09/27/2025
Who was Robert Eugene Brashers - the man police now say is linked to the 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders?
We took the time to write this for the families, for the communities that never stopped asking “Who did this?” and for anyone still holding a file drawer of grief. We’ll walk through what investigators say they’ve found, how Brashers’ name emerged, and why this matters for other cold cases.
The New Development
On September 26, 2025, Austin police announced what they called a “significant breakthrough” in the 1991 murders of four teenage girls at the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” shop: investigators identified Robert Eugene Brashers as a suspect through DNA testing. Brashers died by su***de in January 1999 during a motel standoff and has long been suspected in violent crimes across several states. 
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The Crime That Haunted Austin
On the night of December 6, 1991, Amy Ayers (13), Eliza Thomas (17), and sisters Jennifer (17) and Sarah Harbison (15) were found bound, gagged and shot in the head inside the yogurt shop where some of them worked. The killer set the building on fire, badly damaging the crime scene and destroying evidence - a fact that complicated the investigation for decades. Hundreds of tips were followed, confessions came and went, and the case remained open and raw for families and the city.
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Who was Robert Eugene Brashers?
Born March 13, 1958, Brashers carried a criminal history that investigators say spanned multiple Southern states. He’d been convicted previously (including a 1985 attempted murder conviction) and had other arrests and sentences in different jurisdictions. After his death in 1999, additional cold-case forensic work and later genealogy tied his DNA to violent crimes dating back to 1990. 
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How Investigators Say Brashers was Linked to the Yogurt Shop Case
Investigators report that modern DNA testing - including forensic genealogy and ballistics - identified Brashers as a match to evidence from the yogurt shop scene. Police say a bullet casing recovered at the shop matches the gun used in Brashers’ 1999 su***de; other testing and genealogy work that surfaced in recent years linked him to murders and sexual assaults in Missouri, South Carolina and Tennessee. Authorities stress the investigation remains active. 
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The Wider Trail of Violence Connected to Brashers
Decades before the Austin announcement, cold-case units had tied Brashers through DNA to at least three other brutal crimes:
• The 1990 murder of Genevieve “Jenny” Zitricki in Greenville, South Carolina.
• The March 1998 slayings of Sherri Scherer (37) and her daughter Megan (12) in Portageville, Missouri.
• A 1997 r**e of a 14-year-old in Memphis is among the other attacks investigators say were linked. These matches came after evidence was re-tested or submitted into national databases and after investigative genetic genealogy efforts identified Brashers as a suspect. 
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The Painful Aftermath: Wrong Turns and Overturned Convictions
The Yogurt Shop investigation in the 1990s produced arrests and later controversial convictions of local teenagers. Years afterward, those convictions were overturned in light of recanted confessions and the lack of DNA linking them to the scene — a long chapter of harm for families and the wrongfully convicted. The possibility that a different man committed the murders has reopened old wounds, but also gives families answers they were denied for decades. 
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How Brashers was Finally Unmasked: Genealogy + Old Evidence
Investigative genetic genealogy - the technique that uses distant relatives’ DNA matches and family-tree building to find suspects - has solved other cold cases in recent years. In Brashers’ case, genealogy work (by commercial labs and cold-case units working with prosecutors) led to exhumation and new testing on his remains in 2018; that work linked him to multiple crimes and, now, to the yogurt shop investigation. That same modern science is the reason cold case investigators and families are finally seeing movement on files that went cold long ago. 
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Questions Still Being Asked
• Did Brashers act alone at the Austin scene? Investigators have not closed that question.
• Are there more unsolved crimes that match his pattern? Authorities have said they continue to review cold files across states.
• What more can be learned from the evidence destroyed by fire in the shop? Forensic teams say some evidence survived; other parts were irreparably damaged. The answers may be partial, but they matter.
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For the Families: This Does Not Erase the Harm
We know nothing brings those four girls back. For families of all victims linked to Brashers, this development may feel like a mix of relief, fury, and fresh grief. It’s a reminder that investigations can take decades, and that justice - and truth - sometimes arrives late. We post this to honor the victims by reporting the facts as investigators have presented them and to push for transparency and continued work on related cold cases. 
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What Authorities Are Asking the Public To Do
If you have any information about Brashers, his movements in the 1990s, or other suspicious activity in the states mentioned, contact Austin Police or the cold case units handling the other investigations. Tip lines, crime-stoppers, and local detectives are listed in the official press materials released with this announcement. If you were affected and need resources, victim services in Austin and in the other jurisdictions have outreach workers available. 
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Remembering the Four Girls
Amy Ayers — 13
Eliza Thomas — 17
Jennifer Harbison — 17
Sarah Harbison — 15
We will keep their names in the thread. We will keep sharing. If you knew them, if you remember the nights the city dimmed, or if you were a first responder or investigator burned by this case - tell your story. Communities reckon better when truth is shared.
