Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Austin Yogurt Shop Pt. Three

Transcript

Austin Yogurt Shop Pt. Three · The Path Went Chilly

0:28
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part three of our series about the
0:30
Speaker 1: Austin yogurt shot murders. We will finally be talking about
0:33
Speaker 1: how this case was solved. And then things got really
0:36
Speaker 1: ridiculous because in October of two thousand and three, several
0:39
Speaker 1: months after the charges were dropped against Maurice, they decided
0:43
Speaker 1: to charge Michael Scott's best friend Patrick Davison on the
0:46
Speaker 1: charges of being an accessory after the fact, failing to
0:50
Speaker 1: report a felony, making a false statement, and obstruction of
0:53
Speaker 1: justice because during his original confession, Michael had claimed that
0:57
Speaker 1: he had given Patrick a paper bag containing the pistol
1:01
Speaker 1: used in the murders and told them to hide it.
1:04
Speaker 1: And I know that after Michael confessed, he supposedly called
1:07
Speaker 1: Patrick and told him to tell police about the gun
1:10
Speaker 1: if they asked. And Patrick was questioned by investigators a
1:13
Speaker 1: few days later, and he recalled that, oh yeah, I
1:15
Speaker 1: kind of remember back in nineteen ninety one, Mike gave
1:18
Speaker 1: me a paper bag and I threw it in a
1:20
Speaker 1: trash container at his apartment complex. But he kept changing
1:23
Speaker 1: his story over the next few years. He said he
1:25
Speaker 1: couldn't really remember, and then when Mike went on trial,
1:30
Speaker 1: the official story presented was that Patrick had tossed the
1:33
Speaker 1: three eighty gun into Lake Austin. So by the time
1:37
Speaker 1: Patrick was indicted on these new charges, he finally said that, no,
1:40
Speaker 1: Michael never gave me a gun. I did not dispose
1:43
Speaker 1: of it. But they pretty much told him that you
1:45
Speaker 1: could face twenty years in federal prison and a million
1:48
Speaker 1: dollar fine if you go on trial. So Patrick agreed
1:51
Speaker 1: to a plea deal in which he could plead guilty
1:53
Speaker 1: to lesser charges in exchange for only one year in prison.
1:57
Speaker 1: And many people suspected that this was sour rapes, that
2:00
Speaker 1: because they couldn't get a conviction against Maurice Pierce, they
2:03
Speaker 1: were going after this so called accessory who had disposed
2:06
Speaker 1: of the murder weapon. But now we know that these
2:09
Speaker 1: four guys didn't do it. So Patrick never likely never
2:12
Speaker 1: got rid of a gun, and it turns out he
2:15
Speaker 1: accepted a plea deal and spent a year in prison
2:17
Speaker 1: for nothing.
2:18
Speaker 2: This case is a nightmare. But honestly, all of these
2:21
Speaker 2: innocent people being railroaded and they're thinking that they're getting
2:25
Speaker 2: some kind of justice, Like you really have to question
2:28
Speaker 2: if the investigators really and truly believe this. You're trying
2:32
Speaker 2: to shore up your case more by going in charge
2:34
Speaker 2: of him like way after the facts. I don't understand,
2:38
Speaker 2: is it because you couldn't get convictions with Maurice and
2:40
Speaker 2: Forrest that you're just trying to make it look like
2:44
Speaker 2: this is a real sure thing, that like you did
2:46
Speaker 2: the right thing and all of these people who are
2:50
Speaker 2: tangentially involved are then going to be held responsible. It
2:54
Speaker 2: seems like overkill.
2:56
Speaker 1: It pretty much was, yeah, that they were just trying
2:58
Speaker 1: to get vengeance on everyone they could. And I couldn't
3:01
Speaker 1: even understand Patrick's decision because he's pretty much told you
3:04
Speaker 1: can face twenty years in prison, but if you plead guilty,
3:07
Speaker 1: you'll only get one year. So even if he's innocence,
3:10
Speaker 1: he's probably thinking to myself, if I take a chance
3:12
Speaker 1: at trial, I've already seen two of my friends go
3:15
Speaker 1: to prison and one of them is on death row.
3:17
Speaker 1: I'm going to take the plea even though it turned
3:19
Speaker 1: out all along that he was completely innocent and that
3:22
Speaker 1: this charge of him disposing of the gun was completely bogus.
3:26
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and five, the United States Supreme
3:28
Speaker 1: Court had a new ruling that juveniles should not be
3:32
Speaker 1: executed for crimes they committed well under the age of eighteen,
3:35
Speaker 1: and since Robert had been seventeen at the time that
3:37
Speaker 1: the Yeowart Shop murders occurred, his death sentence was commuted
3:41
Speaker 1: to a life imprisonment. But more things would happen with
3:44
Speaker 1: the case because it would be heard in front of
3:46
Speaker 1: the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and in May of
3:48
Speaker 1: two thousand and six they voted by a decision of
3:51
Speaker 1: five to four to overturn his conviction. And in their eyes,
3:55
Speaker 1: the state's decision to use excerpts of Mike's confession at
3:59
Speaker 1: Rob's trial without having Mike testify violated the confrontation clause
4:04
Speaker 1: of the sixth Amendment of the Constitution, because the exact
4:07
Speaker 1: wording is quote in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall
4:11
Speaker 1: enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against them.
4:14
Speaker 1: And they figured because some light cannot be called to
4:17
Speaker 1: the witness stand to be questioned about things in his
4:20
Speaker 1: written confession, that meant that Robert received an unfair trial.
4:24
Speaker 1: And the following year they did the exact same thing
4:27
Speaker 1: with Mike's conviction, where they said, because you presented Robert's
4:31
Speaker 1: confession is evidence, but you do not have Robert take
4:33
Speaker 1: the witness stand to be cross examined. You did not
4:36
Speaker 1: receive a fair trial, so his conviction was also overturned.
4:40
Speaker 2: Well, you've got the right to confront your accuser, so
4:43
Speaker 2: it kind of shocks me that they went ahead with
4:45
Speaker 2: that anyways.
4:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking that they should have looked this
4:49
Speaker 1: up before the trials and was not wasted everyone's time
4:53
Speaker 1: and stuff. But it just seems like such a flag
4:55
Speaker 1: and violation that someone can make accusations against them and
4:58
Speaker 1: you can read their statement in court, but your defense
5:00
Speaker 1: attorney can't cross examine them and try to destroy their credibility.
5:05
Speaker 2: I feel like we've all watched enough law and order
5:08
Speaker 2: by that point that you'd know that somebody can't just
5:11
Speaker 2: go ahead and say anything in a confession and without
5:14
Speaker 2: that cross examination option. The fact that that wasn't brought
5:18
Speaker 2: up by the defense during the trial for either of
5:21
Speaker 2: them is shocking to me.
5:23
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, I think they both got public defenders
5:26
Speaker 1: just because they were not wealthy people. They couldn't afford
5:29
Speaker 1: hard price to attorneys, and they probably just didn't even
5:31
Speaker 1: think about that. But I'm thinking that if they had
5:33
Speaker 1: gotten a more skilled lawyer, then the charges may have
5:36
Speaker 1: been dropped against them before they even went to trial,
5:38
Speaker 1: because if they couldn't use the other confessions, their case
5:41
Speaker 1: would have had some huge damage to it.
5:44
Speaker 2: What year were these trials taking place? Two thousand?
5:47
Speaker 1: Ah, Yes, the first one was in two thousand and
5:50
Speaker 1: the next one was in two thousand and two.
5:53
Speaker 2: I would just think from watching legal procedural dramas that
5:57
Speaker 2: just any average person by the year two thousand would think, Okay,
6:02
Speaker 2: like this is something that is necessary. You got the
6:06
Speaker 2: right to confront your accuser. And so the fact that
6:08
Speaker 2: not one but two lawyers, whether they're public defenders or not,
6:13
Speaker 2: that is so shocking to me that that wasn't addressed
6:16
Speaker 2: at the time. That seems like that's ineffective.
6:20
Speaker 1: Counsel pretty much. Yeah, so they would have had lots
6:23
Speaker 1: of grounds in order to have their conviction overturns. And
6:25
Speaker 1: I think that if they ever had gone to trial again,
6:27
Speaker 1: I think some lawyer would have represented them pro bono,
6:30
Speaker 1: thinking this case is outrageous and I want to help
6:33
Speaker 1: you guys.
6:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd think like the Innocence Project, any number of
6:37
Speaker 2: iterations of what the innocence project is in different states
6:40
Speaker 2: could have helped them out because it's very clear that
6:44
Speaker 2: the evidence here was very, very thin.
6:47
Speaker 1: Pretty much. Yeah. So, back in nineteen ninety one, and
6:51
Speaker 1: even in nineteen ninety nine when they originally charged, the
6:54
Speaker 1: DNA testing in criminal cases was not yet a common thing.
6:57
Speaker 1: So while both defendants were in prison and the defense said,
7:01
Speaker 1: can we test the DNA, and of course the state thought,
7:04
Speaker 1: well this could further our case, go right ahead and
7:07
Speaker 1: do it. And of course this is going to turn
7:09
Speaker 1: out bad for them. So the bodies have been set
7:12
Speaker 1: on fire, and because water had been used, a lot
7:15
Speaker 1: of the physical evidence was destroyed, so they were unable
7:17
Speaker 1: to get a full DNA profile, but they were able
7:20
Speaker 1: to get it by doing vaginal swabs, and since the
7:23
Speaker 1: evidence was going to contain mixtures of male DNA and
7:26
Speaker 1: female DNA, the an independent lab would perform y STR testing,
7:31
Speaker 1: which is short tandem repeat testing specific to the male
7:35
Speaker 1: Y chromosome. So they wound up finding a semen sample
7:38
Speaker 1: from Jennifer's body and it actually matched the DNA of
7:41
Speaker 1: her boyfriend at the time, Sammy Buchanan. But it turned
7:45
Speaker 1: out this was because they had consensual sex a couple
7:48
Speaker 1: hours before shift began at home. But of course they
7:51
Speaker 1: found traces of Sammy's DNA on Sarah's body, which meant
7:55
Speaker 1: that someone else had raped her and then somehow transferred
7:58
Speaker 1: traces of Sammy's d DNA on to Sarah, so obviously
8:02
Speaker 1: the presence of his DNA did not mean that the
8:05
Speaker 1: perpetrator didn't leave it behind. They also found a y
8:09
Speaker 1: sdr strand a male DNA on a vaginal swab taken
8:12
Speaker 1: from Amy, and of course she was thirteen years old
8:14
Speaker 1: at the time, so they're not going to use the
8:16
Speaker 1: consensual sex thing for her and say that it belonged
8:19
Speaker 1: to someone else. And because they also found this same
8:23
Speaker 1: individual's DNA on Jennifer, they were able to establish that
8:27
Speaker 1: unlikely belonged to one of the perpetrators. And surprise, surprise,
8:31
Speaker 1: it turned out that the DNA did not match Robert
8:33
Speaker 1: Michael forrest Or Maurice. And of course, the state completely
8:37
Speaker 1: admitted their mistake and said they were wrong all along.
8:40
Speaker 2: Not yeah, not a shocker.
8:43
Speaker 1: No, Instead, they said that, oh, maybe these four men
8:46
Speaker 1: had a fifth conspirator who assisted with the crime, and
8:49
Speaker 1: he was the one who raped the girl and left
8:51
Speaker 1: the DNA behind, which the defense found completely ridiculous, saying
8:55
Speaker 1: that Robert and Michael made these very detailed confessions, yet
8:58
Speaker 1: they're somehow going to fail to mentioned that they had
9:00
Speaker 1: a fifth co conspirator, the.
9:03
Speaker 2: Good old unindicted co conspirator slash ejaculator theory. When it
9:08
Speaker 2: doesn't work out and they have those four, let's just
9:11
Speaker 2: add on that there's got to be another person, rather
9:13
Speaker 2: than examined that, Okay, these guys, they might be innocent.
9:18
Speaker 2: It's like that whole sunken cost fallacy. We've already put
9:21
Speaker 2: so much energy and time and our reputations into these
9:25
Speaker 2: cases that it's not possible that it could be somebody else.
9:28
Speaker 2: What's more possible is there is an additional person.
9:31
Speaker 1: What, Yeah, pretty much, we're just I've seen this in
9:35
Speaker 1: a lot of other cases where you talked about the
9:37
Speaker 1: unindicted co ejaculator, where they'll just say, oh, they still
9:40
Speaker 1: committed the murder, but they had this accomplice who committed
9:43
Speaker 1: the rape and left the semen behind, even though we've
9:45
Speaker 1: never mentioned this at all before this DNA testing. So
9:49
Speaker 1: they will go to great lengths to avoid admitting the
9:51
Speaker 1: wrong and they would try another strategy like this because
9:55
Speaker 1: then they would say, oh, maybe it was cross contamination
9:58
Speaker 1: and the DNA belongs to an evidence to technician or something. Well,
10:02
Speaker 1: the defense tried to call their bluff because they kind
10:04
Speaker 1: elected DNA samples from pretty much everyone who was at
10:07
Speaker 1: the crime scene that night, like the firefighters, the police officers,
10:11
Speaker 1: the evidence technicians, former employees from the shop, even friends
10:14
Speaker 1: and acquaintances of the victims, and the DNA match none
10:18
Speaker 1: of them. So it seemed pretty clear cut that this
10:20
Speaker 1: DNA sample belonged to the real perpetrator, and because it
10:24
Speaker 1: did not match any of the four defendants, that means
10:26
Speaker 1: that they couldn't have done it. So finally, they had
10:29
Speaker 1: been in jail like for years waiting for this DNA testing.
10:32
Speaker 1: But in October of two thousand and nine, the state
10:35
Speaker 1: finally said, well, with the evidence we have, there's no
10:38
Speaker 1: way we can take Michael or Robert back to trial again,
10:41
Speaker 1: so we're finally going to release them and drop the charges.
10:44
Speaker 1: But by this point they had been locked up for
10:46
Speaker 1: ten years, and it took forever to reach this point,
10:51
Speaker 1: and at.
10:52
Speaker 2: This point it's not like they're saying that they're innocent,
10:54
Speaker 2: So to be able to go after the state and
10:57
Speaker 2: to get any kind of compensation would be exceedingly difficult.
11:00
Speaker 1: Would it not pretty much? Yeah, I was just going
11:02
Speaker 1: to talk about that. They tried to seek compensation for
11:05
Speaker 1: the wrongful convictions, but they technically weren't exonerated. They only
11:10
Speaker 1: had the charges dropped, so they pretty much the court says,
11:13
Speaker 1: we cannot give you compensation until you prove your innocence,
11:16
Speaker 1: and even though we have DNA that does not belong
11:20
Speaker 1: to you, there are all these other possibilities like you
11:23
Speaker 1: having an accomplice, which means we can't prove you didn't
11:26
Speaker 1: do it. So they were pretty much trapped in limbo.
11:28
Speaker 1: And even though they are often listed on websites like
11:32
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project, they were still recognized by the law
11:34
Speaker 1: ask convicted murderers until they finally resolved this case a
11:38
Speaker 1: month ago.
11:39
Speaker 2: That is so wild to me. The system is totally
11:42
Speaker 2: rigged to think that these individuals can do all of
11:46
Speaker 2: this time behind bars, and you essentially have to prove
11:50
Speaker 2: that you're innocent, which is damn near impossible unless you
11:53
Speaker 2: find out who the actual killer is. But to task
11:57
Speaker 2: a person who you've wrongfully incarcerated with something so weighty
12:01
Speaker 2: when investigators couldn't even figure it out, prosecutors couldn't figure
12:05
Speaker 2: it out, but you're going to expect this person. In
12:08
Speaker 2: order for them to become an exonery, they've got to
12:11
Speaker 2: solve the murder. Like the burden is insane.
