After 34 Years We Finally Know Who Killed The Yoghurt Shop Girls
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It was really like in the ‘ 90s something that people just talked about all the time.
The there were billboards up all over the city.
say it was just sort of literally hovering over you >> because I’ve heard and I’ve heard a lot in your documentary people using the phrase it took the city’s innocence.
So it really was kind of the biggest crime that the city had seen.
Is that right? >> I mean I again I wasn’t here when it happened.
Um but I definitely moving here and I have so many I mean I have friends who were on the cheerleading team with those girls.
Like I I I it’s it’s something that like it’s Austin still sort of feels like a small town in a way even though now it’s one of the biggest cities in America and it’s kind of like the thing where everyone has a story about it.
A lot of people feel really really deeply connected to the crime.
>> There was a breakthrough in this case, this decades old case a month a few weeks after you premiered.
Three weeks.
>> Did you know that was coming? I had a sense because I um just I I had a sense because I could tell I could tell there was some excitement um on the police force, but you know, they’re not going to share anything with me before they share it with the families.
But I had I had a sense something was coming on the >> What are the chances though? Like you premiere and then three weeks later that is crazy.
It’s crazy of a 34 year old crime.
>> Yeah.
>> I want to go back to the start.
I want to take listeners through this case.
>> Can you tell us about Austin in 1991? I know you weren’t there, but what was it like? Was there much crime? Can you kind of set the scene for us? >> You know, um, the the crime happened to four white girls.
White people in Austin, I think, felt really protected back then.
And it it wasn’t like Barbara, the mother of two of the girls who were killed, said she always says it was four white girls.
It was big news.
Big news.
You know, that’s the way she phrases it.
And um I think that there was this sense of just safety.
PE kids rode their bike everywhere.
I mean, Sonora, who was Eliza’s sister, was another one of the four girls that were murdered.
She talks about just riding her bike all around that neighborhood where they were murdered.
I think there was just a sense of nothing really happens like that in Austin.
It was like a quiet university town and um but you know it was also kind of a place where there was a lot of counterculture.
Um I think Slacker Richard Linklers’s movie came out in 1991 and um it was it was definitely a place where like um you know it was like a lot of counterculture like hippies um the punk scene like it was definitely somewhere that was you know not necessarily like normal Texas >> and the yogurt shop for Australians the closest I can kind of compare it to is like a yochi where it’s like self It’s It’s the same thing, but the modern version where you selfs serve kind of yogurt and then you put toppings on top.
>> Okay, sounds like >> it’s the same thing, but obviously that was the ’90s version, the yogurt shop in Austin.
And to help kind of paint the picture for listeners, it was kind of in a strip mall.
So, it’s not a hugely trafficked area, is it? It’s kind of it’s it’s not in a mall.
It’s >> It actually was.
It was near this mall called Northcross Mall.
and it was like walkable to the mall.
So, it kind of was an area where like teenagers hung out.
There was a creek behind it where people would go and like drink beer, like get away from your parents.
So, again, it sort of was a place like a lot of my friends say that creek behind North Cross Mall was where people went to like hang out and like get away.
>> The victims, I want to say their names before we get to their stories.
We’ve got 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, 17-year-old Jennifer Harberson, her sister, 15year-old Sarah Harberson, and 13-year-old Amy Heirs.
Can you tell us a bit about them? Who were they? >> Um, they were four girls who knew each other from FFA, which is called Future Farmers of America, and they raised farm animals together.
Um, but that’s not as sort of like I I think they weren’t like all um they actually like back in Austin my friends had said those kind of people were called kickers which are just like it’s like [ __ ] kickers like like cowg girls but I don’t think you could stereotype them cleanly that way.
Like they were definitely um you know they were also on the cheerleading team.
Um some of them were like Jennifer was a runner.
Um, I think Eliza wasn’t really like that at all.
Her father was a university professor or like part of that stereotype.
So, I think they were, you know, um, they they were bound by their love of like farm animals and country music, but that wasn’t like the totality of who they were.
>> December 6th, 1991.
Only Jennifer and Eliza were actually on shift that day at the yogurt shop.
So, how did the younger girls come to be there? They came because they were um they were all going to hang out that night and um I I believe that like Sarah was going to spend the night with Amy and so um she went over because Jennifer would drive them home.
So they went over from the mall.
They walked over from the mall and they were having pizza from the Mr.
Gaddy’s next door.
So they were sitting in one of the booths having pizza waiting for the two and I think they were helping them clean like you know you when when you close the yogurt shop there’s all this cleaning you have to do and so they were probably helping out in the back.
>> Do we know anything about the shift prior to the murders that what they were doing prior to that? Have have any of the customers or anything helped piece that together? actually John Jones um the head investigator at at the beginning, he um he had a had a whole like he he got in touch with everyone who had been at the yogurt shop before that and he hypnotized them.
He talked to all of them.
Um so to piece together exactly what you’re talking about.
So we do have a map of everyone who was on the at the yogurt shop I I believe from like 300 pm until it closed.
How were authorities first alerted to anything wrong, anything that that was happening at the shop? There was a fire reported at the shop and so um we actually or strangely there was a camera crew with Jon Jones the night of this crime and so they have him getting the call and telling him to go to the yogurt shop and people like we had to do it was very hard to make that footage and I still wonder sometime if people think it’s a reenactment but no it really was true that there was a camera crew in the car with him the night of the crime.
him and they filmed him getting the call.
>> I didn’t even think while watching the documentary, but you’re right.
How how was their footage of the lead detective arriving? That is crazy.
>> And he talks about how he was in he was with these reporters and you know they were talking about how nothing ever happens in Austin and they were just riding around with him and they Houston so many things happen in Houston and and then the biggest crime in like Texas happens like while they’re in >> Oh my god.
>> I know.
So the firefighters arrived expecting, you know, a structure fire.
They walked in on something horrific.
Can you help to explain that? And a warning to listeners.
It is very graphic, but can you tell me what they found? Well, they were putting out the fire and someone noticed a body part and um a hand, I believe, and um or maybe a leg and they realized that it wasn’t just a fire, like someone was trying to cover it up.
Someone was trying to cover up a crime.
>> Once they kind of walked further into the room, they found four bodies, the four bodies of the girls.
>> First, at first they found three.
Like when you listen to the tape in the film, they say it’s it’s it’s a it’s a triple homicide.
And then they correct it and say it’s a quadruple homicide cuz one of the girls was apart from the other three.
So basically the fire started and the firemen when they came on came in obviously started putting out the fire.
So it it basically flooded the area that had been burned.
>> The girls had been kind of stripped or partially stripped and gagged and I can only imagine what that scene would have looked like for those emergency responders.
Was there we know that they were shot.
That’s how they were killed.
Was there any evidence of sexual assault? >> Yes.
Um and the the full proof of that wasn’t really revealed until this year.
>> Really? Is that because of DNA? And DNA back in the ’90s wasn’t quite as strong, >> I believe.
So, yes.
>> When you say the full extent wasn’t realized until this year, were all the girls assaulted? I believe three were assaulted.
>> Wow.
>> I there was a reason I wanted to make this and it’s because um you know I’m from Austin and I I don’t watch true crime I guess because you know I don’t I don’t necessarily like thinking about what was done to these girls or what they were thinking when they died.
And since I made it, I’ve, you know, installed a a um a security system in my house.
I mean, it made me incredibly paranoid working on this.
And I really don’t know how people make true crime over and over.
And when you’re asking me the graphic questions, it’s like it’s interesting.
Like, I mean, I know all the answers, but it’s something I thought about a lot cuz I know all the family members so well.
And we this was not a show where we we did we tried not to focus on some of these details just because I know how hard they are for the families and it’s just so horrific that um you know I try to stay away from it.
I realize that it’s part of the story and you have to delve into it, but um I I almost never talk about that part of it.
And the editors, you know, they know how sensitive I am and there’s some pictures I have never even looked at and and ones we purposefully did not put in the documentary because we felt like no one needs to see this.
>> It is really hard.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess I wanted to say that because um you know when you’re asking me these questions it’s it’s honestly like I am really interested in psychologically um what happens to people when you’re dealing with like trauma like something that’s traumatic in our lives.
We all have to deal with trauma.
But my interest in the story is really like these people went through probably the most horrific thing you can go through which is um your daughters are murdered and you since they’re probably almost definitely sexually assaulted although it’s not something I really talked about with the parents cuz I didn’t feel like that was something I needed to talk about.
Um and then you know it’s all over the media so everyone feels like they have a piece of it and then you don’t really know what happens.
there’s there’s people who are accused but there’s always a question and so I was really interested because we all encounter grief in our lives you know and um but these people have the most extreme form of it you can even imagine and so I guess the reason I wanted to tell this story is because I thought that could be helpful to people to go there you know >> it’s a really hard line to walk when you work in the true crime world and telling these stories is how do you tell the story and what happened while not retraumat traumatizing the victims, going into too much detail, but also balancing that.
So, you did a really great job of that in that I think when people watch your documentary, they they will understand what happened to the girls, but it isn’t sensationalized graphic kind of content.
>> Yeah.
I mean, there’s some of it is just sensational because of what it is and you can’t get away from it to tell the story.
But I we talked about that a lot on our production team like how much is too much cuz cuz it was really this was a really hard thing to make and you know A24 got therapy for the whole team and um you know so it’s it’s not I and I think that’s something that’s really necessary in stories like this cuz it’s very hard to process and sit with these people when they’re when they’re reliving this just just so you can get their interview.
you’re asking these people to go through this thing again, you know, and it’s it’s hard to ask people to do that and um and it’s hard to watch them go through it.
Well, you you mentioned you spoke to kind of sisters, fathers, mothers, brothers, friends of these girls.
What did you personally take away from those conversations from revisiting their grief and their memories? I mean, it really helped me personally think about things in my own life and how I talk to people about hard things that happened to them and how I process it for myself because I mean, when you’re talking to someone like Barbara, um, who’s the mother of two of the girls that died, like she is sort of like this Zen master in, you know, a middle-aged lady’s body, you know, and she’s just dealt with so much and she deals with it with such lightness and grace and you know all of the families um have had to go through the unimaginable.
It’s just really interesting and to watch how people everyone deals with grief differently.
>> What I found interesting was watching how public the families were.
They really gave themselves to the media in an effort to try and find the killers.
But I think it’s Barbara that tells you that it really started to take a toll.
>> Yeah.
I mean, I realized too that, you know, when I interviewed her, it was 33 years later and um Sonora um Eliza’s sister is very close to her.
Eliza is one of the girls that was murdered.
And um Snora told me that, you know, Barbara had said that she was in bed for a month after the interview.
And it’s just hard to think I did that to somebody.
Another detail that got to me that I hadn’t thought of and it’s like the ripple effect of crime is the 24year-old manager of that yogurt shop that was called in to identify them and the grief on her face when you were interviewing her about that.
>> Yeah.
>> How was that for you? I mean, it was it was um very difficult to get her to do that interview because she’s carried it with her her whole life and um and she also felt like a mother to those girls, Eliza and Jennifer and um particularly Eliza.
And so I think she felt this responsibility.
She was supposed to be on shift that night >> and she felt that responsibility of not being there doing something that could have protected them.
although we know now there’s nothing she could have done.
But um you know I think that to have to live with that would be so difficult.
So I was really honored that she finally decided to do the interview.
I know it was really hard on her.
Um but you know when you make these films um you try to support everyone as much as you can um but and and just allow them you know as much as they want to talk about it or not.
Well, you went as far as kind of talking about a fifth victim in your documentary, which was Sonora, the sister.
Can you tell us about working with her and how much this crime affected her? Because why was she the fifth victim? >> Well, I wouldn’t say that it’s definitely just Sonora.
Um, I would say that the fifth victim could be the city.
I mean, I think that episode the fifth thickum is you could you could translate it that as Sonora, but um it the fifth thickum could be like the city of Austin.
It could be Jon Jones.
It you know um it could be Bob Heirs, you know, the father of Amy or Pam Heirs.
I mean it’s again like you said this crime had a real ripple effect and how people um everyone felt so connected to it.
But yes, Sonora, I mean, Eliza was her best friend and I’m actually like incredibly close to Sonora now because she kind of went through this with us and um she is someone who after this happened to her when she was um you know a pre-teen um she is now a therapist and helps people deal with their own trauma.
And I just thought that was so incredible that she would turn her own pain into something that helped other people.
Like that’s how she transposed what happened to her, the loss of her sister and best friend.
>> She was a very strong person.
You could tell.
She’s been through a lot.
>> She’s been through a lot.
Yeah.
She’s incredibly articulate.
>> Um, honestly, all the family members are incredibly articulate.
It was, you know, you can’t pick the people you’re making a film about in a circumstance like this.
There’s no in many documentaries I make, there’s like almost a casting process where you find like the best people, but with this like I I couldn’t believe it.
Like I mean I think it’s maybe because all the family members were I mean Bob I s is like an incredible storyteller like he he he basically comes from central casting of incredible storytellers but you know um yeah I was so blessed to have these people who are so articulate with you know Shawn his son like how how to express what had happened to them.
How did you get so many people that were close to this story on board? Because you had everyone.
You had, you know, the judges, the all the police officers, all of the family members.
I can imagine that was a huge effort to try and convince everyone.
>> I had a team.
I mean, I had um it wasn’t just me, but I have been doing this a long time.
And um I think the way is because like I don’t really know why everyone talked to me.
I I maybe I’m really persistent.
Um but I I also think that like I I I don’t try to parachute in.
I try to like talk to people a lot before or as much as they want to.
Sometimes people are like, “Yes, I’ll talk to you.
” But with something like this that’s like this traumatic and also that was so long ago and some people are like, “I’m done with that.
I talked about that for 20 years.
I’m done.
” you have to kind of be like, “Well, you know, I think this is why you should talk to me.
” And and I usually explain like my approach, which is kind of a little different than maybe some of the other people who have talked to them in the past that are really focused on because I was more interested in in the grief and how maybe sharing how they’ve dealt with this could help other people instead of like the gorious details, you know? So I could I could I could say that and sometimes they’d be more interested, but sometimes not.
Sometimes people are just done, you know.
Um, so it was really Yeah, I’m not really The answer is I don’t really know why everyone talked to me, but I’m glad they did.
>> Can you tell us a little bit about what that early investigation looked like? Because there were quite a few things that kind of got in the way.
Mainly the fact that there was a fire and then there was a lot of water.
So, in in the way of evidence, what were they working with? What was John, that lead investigator, working with? >> I mean, it’s kind of a perfect storm of this is [ __ ] you know, like there’s there’s um there’s nothing much to work with.
like you can’t, you know, if if I mean this is horrific, but if like you can’t like there’s there’s nothing they could the thing that was that really saved it was the fact that like they they um did DNA which was like a nor a normal thing back then.
It was um it was something that was a new thing and um Huck John’s partner was kind of a charmer, you know, and he convinced um the coroner to like who wanted to just take the bodies to wait for the DNA to get collected.
And that is literally what one of the main things that solved this case was that like Huck is a charmer.
>> From pretty early on, the police kind of summized that it was a robbery gone wrong.
Is that what they were kind of working with? >> That’s that was one of the um the lead theories was there’s a robbery gone wrong.
>> Can you explain um they found like evidence of multiple guns which was a big part of the investigation? >> Yes.
Um there were two guns at the crime.
Um there was something that one of the investigators calls a dancing gun.
It’s like it’s like called an AMT backup model and um it’s like this tiny little gun.
Um, and there was that that was one of the guns.
And then there was a larger gun as well, and they were both used in the crime.
>> Next, the confessions that surfaced just one week after the crime and the red flags that had police feeling cautious.
A week after the murders, two teenage boys were walking around a nearby mall, the mall that you mentioned before, with a gun.
Can you explain what happened there? Because it was 16-year-old Maurice and 15year-old Forest.
>> Yes.
Obviously, police were called.
What happened? >> So, this was, you know, people were getting um it it was basically like he had the same kind of gun that was used at the crime and so he got pulled in and interrogated all night long.
Um and the person who interrogated him was the kind of like star interrogator at the Austin Police Department who had also gotten five other confessions from people, too.
So, he was obviously very good at getting confessions.
Um, you know, so Forest confessed.
Um, he’s a, you know, 16-year-old boy who stayed up all night, probably intimidated, but at the time, you know, we just know that he confessed and, you know, we have the confession and it’s in the documentary.
And it basically like he implicates other pe people other than himself.
>> So, he implicates two other boys, >> three other boys.
Um he implicates um Forest Welburn who was his best friend at the time and um he he mentions Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott who were with him at the time and the next day um actually as well.
