🔗 Share this article

Back on a Friday in December 1991, Jennifer Harbison and her coworker Eliza Thomas, both seventeen years old, were finishing their shift at the yogurt store where they were employed. Waiting for a lift were Jennifer's sister, Sarah Harbison, aged 15, and her friend, 13-year-old Amy Ayers.

Moments before 12 AM, a blaze at the shop summoned emergency crews, who made a grim discovery: the young victims had been restrained, murdered, and showed indicators of assault. The fire destroyed most of the forensic clues, with the exception of a bullet casing that had fallen into a gutter and minute samples of DNA, among them material found in her nail scrapings.

The Case That Shook a City

The yogurt shop murders deeply affected the Texas capital and were branded as one of the best-known long-lingering investigations in the United States. Over many years of false leads and mistaken arrests, the homicides eventually led to a U.S. law enacted in 2022 that enables victims' families to request unsolved investigations to be reinvestigated.

However the murders remained unsolved for almost thirty-four years – until now.

Significant Progress

Investigators revealed on Monday a "significant breakthrough" powered by new technology in ballistics and DNA analysis, announced the city's mayor at a media event.

The evidence point to Robert Eugene Brashers, who was named posthumously as a multiple murderer. Additional killings may be added to his record as DNA analyses evolve further and widespread.

"The sole forensic clue located at the yogurt shop corresponds directly to him," said the city's police chief.

The case remains open, but this is a "huge leap", and the individual is thought to be the lone killer, officials said.

Families Find Answers

Eliza's sister, Sonora Thomas, said that her psyche was fractured when the tragedy occurred.

"One half of my consciousness has been demanding, 'What happened to my sister?', and the other part kept saying, 'I'll never learn the truth. I'll pass away without answers, and I need to make peace with it,'" she said.

Upon hearing about this breakthrough in the case, "the conflicting thoughts of my mind started coming together," she noted.

"Finally I comprehend the truth, and that does ease my suffering."

Wrongful Convictions Overturned

The news doesn't just bring resolution to the grieving families; it also completely clears two suspects, minors when arrested, who claimed they were forced into giving false statements.

Robert Springsteen, a teenager at the time at the time of the killings, was sentenced to death, and Michael Scott, a 15-year-old then, was received a life sentence. Both men said they admitted involvement following hours-long interrogations in the year 1999. In 2009, both men were freed after their convictions were overturned due to legal changes on statements absent physical evidence.

Legal authorities dropped the charges against the two men in that year after a genetic test, referred to as Y-STR, indicated neither individual aligned against the genetic material left at the yogurt shop.

Scientific Breakthrough

The Y-STR profile – suggesting an mystery suspect – would in time be the decisive factor in resolving the murders. In recent years, the profile was sent for reanalysis because of scientific progress – but a national search to law enforcement agencies returned no genetic matches.

During the summer, Daniel Jackson handling the investigation in 2022, had an idea. It had been since the bullet casings from the shell casing had been submitted to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network – and in the interim, the registry had seen substantial enhancements.

"The software has advanced significantly. I mean, we're talking like 3D stuff now," the detective commented at the news event.

The system identified a link. An unsolved murder in the state of Kentucky, with a identical pattern, had the identical kind of shell casing. Investigators and another official consulted the local investigators, who are actively pursuing their unidentified investigation – including testing materials from a rape kit.

Connecting the Dots

The apparent breakthrough made the detective wonder. Might there exist further clues that might correspond to investigations elsewhere? He considered right away of the genetic testing – but there was a challenge. The Combined DNA Index System is the federal genetic registry for investigators, but the yogurt shop DNA was insufficiently intact and limited to upload.

"I thought, well, it's been a few years. Additional facilities are doing this. Registries are growing. We should conduct a national inquiry again," he said.

He circulated the historic genetic findings to investigative units around the country, instructing them to check by hand it to their local systems.

They found another match. The genetic signature matched perfectly with a sample from another state – a 1990 murder that was closed with assistance from a DNA firm and a well-known researcher in 2018.

Building a Family Tree

The expert built a ancestry profile for the murderer from that case and located a family member whose DNA sample suggested a close tie – likely a sibling. A judge ordered that Brasher's body be removed from burial, and his biological samples matched against the crime scene sample.

Normally, she is able to set aside closed investigations in order to concentrate on the following case.

"However I have {not been