The Austin, Texas, yogurt shop murders: Families, investigators remain haunted by unsolved case

This story beforehand aired on  Aug. 27, 2022.

Greater than three many years in the past, 4 teenage women had been brutally murdered in an I Cannot Consider It is Yogurt! store in Austin, Texas. The horrific crime has haunted their households, town, and the investigators who chased each lead within the case to a lifeless finish. May new info lastly assist resolve the case?

“I can see them, I can nonetheless see the within of that place,” John Jones, the primary investigator on the case, tells “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty. “That stuff’s … indelibly burned in my thoughts.”

The story begins on Dec. 6, 1991, when Eliza Thomas, Sarah and Jennifer Harbison and Amy Ayers had been tied up and shot. The yogurt store was then set on hearth. For many years, investigators labored to search out suspects. There have been finally arrests and even convictions. However these convictions had been overturned, leaving the case unsolved as we speak.

“There’s a form of torture that continues by the truth that it is unsolved and it is ongoing,” says Sonora Thomas, who was 13 when her sister Eliza was killed.

“It is all the time there,” says Jones.

There could also be some constructive information, nonetheless. A small sample of male DNA was discovered on one of many victims. With DNA analysis advancing, investigators hope there shall be a match that solves the case.

“Do you consider that there’s proper now, some proof that would result in the killers?” Moriarty asks Texas protection legal professional Joe James Sawyer.

“Sure,” Sawyer says.

“Is that this the tip of the start or the start of the tip?” Jones asks.

THE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS

It has been greater than 30 years since John Jones started the painstaking seek for the killers of 4 teenage women in an Austin, Texas, yogurt store.  

He has lengthy since retired from the Austin Police Division and moved out of Texas. However copies of among the case recordsdata moved with him.

Erin Moriarty [with Jones in his home office]: What’s all of this right here?

John Jones: These are my notes. … Oh, that is the large e book … this one is de facto from day 1 … hypnosis, polygraph, confessions.

Erin Moriarty: (picks up espresso mug) You realize, I discover this sitting right here.

John Jones: Yeah.

Erin Moriarty (reads espresso mug): “We won’t overlook.” You have not.

John Jones: Nope. I can not.                  

The photographs of Dec. 6, 1991, stay all too vivid.

 John Jones: I can undoubtedly nonetheless see it.

It began with that decision from dispatch to go to a scene of a hearth, that might flip into one thing far worse:

JOHN JONES: What do you may obtained on the market?  I am en route … airport 35.

DISPATCH: We have got a hearth …

JOHN JONES (1991 on radio): OK. I am copying the hearth half, however you narrow out on the primary a part of that although.

DISPATCH: … apparently a theft and murder. There’s, uh, three fatalities.

JOHN JONES: That is 10-4, we’re en route (activates siren).

John Jones: After which about midway on the market, they name once more on the radio and stated we discovered a fourth physique. 

An area TV information crew occurred to be filming Jones on a trip alongside that evening.

JOHN JONES (on radio): What place of work is that this at?  

DISPATCH: It is the I Cannot Consider It is Yogurt. 

JOHN JONES: OK.

John Jones: The fireplace division had simply knocked down the hearth. … there was nonetheless a whole lot of water in there …  a whole lot of smoke nonetheless. … it was all muted grays, blacks there was no shade in there aside from the ladies.

The ladies had been rapidly recognized. Two had been working on the store, closing up that evening: Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison had been each 17 years outdated.  Jennifer’s 15-year-old sister, Sarah, and their good friend, 13-year-old Amy Ayers, had met them there to move dwelling.

The 4 women had been gagged, tied up with their very own clothes, and shot within the head. Investigators would study no less than one of many victims had been sexually assaulted. The yogurt store had additionally been set on hearth, destroying potential proof.

John Jones: There was smoke and soot on each floor, form of made fingerprinting form of tough.

This was against the law like none Austin had seen earlier than. Jones knew he wanted assist, and from the scene, contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, The FBI, and Texas Division of Public Security.

John Jones: As quickly as we knew what sort of weapons we had been in search of, that info went out nationwide.

Gunshot wounds confirmed that two several types of weapons had been used, main investigators to consider there have been no less than two killers on the unfastened.

Erin Moriarty: What had been the 2 weapons?

