AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Texas State University professor called for the exoneration of four men who were falsely accused of committing the 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders. Kim Rossmo — a serial murder researcher with the TXST School of Criminal Justice & Criminology who recently released a report that shows the “Rainey Street Ripper” in Austin likely doesn’t exist — said that DNA found at the scene of the crime did not match the genetic sequences of those four previous suspects.
This comes after the Austin Police Department identified a suspect last Friday in the 1991 cold case: Robert Eugene Brashers. APD’s lead investigator in the case said that Brashers was identified as the murderer of four teenage girls at a yogurt shop through DNA testing. Brashers committed suicide during a police shootout in 1999, and since then has been identified by police as a “serial killer.”
Prior to identifying Brashers as the killer in the yogurt shop case, police pursued charges against four other suspects. Two of the men were released due to a lack of evidence. The two other men were convicted and eventually released in the 2000s, but they have not been officially exonerated.
“These people are innocent,” he said. “Up until recently, there were some individuals who still felt they were guilty on the basis of next to no evidence beyond a problematic confession.”
While the DNA found at the crime scene did not match the suspects, Rossmo explained this did not automatically rule them out. Though they paused pursuing charges, city prosecutors at the time may have thought the non-matching DNA belonged to a crime scene detective or someone in the forensics lab, Rossmo said.
“One of the original detectives called me liar because I said there was weak evidence in the case,” he said. “That led to us doing a little more digging and presentation on the matter.”
Moving from state to state is what allowed Brashers to remain undetected for so long, Rossmo said. Although he is confident Austin Police now have the right person, Rossmo said this discovery only raises more questions.
“Why would he have been in Austin? What was he doing here? What other crimes might he have done?” Rossmo said. “Was (Austin) part of his regular route or did he have some specific intent to commit a crime?”
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