The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders

Part Three: Guilt

In October of 1999, police in Austin would announce the arrest of four suspects in the area’s most high-profile cold case. Over the next several years, a complicated story would begin to play out in the Texas court system…

Listen to "The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders (Part Three: Guilt)" on Spreaker.

In October of 1988 - roughly three years before Austin's infamous yogurt shop murders - a similar story would begin to play out at another establishment in the city.

On the morning of October 24th, 1988, 20-year-old Nancy DePriest was opening up an Austin-area Pizza Hut all by herself, which wasn't unusual. However, that morning, someone would gain entry to the Pizza Hut, and would brutally attack Nancy inside. Her lifeless body was later found: naked, bound, and bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head.

A panicked investigation ensued, with police unable to find out who had committed this heinous crime. However, roughly two weeks afterward, suspicion was cast upon two young men that lived in the area, who happened to work at another Pizza Hut nearby.

22-year-old Christopher Ochoa and 18-year-old Richard Danziger, who also happened to be roommates, drove to the parking lot of the Pizza Hut that Nancy DePriest had been killed at, and were spotted by employees drinking beers inside of their car. When pressed about what they were doing at the location, both men would later claim that they were having a beer in Nancy's honor, despite not knowing her in life. The store employees, who were on-edge following the murder (understandably), ended up calling the police and informing them of the young men's unusual behavior. For that reason, detectives began narrowing in on these two for the murder of Nancy DePriest, quickly naming them suspects and bringing them in for police interviews.

At first, Ochoa and Danziger denied having any involvement in the crime. But then, after being separated for standalone interviews - headed by APD Detective Hector Polanco - one of the two, Christopher Ochoa, confessed. In a recorded interview, he claimed that Danziger and he had raped and murdered Nancy DePriest, and would later agree to a plea deal: which saw him pleading guilty to murder and agree to testify against his alleged co-conspirator.

In Richard Danziger's subsequent trial, it became clear that the state had no physical evidence implicating either man in the crime; even though forensic evidence had been recovered from the crime scene, including semen and hair follicles from the offender. Throughout his trial, Danziger would continue to deny involvement, but the state relied heavily upon the confession of his roommate and co-worker, Christopher Ochoa; even though his recorded series-of-events had changed several times (at times, implicating both Danziger and himself, and at other times, implicating neither), but included information that detectives state was impossible to fabricate. These were intimate details of the crime scene, which were known only to police and the culprit(s).

Eventually, Danziger was found guilty of sexual assault, and - alongside Ochoa - he was sentenced to life in prison.

Years later, a man named Achim Josef Marino began writing letters to police in Austin. Marino was a born-again Christian serving three life sentences for a litany of crimes, including aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and sexual assault, which he was convicted of in 1990. In order to come clear to his God, Marino began writing letters to not only the police but Austin-area newspapers as well as the ACLU; letters in which he confessed to the rape and murder of Nancy DePriest.

When these letters went ignored, Marino began turning his attention to the Texas governor at the time, George W. Bush. These letters finally led to some kind of response by authorities, and police in Austin were forced to address the matter, even though the Nancy DePriest casefile had been closed for almost a decade. Marino offered up evidence that police had never been able to find in the original investigation - such as the murder weapon - as well as the keys that the culprit had used to gain entry into the building.

When the APD finally re-examined their case from years prior, they found abhorrent behavior from the detectives that had handled it; namely, the investigators that had interrogated the young and impressionable Christopher Ochoa alone for several hours. Among them was Detective Hector Polanco, who had told Ochoa that he would be executed by the state if he did not confess. Polanco also seemed to allude to Ochoa becoming "fresh meat" for other inmates in prison, hinting at him becoming a victim of prison rape if he did not cooperate with the investigation.

During Ochoa's two interviews with police, he had been asked incredibly leading questions by Polanco and other detectives, which ultimately fed him the information that police claimed only the culprit would know. Over the years, Ochoa had stuck by his original confession, only because he feared police were trying to frame him for other crimes that he hadn't committed.

DNA testing would later prove, once and for all, that Achim Josef Marino had committed the crime. His confession - which was backed up by physical evidence - created an airtight case that was beyond reproach.

Christopher Ochoa was released from prison on January 16th, 2001, after spending more than a decade behind bars for a crime that he had coerced into confessing to. His one-time roommate, Richard Danziger, was released from custody a little over two months later, on March 22nd, due to some precautionary measures. You see, shortly into his incarceration, Richard Danziger had been physically assaulted by other inmates, which resulted in him receiving permanent brain damage that would require him to receive lifelong care. At the time of his release, he was actually no longer being held inside of prison but was being housed in a state-run mental institution.

