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The unsolved murder of four teenage girls in a Texas yogurt shop in 1991 has long haunted the state and investigators.
Eliza Thomas, 17, Jennifer Harbinson, 17, Sarah Harbinson, 17, and Amy Ayers, 13, were bound, gagged and shot in the back of the head before the building was set on fire.
Two men were charged and convicted with their killings, only for DNA evidence to later exonerate them.
Now the authorities say they have a tracked down a new suspect behind the brutal crime.
They believe new DNA evidence proves serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers, who died by suicide in a standoff with officers in 1999, was the murderer.
The four teenage girls were killed on December 6, 1991, at an ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas.
Investigators say someone entered the store through the back door before attacking the girls and setting the shop alight.
Two of the teengares, Jennifer Harbison and and Thomas, worked at the shop, while the other two had stopped by there for a lift to a slumber party.
Their bodies were found charred beyond recognition, naked, and stacked on top of one another – with at least one having been raped.
Austin police took eight years to make an arrest.
Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, who were teenagers at the time of the murders, initially confessed to police, but later recanted their admissions of guilt.
Despite saying their statements were made under duress, the pair were tried and convicted.
But those guilty verdicts were overturned on appeal, before prosecutors then said DNA evidence cleared them.
Springsteen and Scott were freed in 2009 without any answers for the families of the four girls.
Austin law enforcement say they have considered 1,200 possible suspects over the last 34 years.
Now they say they have identified Robert Eugene Brashers as the suspect behind the murders ‘through a wide range of DNA testing.’
They are due to host a press conference on Monday outlining the break through.
Brashers died in 1999 during an hourslong standoff with police at a motel, which ended when he shot himself.
He has now been linked to a number of unsolved murders.
This includes the 1998 killing of Sherri Scherer and her daughter, Megan, in their home near Portageville.
Police say Brashers sexually assaulted the 12-year-old victim.
Investigators have also linked him to the 1990 killing of Genevieve Zitrick, 28.
She was found beaten and strangled in her bathtub in South Carolina.
Brashers’ criminal record also included attempted murder, burglary and impersonating a police officer.
His daughter reacted with sadness to the news that her father had implicated in another murder.
Deborah Brashers-Claunch was just an infant in 1991 when the yogurt shop murders took place.
She told KXAN-TV that she didn’t know how her dad had come to be in Austin and warned that more crimes of his could come to light.
She added: ‘I am very sorry to every family that my father hurt.
‘I know that it is not my place at all to tell you I am sorry, but someone has to because he was not sorry for it and half of my DNA is the person that hurt you the most, so I want to tell you sorry, and I am so sorry for everything. But I am finally glad that you are getting answers.’
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