AUSTIN (KXAN) — Recent DNA and ballistic evidence linked a man to the 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders that occurred in Austin.
KXAN gathered information surrounding the developments that were made in the case over the course of a nearly 34-year investigation.
Timeline
1990s
Dec. 6, 1991: Police find four teenage girls bound, gagged and burned, some atop each other, at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop on Anderson Lane. They were later determined to have been raped and murdered.
December 1991: Police discover a gun on Maurice Pierce a few days after the murders. The event became a catalyst for pursuing Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Robert Springsteen, and Michael Scott–the four defendants in the case.
1992-1998: Investigators continue to pursue leads.
Sept. 9, 1999: Michael Scott talks to police and is interrogated for more than 18 hours, and police say his confession explains it all: The boys were trying to rob the yogurt shop when it turned deadly. Scott implicates Springsteen, who points the finger back at Scott later. (Defense attorneys will later allege that investigators fed Scott details that he repeated under pressure, including how he held the gun to the girl’s head. Defense attorneys claim it is a coerced confession.)
Sept. 14, 1999: Michael Scott gives police a written statement about what happened at the yogurt shop the night of the murders.
Oct. 6, 1999: Police arrest the four men.
December 14, 1999: After a five-hour videotaped interview confession from Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott’s written statement, District Judge Jeanne Meurer is convinced there is probable cause. Robert Springsteen is indicted on four counts of capital murder.
Dec. 28, 1999: Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott and Maurice Pierce are indicted on capital murder charges.
2000s
2000: APD establishes its Cold Case Unit.
May 2, 2000: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms released a report finding the gun discovered on Maurice Pierce in December 1991 was probably not the murder weapon after all. Officers begin scouring the Colorado River under the Loop 360 bridge, looking for the gun that both Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen said may have been dumped the night of the murders. In the nine years since the murders, six floods have washed out the river.
May 16, 2000: Det. Paul Johnson says an APD ballistics expert told him back in January 1999 that Maurice Pierce’s .22-caliber gun was almost certainly not the murder weapon.
June 30, 2000: A Texas Department of Public Safety report shows that none of the boys’ DNA was found at the crime scene, even after testing for rape, checking fingernails and examining mucus found under one of the girls. Judge Jon Wisser throws out all four charges against Forest Welborn, and Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle drops the case against Welborn after two grand juries fail to indict him.
May 2001: A Travis County jury convicts Robert Springsteen of the murders and sends him to death row.
September 2002: Jury convicts Michael Scott and sentences him to life in prison.
January 2003: Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle says there is not enough physical evidence or testimony to keep Maurice Pierce in jail or to warrant a trial, and all charges against Pierce are dropped. Pierce is set free and moves out of Austin.
June 2005: Because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled convicted killers 17 years old and younger cannot be executed, Gov. Rick Perry commutes Robert Springsteen’s death sentence to life in prison.
May 2006: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturns Robert Springsteen’s capital murder conviction on the basis that he never got to confront his accuser in court, sending the case back to a Travis County court. Meanwhile, Michael Scott’s appeal is pending.
February 2007: The Travis County District Attorney’s appeal of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ ruling is shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court, and Robert Springsteen is on his way to a new trial.
June 2007: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturns Michael Scott’s capital murder conviction on the basis that he never got to confront his accuser in court, sending the case back to a Travis County court.
March 2008: State lab testing shows unknown male DNA on swabs taken from victim Amy Ayers.
April 15, 2008: Jury decides to let the defense test clothing for semen.
April 17, 2008: Prosecution says a DNA sample found in new tests cannot be linked to Robert Springsteen or Michael Scott.
May 2, 2008: Austin police arrest former murder suspect Maurice Pierce on charges of resisting arrest and assault on a police officer.
May 28, 2008: Michael Scott speaks in court for a pretrial hearing after he and Robert Springsteen are being retried in the case.