12:15
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it, because by that point they were released,
12:18
Speaker 1: it was eighteen years since the crime was committed and
12:21
Speaker 1: they still had not found the real killers. But it
12:23
Speaker 1: became apparent that the only way they would ever be
12:26
Speaker 1: officially exonerated is if they finally identified who was the
12:29
Speaker 1: source of that DNA. And there would be a sad
12:33
Speaker 1: PostScript to Maurice Pearce because since he was released in
12:36
Speaker 1: two thousand and three after the charges were dropped, he
12:39
Speaker 1: apparently became very paranoid that the Austin police route to
12:43
Speaker 1: get him and would do something bad to him as
12:45
Speaker 1: revenge for not being able to get a conviction. So
12:48
Speaker 1: on December twenty third, twenty ten, Maurice was pulled over
12:51
Speaker 1: for a seemingly routine traffic stop after he failed to
12:55
Speaker 1: properly stop at a stop sign, and while it was
12:57
Speaker 1: going on, he was speaking to his daughter in his
12:59
Speaker 1: solfe in the last words he said were quote, they're
13:03
Speaker 1: after me again, before telling his daughter he loved her
13:05
Speaker 1: and that he would never see her again before he
13:07
Speaker 1: hung up, and almost immediately Maurice attempted to flee the
13:11
Speaker 1: scene on foot until one of the officers, Frank Wilson,
13:14
Speaker 1: caught up with them and he struggle ensued, in which
13:17
Speaker 1: Maurice removed her utility knife from Wilson's belt and stabbed
13:21
Speaker 1: him in the neck, so Wilson responded by pulling out
13:23
Speaker 1: his gun and fatally shooting Maurice, and a toxicology report
13:28
Speaker 1: would show that Maurice had a blood alcohol level of
13:30
Speaker 1: zero point one point four at that time, which was
13:33
Speaker 1: over the legal a limit, and Wilson survived his injuries,
13:37
Speaker 1: and an internal investigation ruled that the shooting was justified,
13:41
Speaker 1: and even though conspirators have said that they deliberately killed
13:44
Speaker 1: him as revenge for the Yogurt shot murders, Wilson did
13:47
Speaker 1: say I had no idea who this guy was when
13:49
Speaker 1: I pulled them over. I just thought it was a
13:51
Speaker 1: routine traffic stop and he ran away and attacked me unprovoked.
13:54
Speaker 1: So I do believe him that the shooting was justified,
13:57
Speaker 1: that he had no choice. But I think Maurice, because
14:00
Speaker 1: of all the paranoia and his mental health struggles from
14:03
Speaker 1: thinking that he was going to be re arrested for
14:05
Speaker 1: the Yogret shot murders at any time, just snapped and
14:08
Speaker 1: then just decided to attack this officer.
14:11
Speaker 2: Oh, poor Maurice, And I feel bad for his daughter
14:14
Speaker 2: who's on the phone he's essentially saying goodbye. It almost
14:18
Speaker 2: becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy that you believe that
14:22
Speaker 2: they're after you, and so you end up putting yourself
14:25
Speaker 2: in a situation where he could have got away without
14:29
Speaker 2: injury or without injuring somebody else. But because he was
14:32
Speaker 2: so paranoid, and I'm sure all of those years that
14:35
Speaker 2: he had to deal with all of this is just
14:37
Speaker 2: such a weight on his shoulders, on his mental health.
14:41
Speaker 2: To think that everywhere you look, when you're seeing police,
14:43
Speaker 2: you're seeing somebody who you think is there to screw
14:46
Speaker 2: you over. They're there to throw you behind bars, they're
14:49
Speaker 2: there to hurt you. It's just one of the tragedies
14:52
Speaker 2: of this story. We see the deaths of Sarah, Amy, Eliza,
14:56
Speaker 2: and Jennifer, but then we also see this tragedy with Maurice,
14:59
Speaker 2: and and we see what happened with Forrest and Robert
15:02
Speaker 2: and Michael, and there's a lot of victims in this case.
15:06
Speaker 1: Oh definitely, and just you can only imagine how the
15:10
Speaker 1: victims' families felt when Robert and Michael were released from prison.
15:14
Speaker 1: I remember watching like a forty eight Hours episode from
15:16
Speaker 1: that era where they reported on the release from prison
15:20
Speaker 1: and they interviewed some of the victims' family members and
15:23
Speaker 1: they still said, we believe that these guys are guilty.
15:25
Speaker 1: We don't care what the DNA says. They confess, like
15:28
Speaker 1: how could they not have done it? And of course
15:31
Speaker 1: you can't really blame them because they've been manipulated so much,
15:34
Speaker 1: told that we got the right guys, and now they're
15:36
Speaker 1: seeing them walk free from prison. And one of the
15:38
Speaker 1: women who one of the family members who was most
15:40
Speaker 1: outspoken was Eliza's mother, Maria Thomas, where she went on
15:44
Speaker 1: this angry interview on forty eight Hours saying they've been
15:47
Speaker 1: released because they said the rights were violated, But what
15:49
Speaker 1: about my daughter's rights? What about the other victims' rights?
15:52
Speaker 1: Like who cares about them? And even though like she's
15:55
Speaker 1: totally wrong on this, you could understand her frustration because
15:58
Speaker 1: she's probably not going to understand like why these people
16:01
Speaker 1: that she's been convinced are guilty are suddenly walking free.
16:05
Speaker 1: And sadly, Maria wound up passing away in March of
16:08
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen at the age of sixty and was one
16:11
Speaker 1: of the parents who did not live long enough to
16:13
Speaker 1: finally see a resolution in this case.
16:16
Speaker 2: It's so sad, like it's such a tragedy for all
16:18
Speaker 2: the families having to deal with this and not have
16:21
Speaker 2: this resolution. I'm happy that the case eventually did get solved,
16:27
Speaker 2: but so many years went by and so many lives
16:30
Speaker 2: were destroyed in the process.
16:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and another one who passed away was Jennifer and
16:35
Speaker 1: Sarah's father, Michael. He passed away last year in October
16:39
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, and he was the one who
16:41
Speaker 1: lost both of his children, his only children, and he
16:44
Speaker 1: died well less than a year before they finally had
16:47
Speaker 1: a resolution in the case. And it just makes me
16:49
Speaker 1: so sad when I see the parents of missing and
16:51
Speaker 1: murdered children have to pass away without receiving conclusive answers.
16:56
Speaker 2: We see it so often though, I think that the
16:59
Speaker 2: trauma and the physical at the emotional told that the
17:03
Speaker 2: death of a child takes specifically when it's an unsolved
17:07
Speaker 2: murder and when you have two daughters that have been
17:10
Speaker 2: murdered and you don't have a resolution and you don't
17:13
Speaker 2: have any kind of justice because you feel like these
17:17
Speaker 2: guys have been released. I don't know how Michael viewed
17:19
Speaker 2: all of the evidence, if it was like these guys
17:22
Speaker 2: could be innocent, or if he believed that they were
17:25
Speaker 2: truly the guilty parties. But it's so sad that he
17:29
Speaker 2: died just before the case was solved.
17:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just so sad to see that. But thankfully,
17:36
Speaker 1: I think they finally got more people in charge who
17:38
Speaker 1: finally stopped going with the mentality that these four guys
17:40
Speaker 1: did it and tried to look at other options and
17:43
Speaker 1: tried to figure out who actually committed this crime. Because
17:46
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, the DNA sample from Amy's vaginal swab
17:51
Speaker 1: was entered into a public academic y SDR database from
17:55
Speaker 1: the University of Central Florida's National Center for Forensic Science,
17:59
Speaker 1: and it found up matching a male DNA sample which
18:02
Speaker 1: had been anonymously submitted into the database by the FBI.
18:06
Speaker 1: It had no name attached to it, and the FBI
18:08
Speaker 1: declined to reveal the identity of the man because of
18:11
Speaker 1: privacy laws, but it could have belonged to a federally
18:13
Speaker 1: convicted offender. But the big problem is that the DNA
18:17
Speaker 1: sample was not a complete profile because it only had
18:20
Speaker 1: sixteen markers, whereas whenever genetic genealogy is used to help
18:25
Speaker 1: solve a cold case, it usually involves DNA profiles which
18:28
Speaker 1: have between sixty seven and one hundred and eleven markers.