John Jones: .380 and a .22. … And we recovered all the rounds.

The weapons, although, weren’t discovered, and a process pressure labored to provide you with potential suspects.

John Jones: They had been from all spectrums. I imply, we checked out all people from members of the family to drifters.

And whereas police tracked down leads, the households and the Metropolis of Austin grieved.

The Harbison household misplaced their solely kids: daughters Jennifer, a hard-working highschool senior, and Sarah, who was having fun with sports activities and golf equipment as a highschool freshman. Their mom, Barbara, spoke with “48 Hours” in 1992.

Barbara Harbison: My life was targeted round them from right here to eternity. Somebody took eternity away from me.

Bob Ayers is the daddy of the youngest sufferer, Amy, a rustic lady with a love for animals.

Bob Ayers: I misplaced my daughter.  I misplaced my first dance.  … I will not see her graduate. I will not see her change into a veterinarian. … She was a Daddy’s lady.

Sonora Thomas, 13 years outdated when her solely sibling, Eliza, was murdered, had a tough time coping with the lack of the sister she regarded as much as.

Sonora Thomas: I bear in mind the shock … I bear in mind fantasizing for days that my sister had someway escaped and run away and … she was going to come back again … And so that is what I used to be form of holding onto.

Her mother and father struggled as nicely.

Sonora Thomas: My household by no means talked about my sister after she died.

Erin Moriarty: By no means?

Sonora Thomas: No. It is too, it is too painful.

Sonora did as greatest she might, selecting up some items of her sister’s life. Eliza, an animal lover, had a pig she deliberate to enter in livestock present. Just some months after the murders, Sonora took over these duties.

Whereas Sonora could have appeared to be coping, the fact, she says, was far totally different.

Erin Moriarty: You needed to develop up rapidly.

Sonora Thomas: In a short time … I might say I fell aside underneath that stress.

John Jones: We knew they had been hurting as a result of, you already know, we had been hurting too.

Jones, a dad or mum himself, felt the households’ grief. He promised to do all he might to assist them.

John Jones: We informed them what we might. And … I assured them that we’d hold them apprised as to the whole lot that was occurring, and we did.

Jones additionally made a pledge to the households involving the shirt he wore on the evening of the murders.

John Jones: I form of made a promise to them … that the subsequent time they noticed me with that inexperienced and white shirt on that that was a sign to them that, you already know, we knew who did it.

And Jones appeared assured they’d discover the killers.

John Jones: We stayed in fixed contact with the behavioral science unit on the FBI in Quantico … they stated that I ought to, because the face of the investigation, I ought to undertaking an air of confidence … that might trigger the unhealthy man to shiver in his boots. … So look within the digicam and be assured.

And, once we adopted him working the case in 1992, he did simply that.

JOHN JONES: Let me simply say this, whoever you’re on the market, you’re going to be mine one in every of today….

However attempting to determine that out was daunting.

John Jones (at police station in 1992): 342 folks which have been listed as suspects, however we’re taking a look at pages and pages of suspects right here.

A kind of early suspects was a teen named Maurice Pierce. He was arrested eight days after the murders at a mall close to the yogurt store, carrying a .22 caliber gun, the sort used within the murders.

John Jones: The .22s had been unmatchable.

Erin Moriarty: So, you’ll be able to’t say it wasn’t his gun? However there was no option to match it.

John Jones: No.

Erin Moriarty: However there was no option to match it.

John Jones: — to show that it was his gun. He gave an announcement, matter of truth, I took his assertion. And he implicated three different boys.

Jones says Maurice Pierce claimed he was driving a getaway automotive and that three acquaintances, Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, had been concerned within the murders. However Pierce’s story started to collapse.

John Jones: It began to crater once we wired him as much as go discuss to Forest. And we had been listening in on the wire, and it was fairly apparent Forest did not know what Maurice was speaking about.

And when Welborn, Scott and Springsteen had been introduced in for questioning, they too denied any involvement. It was determined there was not sufficient proof to cost them and the seek for different suspects continued. 

CHASING LEADS

Two months after the yogurt store murders, with no viable suspects, police had been chasing leads — irrespective of the place it took them.

The duty pressure grew to become conscious of a counter-culture sort group of native residents recognized to be into the supernatural.

