Yogurt shop murders fuel family questions about accomplice as rage lingers over wrongfully accused
Yogurt shop murders fuel family questions about accomplice as rage lingers over wrongfully accused
Nearly 34 years after his 13-year-old sister died during the 1991 Austin, Texas, yogurt shop massacre, Shawn Ayers and his wife, Angie, have launched a national cold case effort while still seeking answers about the attack and whether an accomplice is out there.
Angie, along with Shawn, whose sister Amy was among four girls killed in the attack, have joined former prosecutors Mindy Montford and Anne Marie Schubert to establish the National Cold Case Center.
The decades-long search for answers in Amys case inspired the couple to help establish the nonprofit, which helps to fund unsolved homicide investigations, train investigators and support victims families.
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"Due to what we've gone through and seen, not only from our own experience, but from listening to other families struggle throughout this process," Angie told Fox News Digital. "Years ago, we had wanted to start a nonprofit."
Amy, Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas, both 17, and Jennifers sister, Sarah Harbison, 15, died in the attack at the I Cant Believe Its Yogurt! shop on West Anderson Lane on Dec. 6, 1991.
On the night of the killings, Jennifer and Eliza were working the closing shift, while Sarah and Amy waited for them to finish so the four could head to a sleepover.
Shortly before midnight, authorities received a report of a fire at the shop. The blaze and water from the sprinklers altered the crime scene and diluted evidence, according to FBI files.
Inside, police discovered Sarah, Eliza and Jennifer stacked together in the shops storage room. They were stripped, gagged and bound with their own undergarments, and then shot in the back of the head with .22-caliber bullets.
Investigators found Amy in a separate area with a ligature around her neck and burns covering up to 30% of her body, according to court documents.
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FBI records described two gunshot wounds: an initial .22-caliber shot that missed Amys brain and a second shot from a .380-caliber pistol through her cheek and jawline.
Investigators recovered a .380 cartridge casing in a floor drain. During the autopsy, officials recovered four .22-caliber bullets from the bodies.
The search for answers stretched across decades, combined with false confessions, arrests, convictions and appeals before DNA and ballistics evidence identified serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers in September 2025.
Brashers fatally shot himself during a January 1999 police standoff in Missouri, leaving the families no chance to confront him at a murder trial.
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Authorities had previously connected him
