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On the 6th of December, 1991, Jennifer Harbison and her coworker Eliza Thomas, each aged 17, were closing up at the yogurt store where they were employed. Waiting for a lift were Jennifer's sister, Sarah Harbison, aged 15, and her friend, 13-year-old Amy Ayers.

Just before midnight, a fire at the store attracted emergency crews, who found a horrific scene: the four girls had been restrained, fatally attacked, and showed evidence of sexual violence. The configration eliminated nearly all evidence, except for a shell casing that had ended up in a drain and trace amounts of DNA, notably evidence beneath Amy Ayers' nails.

The Case That Shook a City

The yogurt shop murders traumatized the community in Austin and became one of the most notorious unsolved mysteries in America. Over many years of investigative roadblocks and mistaken arrests, the killings ultimately contributed to a federal law enacted in 2022 that enables families of the deceased to petition unsolved investigations to be reopened.

But the crimes continued to baffle investigators for nearly 34 years – before this development.

Key Development

Law enforcement officials announced on this past Monday a "significant breakthrough" powered by new technology in bullet matching and forensic science, announced the Austin mayor at a media event.

Genetic matches suggest Robert Eugene Brashers, who was identified after his death as a repeat offender. More murders could be linked to him as DNA analyses continue to improve and widespread.

"The sole forensic clue recovered from that scene has been linked to him," stated the city's police chief.

This investigation remains open, but this represents a "major step", and Brashers is thought to be the only attacker, authorities stated.

Healing Begins

A family member, Sonora, shared that her mind was split after Eliza was killed.

"One half of my consciousness has been yelling, 'What took place to my sister?', and the other half kept insisting, 'I'll never learn the truth. I will die not knowing, and I have to be OK with that,'" she stated.

After discovering about this breakthrough in the case, "the conflicting thoughts of my mind started melding," she explained.

"Finally I comprehend the truth, and that lessens my pain."

Mistaken Arrests Corrected

The news not only bring resolution to the loved ones; it also completely clears two suspects, minors when arrested, who maintained they were coerced into admitting guilt.

Springsteen, a teenager at the time when the murders occurred, was given a death sentence, and Scott, who was 15, was received a life sentence. The two said they only confessed following marathon interviews in the late 1990s. In 2009, the two were released after their convictions were reversed due to new precedents on admissions lacking physical evidence.

The district attorney's office dropped the charges against the two men in that year after a forensic examination, referred to as Y-STR, indicated neither man aligned against the DNA samples recovered from the yogurt shop.

The Investigation Advances

The Y-STR profile – suggesting an mystery suspect – would eventually be the crucial element in cracking the investigation. In recent years, the DNA profile was reexamined because of scientific progress – but a countrywide check to other police departments returned no genetic matches.

During the summer, an investigator working on the case in 2022, considered a new approach. Time had gone by since the ballistics from the cartridge had been uploaded to the NIBIN database – and in the interim, the database had seen substantial enhancements.

"The system has improved dramatically. In fact, we're using advanced modeling now," the detective commented at the press conference.

There was a hit. An open homicide case in another state, with a comparable method, had the matching variety of shell casing. The detective and another official consulted the local investigators, who are actively pursuing their unnamed case – which involves processing samples from a rape kit.

Connecting the Dots

The apparent breakthrough got Jackson thinking. Could there be additional proof that might link with cases in other states? He considered right away of the DNA profile – but there was a problem. The national DNA registry is the countrywide system for police, but the yogurt shop DNA was not complete enough and scarce to submit.

"I said, well, time has passed. Additional facilities are conducting this analysis. Systems are expanding. Let's do a nationwide search again," he said.

He distributed the years-old DNA data to police departments around the country, asking them to manually compare it to their internal records.

There was another hit. The DNA pattern corresponded precisely with a genetic evidence from Greenville, South Carolina – a killing that occurred in 1990 that was resolved with the aid of a DNA firm and an expert in genetic genealogy in 2018.

Identifying the Killer

The researcher created a ancestry profile for the murderer from that case and found a kinship connection whose biological evidence indicated a immediate family link – probably a close relative. A magistrate authorized that the deceased individual be removed from burial, and his DNA aligned against the crime scene sample.

Usually, this expert is can move on from closed investigations in order to focus on the next one.

"But I have {not been