DET. MIKE HUCKABAY [at roundtable, 1992]: They’re into vampires, the occult, graveyard rites. … They exit and dance and take footage on tombstones.

And investigators started to listen to that this group could be linked to one thing way more severe.

John Jones (2021): The — the information had been that they had been speaking in regards to the murders.

Erin Moriarty: Speaking in regards to the yogurt store murders.

John Jones: The yogurt store murders, sure.

There was one girl particularly whose title saved developing in reference to the following tips. The duty pressure deliberate a raid on her dwelling, hoping to see if any proof could be discovered there.

John Jones: It was creepy in there.

John Jones: However because it seems, a whole lot of that stuff was rat bones and theatrical components. However … it was a superb lead. … Until we lastly discovered that, uh, they’re simply residing a make-believe life (shaking his head).

The raid could have been a bust, however it wasn’t lengthy earlier than the duty pressure had its eyes on one other individual of curiosity. A police sketch reveals a person that a number of eyewitnesses informed police they noticed sitting in a automotive exterior the yogurt store on the evening of the murders. 

John Jones: And it was someone we actually needed to speak to. … So, we put it on the market.

And the response they obtained got here from an surprising supply.

John Jones: A few different investigators from the Intercourse Crimes Unit got here up and go … “We’ve got a sketch that appears similar to that.”

Three weeks earlier than the yogurt store murders, a younger girl in Austin had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Police had launched a sketch of three males needed in reference to that crime. A kind of suspects bore a hanging resemblance to that man witnesses reported sitting in a automotive exterior the yogurt store.

John Jones: You realize, I simply form of went zip once I noticed the — the composite.

A tip got here in that the boys needed within the kidnapping and sexual assault case had fled to Mexico. Two had been caught and arrested; one who resembled the individual of curiosity within the yogurt store sketch. The event made nationwide information.

John Jones: Once they obtained caught in Mexico, we went down there … to interview them. Jones’ crew questioned the boys. And so, too, did the Mexican authorities.

John Jones: However the Mexican authorities … introduced to the entire world that … they confessed, and so they had been going to attempt them for the murders down there.

Erin Moriarty: They confessed to the yogurt store murders?

John Jones: Sure, they did.

However Jones discovered these confessions had particulars that did not match the crime scene. Even the caliber of weapons they claimed to make use of was fallacious. 

John Jones:  There have been too many inconsistencies within the … confession.

So, Jones’ crew reinterviewed the boys, and he says this time they recanted nearly the whole lot. It made Jones and the opposite investigators surprise if these confessions had been coerced by the Mexican authorities. The as soon as promising lead fell aside .

John Jones: (exhales) It was miserable.

Over the next years, there could be different confessions, ones that had been willingly given.

John Jones: You realize, we confronted six confessions.

Erin Moriarty: Six individuals who confessed?

John Jones: Yeah. Written.

Erin Moriarty: That confessed to this crime?

John Jones: Sure, they did.

Erin Moriarty: And so they did not do it?

John Jones: Nope.

In 1994, after almost three years of main the investigation, John Jones was moved out of the murder division. He says it was a mutual choice. Austin Police needed contemporary eyes working the case, and Jones felt it was time to maneuver on. Different detectives took over and, as time handed, the victims’ households had been left questioning why nobody had been arrested. Amy Ayers’ mom Pam spoke to “48 Hours” in 1996.

Pam Ayers [fighting back tears]: They’re most likely on the market main a life as regular as they’ve ever had. And ours is rarely going to be the identical.

That very same 12 months, Eliza Thomas’ mother moved away from Austin … and the painful reminders. 

Maria Thomas (1996): Operating into individuals who had been continuously asking how the case was going was very onerous on me, and particularly my daughter Sonora.

Sonora’s life had taken a downward spiral.

Sonora Thomas: In my highschool years, issues actually deteriorated. … Medication, utilizing alcohol, being hospitalized, going to a boarding faculty for, you already know, disturbed youngsters, issues like that.

The case appeared stalled, till October 1999. 

RADIO NEWS REPORT: Some breaking information — Austin police have arrested 4 males in reference to the yogurt store murders of 1991.

There have been lastly arrests, however wouldn’t it reply the query on the billboard that had been haunting Austin for almost a decade?

SUSPECTS ARRESTED

NEWS REPORT: After almost eight years, Austinites are getting some solutions within the case of the yogurt store murders…

MAYOR KIRK WATSON (at 1999 press convention): I wish to begin off by thanking y’all for becoming a member of us right here as we speak. … For nearly eight years, we have all waited to listen to the phrases that our police division is shut to some extent of fixing against the law that has haunted our very souls. … Right now, we lastly get to listen to these phrases.

When 4 males had been arrested within the fall of 1999 for the yogurt store murders, reduction was felt citywide.

MAYOR KIRK WATSON (at press convention): Sarah, Jennifer, Amy, Eliza, we didn’t overlook.

The ladies’ households struggled to take all of it in.

Sonora Thomas: There had been so many false leads for such a very long time. It was onerous to understand how to consider it and the right way to really feel about it.

However there have been lastly names and faces guilty: Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. To the duty pressure, they had been acquainted names and faces. They had been the identical younger males that John Jones and his investigators questioned simply eight days after the murders and in the end launched for lack of proof.

John Jones: I used to be assured and stay assured to at the present time that we obtained as far with them as we might then. However that does not imply that … there wasn’t one thing developed later that might trigger them to truly exit and arrest them. So, I used to be going, “sure, good job.” …  I used to be able to dig out the hideous inexperienced and white shirt.

However earlier than that shirt might come out of the closet—the one he promised the ladies’ households he would put on when the case was solved — Jones needed to know extra about what led to the arrests.

Joe James Sawyer: There was no bodily proof. Nothing.

Joe James Sawyer was appointed as Robert Springsteen’s legal professional.

Erin Moriarty: What made them return and cost these guys?

Joe James Sawyer: As a result of the brand new officers, once they reopened the chilly case, satisfied themselves that “we allow them to slip by means of our fingers. We needed to have had the murderers at first.” Partly, they determined that as a result of that they had nothing else.

There was no new bodily proof abruptly tying any of the 4 males to the crime, however what police did have had been two newly obtained confessions— one from Michael Scott and one other from Sawyer’s personal shopper, Robert Springsteen. Michael Scott’s confession got here first. He was questioned over 4 days:

OFFICER (1999 interrogation): Come on Michael, you are doing good. Inform us. Let’s do that as we speak. Let’s do it.

MICHAEL SCOTT: I bear in mind seeing women. … I bear in mind one lady screaming, terrified.

Scott informed investigators that he and the others solely supposed a easy theft. He stated they cased the yogurt store earlier that day. After which, after darkish, he stated, they got here again armed with two weapons.

MICHAEL SCOTT (interrogation): I hear the gun go off. I solely pulled the set off as soon as…. I hear one other gun go off.

Investigators claimed that Springsteen later corroborated a lot of what Scott stated. However after intense questioning, he went additional.

OFFICER (interrogation): You f——g know should you f——g raped her, simply say it.

ROBERT SPRINGSTEEN: I caught my d— in her p—- and I raped her.

Springsteen informed them he shot one lady and raped her. 

Joe James Sawyer: He was so bored with this. He’d already been questioned. He’d already been by means of that mill. He thought, you already know what? I am going to let you know any rattling factor you need.

Sawyer maintains his shopper is harmless and says the confession was coerced. In 2009, Robert Springsteen defined to “48 Hours” why he would admit to doing one thing so horrible—one thing he says he did not do.

Robert Springsteen: I used to be berated and berated and berated by the law enforcement officials. Till they obtained what it was they needed to listen to, they weren’t going to permit me to go away. And I principally— they broke me down.

Erin Moriarty: Let me simply ask you, did you might have something to do—

Robert Springsteen: No. I didn’t.

Erin Moriarty: — with the murders on the yogurt store?

Robert Springsteen: No. By no means.

Though Joe James Sawyer did not have Michael Scott as his shopper, he says he has severe issues about his confession, too.

OFFICER (INTERROGATION): Is that the gun you shot someone with, Mike? Is that the gun you walked up behind someone with and shot within the head? 

Joe James Sawyer: I frankly could not consider it. … They terrorized him. And he was afraid to say no.

Forrest Welborn denied having something to do with the murders, however police had been satisfied he was the lookout that evening and Michael Scott positioned him on the scene. Erin Moriarty spoke to Welborn in 1999 in jail shortly after his arrest. 