18:31
Speaker 1: So even though this DNA sample matched the guy in
18:34
Speaker 1: the database, it could also potentially match thousands or even
18:37
Speaker 1: millions of individuals. But they did perform further testing the
18:40
Speaker 1: FBI in twenty twenty and they were able to produce
18:44
Speaker 1: nine new markers on the sample, which brought it up
18:46
Speaker 1: to twenty five and this time they resubmitted it into
18:50
Speaker 1: the database to compare it to this offender, and one
18:53
Speaker 1: of the markers was not a match, so they were
18:55
Speaker 1: able to exclude this guy from being the perpetrator. And
18:58
Speaker 1: you can see what's so frustrating about this, because even
19:00
Speaker 1: though this profile is good for excluding potential offenders, you
19:04
Speaker 1: can't really make a definitive match unless you have a
19:07
Speaker 1: lot more markers. So it just seemed like they were
19:09
Speaker 1: back to square one.
19:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, that must have been really disappointing. They probably thought
19:14
Speaker 2: like we've got our guy here. All we have to
19:16
Speaker 2: do is just wait for more sophisticated testing. And then
19:19
Speaker 2: they had those twenty five markers and then they run
19:21
Speaker 2: it against him and it's not a match like that
19:24
Speaker 2: would be incredibly, incredibly deflating.
19:28
Speaker 1: Well, thankfully they did not give up. They still tried
19:30
Speaker 1: to use that DNA to try to match to an offender,
19:34
Speaker 1: and earlier this year they finally got a good break
19:36
Speaker 1: when they entered it into a database and it wound
19:39
Speaker 1: up matching DNA from another unsolved homicide which took place
19:43
Speaker 1: in South Carolina in nineteen ninety and they're thinking, well,
19:47
Speaker 1: this doesn't prove that who was responsible for this crime
19:51
Speaker 1: was the responsible for the yogurt chop murders, but if
19:54
Speaker 1: we keep looking at this lead, then we may have
19:56
Speaker 1: something to work with here. So they found out that.
20:01
Speaker 1: Eventually they solved this crimes from South Carolina and matched
20:04
Speaker 1: it to an offender named Robert Eugene Brashers. But of
20:08
Speaker 1: course the problem was is that he had been dead
20:10
Speaker 1: since January of nineteen ninety nine. So it turned out
20:13
Speaker 1: this guy was a serial killer, but at the time
20:15
Speaker 1: he died, they didn't know he was a serial killer,
20:18
Speaker 1: and in recent years, geneic genealogy has wound up matching
20:22
Speaker 1: him to so many different murders and he seems like
20:25
Speaker 1: a complete monster. But the first known crime that Brashers
20:29
Speaker 1: committed was in November of nineteen eighty five in Port
20:32
Speaker 1: Saint Lucie, Florida, where he sexually assaulted a twenty four
20:36
Speaker 1: year old woman named Michelle Wilkerson, and when she tried
20:39
Speaker 1: to fight him off, he shot her twice in the
20:42
Speaker 1: neck and the head, and righteously she survived and managed
20:46
Speaker 1: to escape from him, and because of a bad break
20:48
Speaker 1: for him, he actually chased after on a beach and
20:51
Speaker 1: got his truck stuck in the sand, so by the
20:54
Speaker 1: time she was able to get help, he was still
20:57
Speaker 1: trapped there and they were able to cock him down
20:59
Speaker 1: and arrest him and charge him with attempted first degree murder,
21:03
Speaker 1: aggravated battery, and using a firearm. He was convicted of
21:07
Speaker 1: the crime and wound up getting a rather light sense
21:09
Speaker 1: of twelve years imprisonment. But even more frustrating is that
21:13
Speaker 1: he was released from prison on good conduct after only
21:16
Speaker 1: serving for less than four years and May in nineteen
21:19
Speaker 1: eighty nine. And this is another thing that makes me
21:22
Speaker 1: tear my hair out, because if he had served the
21:24
Speaker 1: full twelve year sentence, he still would have been in
21:26
Speaker 1: prison in nineteen ninety one and the Austin yogurt shop
21:29
Speaker 1: murders never would have happened.
21:31
Speaker 2: That is so ridiculous. That is an incredibly violent defense.
21:35
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that Michelle lived just by the skin
21:38
Speaker 2: of her teeth. The fact that he only got a
21:41
Speaker 2: twelve year sentence for something so horrific. Did you say
21:44
Speaker 2: it was two to the head and one to the neck.
21:46
Speaker 1: Oh, one to the neck, yeah, two to the neck
21:49
Speaker 1: and one to the head.
21:50
Speaker 2: Like that is incredible to look at that and go, oh, well,
21:54
Speaker 2: she didn't die. Well, it's by the grace of God
21:57
Speaker 2: that she didn't die. And do you know what an
22:00
Speaker 2: ended up happening to Michelle?
22:02
Speaker 1: Not really, No, I haven't looked it up. I hope
22:04
Speaker 1: she didn't live in too much terror, and if she
22:06
Speaker 1: is still alive, she must be horrified to discover that
22:09
Speaker 1: this was just the first of many, many crimes that
22:12
Speaker 1: this guy would commit, and that if he had not
22:14
Speaker 1: been released from prison early, many of these crimes could
22:17
Speaker 1: have been prevented.
22:18
Speaker 2: And is it so frustrating too when it's a man
22:22
Speaker 2: that is committing violent crimes against women, and you put
22:25
Speaker 2: him behind bars and he's with a bunch of men,
22:28
Speaker 2: and he's on his best behavior. And it's like, of course,
22:30
Speaker 2: he's on his best behavior. He's a violent offender who
22:33
Speaker 2: commits these offenses against women and he's in a prison
22:37
Speaker 2: with a bunch of men. Do you expect that he's
22:40
Speaker 2: then going to completely change up his mo and act
22:42
Speaker 2: like a monster. No, he's probably going to be on
22:45
Speaker 2: his best behavior so he can try to get back
22:47
Speaker 2: out there and keep committing crimes.
22:50
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what he did. But he still tried
22:52
Speaker 1: to keep like a facade of being an ordinary family man,
22:55
Speaker 1: because shortly after he was released, he wound up getting married.
22:59
Speaker 1: He had a daughter named Deborah with his wife in
23:02
Speaker 1: August of nineteen ninety one, and a later at a
23:06
Speaker 1: later point, he wound up adopting two other girls. And
23:08
Speaker 1: I don't know how that happened. A guy serving time
23:11
Speaker 1: for attempted murder managed to adopt a two other girls.
23:14
Speaker 1: But I think he lived under a number of false
23:16
Speaker 1: names for a while, so maybe he was able to
23:18
Speaker 1: fool the adoption system. But I know that his daughter
23:22
Speaker 1: Deborah is very open about talking about her father, like
23:25
Speaker 1: she didn't know him all that well, but of course
23:27
Speaker 1: she is horrified to discover what he turned out to become.
23:31
Speaker 1: But it is chilling to me that he had his
23:33
Speaker 1: first daughter in August of nineteen ninety one, and then
23:36
Speaker 1: just four months later in December, he's murdering four teenage girls.
23:40
Speaker 1: And you wonder, how could someone with a little girl
23:42
Speaker 1: at home, a little child like be able to do
23:44
Speaker 1: something like that to other people's children.
23:47
Speaker 2: It's terrific, and it also makes you question the motivation
23:50
Speaker 2: of his adoption of those two young girls.
23:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I haven't heard any details about
23:56
Speaker 1: him sexually assaulting her, but it might be because he died,
23:59
Speaker 1: because because before they got old enough. But I think
24:02
Speaker 1: that if they had become teenagers or something, he might
24:04
Speaker 1: have done some horrific things. But I think they were
24:07
Speaker 1: also saved from him because he would be arrested for
24:09
Speaker 1: some other crimes in late nineteen ninety one, like grand theft, auto,
24:13
Speaker 1: unlawful possession of a weapon, and theft. And what's crazy
24:17
Speaker 1: is that he wound up getting arrested on December the eighth,
24:20
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one in al Paso two days after the
24:24
Speaker 1: Austin yogurt shop murders, because I think he had been
24:27
Speaker 1: visiting his father in Arizona and he was pulled over
24:31
Speaker 1: near the Texas New Mexico border and it turned out
24:34
Speaker 1: he was driving a stolen car and he actually had
24:37
Speaker 1: the murder weapon from the yogret shop murders, and they
24:40
Speaker 1: pretty much when he was arrested and charged with the
24:43
Speaker 1: car theft, they gave the gun to Brasher's father, who
24:47
Speaker 1: held it for him while he was serving time in
24:49
Speaker 1: prison for this other crime, and then gave it back
24:51
Speaker 1: to him after he was released. So it's crazy to
24:54
Speaker 1: me that they caught the offender only two days after
24:57
Speaker 1: the yogurt shop murders, had the murder weapon in their
24:59
Speaker 1: possession and didn't even know it at the time and
25:01
Speaker 1: actually just passed it around between numerous people.