Both men were officially exonerated in 2002, and would later file lawsuits against Austin and Travis County. Ochoa would receive $5.3 million from Austin taxpayers, while Danziger would receive close to $11 million - which came from not only Austin and Travis County residents, but compensation for injuries he had sustained while incarcerated (as well as a sizeable chunk from Ochoa for falsely implicating him).

This story would unfold at the same time another story was captivating Austin: the story of the infamous yogurt shop murders, which would keep the city ensnared for over a decade. In that case, four girls had been murdered back in December of 1991, and their crime would go completely unsolved until October of 1999; when police announced the arrest of four suspects, who had come upon their radar after a similar confession... which, coincidentally, was also conducted by Hector Polanco.

At the time of these arrests in 1999, Polanco had ascended from Detective to Lieutenant, but the city would begin to try and distance themselves from the officer; who, at this point, was seen as a decorated veteran of the department, but also a lightning rod for controversy. You see, in addition to coercing the false confession from Christopher Ochoa back in 1988, he had solicited a now-discredited confession from Maurice Pierce back in 1991... a confession that ultimately ensnared Pierce and three of his teenaged friends in the high-profile yogurt shop investigation.

The specifics of that confession would continue to haunt investigators years later, as would the confessions that police had since solicited from two of the suspects in the years since.

This is part three of the Austin yogurt shop murders.

The investigation into the yogurt shop murders had been officially relaunched in August of 1999, and for the next month, police would begin to re-interview suspects from months and years prior. This included those that had never really panned out or been thoroughly explored in the past; among whom were Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn, two young men that had been implicated in the case back in 1991. It also included Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen: two of their friends, whom they had claimed to be with on the weekend of the yogurt shop murders.

Austin detectives arranged interviews with Scott and Springsteen that September, and in repeated interviews - held over several days - both would eventually confess their involvement. First came Michael Scott, in a police interview on September 9th, and then Springsteen just a few days later (who was living in West Virginia at the time). This would ultimately lead to the arrest of all four on October 6th, with police having announced their imminent detainment days prior.

Even though all four would be charged in the infamous yogurt shop crime, authorities would begin to run into their first of several issues. Robert Springsteen, one of the two young men that had confessed, was living in West Virginia, and - through his lawyers - would deny Texas state the right to extradite him for trial. This would force authorities to go through the legal, and lengthy, process of requesting extradition through state governments. He would finally be transferred to Texas custody the following month, November of 1999.

Additionally, authorities would have to certify two of the suspects as adults. Since Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn had been minors at the time of the yogurt shop murders, but could no longer be tried in juvenile court, the state needed to certify that they could stand trial as adults. This was the only way to successfully try them on capital murder charges, but - just like the extradition of Springsteen - would take time to unfold in the court system. Because of their age at the time of the crime, the two would also manage to avoid the death penalty, should they be found guilty.

Despite police having these two new confessions (from Scott and Springsteen), prosecutors knew that they would likely need much more than that to successfully convict all four of the suspects. Especially since Maurice Pierce's original confession from 1991 would be inadmissible in court, due to investigators having thrown it out years ago (as well as the detective at the time, Hector Polanco, developing a reputation for soliciting false confessions).

Prosecutors also knew that Texas state law made it virtually impossible for a co-conspirator's confession to be the only evidence linking someone to a crime; since they, themselves, were admitting to the crime and their judgment could not be wholly trusted over a co-conspirator's. Because Scott and Springsteen had confessed to the crime, their confessions could be used against them - and each other - but not against the other two, who had denied involvement.

Prosecutors would need additional evidence to go after Pierce and Welborn: physical evidence, forensics, witness sightings... just something substantial since detectives had investigated and cleared them years prior.

Police still had Maurice Pierce's gun from 1991 in custody: the .22-caliber handgun that he had been carrying when he was arrested by police at the Northcross Mall eight days after the murders. They had been unable to link that gun to the murders back then but were now hoping to do so now, with more advanced testing methods.

These ballistics tests would play out in the background of the case over the next several months, as more information about the suspects - and their arrests - began to leak out to the press.

The news that four young men had been arrested for the area's most high-profile unsolved case shocked not only the community but the victim's families, who had been clamoring for justice for the better part of a decade.

The parents of the four victims would hold a press conference that week, and despite them being happy that answers could have been found, they advised everyone around them to express caution. They wanted the trial to work its way through the court system the right way since it was unlikely that they would get an opportunity like this again.