July 15, 2008: District judge gives prosecutors three days to provide defense attorneys with information about the results of new DNA testing in the murders.
Aug. 20, 2008: Judge Mike Lynch refuses to lift a protective order after defense attorneys for Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott say that the gag order will not allow them to talk about the case.
Sept. 17, 2008: Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott are in court for another pretrial hearing, and their attorneys ask for new DNA testing of the physical evidence gathered at the crime scene. Judge Mike Lynch tells the two sides to narrow down the list of items to test so that taxpayer dollars won’t be wasted on irrelevant items to the case.
December 2008: Officials test DNA from the murder scene, and defense attorneys for Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott argue there is no DNA evidence linking the men to the crime. Defense attorneys cite the only evidence prosecutors have is the coerced confessions. Defense said the men were convicted because it was a trial of emotion.
Jan. 7, 2009: Despite new DNA evidence in the yogurt-shop murders case, the trials of Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen move forward as protesters gather outside the Travis County Justice Complex hoping charges against the men might be dismissed. New DNA testing revealed DNA of an unknown man found on three of the four teen girls does not match either of the two men.
March 17, 2009: After attorneys for the murder suspects met with a judge to discuss the implications of new DNA testing that places an unknown man at the scene, the judge took no action. Defense attorneys plan to get the suspects released on a writ bond
June 18, 2009: Robert Springsteen’s attorneys present District Judge Mike Lynch with the results of new DNA lab testing and say the results prove their client did not commit the murders. He asks the judge to release his client on bond while he awaits trial.
June 22, 2009: Travis County District Judge Mike Lynch denies a bond reduction for Robert Springsteen, ruling against his motion to have his bond reduced while awaiting trial.
June 24, 2009: Springsteen and Scott were released from prison on bond pending their upcoming trials. Scott was set to appear for his trial July 6; however, the DA requested a continuance in the case.
Oct. 28, 2009: Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg filed a motion for dismissal and requested that the charges against Springsteen and Scott be dismissed. Court records revealed law enforcement was still investigating the DNA testing and related matters, and Lehmberg wasn’t going to go to trial on the case as the investigations continued.
2010s
Cold-case work in the investigation continued with little progress, but technological advancements in the realm of DNA were being made.
Dec. 23, 2010: During an altercation with police, Maurice Pierce was shot and killed.
2013: Robert Springsteen filed lawsuits in state and federal courts seeking compensation for being wrongfully imprisoned, but both were dismissed by September.
January 2017: Travis County DA Margaret Moore formed a trial team and partnership with APD’s Cold Case Unit to continue investigating the case. The DA’s Office set aside office space for the newly formed “Yogurt Shop Team” to store evidence and house the detectives.
2017: An Austin detective submits DNA evidence found from one of the victims into a database for a DNA profile that forensic investigators use to identify male relatives of suspects, and a match was found. APD requested more information about the match, but the FBI did not provide any.
2018: The cold case collaboration effort was placed under First Assistant DA Mindy Montford, who worked with the Cold Case Unit to oversee the assignment of individual prosecutors and supervise the cases’ eventual prosecution.
2020s
March 2021: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton helps form Texas’ Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit to provide assistance and support to Texas law enforcement agencies with “unsolved cases, including homicides, missing persons, and other matters centered around human identification and forensic genealogy.”
May 2021: U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul, a Republican in Austin, and Eric Swalwell, a Democrat in California, introduced H.R. 3359, or the Homicide Victims’ Families Rights Act, which would allow the families of cold case victims to reopen the case.
August 2022: President Biden signs the Homicide Victims’ Families Rights Act into law.
August 2025: HBO Max released “The Yogurt Shop Murders,” a docuseries on the case.
Sept. 26, 2025: The Austin Police Department announced it had made a “significant breakthrough” in the cold case and linked Robert Eugene Brashers as a suspect in the 1991 deaths. The department planned to provide additional details surrounding the update during a news conference Sept. 29, 2025.
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