25:05
Speaker 2: Oh my god, how nineteen ninety one was that. I
25:08
Speaker 2: would sure as hell hope that you're never going to
25:10
Speaker 2: see that happen today. And I think just the policies
25:15
Speaker 2: around these types of things, like it seems wild to
25:18
Speaker 2: just give this weapon to his dad to hold. Aren't
25:21
Speaker 2: you going to test this weapon and just see if
25:25
Speaker 2: there's anything else, like any other crimes that it could
25:28
Speaker 2: match ballistically, because if you look at this guy's criminal history,
25:32
Speaker 2: it's obvious that he's got a violent passed. So there's
25:35
Speaker 2: a potential that you could tie him to a litany
25:39
Speaker 2: of other crimes with this gun, and you're just going
25:41
Speaker 2: to hand it over to his dad.
25:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like makes me wonder did none of these
25:47
Speaker 1: border patrol people in olpass so had they not heard
25:49
Speaker 1: about the Austin yogurt shot murders, this huge homicide that
25:52
Speaker 1: took place like a couple one hundred miles away, Like
25:56
Speaker 1: you would think that you would be on the lookout
25:58
Speaker 1: for anyone who was can carrying a firearm because this
26:01
Speaker 1: was an unlawful weapon. It was not a gun that
26:03
Speaker 1: he was supposed to own, and they just give it
26:06
Speaker 1: back to his father, not realizing that it been used
26:08
Speaker 1: to kill like four girls two days earlier. So he
26:12
Speaker 1: wound up serving five years in prison for a variety
26:15
Speaker 1: of crimes such as unlawful possession of a firearm and
26:19
Speaker 1: grand theft auto and was released in February of nineteen
26:21
Speaker 1: ninety seven. Thankfully, his children only had to live with
26:25
Speaker 1: him for less than two years. But his daughter Deborah
26:28
Speaker 1: has says that he had some unstable behavior, like one
26:31
Speaker 1: time he made a tape recording of himself making cuts
26:33
Speaker 1: on his neck and his arm with a saw just
26:36
Speaker 1: to see if he was capable of withstanding pain. He
26:39
Speaker 1: just seemed like someone who had a lot of mental
26:41
Speaker 1: health issues, though I haven't heard anything about abusing his children, thankfully.
26:46
Speaker 1: But the big breaking point came in January of nineteen
26:49
Speaker 1: ninety nine because he stole a car, and according to
26:52
Speaker 1: his family, he spent a lot of the time like
26:54
Speaker 1: traveling on the road as part of his job because
26:57
Speaker 1: he was in construction, So I guess he just randomly
27:00
Speaker 1: decided to steal a vehicle. And they noticed it was
27:03
Speaker 1: in the parking lot of a Super eight hotel in Kennet, Missouri,
27:06
Speaker 1: and Brashers was staying there with his wife and three daughters.
27:10
Speaker 1: And after the police broke down the door, they found
27:13
Speaker 1: him hiding under a bed with a loaded gun holding
27:16
Speaker 1: it to his head, and he started opening fire and
27:18
Speaker 1: said that I will kill myself and my family if
27:21
Speaker 1: he don't go away. So there was a big police
27:24
Speaker 1: standoff for several hours with a bunch of negotiating going on,
27:27
Speaker 1: and he finally decided to release his wife and three children,
27:31
Speaker 1: but before police could go and arrest him, he shot
27:34
Speaker 1: himself in the head and he remained alive for six
27:36
Speaker 1: more days in the hospital, but finally passed away on
27:40
Speaker 1: January the nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine, and his death was
27:43
Speaker 1: ruled to be a suicide. And at that time they
27:46
Speaker 1: knew of him as having one attempted murder under his
27:49
Speaker 1: belt and a lot of other crimes, but they did
27:51
Speaker 1: not realize that the guy was an horrific serial killer.
27:55
Speaker 2: Wow, his life that he's lived and what he's been
27:59
Speaker 2: able to get away with, the fact that he had
28:01
Speaker 2: a daughter, the fact that he adopted two more right,
28:04
Speaker 2: that he had the murder weapon and was arrested two
28:07
Speaker 2: days after the yogurt shop burners, and it was just
28:09
Speaker 2: handed over to his father. There's just so many shocking
28:13
Speaker 2: details about Brashers.
28:16
Speaker 1: It is, and it's even going to get even more
28:18
Speaker 1: shocking because he pretty much nobody really knew who he
28:21
Speaker 1: was for the next twenty years. He just kind of
28:23
Speaker 1: languished an obscurity. But then they started using genetic genealogy
28:27
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, and that's how they were able to
28:31
Speaker 1: link him to a whole bunch of other unsolved homicides
28:34
Speaker 1: which had taken place in the United States during the
28:37
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. The first one they matched him to was
28:40
Speaker 1: the murder of a twenty eight year old woman named
28:42
Speaker 1: Jenny ZiT Ricky, who had been bludgeoned, raped, and strangled
28:46
Speaker 1: with pantyhose at her apartment in Greenville, South Carolina. And
28:50
Speaker 1: he had left his DNA behind and they wound up
28:53
Speaker 1: linking it to him like nearly twenty years after he died.
28:56
Speaker 1: And then they also linked him to the double murder
28:58
Speaker 1: of a mother and daughter, which took place in the
29:01
Speaker 1: town of Porridgeville, Missouri, in March of nineteen ninety eight.
29:05
Speaker 1: The victims were thirty eight year old Sherry Sheer and
29:08
Speaker 1: her twelve year old daughter, Meghan, and both victims have
29:11
Speaker 1: been tied up and the twelve year old daughter, Meghan,
29:14
Speaker 1: was raped before Brasher shot and killed them both with
29:17
Speaker 1: a twenty two caliber gun. And what's crazy is that
29:20
Speaker 1: he then drove across the state line into Dysburg, Tennessee,
29:25
Speaker 1: and broke into the home of a twenty five year
29:27
Speaker 1: old woman two hours after he committed this double homicide
29:31
Speaker 1: and tried to sexually assault her, but thankfully she resisted
29:34
Speaker 1: and he wound up fleeing the crime scene. But he
29:36
Speaker 1: also would get linked to the rape of a fourteen
29:39
Speaker 1: year old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, which took place in
29:42
Speaker 1: March of nineteen ninety seven. So they just kept linking
29:45
Speaker 1: using his DNA to link him to more and more crimes.
29:48
Speaker 1: And because he spent a lot of time traveling, it
29:51
Speaker 1: just seems that he left his family at home, would
29:53
Speaker 1: drive to all these different states, select random victims, and
29:56
Speaker 1: then kill them or rate them, and then just go
29:58
Speaker 1: back to his normal life as a fan man.
30:01
Speaker 2: This is almost looking like a Ted Bundy like crime
30:04
Speaker 2: spree pretty much.
30:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what he did. He would just go to
30:07
Speaker 1: That's probably why he was able to get away with it,
30:09
Speaker 1: because he would go to all these different towns and
30:11
Speaker 1: cities they had no connection to and then immediately flee thereafter.
30:16
Speaker 1: But the big difference is that Ted Bundy didn't have
30:18
Speaker 1: a wife and a bunch of children at home while
30:20
Speaker 1: he was doing it. So it's just sonda crazy that
30:23
Speaker 1: he's living this double life and then just returning home saying, hi, honey,
30:26
Speaker 1: I've been on the road doing my construction stuff when
30:29
Speaker 1: he's actually been murdering and raping twelve year old girls.
30:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like a combination of BTK and Ted Bundy.
30:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much. So it would not be until September
30:41
Speaker 1: the twenty six, twenty twenty five, when the Austin Police
30:44
Speaker 1: Department finally announced that they had identified him as the
30:47
Speaker 1: perpetrator of the Austin yogurt shop murders. They had been
30:51
Speaker 1: working on this case for a long long time. Like
30:54
Speaker 1: I mentioned, when they entered the y str profile into
30:58
Speaker 1: a DNA database, it wound up matching the murder of
31:01
Speaker 1: Jenny's ZiT Ricky, which took place in South Carolina in
31:04
Speaker 1: April of nineteen ninety. So they started looking at Brasher's
31:07
Speaker 1: profile and thinking, Wow, he definitely seems like the type
31:11
Speaker 1: of person who could have been responsible for the yogurt
31:13
Speaker 1: shop murders. So they tried looking for other evidence to
31:16
Speaker 1: build a case against him, because obviously, because it only
31:19
Speaker 1: had twenty five markers, they could just use the DNA
31:22
Speaker 1: profile alone. So they found out that there was some
31:25
Speaker 1: skin cells underneath Amy Errers's fingernails, and they didn't want
31:30
Speaker 1: to test this one for the longest time because it
31:33
Speaker 1: was so small that once they did testing, it would
31:36
Speaker 1: use the entire sample up, So they pretty much said,
31:38
Speaker 1: we have to make it count. But they did the
31:41
Speaker 1: test on the skin and it wound up matching Brashers,
31:44
Speaker 1: and they pretty much said that the odds are two
31:46
Speaker 1: point five million to one that he's the source of
31:49
Speaker 1: this DNA. So that just seemed like too much of
31:52
Speaker 1: a coincidence that we have these two separate DNA samples
31:54
Speaker 1: that were matching him.
31:56
Speaker 2: E yeah, I think that those are pretty good odds.
31:59
Speaker 1: And they finally got their One more piece of evidence
32:02
Speaker 1: is when they decided to do ballistics testing on a
32:06
Speaker 1: shellcasing from the three to eighty gun which had gotten
32:09
Speaker 1: caught in a drain on the floor in the back
32:11
Speaker 1: room of the yogurt shop. And I didn't even notice
32:14
Speaker 1: this know this till this case, but there's actually a
32:17
Speaker 1: database called NIBBIN, which stands for the National Integrated Ballistic
32:21
Speaker 1: Information Network, and they decided to enter the shellcasing the
32:25
Speaker 1: ballistics information for it in the database and almost immediately
32:29
Speaker 1: got a match, and it wound up matching the weapon
32:31
Speaker 1: that Brashers had used to kill himself in the middle
32:34
Speaker 1: tel room in Missouri in nineteen ninety one, and that
32:37
Speaker 1: was pretty much like the bullseye where they have these
32:41
Speaker 1: two DNA samples and a ballistics test that matches the
32:44
Speaker 1: gun he used to shoot himself, and they were confident
32:46
Speaker 1: saying this is the guy.
32:49
Speaker 2: Well, that is a pretty good piece of evidence. I
32:52
Speaker 2: would say that beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's
32:54
Speaker 2: pretty clear that his Brashers. It's just too bad that
32:57
Speaker 2: he wasn't alive to be held accountable for his crime.
33:00
Speaker 1: It is a shame, yeah, that he pretty much did
33:03
Speaker 1: serve much time in prison. He only served a few
33:06
Speaker 1: light sentences for the attempted murder charge and like the
33:09
Speaker 1: grand theft auto charge. But of course this only opens
33:13
Speaker 1: up some unanswered questions. I mean, for the longest time,
33:16
Speaker 1: I was convinced that two people had been responsible. I
33:19
Speaker 1: thought it was the two men sitting at the table
33:23
Speaker 1: right before closing. But they are absolutely confident now that
33:26
Speaker 1: Brashers committed this crime completely alone, because he never worked
33:30
Speaker 1: with an accomplice, and he doesn't match the description of
33:33
Speaker 1: the two men scene sitting at the table. And it
33:36
Speaker 1: seems like, for whatever reason, he decided to use two
33:38
Speaker 1: separate guns. The twenty two caliber weapon and the three
33:41
Speaker 1: eighty to commit this crime. But I think alarm bell
33:45
Speaker 1: started going off my head when I watched the Yogurt
33:47
Speaker 1: Shot murders documentary and they didn't even mention the two
33:50
Speaker 1: men at the table, even though I expected this to
33:53
Speaker 1: be like one of the big leads that they would
33:55
Speaker 1: use to solve it. So I have a feeling that
33:57
Speaker 1: while they were filming this documentary, they were pretty much
34:00
Speaker 1: much working on it and were convinced that Brashers was
34:02
Speaker 1: the guy. They just couldn't publicly announce it yet, And
34:05
Speaker 1: they just didn't want to mention the two men because
34:07
Speaker 1: it now seems apparent that they're nothing more than a
34:09
Speaker 1: red herring and were probably just regular customers who left
34:12
Speaker 1: the shop right before closing and had nothing to do
34:15
Speaker 1: with it.
34:16
Speaker 2: I think it's so easy, depending on the perspective you take,
34:19
Speaker 2: to go, okay, well, this table, the napkins haven't been filled,
34:23
Speaker 2: it hasn't been cleaned, the chairs aren't up on there,
34:27
Speaker 2: So two guys were seen there. It seems logical that
34:31
Speaker 2: it would take two people to control four girls, so
34:35
Speaker 2: those guys are the likely the ones who did it,
34:37
Speaker 2: when in actuality, they probably left and the girls didn't
34:41
Speaker 2: have time to get to the table before Brashers came
34:44
Speaker 2: in did what he did, and like we mentioned earlier
34:47
Speaker 2: in the episodes that it seems to me personally that
34:52
Speaker 2: it would be pretty easy to control four teenage girls
34:55
Speaker 2: if you have a weapon, if you were threatening the
34:58
Speaker 2: lives of any one of them, especially, it makes it
35:01
Speaker 2: a lot easier when you tell those girls to strip
35:04
Speaker 2: down and then you bind them, so if they're to
35:08
Speaker 2: run out of there, they're not only really vulnerable because
35:11
Speaker 2: they're naked, but they're also bound, So could they even run,
35:15
Speaker 2: Like I don't know how their hands in their feet
35:18
Speaker 2: were bound or if it was just their hands, but
35:20
Speaker 2: either way, if you've got somebody that they clearly love,
35:24
Speaker 2: one either a friend or sister, who's being raped at
35:27
Speaker 2: that point in time, and you're saying I'm going to
35:29
Speaker 2: shoot her in the head if you don't comply, then
35:33
Speaker 2: I think you're going to get compliance from a lot
35:35
Speaker 2: of teenage girls.
35:37
Speaker 1: And I think that's exactly what happened. And we know
35:39
Speaker 1: that he had experienced at this sort of thing, he
35:41
Speaker 1: had killed and attempted to kill before. And the back
35:44
Speaker 1: door was found broken open, so he probably got in
35:47
Speaker 1: that way We'll probably never know why he selected this
35:50
Speaker 1: particular yogurt shop, because that's probably the main reason it
35:54
Speaker 1: was so hard to solve this is he had no
35:56
Speaker 1: ties to Texas or to Austin. He didn't know anyone there,
36:00
Speaker 1: like he was just on a road trip to visit
36:01
Speaker 1: his father in Arizona and decided, I'm going to stop here,
36:04
Speaker 1: I'm going to rob this random yogat shop, and I'm
36:06
Speaker 1: going to kill whoever's inside. It's unclear if he knew
36:10
Speaker 1: that four girls were in there. He might have initially
36:12
Speaker 1: only thought that there were two in there, Jennifer and Eliza.
36:16
Speaker 1: But it's just crazy to me that he was just
36:18
Speaker 1: passing through. He probably got out of Austin immediately thereafter,
36:21
Speaker 1: and as we just talked about, he got arrested at
36:24
Speaker 1: nerol Passo near the Texas New Mexico border two days later,
36:28
Speaker 1: had the murder weapon, but they just didn't put two
36:30
Speaker 1: and two together.