>> So he confessed but nothing really came of that because these boys we know now we’re going to talk about were arrested and much later many many years later.
So why did nothing happen at the time? Why was that kind of evidence kind of left and parked? >> I think because Jon Jones felt like um it just didn’t add up.
Um he got the confession.
People knew that this cop Hector Palano was really good at getting confessions and there was no evidence and so it was just a confession and um and I think John just thought like that it it just wasn’t enough.
So they went out um uh Maurice went out and he wore a wire and he spoke to Forest and said that um you know what happened that night? Like you know did you shoot these girls? And Forest is like what are you talking about? Like he has no idea what he’s talking about.
And he goes but you said it.
And Forest is like man I was joking around.
Like what are you talking about? And um and so I think at that point John was just thought that oh this is these are just kids.
You know >> he shows you in your documentary two pages worth of confessions like all different names which was wild to me that and he had in like a column that a lot of them were bragging.
Why why would people it’s quite hard to get your head around why would people brag about a horrific crime like this? Well, I think I think about it this way, like you’re a teenager, you know, you’re trying to brag to your friends.
Like, it just seems so unreal.
I mean, I’ve thought about this obviously for years, but um I can remember what it was like in high school and it’s like it’s like a it’s like a dark humor.
Well, like, oh, did you do it? You know, um I I I I can only surmise it’s something like that.
Just like kids being disgusting, you know, but not capable of murder.
But I mean like I think um I can’t remember the exact number.
I think there were seven written confessions and like 50 or so people were confessing all over town.
>> It’s crazy.
>> Yeah.
>> But like you said, I guess kids I mean they don’t realize how serious it is to do something like that.
They think they’re having fun.
>> No, these are teenagers, you know.
I wanted to skip us forward to the end of 1992 because there was a confession there that was taken really seriously out of Mexico.
What happened there? >> Yeah, there were there were some Mexican suspects and it turned out that they were tortured by their own government to get the confessions and Huck Jones’s partner went down there to just see what was up and he realized straight away that they didn’t know anything about the crime.
they were being like fed what to say and um you know it was it was definitely one of those situations where it was immediately clear from someone who knew the crime that they didn’t know any of the correct details.
>> Then if we fast forward again to 1997, a new team, a new police kind of task force is put on the case and kind of Huck and Jones are pushed to the side.
>> Yes.
>> Why? And and what was the effect on those two men who had been working for years on this case? >> They were really so they got really close to the families and that was something this was such a high profile case in Austin.
Everyone was talking about it all the time.
One of the reasons I took the job was because I realized there was like mountains of archival footage about this.
It’s like I knew that I would be able to portray Austin in that moment in a really crystal clear way because the city and the media was fascinated with it.
And so I knew that I had the materials to build the story because you don’t always have that.
You sometimes have to um recreate it.
And I did I knew that I would not have to do that.
I I I could see the footage and I could see that like there was this version of Austin back then and of details of how it all went down back then that I would be able to really put the story together.
But to answer your question, um, they made this decision, Huck and Jones, to kind of include the families in the investigation in a way, like let them into the police station in a way that I don’t think they just they just felt for them so deeply.
I mean, I think Huck and Jones were really empathic people and they there was a lot of pressure on them to solve it, but they also came to love the families and in a way that was made it really hard on them and they got when they couldn’t solve it right away, they got just it it really um I think it it it it affected their marriages.
It was just it took a toll.
It took a toll on so many people.
Um, I mean, moving forward, ask me that question again with with the the lawyers who were involved.
I mean, this there was a real a real ripple effect on how this crime affected everyone it touched.
But at the beginning, it was really Jones and Huck and trying just trying anything they could to make these families feel better.
And part of that was just letting them into the process in a way that I think was highly unusual at the time >> because Paul Johnston, the new kind of investigator that took over, he was a very different operator.
>> Yes.
He felt like he I think he saw what had happened with them and that they had gotten they were diagnosed with PTSD and told they had to stop working on it because they were it was affecting their work and they were taken off of the case which was very hard for both of them because they really really wanted to solve it.
And I think they’re both very good investigators.
And Paul had a really different approach.
But probably part of it was just looking at the effect on Jones and on Huck and being like, well, obviously that didn’t work, so I’m going to try a different tac, you know, and not get close to the families and start over, you know, and so he was he took the opposite approach that I’m not going to get close to the families.
I’m going to look at look at everything again.
I’m going to start over.
So he was the one that kind of revisited he revisited a lot of the tips, but he revisited the tip that we talked about with the four boys, Maurice and Forest, and brought them all back in for interviews.
You’ve got a lot of those interviews in the documentary, which are fascinating to watch, and you kind of un unpack them.
What did you make of those interviews? >> Man, when I watched those interviews, I didn’t know what to think >> really, >> you know, how do they know some of the things they know in the interviews? Um, and it is my best friend is a is a reporter um in Austin and she and all her reporter friends were all like, “You have to do this TV show because this is the this is the case that has more rabbit holes than any case in Texas and you’ll never get to the bottom of it.
” And I kind of like in addition to, you know, I took that as a challenge almost.
Well, I didn’t really think at the time about like, oh, this is going to be really hard to tell because it’s so traumatic.
I thought like, “Oh, wait.
It’s the one with the most rabbit holes.
Well, that sounds interesting.
” You know, I didn’t really know what I was doing.
Like, it was very naive to be like, it’s not like I thought I was going to solve it, but I thought that um I was curious about unlimited rabbit holes.
And I guess what what my point would be is like looking at um looking at the the confessions, you know, at one point Mike Scott says, you know, um like he he he he says he thinks he might have killed someone and and you know, there there’s things in it that you just can’t explain unless somehow you know something about it.
Or there are a few other options, too, like maybe someone fed you that information.
But um but when you’re watching it fresh, you know, you’re just like, how do they know that? Like this, you know, it it’s it’s um it’s it’s a it’s it was an interesting document to have, but then you learn about the read technique and you know, you think about, well, how are these how are these confessions done really? Because some of it feels very coerced.
Yeah.
I mean, Forest Forest never confessed.
Um he he always said that he’d had nothing to do with it and you know he was trying to all of them were trying to be helpful.
You know they’re trying to be helpful.
Um you know Forest mom talks about how all these kids were being pulled in.
So you couldn’t really tell.
I mean this is years later the confessions you’re talking about.
But I think even years later this was such um this is eight years later and even then it’s still like an alive thing in Austin.
and everyone’s still talking about the billboards are still all over town.
It never really died.
Everyone knew it was unsolved.
So, everyone’s just going in there trying to help out, you know.
Um, so that’s sort of I think that’s sort of the ethos of this.
Like, no one knew how serious it was until it was serious.
>> Does that make sense? >> Yeah.
Well, like the boys, they went and did the interviews of their own accord.
They weren’t arrested or anything like that.
>> They were trying to be helpful.
They’re trying to be like good citizens.
>> And they do say that in the interviews.
They say, “I’m here because I’m trying to help or I don’t remember and and then kind of the the interviews go for ages and ages and ages and then eventually we get these two confessions from these boys.
” >> Yes.
>> Kind of talking about Maurice being more of a ring leader, but then implicating themselves in kind of parts of the crime as well.
>> Yes.
>> And then what that leads to arrests, four arrests and charges.
I mean, you have to think about like I learned so much about um like in America like the cops can lie to you.
Like I did not know that like you know um I mean of course like you grow up as a teenager thinking like avoid the cops, you know, but like I didn’t know that they could just make something up and act like it’s true.
And you think about that as a 15 or 16year-old.
Absolutely.
That’s terrifying.
like the fact that they would like um Sharon Forest mom would just say he was a 15-year-old boy and the cops would just drive by his house and tell him to get in the car.
He didn’t have to get in the car, but he thinks he has to get in the car.
You know, they’re not no one’s saying like this is your choice at the time.
Um but then as young men, you know, 8 years later, it’s still like your trust and authority figure.
You don’t know they can lie to you.
You know, there’s not a um a lawyer present.
just it it just it’s it’s kind of like as someone you know an older person to that like I just I I still think if that had happened to me I would there’s some part of me that’s going to like trust that like oh they have my best interest at heart but clearly that is not what happened.
Are you also kind of is is that how they would get to like a false confession so to speak because this is a person of authority and you’re kind of like convinced like I’m trying to work out how I know this is a big question in your documentary as well like how how would someone confess to something that they didn’t do? >> Well, I think I find this question incredibly fascinating and I think it really depends on the person.
There are different types of people who confess for different reasons and it was kind of like a perfect storm.
Like I think that um I think that Mike Scott in his effort to help was able to be convinced and maybe you know um they were making him like walk through the crime over and over and kind of roleplay.
And I think for someone like the kind of person Mike Scott is, I think he was able to convince himself somehow that he did it.
You know, with Robert Springsteen, he’s a different kind of person.
I think he was just trying to get out of the room.
He like realized like this something is messed up here.
They have the wrong idea about me.
I’m just going to say anything I can to get out of the room cuz they were just he felt like trapped.
So I think they both did it for different reasons.
But um but there’s a technique called the read technique that is taught to police where um where it it sort of walks you through how to get people to confess.
And Huck talks about how he couldn’t get anyone to confess if he wants to.
You have to use it for good because you can get anyone to he told me in the interview, “Oh, I can get you to confess to anything.
You just don’t even know.
It’s cuz I have this technique.
I know how to do it >> really.
” >> So it’s a little scary.
But it is interesting because >> Maurice and Forest were given the same treatment and they didn’t confess.
>> They did not confess.
No.
>> So it doesn’t work on everyone.
>> Not everyone.
But I think um you have to look at like who who people are.
Just like the way people respond to grief differently, people respond to intimidation differently.
People are different, you know.
And um and these are also very young men who are trying to help authority figures and they might realize a little too late that maybe they took it too far.
I think with Rob that’s what happened.
He was like, I just got to get out of here.
And with Mike, I think he just got confused.
>> Yeah.
>> But I don’t know.
with Mike.
That one’s more confusing to me cuz like how do you um there are experts that you know that that that talk about false confessions and why people confess, but you know I still I think like anyone who watches this is going to watch it and think like I you know I would never do that.
But they’re also not in that situation.
They’re not scared.
They’re not sleepdeprived >> you know.
Um I I think like you you know it’s it’s in a way it’s like a form of torture.
Just like keep someone in a room, keep telling them they did this thing like I don’t know.
I mean the brain is a crazy thing.
>> Apart from those two confessions from the boys, well men when they confessed, did they have any other evidence tying them to the crime? >> None.
>> So no physical evidence at all.
no physical evidence, >> which is crazy to me because we’re talking about a crime and Springsteen and Scott were both charged and convicted.
One got the death penalty, one got life on just a confession.
>> Correct.
But those confessions are pretty grizzly.
>> The words that literally came out of their mouth were, “I shot a gun in her head.
” Like, it was very it was a big confession.
and and some very graphic rape details too that are I would say possibly even more horrific that that are on the confession tapes.
Maybe not more, but pretty horrific things that stick in your head.
>> So, as I mentioned, Springsteen and Scott were charged and convicted.
