AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Police have linked a suspect to the 1991 deaths of four teen girls at the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” shop off Anderson Lane in north Austin, according to a statement shared with KXAN from Austin Mayor Kirk Watson’s office.
APD identified the suspect as Robert Eugene Brashers, who is connected with several other violent crimes across the southeast U.S. Brashers committed suicide in 1999.
He was accused of murder in the 1990 death of a South Carolina woman. Brashers was also linked by Memphis police to the rape of a Memphis teen, according to previous reporting from WREG in Memphis..
Authorities accused Brashers of a 1998 double homicide in Missouri. He was convicted of attempted murder in Florida in 1986, Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a 2018 press release.
The note from the Austin mayor’s office called the development a “significant breakthrough” in the case. Police identified the suspect through DNA and ballistics testing.
APD is expected to hold a news conference on Monday to provide a timeline of how the events unfolded.
It has been 34 years since the deadly incident.
On Dec. 6, 1991, Austin firefighters responded to a fire at the yogurt shop. The structure call would sadly reveal the quadruple homicide case, when the bodies of four teenage girls were found.
The victims were identified as 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and her sister, 15-year-old Sarah, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas and 13-year-old Amy Ayers.
The nature of the case was gruesome, former Austin firefighter Rene Garza told KXAN in 2016. All four girls were discovered tied up, stacked on top of each other, each shot in the head. Evidence indicated some had been sexually assaulted.
“You can’t help but relive those images and I still see the images,” Garza said.
Grace Reader contributed to this story.
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