36:32
Speaker 2: What's wild to me is that there seems to be
36:34
Speaker 2: no rhyme or reason for why he decides to kill,
36:39
Speaker 2: because we saw after Brasher's killed that mother and daughter,
36:42
Speaker 2: the thirty eight year old and twelve year old. He
36:44
Speaker 2: then went a couple hours later and tried to sectually
36:47
Speaker 2: assault that twenty five year old wasn't able to perform
36:50
Speaker 2: when she got away or he ran out of the scene,
36:54
Speaker 2: he didn't kill her. And then he also didn't kill
36:57
Speaker 2: that fourteen year old where he was tied to a
37:00
Speaker 2: rape or attempted rape with his DNA, So it's not
37:04
Speaker 2: like he killed in every scenario. So it seems so extreme.
37:08
Speaker 2: In a scenario where there's four, you got to wonder
37:11
Speaker 2: if his objective was to kill, was it to rape,
37:14
Speaker 2: was it for the money, was it for all three?
37:17
Speaker 2: And if so, like in what order?
37:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's why it's such a bittersweet feeling that
37:23
Speaker 1: he can't be arrested to explain his side of the
37:26
Speaker 1: story about why he did what he did, because that's
37:28
Speaker 1: why I was kind of hoping he had an accomplice,
37:30
Speaker 1: because if he had an accomplice who was still alive,
37:32
Speaker 1: at least this person could provide some insight into how
37:35
Speaker 1: this crime was carried out. But sadly, we're just never
37:38
Speaker 1: going to know. And it's just one of those reasons
37:40
Speaker 1: why genetic genealogy is a godsend, because if they didn't
37:43
Speaker 1: have the ability to link unsolved crimes to suspects who
37:47
Speaker 1: were already dead, then this case would have been unsolved forever.
37:51
Speaker 1: But because they had DNA and were able to link
37:53
Speaker 1: it to someone who died like twenty six years ago,
37:56
Speaker 1: we finally know who did this. But and we've seen
37:59
Speaker 1: this with a lot of other cold cases, but it's
38:01
Speaker 1: just so frustrating when they're already dead and you just
38:03
Speaker 1: don't have any insight on why they did what they did.
38:07
Speaker 2: And I mean, even if he buzz alive, it doesn't
38:10
Speaker 2: mean that we're automatically going to get any insight into
38:13
Speaker 2: why he did what he did, because what are the
38:15
Speaker 2: chances that he's going to take the stand and he
38:17
Speaker 2: might not want to give the families or the public
38:20
Speaker 2: the satisfaction of knowing the why and knowing what his
38:24
Speaker 2: underlying motivations are. Some killers are happy to talk and
38:28
Speaker 2: they like the notoriety, but others don't and they're not
38:32
Speaker 2: going to give the public what they want or what
38:34
Speaker 2: the families feel like they deserve, which would be an explanation.
38:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much like he maybe one of those people
38:41
Speaker 1: who just wants to torment the families just by not
38:43
Speaker 1: giving them any answers. So we would probably never know
38:46
Speaker 1: because he only ever got arrested for one violent crime
38:49
Speaker 1: and an attempted murder, and back then he didn't have
38:53
Speaker 1: any confirmed murders under his belt. But I'm interested to
38:56
Speaker 1: see if they link into any other crimes, because they
38:58
Speaker 1: have said that they've also got a DNA match from
39:01
Speaker 1: a crime that took place in Kentucky during the late
39:04
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and they don't want to specify any details
39:07
Speaker 1: about who the victim was or what happened because it's
39:10
Speaker 1: still an open investigation, but they did say that there
39:13
Speaker 1: are striking similarities to this Kentucky crime to the Austin
39:16
Speaker 1: yogurt chop murders. So at the moment he has I
39:19
Speaker 1: think it's seven confirmed murder victims, at least one attempted
39:24
Speaker 1: murder victim, and a couple other victims who have been raped.
39:27
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see how many other crimes
39:30
Speaker 1: they will be able to link them to before they're
39:32
Speaker 1: done this investigation.
39:34
Speaker 2: It sounds like there's really no limit to what this
39:37
Speaker 2: man could have done. He doesn't seem to discriminate. It
39:41
Speaker 2: seems like he'll commit crimes in every state, and I
39:44
Speaker 2: mean that has to have been part of his strategy,
39:46
Speaker 2: like you said earlier, the fact that he's doing this
39:49
Speaker 2: across county, across state lines, and the fact that in
39:53
Speaker 2: the nineties you aren't having law enforcement speak to each
39:55
Speaker 2: other and the way that they do now through all
39:58
Speaker 2: the different databases. It was like in the early nineties
40:03
Speaker 2: you might not have people across county lines sharing stories.
40:07
Speaker 2: So the fact that he did all of this separated
40:11
Speaker 2: by space and time, I think is probably what led
40:14
Speaker 2: to him not getting convicted or not getting tied to
40:17
Speaker 2: all of them. And the fact that they involved strangers
40:19
Speaker 2: as well.
40:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much. And like so many people were investigated
40:23
Speaker 1: during the early stages of the case and they never
40:27
Speaker 1: paid close to this guy because he was not from
40:30
Speaker 1: out of state. We had like people like Mexican bikers
40:33
Speaker 1: and a drag queen and people who were involved in
40:37
Speaker 1: Satanism who were investigated, but the real guy was like
40:40
Speaker 1: right near the Texas New Mexico board or under the
40:43
Speaker 1: nose all along, and they just never even looked at
40:45
Speaker 1: him because he was someone who was not familiar with
40:48
Speaker 1: the area and would just passed through states killing whoever
40:50
Speaker 1: he wanted to. So we finally have a resolution in
40:54
Speaker 1: this case, and it'll be interesting to see what happens
40:56
Speaker 1: with Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, and Forrest Wellborn, and obviously
41:00
Speaker 1: Maurice Pierce can't get any compensation because he's dead. But
41:04
Speaker 1: we talked about how they could not get any compensation
41:07
Speaker 1: because they cannot prove they were factually innocent. But now
41:11
Speaker 1: that they have linked the crime to a real killer,
41:13
Speaker 1: they will finally will be declared factually innocent and exonerated,
41:17
Speaker 1: and will be interesting to see how much compensation they get.
41:20
Speaker 1: But man, this crime took place thirty four years ago.
41:23
Speaker 1: They were arrested in nineteen ninety nine, so they have
41:25
Speaker 1: waited just so long for vindication.
41:28
Speaker 2: Well, I truly hope that they get the compensation that
41:30
Speaker 2: they deserve because they are all victims and it changed
41:33
Speaker 2: the trajectory of every single one of their lives. And
41:36
Speaker 2: the thing is this crime Brasher's selfishness, what he decided
41:41
Speaker 2: to do. It changed the lives of so many people.
41:45
Speaker 2: It's just so sad to think that it took this
41:48
Speaker 2: long to be solved. Like you said, genetic genealogy is
41:52
Speaker 2: a godsend. The fact that we're able now to be
41:55
Speaker 2: able to link these crimes to these partial profiles. Of
41:58
Speaker 2: DNA and f of who these people are. That was
42:02
Speaker 2: impossible years ago, but now the impossible is possible, and
42:07
Speaker 2: we're seeing a lot of cases get solved. We're seeing
42:10
Speaker 2: John and Jane Does get their names back. It's incredible
42:13
Speaker 2: to think what the landscape of DNA and what criminal
42:18
Speaker 2: investigation is going to be in the coming years.
42:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, because this is one where I'd almost lost hope
42:23
Speaker 1: that it would get solved because they had evidence, but
42:26
Speaker 1: I just didn't know if they would have enough to
42:27
Speaker 1: link it to a suspect, but turned out they did.
42:31
Speaker 1: And I also have a personal connection to this because
42:33
Speaker 1: two years ago I went to the True Crime podcast
42:36
Speaker 1: Festival in Austin, Texas, and whenever I attend these events,
42:39
Speaker 1: I often like to do my trail and cold episodes
42:42
Speaker 1: about cases from the host city. And that's when I
42:45
Speaker 1: finally decided to do the Austin Yogurt Shop murders. And
42:48
Speaker 1: I discovered that the strip mall where the crime took
42:51
Speaker 1: place was not that far from the hotel. It was
42:54
Speaker 1: only a ten minute drive away, so I decided to
42:57
Speaker 1: pay it a visit. And the yogurt shop is long
43:00
Speaker 1: on It's been replaced by a nail Slon, but they
43:02
Speaker 1: do have a memorial plaque for the four victims in
43:05
Speaker 1: the parking lot. So I went over there and took
43:07
Speaker 1: a picture and send it to you on an email
43:09
Speaker 1: before we recorded this.
43:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember, it was like twenty twenty three, right,
43:14
Speaker 2: it was, Yes, Yeah, I remember when you went and
43:17
Speaker 2: you talked about going because I had a vague recollection
43:19
Speaker 2: of the case, but I obviously didn't know nearly as
43:22
Speaker 2: much as you did about it. So it's really interesting
43:25
Speaker 2: that you were able to go there and you were
43:27
Speaker 2: able to see the plaque. And it's haunting to think
43:31
Speaker 2: that the time passes and you know, structures are knocked down,
43:35
Speaker 2: we could very easily forget, but the fact that nobody forgot,
43:40
Speaker 2: everybody remembered. Everybody still cared that Sarah and Jennifer and
43:45
Speaker 2: Amy and Eliza, that their memories were important to people,
43:49
Speaker 2: that their lives were taken too soon, and that people
43:53
Speaker 2: still doggedly pursued justice and the truth and in the
43:58
Speaker 2: end finding out that is the person who is responsible.
44:02
Speaker 2: There's a resolution there, there is a type of justice.
44:06
Speaker 2: There isn't a justice in that we get to punish him,
44:08
Speaker 2: but there's a justice in giving the family members who
44:11
Speaker 2: are surviving that information, and those who were rungfully convicted
44:17
Speaker 2: now can be exonerated and deemed factually innocent and hopefully
44:21
Speaker 2: get compensation from the state.
44:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was heartwarming to see that these four victims
44:26
Speaker 1: were not forgotten. And the whole thing has been such
44:28
Speaker 1: a wild ride because, like I mentioned, it started off
44:31
Speaker 1: with John Jones, who was a great investigator who wanted
44:33
Speaker 1: justice but just couldn't do it. Then we had a
44:35
Speaker 1: bunch of bad, corrupt cops for the next several decades
44:38
Speaker 1: who botched the case. But in recent years we have
44:40
Speaker 1: finally got some good cops again who were so devoted
44:43
Speaker 1: to finding the right killer and finally conclusively solving this one.
44:47
Speaker 1: And I'm awfully glad that it did happen. And on
44:50
Speaker 1: a side note, this is kind of a crazy coincidence,
44:52
Speaker 1: but the month after I went to the True Crime
44:55
Speaker 1: podcast Festival in Austin, I went to Crime con in
44:58
Speaker 1: Orlando and decided to visit the site of the Tommy
45:01
Speaker 1: Ziegler's furniture store in Winter Garden. And it's kind of
45:05
Speaker 1: a crazy that both these old cases have had major
45:08
Speaker 1: developments in twenty twenty five. Then I happen to go
45:11
Speaker 1: to these places within one month of each other. And
45:14
Speaker 1: I know that Tommy's Eagler has a hearing in December,
45:17
Speaker 1: and with any luck, we might be revisiting that case
45:19
Speaker 1: on a future episode sometime next year if all goes well.
45:24
Speaker 2: Well, I hope so, because that is somebody who I
45:26
Speaker 2: truly prayed that he's going to eventually get out of
45:29
Speaker 2: prison because I do not believe he's responsible for it,
45:31
Speaker 2: and that, as everybody who's listening knows, that is Robin's
45:34
Speaker 2: pet pet case. And gosh, we went through that in
45:39
Speaker 2: our first six months probably of our podcast, and it
45:44
Speaker 2: was such a tangled web of a case. It was
45:49
Speaker 2: so confusing, and it was like five parts and I
45:52
Speaker 2: think that we recorded them all in.
45:53
Speaker 1: One day we did back in the pandemic when you
45:56
Speaker 1: and I and actually had enough time to speak for
45:58
Speaker 1: five hours about one case.
46:00
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that was crazy, Like that was unhinged
46:04
Speaker 2: of us pretty much.
46:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should never do that again, never again. Yeah.
46:08
Speaker 1: But it's great to see the Austin Yogurt shot murders
46:11
Speaker 1: for falsely Q suspects finally achieve vindication this year, So
46:15
Speaker 1: hopefully the same thing will happen for Tommy Ziggler, So
46:18
Speaker 1: time will tell there. So, any final thoughts on the
46:21
Speaker 1: Austin yogurt shot murders.
46:24
Speaker 2: No, I think I've said everything that I have to
46:29
Speaker 2: say about this case. There's obviously there's always more, but
46:34
Speaker 2: you've given me a lot of interesting facts, things that
46:36
Speaker 2: I had no idea, and I'm glad that I didn't
46:39
Speaker 2: watch the documentary. I'm glad that you were able to
46:42
Speaker 2: go through it all with me and take me on
46:44
Speaker 2: a really wild ride. And I'm just truly, truly thankful
46:50
Speaker 2: the Brashers has been named as the perpetrator because it
46:54
Speaker 2: brings a lot of freedom to those wrongfully convicted, and
46:58
Speaker 2: it gives a name to be able to say that
47:00
Speaker 2: this is the person that did that to the girls,
47:03
Speaker 2: and for that reason alone, and for the peace of
47:07
Speaker 2: mind of the family members and the loved ones and
47:09
Speaker 2: the community and Austin as a whole, because this is
47:12
Speaker 2: a case that affected them all. Everybody who lives there.
47:15
Speaker 2: I'm sure who was alive around nineteen ninety one would
47:19
Speaker 2: have been affected by the yogurt chop murders. So I'm
47:22
Speaker 2: really happy that there's a resolution and really thankful for
47:25
Speaker 2: genetic genealogy and all the work that investigators did behind
47:28
Speaker 2: the scenes here.
47:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. It's so surreal to see this one finally solved,
47:33
Speaker 1: because it has always been cited as one of the
47:35
Speaker 1: most heinous cold cases of the modern era. So it's
47:38
Speaker 1: great to finally see a resolution and it gives me
47:40
Speaker 1: hope that no crime is truly unsolvable and that maybe
47:43
Speaker 1: some other high profile cases will finally have a resolution
47:47
Speaker 1: in the future. So if you haven't watched the documentary,
47:50
Speaker 1: it's called The Yogurt Chop Murders. It's available on HBO
47:53
Speaker 1: Max in the US and Prave here in Canada, and
47:55
Speaker 1: I highly recommend checking it out because you can finally
47:58
Speaker 1: get the faces to a lot of the names we've shared,
48:01
Speaker 1: and maybe one of those days they'll produce an additional
48:03
Speaker 1: episode which finally shows the ending and goes into more
48:06
Speaker 1: detail about Robert Eugene Rashers. So that's about it for
48:10
Speaker 1: our extensive multi part series about the Austin yogurt shot murders.
48:13
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll be
48:15
Speaker 1: back again next week to talk about another case.
48:19
Speaker 2: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
48:20
Speaker 2: about the Trail Went Cold? Patreon?
48:23
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
48:25
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
48:29
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
48:32
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
48:35
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
48:38
Speaker 1: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
48:42
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
48:45
Speaker 1: the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
48:48
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier, tier three,
48:51
Speaker 1: the ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer
48:54
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
48:59
Speaker 1: where you can downlo load an audio file and then
49:02
Speaker 1: boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime
49:05
Speaker 1: or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing
49:08
Speaker 1: in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids
49:11
Speaker 1: about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the
49:15
Speaker 1: very first episode that I did a commentary track over
49:18
Speaker 1: was the episode featuring this case. So if you want
49:21
Speaker 1: to download a commentary track in which I make more
49:23
Speaker 1: smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to
49:26
Speaker 1: join Tier three.
49:28
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
49:29
Speaker 3: about the Jeules and Nashty patreons, So there's early ad
49:32
Speaker 3: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
49:35
Speaker 3: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
49:38
Speaker 3: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
49:40
Speaker 3: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
49:43
Speaker 3: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
49:45
Speaker 2: We'll link them in the show notes.
49:47
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
49:49
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
49:52
Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
49:54
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
49:57
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter the Pathway.
50:01
Speaker 1: So until next time, be sure to bundle up because
50:03
Speaker 1: cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
50:06
Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy