Police name Robert Eugene Brashers as suspect, yogurt shop murders

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Austin police have linked the killing of four teenage girls at a yogurt shop in Texas' capital city in 1991 to Robert Eugene Brashers, a serial killer and rapist known to have killed at least two women and one 12 year-old girl.

On Dec. 6, 1991, four teenage girls were found dead inside the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” yogurt shop along a bustling business road in north Austin. All four girls were found bound and stacked on top of each other -- each shot in the head. Some had been sexually assaulted.

The case was never solved, and it's become one of Texas' most well-known cold cases. Thirty-four years later, the case is back in the spotlight after DNA and ballistics testing identified Brashers as the suspect, according to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson's office.

Though Brashers had a notable record of violent crimes, his name was relatively unknown until 2018, when DNA testing tied him to the murders of two women and a girl (one of the women's 12-year-old daughter, who he raped) in the early 1990s. He was also named in the rape of a 14-year-old Tennessee girl in 1997, per reporting by NewsNation affiliate WREG.

Robert Eugene Brashers (Photo from the Missouri Highway State Patrol and Department of Public Safety)

Brashers was previously convicted for attempted murder in a 1985 incident in Fort Pierce, Florida, where he shot a 25-year-old woman twice in the head after she refused his advances. He served 12 years in prison.

Brashers died by suicide after a 1999 standoff with police at a Missouri motel. During the incident, Brashers took his wife, daughters and stepdaughter hostage before ultimately shooting himself. His death was ruled a suicide though he died days later from his injuries.

The victims in the Austin yogurt shop murders were 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and her sister Sarah, 15, Eliza Thomas, 17, and 13-year-old Amy Ayers.

Nexstar's Grace Reader contributed to this story.