Meanwhile, those that knew - or had known - the four suspects could not believe that they had been charged in this crime. Their loved ones believed that the four could never have committed a crime like this in their past, even though they had been known delinquents in their teenage years.

The four young men had a handful of petty crimes between them but had never expressed any known violent behaviors (at least, nothing out of the ordinary). As I explored in the last episode, each young man some kind of relatively minor run-ins with the law, which included a misdemeanor weed arrest for Michael Scott, driving with a suspended license for Forrest Welborn, and a DUI for Robert Springsteen.

Among the four, Maurice Pierce was the only one with an established criminal record, but most of that came from his youth (and could be tied to his volatile home environment). He had been forced to drop out of high school to help take care of and provide for his family, and before then, he had been known to occasionally use illicit drugs and get into fights at school. But besides his history of petty crimes - as well as his 1991 arrest for unlawfully carrying a handgun - he didn't have a violent record and hadn't committed a crime in several years at the time of his arrest in 1999. Yet, he was tagged as the leader of this vicious crime, due to him seeming to fit the prerequisites of the profile that police had released to the public years earlier.

The families of the two men that had confessed (Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen) pointed to their level of education as a major reason for them to falsely confess: both had been enrolled in special education classes and had to repeat grades before dropping out of high school. Their loved ones cited this lack of education, as well as their impressionable natures, as proof that police had solicited these confessions through intimidation tactics that the knew the two would be susceptible to.

But those cries would fall on deaf ears for the next several months, as their trials continued to barrel forward with inevitable momentum.

Throughout November of 1999, certification hearings were held to conclude whether or not Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn - the youngest of the four suspects - could be tried as adults in the upcoming trial. These hearings would be the first time that much of the info I've regaled about the case and the investigation would be purveyed to the world-at-large.

These hearings included details about how the teenage girls had died, the state of undress that their bodies had been found in, the specifics of how their bodies had been burned, and the implication that at least two of the four victims had been sexually assaulted before their deaths. As you can imagine, this made it an incredibly emotional affair for the victims' loved ones, who had been living in the unknown for almost eight years.

For the first time, a series-of-events for the crime was laid out to the general public, which the police claimed to have put together via confessions from Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. According to them, one of the boys had scoped out the yogurt shop during its open hours and then unlocked the back door. Along with two others, they had snuck back in at around closing time, while the youngest suspect, Forrest Welborn, remained outside as a lookout. Inside of the yogurt shop, they had planned on robbing the place at the orders of their leader, Maurice Pierce, but he had allegedly freaked out over a small amount of money being found in the register (which seemed to stand in contrast to the facts, as auditors had found upwards of $500 missing from the store that night).

According to the case laid out by the state, Scott and Springsteen had begun to rape and murder the four victims at the behest of Pierce. They bolstered their case with testimony from investigators that had worked the case in the past, as well as first responders that had been at the crime scene the night of the murders. Together, they painted a terrifying portrait of the four offenders, which was enough to convince Judge Jeanne Meurer to certify Pierce and Welborn, allowing them to be tried as adults in their upcoming trials.

However, because the state was unable to provide any physical evidence throughout the certification hearings, the bail for both Pierce and Welborn was lowered significantly, allowing the latter (Welborn) to post bond that December. Indictments would follow later that month, with Robert Springsteen being indicted for the murder of Amy Ayers on December 14th. Michael Scott and Maurice Pierce would be indicted on the same charge on December 28th.

Absent from these indictments entirely was the fourth suspect, Forrest Welborn, who had been the youngest of the four. According to the confessions given by both Scott and Springsteen, Welborn had been nothing more than a lookout outside of the store, who - after a few minutes of waiting - had supposedly walked away from the crime scene. According to the confessions, Welborn had been unaware of the violence taking place inside and was later found walking down the road from the yogurt shop when they found him.

Even with these two confessions, police had absolutely nothing linking Forrest Welborn to the murders; so he was the only one of the four to remain unindicted by the end of the year. After posting bond, he would continue to live life as a free man, as he awaited the official filing of charges.

According to Welborn's lawyers, prosecutors were eager to get him to testify, even though he had denied wrongdoing ever since 1991 when he was originally tied to the crime through a false confession by his friend, Maurice Pierce. They would later state that throughout December, prosecutors would approach Welborn and offer him total immunity if he agreed to testify against the other three, which pointed to the state having very little actual evidence... if any.

Speaking to the publication Texas Monthly in 2001, criminal attorney Gary Cohen stated:

"That's not a card the state plays unless it's in serious trouble. For the state to let him walk signals that they have some serious problem with proof. That man firmly believes he is not culpable in any way."