Wellbornne was charged but never tried after two grand juries refused to indict him.
And then Pierce, so Maurice Pierce spent three years in jail.
Then the charges were dismissed and he was released.
when you were revisiting all of those court proceedings around the four, what did you make of it? I know you say you’re not fully immersed in the true crime world all the time, but even even if you aren’t, like it it was wild to watch all of that kind of unfold in hindsight.
>> No, I mean, I definitely have watched like, you know, the staircase and I mean, I’ve watched I’ve watched like my fair share of true crime, but it it wasn’t that’s not really like what I’ve made in my career as a filmmaker is true crime.
But I mean I know I know like um you know the structure of a lot of true crime or how that works.
But I mean again it was this it was it was fascinating.
It was like like you said like why why would you confess to something you didn’t do? And um you know and you think about that a lot and then um you think about like you know it’s unreal that this person got like you said got like the death penalty for something with no material evidence.
Um, and I mean the the entire Austin Police Department, well except for a few people who are in the film, um, believe they did it like with some kind of certainty, you know.
Um, and you know, when I was making this, um, friends of mine would write me on social media who went to high school with the boys telling me they knew the boys did it, you know, and, um, people in Austin who just people thought they did it.
Well, when someone confesses, you you take them at their word.
But >> Right.
Right.
>> The defense lawyers did actually start to poke holes in their confessions.
>> Mhm.
Yes.
>> Which you showed as well.
So like things didn’t match up.
>> That did not convince the jury.
>> It didn’t.
Which is Yeah.
I I guess a confession is a powerful thing.
>> Yes.
Yes.
After the break, how did the victim’s families react when Springsteen was sentenced to death and Scott received life in prison? I found the family’s reactions really interesting to the two boys being charged, especially the death penalty.
Barbara, in particular, was really upset by it and saying, “I I didn’t want to take another life.
” Which I I found fascinating because usually these families, they want justice, especially when something so horrific has happened to a loved one.
I think Barbara is a really um like I said before she’s kind of otherworldly like I um I also wonder and this is a question it’s not any kind of certainty after um not to be spoiler you can include this however you want but after having made the fifth episode and asked a lot of these questions again now that we really know 3.
7 million to one who did this according to Dan’s work Um, it made me look back and wonder, you know, was there some part of these families brain that never really believed those boys did it? you know, and I wonder in hindsight, um, cuz, you know, we were making the movie, like we really didn’t think the boys did it, you know, like I I just I I did not believe they did it when I was making it, but there was still part of me that wondered because of the confessions, because like there was no certainty, you know, and um and I also felt like I couldn’t end the fourth episode by absolutely saying they didn’t do it, even though I thought they didn’t do it because there was no certainty.
But um so and to take the other part of it like the families know in some part of their brain there’s no material evidence the DNA does not match.
So I wonder if Barbara in some part of her brain was like are we making a mistake? This is a question that filmmakers asked themselves or I asked myself and you know the whole there was a very big film making team behind this.
It’s not just me.
And so there’s a whole like, you know, text message chat with all of our theories going on for three and a half years with like 20 people just at all hours of the night.
You look in the morning and there’s another, you know, like we didn’t know.
We’re we’re we’re in the morass of it all with everyone else.
>> Even as someone who knows what’s happened after the fact, I watched the documentary going, “Oh, did they do like and I knew what the answer was?” And I was like, “Did they do it though? did like >> even though I knew so I I can completely understand when you didn’t have the certainty of the actual answer why you would have been like what do I do with this >> right right and and you want to be fair to everyone like I don’t I don’t um you know I I don’t want to cuz cuz I don’t know and I’m not going to pretend to know um so I I you know you have to I feel like I had to just every day go into a beginner’s mind you know because I I have an idea what I think but I sure as hell I don’t know that >> this is what you were talking about with rabbit holes.
>> Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
>> How were those convictions overturned? Because that happened many many years later.
I think around 20078 if I’m right.
So, you know, these these men spent a decade or nearly a decade in prison.
>> Basically, the Supreme Court changed something about the law that said you can’t testify against someone else um like if if if you’re involved in the case.
So, so Rob and Mike had, even though it had been redacted, it was clear that they were the only witness against each other and so it got thrown out >> and they literally got out.
>> Yeah.
But they were never cleared of the crime, which I found out talking to Forest that that is a very big distinction because that means everyone still thinks you did it and your life is still basically ruined.
>> Well, he described it as I walked out of prison into another prison basically with everyone thinking I was guilty.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that like um I don’t know, he must have said that in something else.
That is not in my documentary, but um but I I can imagine him saying it because um you know, he it you I realized because I didn’t talk to any of Well, they’re men now, but everyone calls them the boys.
And um and uh like when you talk to Forest, the way he talks about what he went through um you realize like he was only I mean, man, he he was he it affected him the least.
He was in he was in jail for three months and it ruined his life.
Like you know, he got pulled over by the cops all the time, even when we were making it a few months ago.
Um he his lawyer would say to me like this something that some cop that had been following Forest.
I mean people were still convinced that they did it.
It was insane.
>> Well Maurice died at the hands of police.
>> Yes.
>> In 2010 so I mean it followed him too.
>> Right.
Right.
No.
Um you know I think he had total PTSD.
He was terrified of cops and it’s that’s a cop killed him.
Yes.
>> So, the plan was to retry these men and try and get them back to prison and then that’s when the DNA kind of comes into everything.
So, they were going to get the DNA and retry it with modern technologies.
But you kind of show that the DA, the district attorney, was kind of trying to be like, well, it’s contaminated.
You can’t use it.
And you kind of prove that that that’s not really a thing.
Can you explain that? >> Well, no.
I mean, sometimes it absolutely can be contaminated.
Um, I think that uh I mean the the site with the with the water and the fire things can get contaminated, but the DNA that was used to solve the crime was um vaginal swabs.
And in this case, that was not contaminated just because I don’t know how much detail you want me to get into about vaginas, but it was not contaminated.
They knew they knew that that DNA wasn’t contaminated and then they realized that it didn’t match any of the boys men.
>> Well, I would say it’s not that they didn’t know at the time it wasn’t contaminated.
It’s that when DNA, the same DNA shows up at different sites and it’s the same DNA, they might not know who that person is.
But if it’s in three different women and it doesn’t match any of the boys, you know, that means that it’s probably one person.
>> So, it did mean that Springsteen and Scott weren’t just kind of having their charges dismissed.
It kind of ruled them out.
You could say that, but but also for whatever reason, um, just because we didn’t know who that DNA belonged to, even Dan, who ended up solving the crime, would never say on the record before he solved it that they still weren’t connected to it, >> right? Because there’s there could there could be other reasons like um maybe um one of them had a boyfriend although we would have to not know who that boyfriend was because all of the people who were connected to them in any way were tested.
All of their DNA was swabbed.
though it would have have to been I mean the the it was like all these incredibly improbable things that once the DNA inside the girls did not match the boys yeah you you would think if there’s no other material evidence um these these boys they like there’s no way they could have just like stayed convicted but they were never they were never like absolved of the crime.
They were never, no one ever said like you didn’t do this.
So, it still hung over them.
>> How did Dan and Dan that you’re talking about is the homicide cold case detective who kind of is the new person to take over the case all these years later.
How did he solve this? Because he got a name.
He got an actual person, a killer.
He solved it.
>> I mean, it is incredible that Dan solved it.
and he started by testing um a bullet casing in a drain that Jon Jones had saved which is in the first episode.
And um you know we showed the first episode at South by Southwest and there’s like a shot where um he you know Jon Jones’s associate is holding the the case and and um Dan you know thought to go back and retest shell casings and DNA particularly right now um is just undergoing like weekly sometimes getting better.
So, I think it was the kind of thing where he was like, I should retest that shell casing.
Um, it hasn’t been retested in a while.
And it so happened that I he could have he could not have The thing that’s crazy is he couldn’t have solved the crime until this year because they had just found this new match to the shell casing in a different crime in a different city in the States.
And that led him to think, “Oh, wait.
There’s a some another gun was connected to this gun.
” Um and then he started um connecting the DNA and there’s like two different kinds of DNA that is collected.
There’s YSTR DNA and STR and YSTR is just the male lineage.
And so, um, after he found the matching gun, um, he was able to connect also, um, the the YSTR to some other crimes.
And so he was able to find the killer, but YSTR is just a male lineage, so it could still be like thousands of people.
I mean, he knew at that point that it was a serial killer who had murdered.
So, it’s almost definitely the right guy, but it wasn’t until he matched the STR, which is um the exact person, and he found that under Amy’s fingernails, um that he was able to be like, “This is the person who did it 3.
7 million to one.
” >> Wow.
>> Um so, it’s actually quite complicated how Dan solved the crime.
He had to go through a number of steps, but it kept getting closer and closer to the serial killer.
And you know, I don’t think anyone, this man, Robert Brashers or Bashers, who did this crime, wasn’t even on our radar.
Like, no one, it’s one of these things, you know, cuz usually it’s someone who knew the victims.
This was someone who just floated through town for some unknown reason still.
I mean, Dan is still working on it.
like they might yet find why he was in town, but um but it’s it’s it’s just wild.
Like it’s not someone, you know, you know, this world of like you you know when we were making this for as long as we were, you have this idea of who it could be.
This person was not even in our stratosphere.
>> You mentioned at the start of our chat a guy that ordered Sprite.
Could this have been him? >> It could have been him.
>> It could have been him, but that’s our only little kind of clue.
Well, >> if you look at um No, there’s more clues.
If you look at the fifth episode, um this guy Robert Brashers, he had he has a few different ruses he would use Dan that Dan talks about to get in the door.
And some of them he definitely went to a strip mall more than once.
Like he liked that, I think, cuz you could get out the back and you could just take off, you know? Um things that were hidden.
He had he was a smart guy.
He he kind of like had a few things that he did over and over.
You say he’s a serial killer.
The other crimes that he committed, were they the same? Was this his kind of MO? >> Well, there’s overlap in different ways, I would say.
Like he didn’t always kill people.
He would sometimes It’s so weird to talk about just in a normal voice, but um he would sometimes rape them and um and and then let them go, and we don’t know why.
Um, and you know, sometimes he would kill them.
So, we have these different clues to what he did because sometimes he didn’t kill people, sometimes he would let them go.
Um he his daughter spoke to us and that was really revoly because you know she grew up um in kind of a I would call it an extremely dysfunctional family where um when he came in he was almost like a normalizing factor because he protected the family and um I mean the way she talked it was probably talking to her was was it was it was one of the most harrowing interviews I’ve ever done.
um because it was just so tragic that someone who was a serial killer would in her mind be a stabilizing force >> because he kind of protected like some people I think as long as the way she explains it is as long as they protect their family that’s all that matters and um they don’t care if they’re hurting other people the family unit is everything.
So I think like she believes that her mother knew some of it, you know, not probably all of it, but was like protecting her father and she would talk about how he did all these things, you know, like he would rob shownies and dress up like a woman and he would, you know, he had all these disguises and they would call him a different name in public and all this was normalized.
