Judge declares 4 men wrongly accused of 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders
innocent
[February 20, 2026]
By JIM VERTUNO
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — For more than three decades, the four men and their
families had insisted they were innocent of one of Austin's most
gruesome and notorious crimes: the 1991 rape and murder of four teenage
girls at a yogurt shop that was set on fire.
No one listened. Not when Robert Springsteen was sent to death row. Not
when Michael Scott was sentenced to life in prison. Or when Forrest
Welborn and Maurice Pierce, though never convicted, struggled through
life under dark clouds of suspicion that they were murderers.
Their pleas were finally heard Thursday. A judge formally declared the
men innocent after an emotional court hearing where prosecutors
apologized and admitted they were wrongly accused of a crime that
haunted the city for decades. Investigators determined last year that
the murders were committed by a previously unknown culprit who died in
1999.
Scott and Welborn sat in the crowded courtroom packed with family
members to hear state District Judge Dayna Blazey formally tell them
“you are innocent." She called her order “an obligation to the rule of
law and the obligation to the dignity of the individual.”
The hearing included lengthy statements from the men and their families
about the struggles of incarceration, broken relationships, constant
harassment by investigators and homelessness.
Springsteen did not attend. Through tears, Marisa Pierce addressed her
father, who died in 2010 in a confrontation with police after a traffic
stop.
“Daddy, you have your name back,” she said. “The world knows what you
were trying to say all along.”
Killings shocked Austin and confounded investigators
Amy Ayers, 13; Eliza Thomas, 17; and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison,
ages 17 and 15, were bound, gagged and shot in the head at the “I Can’t
Believe It’s Yogurt” store where two of them worked. The building was
set on fire.
Investigators chased thousands of leads and several false confessions
before the four men, who were teenagers when the girls were killed, were
arrested in late 1999.
Springsteen and Scott were convicted based largely on confessions they
insisted were coerced by police. Both convictions were overturned in the
mid-2000s.
Welborn was charged but never tried after two grand juries refused to
indict him. Pierce spent three years in jail before the charges were
dismissed and he was released.
Prosecutors wanted to try Springsteen and Scott again, but a judge
ordered the charges dismissed in 2009 when new DNA tests that were
unavailable in 1991 and the previous trials revealed another male
suspect.
“Let us not forgot that Robert Springsteen could be dead right now,
executed at the hands of the state of Texas,” Springsteen attorney Amber
Farrelly said.
In a statement his attorney read in court, Welborn said he lost friends,
struggled to keep jobs and was at one time homeless. Scott testified
that his arrest, conviction and prison sentence ultimately broke up his
family.
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Kim Pierce, left, the widow of yogurt shop suspect Maurice Pierce,
and their daughter Marisa, listen to a news conference after Maurice
was exonerated at a hearing for four men wrongfully accused in the
1991 Austin yogurt shop murders at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal
Justice Center, in Austin, Texas, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (Jay
Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
“I lost my family. I lost my youth. My daughter was 3 years old when
I was arrested. We had just celebrated our first wedding
anniversary. I lost the chance to build a family,” Scott said.
“Every day I have carried the weight of a crime I did not commit.”
The formal declaration of innocence could also be a key step for the
men and their families if they seek financial compensation for years
they spent incarcerated or struggled to live under a cloud of
suspicion.
“My son’s name has finally been cleared after more than 25 years of
being called the monster, the murderer and everything else,” said
Phil Scott, Michael Scott’s father. “Son, be proud.”
Connection to a new suspect revealed
After Scott and Springsteen were released, the case effectively went
cold until 2025, when an HBO documentary series attracted new public
attention to the unsolved crime.
Then investigators made a stunning announcement last September: New
DNA science and reviews of old ballistics evidence pointed to Robert
Eugene Brashers as the sole killer.
Since 2018, authorities had used advanced DNA evidence to link
Brashers to the strangulation death of a South Carolina woman in
1990, the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee and the
shooting of a mother and daughter in Missouri in 1998.
The link to the Austin case came when a DNA sample taken from under
Ayers’ fingernail came back as a match to Brashers from the 1990
killing.
Austin investigators also found that Brashers had been arrested at a
border checkpoint near El Paso two days after the yogurt shop
killings. In his stolen car was a pistol that matched the caliber
used to kill one of the girls in Austin.
Police also noted similarities in the yogurt shop case to Brashers'
other crimes: The victims were tied up with their own clothing,
sexually assaulted and some crime scenes were set on fire.
Brashers died in 1999 when he shot himself during an hourslong
standoff with police at a motel in Kennett, Missouri.
“Over 25 years ago, the state prosecuted four innocent men ... (for)
one of the worst crimes Austin has ever seen,” Travis County First
Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger said. “We could not
have been more wrong.”
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