Breakthrough In Austin 30-Year-Old Yogurt Shop Murder Case

A 30-year-old Texas cold case has been solved.

Texas Investigators Announce a Suspect in the Austin Yogurt Shop Murders

Austin, Texas police announced Friday that the 1991 murders of four teenage girls at an Austin, Texas yogurt shop had been linked to career criminal Robert Eugene Brashers. Brashers committed suicide in 1999.

Police Say Brashers Has Been Linked to Multiple Crimes

According to Fox News, Robert Brashers was suspected of being a serial predator decades ago. In 1985, Brashers was convicted of attempted murder after shooting a woman in the head. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison but was released in 1989 after only serving three years.

The “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yogurt” Murders

The attack took place on the night of December 6, 1991, in Austin, Texas. Four teenage girls, two employees and two sisters, were tied up, raped, and murdered in the shop before the bodies and the store were set on fire. The girls ranged in age from thirteen to seventeen. Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott were arrested and charged and convicted of the killings in 2001 and 2002. They were teenagers at the time of the murders. Their sentences were overturned due to a lack of a DNA match.

The DNA Trail Linking Brashers to Cold Cases

According to Greenville Online, it was in 2018 that genealogist CeCe Moore from Parabon NanoLabs linked Brashers to three murders and several rapes going back to 1990. On September 27, 2018, Brashers' remains were exhumed from a cemetery in Arkansas in an effort to extract DNA from the bones.

DNA Solved the Cold Case of Jenny Zitricki

The DNA test found that Brasher’s DNA matched DNA found at the murder scene of 28-year-old Genevieve "Jenny" Zitricki, of Greenville, South Carolina. On April 5, 1990, Zitricki was bludgeoned, raped and strangled with pantyhose at her apartment. At the time of Zitricki's murder, Brashers was living in Greenville, not far away from her home. According to the Greenville Journal, Brasher’s DNA solved cold cases in four states.

The DNA Process That Led to A Break in the Yogurt Shop Murders

The DNA found that the crime scene in Austin was taken from one of the victims who was raped. According to CBS News, the profile did not match any of the previous suspects, but Brasher’s DNA profile warranted further investigation. It was a bullet casing found in a drain in the shop that had a pattern that matched the gun Brasher used to commit suicide in 1999.