Erin Moriarty: Had been you there that evening?

Forrest Welborn: No.

Erin Moriarty: Had been you there as a lookout?

Forrest Welborn: No. I am harmless.

Erin Moriarty: You had nothing to do with this?

Forrest Welborn: Nothing in any respect.

Welborn had been questioned a number of instances by investigators over time, and he by no means wavered. He, just like the others, first got here on police radar when, in 1991, simply days after the murders, Maurice Pierce had been caught with that .22 caliber gun on the mall close to the yogurt store. Pierce informed the detectives again then that he had given the handgun to Welborn and that it had been used within the yogurt store murders.

Erin Moriarty: Why would he say that?

Forrest Welborn: I do not know.

Welborn has all the time maintained his innocence regardless of stress from the police.

Forrest Welborn: They’d get proper in my face and, you already know, inform me the whole lot I stated was a lie.

Bear in mind, false confessions on this case had been nothing new. Jones stated that six written false confessions had been obtained when he was in cost. So, when he discovered that the 2 confessions had been all the brand new investigators appeared to have, it gave him pause.

John Jones: I am going, nicely, possibly I should not get that shirt out simply but.

It wasn’t lengthy earlier than the case in opposition to the boys started crumbling. Expenses in opposition to Forrest Welborn had been dismissed after two grand juries didn’t indict him. And afterward, expenses had been dropped in opposition to Maurice Pierce for lack of proof. All the pieces fell aside besides the instances in opposition to Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. And with Scott and Springsteen’s confessions, the victims’ households felt prosecutors had a powerful case.

Barbara Ayres-Wilson (exterior courthouse, 2010): These younger males have been implicated and so they have confessed. And so they can withdraw it, however the fact is, they really had been there, and so they really did the murders.

A DNA BREAKTHROUGH?

In 2001, almost 10 years after the murders of Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers and Sarah and Jennifer Harbison, the yogurt store homicide trials started. Each defendants — Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott — confronted the demise penalty.

Joe James Sawyer: The one factor that ever tied Robert or Mike Scott to that crime scene had been their confessions.

Confessions that each defendants stated had been coerced. The 2 had been tried individually. Springsteen’s trial was first. Neither of the boys would testify in opposition to each other. So as a substitute, prosecutors used their confessions in opposition to each other, studying components of the confessions to the juries. Springsteen’s lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, was pissed off that he could not cross-examine Scott. 

Joe James Sawyer: I believed the trial was massively unfair to my shopper and that it was being achieved systematically and with deliberation.

The trial lasted three weeks. The jury deliberated for 13 hours after which, reached a verdict.

JURY FOREPERSON: We the jury discover the defendant Robert Springsteen IV responsible of the offense of capital homicide …

Responsible. Springsteen was condemned to demise row.

In 2002, Michael Scott went on trial. He was convicted as nicely. He was sentenced to life in jail. However the case did not finish there. Fifteen years after the murders, got here a stunning flip of occasions.

NEWS REPORT: In a 5-4 choice, the court docket behind me stated that Michael Scott’s constitutional rights had been violated throughout his trial and subsequently ought to get a brand new one.

Each Scott and Springsteen’s convictions had been overturned on constitutional grounds. The Sixth Modification offers defendants the proper to confront accusers — and bear in mind, in Scott and Springsteen’s trials, their confessions had been used in opposition to each other, however they weren’t allowed to query one another in court docket. 

Joe James Sawyer: And the reduction … the reduction was unbelievable.

However that reduction for the defendants got here as a devastating blow to the victims’ households. We later spoke to Eliza Thomas’ mom, Maria, about that second.

Maria Thomas: Each time I hear these phrases, “that their rights had been violated,” I simply really feel like I will go insane. … Their rights are violated. Our women had been murdered.

Sonora Thomas: It ruins your sense of equity. It ruins your sense of — that we stay in a simply world.

Though their convictions had been overturned, Scott and Springsteen weren’t launched. A brand new district legal professional, Rosemary Lehmberg, was decided to retry them. In an effort to search out extra proof, her workplace had ordered DNA checks on vaginal swabs taken from the victims on the time of the murders. It is known as Y-STR testing — and was pretty new in 2009 when “48 Hours” spoke with D.A. Lehmberg.