While the three incarcerated suspects continued to await trial, events throughout 2000 would begin to point to a troubled prosecution, which was marred by significant setbacks to the police investigation.

On May 2nd of that year, a ballistics report from the ATF indicated that the .22-caliber handgun (originally seized from Maurice Pierce after his 1991 arrest) was not the murder weapon of the four girls in the yogurt shop. The gun that Pierce was carrying left very distinct impressions on the rounds it dispersed, which were not present on any of the four .22-caliber bullets that had been retrieved from the victims' bodies.

Investigators had also been unable to locate the .38-caliber handgun that was used in the crime (having been used to shoot and kill 13-year-old Amy Ayers), and photos of police dredging local bodies of water in a desperate effort to find the weapon would solicit laughter from skeptics; who thought it funny that police were quite literally fishing for answers.

The May 2nd report from the ATF - paired with the inability to locate either of the firearms used in the crime - seemed to poke holes in the state's case. Additionally, skeptics were concerned that police had been unable (or unwilling) to perform ballistics tests in the interim eight-plus years since they had been sitting on Pierce's .22-caliber handgun for that entire time.

Well, in June of 2000, it would come to light that Austin police had known about the ballistics discrepancy as far back as January of 1999 (months before they decided to file charges against the four suspects). They had known back then that the .22-caliber was not the murder weapon, but had decided not to include that information in prior filings (including the November hearings to certify Pierce and Welborn as adults), as they thought it might work against them. Detective Paul Johnson, who had been spearheading the investigation, claimed that he had simply forgotten to include this information in his reports, but that claim would turn out to be as convenient for him as it was ridiculous: he had testified throughout 1999 that the bullets retrieved from the crime scene were too damaged to compare to the revolver retrieved from Maurice Pierce eight days later, which was - quite simply - a false statement.

That month, a photo would begin to make the rounds online, which was a photocopied image that had been presented at a pretrial hearing for the three suspects. The image showed Detective Robert Merrill, one of the officers working the revamped yogurt shop investigation, holding a gun to the back of suspect Michael Scott's head. Merrill later claimed that this was a common tactic that he used to jog suspects' memories, but this raised a lot of alarms; especially since the APD already had a reputation for soliciting false confessions, and it was an image of police quite literally obtaining a confession at the end of a gun.

The validity of this image - which was taken straight from Scott's recorded confession - would severely damage the state's case; as it had been built - if not entirely, then mostly - upon Scott's confession. If defense attorneys could begin to cloud the issue of how the confession was obtained, they could almost singlehandedly sink the prosecution's case. Especially when you factored in details about Scott himself: he was a high-school dropout, who had been enrolled in special education classes, and was known by all to be somewhat simple (and very impressionable). His loved ones believed that he could easily be influenced by psychological threats, especially if they included threats of violence.

As if June of 2000 hadn't been bad enough for the state's case, the prosecution decided later that month to officially drop charges against Forrest Welborn, the youngest of the four suspects. A second grand jury had failed to indict him for any of the crimes he had been accused of, which meant that charges officially had to be dropped against him.

Even though the APD stated that Welborn was still under investigation, the dropping of charges highlighted the lack of evidence that they had in this case. At this point, they had started to test DNA found at the crime scene, and none of it had proven to be a match to the four suspects. In fact, other than the two confessions that police had obtained in September of 1999, there was close to nothing linking any of the four suspects to the yogurt shop or any of the victims.

Forrest Welborn had originally been freed back in December of 1999, after posting a cash bond (which would now be returned to him). Prosecutors had failed to indict him back then, and this second failure - in June of 2000 - seemed to completely tank their case against him. But the personal damage to Welborn had already been done: his autobody shop in Lockhart, Texas - which he had opened just months before his arrest - had shut down without him there to operate it, and because of the public crusade being waged against him, he was virtually unemployable throughout Texas.

With the dropping of charges, he could begin to return to somewhat-normality, but his loved ones and he knew that this story was far from over. Welborn has refused to speak to the media or address the case publicly in the years since, but he would continue to feel the effects of his arrest decades later.

The case against Robert Springsteen would be the first be tried, with his trial beginning in April of 2001 (after months of delays). Springsteen, who had recanted his confession by this point, pleaded not guilty. The prosecution had decided to only charge him in one of the four murders - that of the youngest victim, 13-year-old Amy Ayers - choosing to withhold the other three murders in case of an acquittal.

