 1998 double homicide in Missouri. The connection led investigators to Robert Eugene Brashers'. This is amazing. Like, this is ammunition used that was traced to another murder years after this event.
14:53
Seven years, y'all, after this double homicide occurred in Missouri. Now, a little bit about Robert Brashers. He was born in 1958 in Newport News, Virginia. And on the surface, he seemed like an average man, as many serial killers and murderers do.
15:16
Sometimes when we look at the pictures now of people who have committed serial murders, it's kind of scary because they look, quote unquote, normal. They look like somebody that we've walked past the mall before.
15:29
They look like somebody that we were nice to once at a restaurant. They look like normal people, but they are absolutely not normal. He seemed intelligent, he seemed handy, and he was capable of charming just about anybody.
15:46
But he was very manipulative, and he was a sadistic predator. His first known violent crime occurred years prior to the yogurt shop murders in 1985. This happened in Florida when he shot a young woman named Michelle Wilkerson in the head and neck after he lured her into his car.
16:09
Now, she miraculously survived, and she identified him as her attacker. But Brashers served just three years in prison and was released on parole in 1989. I must say it again, y'all, when these guys get out and these guys are released back into civilization because everybody thinks that they're fixed and that they're gonna be able to live normal lives and not murder again, wrong.
16:40
These guys commit murders again and again and again as he did. So, here he is, released three years later. on parole, 1989, and what does he do after that? He begins a killing spree that actually spanned multiple states, a series of rapes and murders that would go unsolved for decades.
17:11
Let's just turn this guy loose. He's murdered somebody, shot him in the head, lured her into his car. He gets three years in prison, and he's on the loose. In 1990, a year after he was released on parole, Brashers raped and murdered 28-year-old Genevieve Zittricki.
17:35
And this happened in Greenville, South Carolina. Seven years later, 1997, he raped a 14-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1998, he raped and murdered. 38-year-old Sherri Sherer and her 12-year-old daughter Megan in Portageville, Missouri.
18:00
He's traveling, he's raping, he's murdering. Each crime bores chilling similarities. So, there was forced entry, there was binding, there was sexual assault, and there was execution-style shootings. He left behind DNA, but he did not leave behind witnesses.
18:25
And so, he would move frequently and use fake names. And by doing this, he was able to stay one step ahead of the police. By early 1999, he was on the run again, and police in Missouri tracked him to a Super 8 in Kennett, where he was hiding, guess what?
18:49
He was married with his wife, daughter, and two stepdaughters after a tense standoff Brashers released his family and then shot himself in the head. And he died six days later in the hospital. At the time, no one knew the full scope of his crimes.
19:12
It wasn't until 2018, when investigators exhumed his body to collect DNA that his connection to multiple unsolved murders was actually confirmed. And in 2025, that same DNA combined with the ballistic evidence that was found by Detective Daniel Jackson revealed that he was also responsible for the yogurt shop murders.
19:40
For 34 years, the families of Amy, Jennifer, Sarah, and Eliza were waiting for answers. And in 2025, this year, those answers finally came. Detective Daniel Jackson, the Austin Police Department and forensic scientists from across the country, pieced together this puzzle.
20:06
And they confirmed that Brashers acted completely alone, completely by himself, and the four men that were once accused were all completely innocent. The families all gathered for a press conference, and of course, you can only imagine, tears flowed, hearts broke all over again.
20:28
But there's also a sense of relief that the monster who took so much from them was finally unmasked. The Austin yogurt shop murders changed how Texas approached cold cases and forensic evidence. And so, it taught all of us, law enforcement and everybody.
20:51
that patience and persistence actually matter. A lot of departments are reopening cold cases, putting new eyes on these cases, new ideas, new technology, and DNA never forgets. Even when justice takes decades, the truth still manages to find its way to the surface.
21:18
So the memory of Jennifer, Sarah, Eliza, and Amy, as well as the other murder victims, continues to live on, not just as victims, but reminders of resilience and hope, and the possibility that many unsolved murders will be solved because of DNA and all of the cold cases that are being reopened.
21:47
So, we do honor every investigator who refuses to give up when it comes to cases like this. I know that we have many officers in our area who, that's all they work on, is they go back and they look through files and they look through evidence, and they might even re-interview people.
22:08
They discover things, things that were missed years ago, things that weren't even visible years ago because of all the DNA evidence that we can get now. This is a crazy case, and of course this guy is long gone.
22:24
We don't have to worry about him anymore. Super sad though that he was actually jailed, but for only a short three years and then released, only to commit more crimes, more rapes, and more murders. Personally, I don't care if the prisons are full, we need to build more prisons because these guys do not need to get out.
22:49
They do not need to be roaming the streets. streets. And they do not need to victimize people who are trying to survive, trying to live a normal life. Young women who have dreams of becoming whatever, just like Jennifer Harbison.
23:11
She wanted to be a veterinarian. These girls were full on laughter. These girls had a long life to live. Just remember, and I guess this is the scariest part of all, is that not all monsters hide in the dark.
23:27
Some are walking among us. And that's scary. That's really scary. I think just again, you know, it's hard not to be paranoid when you listen to the radio and you watch the news, and you see all the different things going on in the world.
23:45
It's hard not to be completely paranoid. I'm not saying, stay home and don't have fun and, you know, live a life of seclusion and distance yourself from family and friends. But just watch your back. Stay safe.
24:05
Stay curious. I love that DNA comes back around. And again, I do love that these cold cases are all being reopened and reinvestigated, because I just know, you know, most of the sexual assault cases that I worked, we actually knew who the perpetrator was.
24:26
And so, we collected their DNA right away and we matched it up to the DNA that I was able to get when I performed the rape kit. And so those cases were easier than cases like this many times, not always.
24:43
We didn't always know who the perpetrator was. We had had people that were raped at knife point by a complete stranger who just found their way into the front door that was left unlocked. But many times, it was young children who were raped by a family member, somebody that they knew.
25:03
And so not all cases are easy like that. Not all cases are cut and dried but thank God these rape cases and all the DNA evidence that was collected years ago was saved. I'm so glad that they didn't be like, okay, we've tested this.
25:22
Let's throw it in the trash. Because look, I mean, this guy got caught years later. I'm just glad we didn't have to continue to pay to feed him when he was in prison. He took care of that for us by killing himself.
25:38
Anyway, I just wanted to share that story. I don't know if y'all were aware of it. It's an older story, but the DNA that was discovered was all reset. He was already dead when it was discovered. but it gave some closure to the families, which is amazing because it always helps.
25:56
Even if it's years later, it definitely helps. So, I want y'all to stay safe. Again, do not forget to go online. Don't forget to buy your tickets. Eventbrite.com or www.pushinguplilies.com. Hope y'all have an amazing week and I look forward to talking to you soon.
26:14
Bye y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast. This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
26:31
Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at pushinguplilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.