Rosemary Lehmberg: This expertise searches for male DNA solely

A partial male DNA profile was obtained from one of many victims believed to have been sexually assaulted. And nobody anticipated what it will reveal.

Erin Moriarty: Does that DNA match any of the 4 younger males who had been initially accused and two of them who’ve been convicted?

Rosemary Lehmberg: It doesn’t.

The DNA didn’t match any of the unique 4 suspects, together with Scott and Springsteen.  And that is important as a result of Springsteen, in that confession he stated was coerced, informed investigators he raped one the ladies.

CeCe Moore is a DNA skilled and genetic genealogist whom we requested in regards to the case and the function of Y-STR DNA in felony instances.

CeCe Moore: It’s a software that may get rid of virtually everybody … It ought to get rid of all people however the suspect.

Erin Moriarty: If their Y-STR doesn’t match, they didn’t contribute that DNA?

CeCe Moore: Due to … the place that DNA was discovered, sure, on this case, it is essential.

The district legal professional was targeted on discovering the supply of that DNA — she puzzled if Springsteen and Scott had one other accomplice.

Rosemary Lehmberg: I stay actually assured that … each Springsteen and Scott had been chargeable for killing these 4 women.

However in 2009, with no matches on that DNA, Lehmberg dropped expenses in opposition to Springsteen and Scott. After almost 10 years behind bars, they had been launched — however not exonerated, leaving open the likelihood they could possibly be retried at a later time.

ROSEMARY LEHMBERG (at press convention): This was a tough choice and one I would relatively not must make.

The query remained although: whose DNA was it?

Amber Farrelly: I do know who it’s.

Joe James Sawyer: The killer’s.

Erin Moriarty: You are satisfied that that —

Amber Farrelly: That may be a sure fact.

Amber Farrelly was a part of each Scott and Springsteen’s protection groups. She got here up with a principle that the thriller DNA may belong as a substitute to two never-identified men who witnesses reported seeing sitting within the yogurt store simply earlier than it closed.

Amber Farrelly: These two males had been described carrying fatigued-colored jackets. …They had been very slouched over, whispering, like they had been — it was a really shut dialog in a sales space.

Officers tried to trace down these two males in addition to the supply of the DNA. After which, in 2017, an Austin police investigator searched a public on-line DNA database to see if he might get a success. And, unbelievably, he did.

Michael McCaul: I believed, my God, we even have an opportunity, a shot to unravel this crime after so a few years.

WHO KILLED THESE GIRLS?

Congressman Michael McCaul: I actually thought this was it –   I actually thought we had an opportunity to unravel it.

United States Congressman Michael McCaul, like so many others from Austin, hoped that the not too long ago uncovered DNA within the Yogurt Store homicide case may lastly convey solutions to the victims’ households.

Congressman Michael McCaul: We’ll always remember that tragic day. It is stained in my reminiscence.

Twenty-five years after the murders, the Austin Police Division went trying to find a match to the Y-STR DNA that had been discovered on the yogurt store sufferer believed to have been sexually assaulted. And, in 2017, they obtained a break. On a public DNA database used for inhabitants research, investigators thought that they had discovered a match.

Congressman Michael McCaul: I’ve seen DNA … show murder instances. … the DNA proof is de facto the important thing right here.

However that pattern from the crime scene was not a whole DNA profile, it was simply Y-STR — the male portion of DNA. And, it was not a really detailed pattern, having simply 16 markers.

CeCe Moore: Sixteen STR’s shouldn’t be a really highly effective match … there could possibly be hundreds of thousands of individuals with that very same profile … So, in genetic family tree … We normally use 67 or 111 markers, or possibly much more.

Erin Moriarty: However is not it a spot to begin?

CeCe Moore: It’s …  It isn’t absolute, but when there’s nothing else to work with, it’s definitely one thing to look into.

Nonetheless, it appeared to be essentially the most promising lead in years.  However there was an issue: the seemingly matching pattern on the general public database had been submitted anonymously by the FBI. It belonged to a federally convicted offender, arrestee, or detainee, however had no title hooked up to it.  When Austin authorities tried to get a reputation, the FBI wouldn’t present it, citing privateness legal guidelines.

Congressman Michael McCaul: There are some restrictions on privateness … And so, it will get into some very form of, dicey points.

Pissed off, officers reached out to Congressman McCaul for assist.

Congressman Michael McCaul: And so, I pressed the FBI very onerous. 

Lastly, in early 2020, the FBI agreed to work with the Austin Police Division to see if additional testing could possibly be achieved on that Y-STR DNA from the crime scene.

Congressman Michael McCaul: I used to be very enthusiastic about it. The concept we might convey this case to closure for the households and convey these accountable to justice.

Extra superior testing got here up with further markers: 25 as a substitute of the unique 16. However as so typically occurred on this case, what appeared so promising, was disappointment. 

A number of the further markers didn’t match the FBI pattern. In different phrases, what appeared to be a match, was not. In a letter to Congressman McCaul, the FBI defined the brand new outcomes “conclusively exclude the male donor of the FBI’s pattern … as such, the FBI Y-STR profile shouldn’t be an investigative lead.”

Congressman Michael McCaul: And that was the best disappointment as a result of we actually thought we had it.

Erin Moriarty: If it did not match that particular person, would not it nonetheless imply there’s someone on the market — this DNA belongs to someone, proper?

Congressman Michael McCaul: It does. It does. And that is why we’re not going to relaxation until we discover the match.

Erin Moriarty: How necessary then, is that this DNA profile that exists … to fixing this case?

Congressman Michael McCaul: I imply, it is the whole lot.

With DNA analysis advancing so rapidly, there may be actual hope that at some point, that pattern of DNA obtained 31 years in the past, could lastly resolve this case. Nonetheless, it won’t erase the ache or lack of lives.

Sonora Thomas: Yearly that goes by, I get farther and farther away from my sister, yeah. And I fear about shedding recollections.

Sonora Thomas struggled for years with panic assaults and bodily ache, till, with the assistance of remedy, she realized it was linked to the homicide of her sister Eliza. With a novel understanding of what trauma victims expertise, Sonora needed to assist others like her, and have become a therapist.

Sonora Thomas: There’s so many moments, you already know, when your coronary heart is open, you already know, you are joyful. However there’s additionally this loss that is all the time accompanying your life.

Sonora discovered it useful to search for methods to recollect Eliza.

Sonora Thomas: After we obtained married, we had a flower and an empty chair at our ceremony, and my sister was talked about.

Compounding Sonora’s ache, her mom died in 2015. Maria Thomas handed away with so many unresolved questions in regards to the homicide of her daughter.

Sonora Thomas: There’s a form of torture that continues by the truth that it is unsolved and it is ongoing.

John Jones (shaking his head): It is all the time there.

John Jones continues to be haunted by the truth that the case is unsolved, and by what he noticed that ugly evening. He has suffered from PTSD by means of the years.

John Jones: I had utterly shut all the way down to the place all my vitality was directed on the case.

Erin Moriarty: It took a toll on you, did not it John, even 30 years afterwards?

John Jones: Effectively, yeah. It could on anyone, I feel — not as a lot because the households, you perceive.

Erin Moriarty: I do know.

John Jones: No matter ache I am having pales compared to what they are going by means of.

Lately, Jones finds solace singing in his church choir.

John Jones: I can chill out once I’m in church.

Erin Moriarty: Depart the world behind? Depart exterior?

John Jones: No, I do know it is simply previous the door.

And when he is in that exterior world, the households of Amy Ayers, Jennifer and Sarah Harbison and Eliza Thomas, are by no means removed from his ideas.

John Jones: I really feel unhealthy for them. That it is nonetheless not solved.

However Jones has hope. He has saved that shirt he wore the evening of the murders — the shirt he promised to by no means put on till the case was solved. Greater than 30 years later, it is nonetheless sitting in there.   

And someday quickly, John Jones seems to be ahead to carrying it once more.

John Jones: I simply hope one in every of today we will put this factor to mattress, for the households’ sake.

When you have details about the Yogurt Store Murders, name 512-472-TIPS. 

The Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act was signed in to legislation on Aug. 3, 2022.  Motivated by the yogurt store murders, the legislation gives family members of cold case murder victims a option to formally request federal investigators evaluate their case with the most recent obtainable expertise. 

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Produced by Ruth Chenetz, Stephanie Slifer and Anthony Venditti. Michael McHugh is the producer-editor. Marlon Disla and Michelle Harris are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the chief story editor. Judy Tygard is the chief producer.