She was like 7 years old and she just thought that was normal because she came from a place where a lot scarier things happen to young women than that than just calling her father by a different name.
And um and so I don’t know it just I guess it just talking to her made me feel really grateful that I came from a stable family or a relatively stable one because I was like wow there are other realities that you were can be born into that are horrific you know and she has made it her mission to kind of apologize to all these families um for what her father has done which, you know, um, she can’t un the fact that she would even want to do that is is I don’t know.
I mean, she’s she’s been hurt herself so much and that she I mean, I guess like, you know, that’s that’s the right thing to do to think of others, but um, you know, cuz she doesn’t even know if when she calls these people, they’re even going to want to talk to her, you know, cuz they are so scarred by what happened to their family members.
But, >> I don’t know.
I was really moved by that.
>> Well, it’s not her responsibility to apologize for something her father did.
>> So, that’s a >> No, it’s not.
No.
>> No.
When you found out this news that we had the killer, the man, you had a name, Robert.
>> What was the reaction from you and your team and when you started talking to everyone you’ve been interviewing? You’ve been making this documentary for all these years and you’ve got a name.
Well, I was kind of shocked because it was it was really hard to make this and and I was starting another project.
I was literally in my car driving to a different city when I got the news and um I had to turn right back around to Austin, drop my dog off at my parents house and like get go to shoot the press conference the next day.
It was like boom, you know.
And I think I knew that I wanted to make it because I felt like um I felt like I had left the families with in a spot where, you know, if there was an answer now, it was like I could make a show about it and give some kind of, you know, closer closure to the story.
certainly not to the families, but um I felt like I sort of had to do it, you know, and but it was also this weird feeling of being pulled back into this dark force for the whole team.
Like we all felt like there was no choice.
Like of course we were going to make it, but there was also like this sort of just like, you know, um boomerang where you thought you escaped the darkness and you’re just pulled right back.
Well, it’s also you were making a documentary about a an unsolved cold case and suddenly it was becoming breaking news.
>> Yes.
Yes.
>> Which would have I can imagine given you a bit of whiplash.
>> Yeah.
Whiplash is a better word.
I remember seeing Sha after like when we interviewed him a a month or so after they realized that it had been solved.
He was a different person.
like he was so happy that there was an answer and I mean I don’t think he I I you could feel it like it was bizarre because I was like wait a minute a serial killer s k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k killed your sister, but it didn’t matter.
It was like knowing the answer gave I would say across the board every family member felt better about having an answer even when the answer is I would argue darker than you know what they thought it was before.
There was there was there was a solidity of like I know what happened cuz I think otherwise it just turns over in your head over and over and over.
There’s the whatifs and the wondering.
And then for the well, the three alive men of the four, they were only recently in in February 2026 publicly exonerated.
So I can imagine for them as well, it would have felt like closure and they could move on.
>> You know, I don’t know what it feels like to them if it feels as much of a relief.
I think that’s going to take longer.
Um I like you know Robert Springststein didn’t even come.
I think it was just too much for him.
>> I think um Michael Scott was there.
Um you know I I don’t p I spoke to him but I don’t Forest like really opened up to us and shared with us but you know and Maurice I talked to his family but Maurice died you know so we were not able it was too late for Maurice.
Um, but you you saw the toll from his daughter and his ex-wife and um and they were very articulate in talking through like what that process was like.
And I don’t think you know um I don’t think we’ll really know how it affects them for a little bit of time.
like you you know it was funny because that was a part of the story where through Claire Huey who was the filmmaker who was making a film with Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott kind of that I used as a film within my film to kind of show she was almost like a proxy for me in a way you know but um >> just to show how it even impacts the filmmakers like she stopped being a filmmaker when she was making this because she felt like the story was too big and she couldn’t handle it and she couldn’t give them what she felt like they needed there.
I mean, everything everyone everything this story touched it just was sort of like a path of destruction because I think Claire is a really talented filmmaker and it makes me really sad that she quit making the movie.
I was glad that I was able to use her footage and honor it in some way.
But um but just like you know I saw you see um in this last episode I finally get to talk to Forest and to see Mike and you know you really see the impact that this had on them and their trauma is ongoing you know and hopefully people now really know they definitely didn’t do it.
I mean, 3.
7 million to one.
I mean, you know, it’s probably more likely that I committed the yogurt shop murders than, you know what I mean? It’s just like >> that’s a lot of that’s a lot of million.
>> What do you hope people get from watching your documentary? >> I just hope people are able to know that it’s okay to grieve and to, you know, feel I don’t know.
I mean, I think these these people let us see like how do you gracefully deal with loss, you know? Um what are ways we can deal with loss because we all are going to encounter loss and um I think you know by watching the heirs and Barbara and Sonora go through this.
I mean I think you can just you know I mean I think um how do you bring it back to your own life and you know Um there’s something Barbara says um you get your own pain in your own time.
We all will.
We all will.
Maybe not like these people, but it’s in a way I think that’s you know cuz we were all at a certain point we were like oh my god this story it’s it’s it’s all these rabbit holes.
But I knew I didn’t want to make a movie just about rabbit holes.
Like I wanted to make it about something bigger than that.
And then I then then that’s what came to me.
It’s like about like dealing with trauma and grief.
How do we do that and maintain our humanity, you know, and um be good to others? >> Thank you to Margaret for joining us on this episode.
You can stream The Yogurt Shop Murders on HBO Max now and find more links to her work in our show notes.
True Crime Conversations is hosted by me, Gemma Bath.
Our senior producer is Tarly Blackman.
The group executive producer is Allaria Brophie and there’s been video editing by Julian Rosario.
Thanks so much for listening.
I’ll be back next week with another true crime conversation.