First came jury selection, in which only one out of the potential 200 jurors had never heard of the yogurt shop murders. Then came evidence selection, in which the prosecution and the defense argued over whether or not Michael Scott's confession would be admissible in this trial. After all, Scott himself had not yet been tried, and video footage of his confession showed police holding a gun to his head at one point. Ultimately, it would be decided that Scott's confession would be allowed in Robert Springsteen's trial, even though the defense wasn't allowed to cross-examine Scott. That would end up coming up later, so keep that in mind moving forward.

The defense received a second blow when they were told that they were not able to present details about investigative blunders or alternative suspects (such as serial killer Kenneth McDuff, who had confessed to the crime before his 1998 execution). The prosecution, who had no physical evidence to present, ended up relying mostly upon the two confessions from Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, as well as additional witness statements from people that they knew at the time, who testified to the men being in the neighborhood of the yogurt shop on the night of the murders.

Even though the state's case seemed to have several holes, which were pointed out by the defense, it was enough for the jury to convict Robert Springsteen for the murder of Amy Ayers. In June of 2001, he was sentenced to death after two days of deliberation; a verdict that was sure to send reverberations to the other two suspects awaiting trial, Michael Scott and Maurice Pierce. Of them, Scott was the next to stand trial, but that wouldn't begin until the next year (2002).

The trial to decide Michael Scott's innocence or guilt began in July of 2002, and almost immediately, proceeded just like the first. The state's case was centered almost entirely upon Scott's confession, which he had recanted by this point, and his lawyers claimed had been coerced by law enforcement. That claim was bolstered throughout the trial by the images of Detective Merrill holding a gun to Scott's head during his interrogation.

As it had been during the trial of Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott's trial was remarkable in that he was only charged with a single murder: that of Amy Ayers. Police continued to hedge their bets, in case Scott was acquitted, that they could immediately charge him with the other three deaths. Despite that, they presented no physical evidence or direct witness sightings, instead, relying mostly on Scott's original confession (which had been bolstered by a subsequent confession by the now-convicted Springsteen).

Scott's trial would carry on for several weeks, with closing statements not made until the end of September. On September 22nd, 2002, Michael Scott was found guilty of murder, and just a couple of days later, he was sentenced to life in prison; with the jury not believing him to be a threat to society should he be paroled in the distant future.

Now with two out of the four original suspects convicted, the trial against the third (and only remaining) suspect, Maurice Pierce, was set to begin.

Pierce, who had been maligned as the leader of this group (and the orchestrator of this entire crime) had become public enemy number one for the Austin area, and his trial was set to become a make-or-break moment for the entire case. Even though Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen had now been convicted, the prosecution had centered their entire case around the basis that Maurice Pierce was the main culprit (the "action man," as described by Scott and Springsteen in their confessions).

Following the conviction of Michael Scott - in the Fall of 2002 - District Judge Mike Lynch set a date for Pierce's trial to begin on April 21st, 2003. Even though prosecutors had been successful in both cases to-date, they were now faced with a pretty dire situation.

You see, under Texas state law, individuals cannot be convicted of a crime when the only evidence against them is a co-conspirator's confession. That was the exact situation that Maurice Pierce found himself in, after sitting in police custody since October of 1999. Prosecutors had no evidence linking Pierce to the crime, other than Scott and Springsteen's confessions, which had resulted in the two of them being convicted. But other than that, they had no physical evidence, no witness sightings that put Pierce in the vicinity of the yogurt shop, no direct links to the victims, no matching ballistics tests, nothing.

Under Texas law, they could not feasibly move forward with a trial, since Pierce himself had not confessed to any wrongdoing. Besides, both Scott and Springsteen had recanted their confessions in the preceding years, and even if they were called to the stand to testify against Pierce, they would refuse to do so.

So in January of 2003 - less than 3 months after sentencing Michael Scott to life in prison - Maurice Pierce, the alleged ringleader of this murder plot, was released from police custody. Subsequently, all charges against him were dropped, even though investigators still publicly considered him a suspect. Authorities pledged to continue investigating Pierce for these murders but had to admit that - in the 11+ years since the yogurt shop murders - they had been unable to uncover any evidence whatsoever connecting Pierce to the crime.

Days after his release, Maurice Pierce would hold a press conference, in which he was flanked by his wife, his 10-year-old daughter, and his attorney. He refused to answer any questions about the past few years - choosing not to address the investigation or the failed case against him - but professed his innocence, and announced that he was excited to begin his life as a free man once again. However, he admitted during the press conference that he was a changed man, and that:

"... my life will never be the same..."

Neither Maurice Pierce nor the other released suspect, Forrest Welborn, would ever be charged again in the future, with police never having enough evidence to move forward against either.

In the years to come, both Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott would appeal their convictions, citing the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the 'Crawford v. Washington' case. In that landmark ruling from 2004, it had been ruled that every individual deserved the right to cross-examine witnesses used against them. Citing the 6th Amendment (the right to face your accuser), it was believed that this could ultimately earn both of the men freedom, as they had been unable to cross-examine each other in their trials.

Meanwhile, another decision from the Supreme Court would ultimately commute death penalties for anyone convicted of a crime they committed as a minor: which included Robert Springsteen, who had been under 18 years of age at the time the murders happened. Without even having to file an appeal, his death penalty had been commuted to life in prison.

In 2006, Robert Springsteen's appeal would get heard by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, who began reviewing the case with the recent Supreme Court decision in-mind. This meant that they began to re-evaluable all of the available evidence, which - if you'll recall - was mostly limited to the two men's confessions.

That May, the Court would just barely decided to overturn Springsteen's conviction (by 5-4 ruling), stating that Springsteen had been given an unfair trial because he had been deprived of his right to cross-examine Michael Scott. This would immediately vacate his conviction, and put his case on shaky ground moving forward, should the prosecution move forward with a re-trial.

The state would later appeal this decision, taking their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping to get Springsteen's conviction reinstated. However, in 2006, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, citing their decision for everyone to have the right to face their accuser (as defined by the Bill of Rights).

Michael Scott would later have his own conviction overturned, citing the exact same parameters.

Now, after successfully convicting half of the four named suspects, prosecutors were in a significantly worse spot than they had been in been years prior, with only two suspects behind bars awaiting trial.

Over the next few years, re-trials would be ordered for both Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, but the prosecution would begin to realize that their winning cases against both had to be totally re-examined. Because they had relied so heavily upon the two men's confessions - both of which were now unreliable at best - they had to come up with a smoking gun of some sort.

In 2008, at the urging of the defense, the prosecution decided to call for more advanced DNA testing to take place, which would re-examine samples taken from the victims' bodies as well as from the clothing they had been wearing on the night of the murders (which had been used to bind and gag them). It was believed that if officials were unable to match samples of the four named suspects to any of the DNA samples, then it would almost assuredly convince a jury that the two remaining suspects had never been at the crime scene. Prosecutors pushed back against this, claiming that the items had been tainted by investigators and other handlers over the years, but Judge Mike Lynch agreed to let the testing move forward, to determine the men's guilt once and for all.

Later that year (2008), it was reported that the DNA of an unidentified male had been found on a vaginal swab of one of the victims, Amy Ayers, almost assuring that she had been raped before her death and pointing to at least one offender through DNA. Surprisingly, the DNA was not a match for either Michael Scott or Robert Springsteen (nor Maurice Pierce or Forrest Welborn), which - if not exonerating them - certainly seemed to point the finger towards another unknown male.

The completion of more advanced DNA testing would carry on through 2008 but seemed to point to good things for the defendants, who - at this point - had been behind bars for almost an entire decade.

DNA samples were taken from the bodies of all four victims and seemed to point to an unknown number of individuals that had perpetrated this crime; whose DNA was not a match for any of the named suspects. In fact, after a re-evaluation of all of the DNA found at the crime scene, none of it matched up with Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, Maurice Pierce, or Forrest Welborn. Their DNA was not present at the crime scene, or on the bodies, in any way whatsoever.

Unfortunately, because these were such small samples - which were only obtained through cutting-edge forensic testing - they could not be submitted to state or federal databases, such as CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). But they could be compared to specific suspects, and in the case of these four men, none of the samples would ever prove to be a match.

Not a single one.

Citing the prosecution's concern - that they might have been contaminated by handlers or technicians over the years - these samples were also compared to the officials that had handled evidence over the years. Likewise, it was not a match for any of them. Whoever these DNA samples belonged to, they were almost undoubtedly the culprit(s) of the infamous yogurt shop murders, who remain unidentified to this day.

This leads us to the summer of 2009 when the re-trials of both Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott were set to begin.

Rosemary Lehmberg, who had just become the district attorney for Travis County earlier that year, was now responsible for leading the case against both men. She had administered over the several months' worth of DNA testing that had unfolded throughout the first half of that year, which seemed to rule out the two remaining suspects entirely.

Heading into that June, Lehmberg had a tough decision on her hands: either keep pressing forward on the current path, and have her prosecutors prepare a case against the two men with a more neutered version of what prosecutors had presented years earlier, which did nothing to address the new DNA evidence... or admit that the state didn't have enough evidence to press charges, and risk letting the two men go free.

That June, Rosemary Lehmberg would hold a press conference, where she announced that she - and the rest of her office - were not prepared to move forward with the case as it stood.

This takes us to Wednesday, June 24th, 2009, the day in which Judge Mike Lynch would order both Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen to be released from jail.

That afternoon, both men would be released from custody for the first time in almost an entire decade. Even though they would remain under indictment for the foreseeable future - meaning that they had to remain in the area, avoid contact with anyone related to the case, etc. - they were free for the first time since 1999.

Just a few months later - in October of 2009 - the charges against both Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen would be dismissed by the Travis County D.A., officially ending this chapter of their lives... and unofficially exonerating them of the crimes that had consumed an entire decade of their lives.

Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott would finally be released from jail in 2009, but the other two named suspects - Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn - had been released from police custody years earlier. While Forrest Welborn had managed to avoid any legal trouble throughout that time, Maurice Pierce had struggled to re-adapt to life outside, and that culminated in an incident in December of 2010.

Just before Christmas 2010, Maurice Pierce was fatally shot by a police officer, after running from his car following a routine traffic stop. Pierce had been observed by officers failing to stop at a stop sign and was then pulled over in a residential neighborhood. As soon as he pulled over to the side of the road, Pierce began running through the neighborhood and was chased on-foot by both officers, who eventually caught up to him a few blocks over.

In the altercation that followed, Pierce - who had become paranoid of law enforcement in the preceding years - supposedly grabbed a knife from the belt of his arresting officer, Frank Wilson, cutting his ear and throat in the scuffle that ensued. Pierce was then shot once by Wilson, and would ultimately end up passing away while the officers waited for paramedics to arrive.

This was not Pierce's first run-in with police in the years since his release from custody. He had actually been arrested twice since 2008, and had violently resisted authorities on multiple occasions; events that his lawyers and loved ones claim was onset by his prior incarceration. They stated that Pierce was often talking about being followed by law enforcement, and he believed that they were simply biding their time before they arrested him again.

The other three suspects have since struggled to readjust to life outside of prison, as their lives were essentially flipped on their heads and permanently altered because of this case. Just a few years ago, in fact, Robert Springsteen asked for Austin Police to officially clear his name, as they had continued investigating him as a murder suspect after his release, but have not pressed any charges in the decade since.

Springsteen took the issue to court, asking for authorities to either finally press charges or declare him innocent, as he was unable to find any legitimate work because of his name being permanently attached to this case. He was also hoping to receive compensation from the state for what he viewed as ten years of wrongful imprisonment, but because he had never been officially acquitted in a court of law, his petition was overruled by a state judge, who sided with the prosecution (who cited their "continued investigation").

To this day, none of the four men have been officially exonerated in this case, but after nearly thirty years, no evidence has been presented that links them to this case. After Scott and Springsteen were released from custody in 2009, no charges have been filed against anyone in this case, and there has been no apparent sign of police activity.

Even though the release of Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen was a major victory for them and their loved ones - as well as everyone that had contested their guilt for months (if not years) - it was a punch to the gut for the victims' loved ones, who had trusted investigators to lead the case to resolution.

Now, the case was right back where it had been nearly twenty years prior: unsolved, and without any hope on the horizon. There remained some small sliver of optimism that DNA could provide answers, but the DNA testing would ultimately end up creating more questions.

In the advanced DNA testing that took place in 2008 and 2009, police found at least three genetic profiles:

- One unknown male, who had raped 13-year-old Amy Ayers. His DNA was also found in the body of Jennifer Harbison, indicating that he had raped her, as well.

- A second unknown male, whose DNA was found in Sarah Harbison. This was likely another culprit, who had acted alongside the first man.

- A 3rd unknown male, whose DNA was found on Eliza Thomas; specifically, on the clothing used to bind her wrists.

Additionally, it was found that the DNA of Jennifer Harbison's boyfriend at the time (Sammy Buchanon) was found in her sister, Sarah. This indicated to authorities that whoever had raped Jennifer had then raped Sarah since Jennifer and her boyfriend had had sex hours before she started work. That was the only way investigators believed would explain this transmission of DNA, barring some bizarre happenstance related to the bodies being stacked atop of one another and then set on fire.

The DNA recovered from the victims' bodies back in 2008-2009 revealed at least one DNA strand from the body of Amy Ayers. This was a Y-STR strand of DNA, which is passed down through the Y-chromosome. This DNA sample could feasibly be used to trace the male lineage of the culprit, but is not specific, meaning that it could be shared among dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of men (making it incredibly hard to track down, especially with privacy laws as they currently stand). This is one of the DNA samples that was compared against the four named suspects and ultimately led to the release of Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen from police custody.

Because it is a single strand of DNA, this Y-STR sample cannot simply be put into a forensic database (despite what TV shows would tell you, testing for DNA is much more complicated than that). However, in 2017, this sample was submitted into a academic Y-STR database operated by the University of Central Florida... where, surprisingly, it received a match. However, the FBI - who submitted the sample - have been hesitant to release the results, citing federal laws and privacy concerns. They may also be concerned that this strand of DNA is likely shared by thousands of men.

This has led to a long and complicated stalemate between the FBI and the family of Amy Ayers, who believe that this match could help investigators narrow in on the culprit(s), similar to the tactic that was used to catch criminals such as the Golden State Killer and the Daytona Beach Killer. In particular, the testing of Y-STR DNA was used in the Boston Strangler case (years after the fact), confirming to authorities that the man they had long suspected of involvement, Albert DeSalvo, was, in fact, the Strangler.

This conflict lingers to this day, with some of the more recent developments happening just recently (February of 2020). However, it remains unlikely that this DNA sample will be used to help identify the true culprits of this crime, barring some kind of miraculous development in DNA testing.

Investigators and prosecutors continue to stick by their original story, believing that the four suspects they named back in 1999 are responsible: Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Robert Springsteen, and Michael Scott... despite one of them now being deceased (Pierce), another never being charged (Welborn), and the other two released from prison and unofficially exonerated through DNA testing (Scott & Springsteen).

In statements made to the public, officials have hinted at DNA from the crime scene indicating the involvement of at least three individuals, who remain unidentified to this day. Investigators once claimed that the DNA might have come from a still-unidentified fifth culprit, who they claim acted alongside the original four suspects, but this just seems like desperate back peddling to me. Detectives were barely able to simply charge two of the four original suspects with anything in this case, and in those cases, their sentences were vacated.

To me, it seems like the investigators handling this case are just too hesitant to admit that they got it wrong back in 1999, and spent more than a decade pursuing charges against the wrong guys. Instead of admitting their fault and changing course, their investigation has since come to a complete and total halt and seems to have made no progress in more than a decade.

If we go by what the DNA tells us, there was at least one unknown individual that committed this crime, who may have been aided by one or two others that were likely in the yogurt shop just before closing time. This means that they were likely inside the store before 10:50, which was when the female employees typically locked the front door to anyone coming in.

If we recall back to the first episode of this series, I described two men that were seen in the yogurt shop that night, sitting close to the register. They were seen by a couple that night - who later reported feeling "uncomfortable" by the two men - who recalled leaving the shop at 10:47 PM. When they left, the two men were still inside. To this day, they remain the only witnesses that police have never been able to track down and interview, and for that reason, they remain potential persons-of-interest in this case.

These two men were later described by defense attorney Amber Farrelly on CBS's '48 Hours':

"One is described as having lighter hair, maybe like a dirty blond... about 5 foot 6... late 20's, early 30's. The other is described as a bigger man. Both are described as wearing bigger coats... one [is] a green coat... Army fatigue kind of looking jacket, the other with a black jacket."

DNA found at the crime scene may belong to one of these two, and hopefully - in the future - more advanced testing can be used to identify them.

The victims' loved ones continue to hold out hope that justice can be found, as the 30th anniversary of this tragic crime quickly approaches.

Sadly, Maria Thomas - the mother of Eliza - passed away back in 2015, not knowing what happened to her oldest daughter. But the other parents and loved ones of the victims continue to hope that answers can be found for their murdered girls - who have been gone for much longer than they were ever alive.

The location of the yogurt shop has since become a nail salon, and the women who work there continue to remember the lives lost that cold December night nearly three decades ago. Every day, they light a candle for the four girls, and regular visitors continue to visit the location to pay their respects. A plaque out in the parking lot contains the names of the four girls, whose tragic legacy continues to live on to this day.

As of this episode's recording, the stories of Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, as well as Eliza Thomas and Amy Ayers, remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on April 5th, 2020

Producers: Maggyjames, Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Quil Carter, Peggy Belarde, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Amy Hampton, Scott Meesey, Steven Wilson, Scott Patzold, Marie Vanglund, Astrid Kneier, Lori Rodriguez, Victoria Reid, Gabriella Bromley, Jessica Yount, Aimee McGregor, Danny Williams, Sue Kirk, Sara Moscaritolo, Thomas Ahearn, Sydney Scotton, Marion Welsh, Seth Morgan, Alyssa Lawton, Kelly Jo Hapgood, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Rebecca Miller, Tatum Bautista, and Michelle Guess