When? Four teen girls murdered In 1991, an Austin, Texas, in a curd shop, a heartbreaking city was searching for the north. Nobody thought that after more than 30 years, the matter would remain unresolved.
But now, thanks to the new progress in DNA technology, it is a new look that a piece of evidence collected from the scene on the night of the crime would be important to solve the case once and for all. “48 hours” correspondent Erin Moriyerti reported “The Yogart Shop Murds” on Saturday, August 2 at 9/8C and Paramount+in an encrill of streaming.
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On December 6, 1991, 17 -year -old Eliza Thomas, 13 -year -old Amy Aires, and two sisters, 17 -year -old Jennifer Harbisson and 15 -year -old Sarah Harbisson were found Gaggarh, tied with their own clothes, and shot in the head, I can’t believe that it is curd! Shop in Austin. Anyone who was responsible had also set the shop on fire, in which a lot of evidence was compromised.
Eliza and Jennifer were working at a curd shop that night. They were getting ready to close when Jennifer’s sister, Sara, and her friends, Amy, met her to go home there. Investigators believe that at least two people entered the shop and committed a cruel crime.
Gunshot lesions revealed that two different types of guns were used – but there were other evidences at the scene, and the debris by the fire complicated the initial investigation. The Austin Police Department soon developed a task force completely dedicated to resolve the crime. Government agencies, including the FBI, were called for assistance, but the case finally cooled down by 1999, when four men, Robert Springstein, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forest Welborne were arrested and accused of murders.
Men were only teenagers at the time of crime. He was questioned a few days after the murders, when one of them, Maurice Pierce was arrested in a mall away from a curd shop in a mall, with a .22 with a .22 caliber gun – one of the same type of weapons was used in murders.
All four were left back to a shortage of evidence, but in 1999, when a new team of investigators was tasked with a new look at the old case, they received a confession from two men, Robert Springstein and Michael Scott. Those confessions will be called to the question after being re -told both of them, saying they were forced.
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Due to lack of evidence, the allegations against Maurice Pierce and Forest Welbourne were finally removed, and Robert Springstein and Michael Scott were only two to go on the test. The only evidence against him was his own words. He was convicted, but a few years later, his convicts were overturned on a constitutional basis. The sixth amendment empowers the defendants to face the accused and in Scott and Springstein’s tests, their confession was used against each other, but was not allowed to question each other in court.
Rosemary Lehmberg, Travis County, Texas, at that time were with the intention of recovering the District Attorney, Springstein and Scott. But before doing so, his office decided to take advantage of what was a new type of DNA test called Y-STR test. This was only a way of discovering and extracting male DNA. The Y-STR test was ordered at the vagina swab taken from the victims at the time of the murders. By this point, investigators believed that one of the at least one of the victims was sexually assaulted. As a result of the Y-STR test, a partial male DNA profile was obtained from one of the girls, but for the surprise of the District Attorney Office, the DNA sample did not match any of the four men who were arrested.
Cece Moore, a DNA specialist and genetic genealogist, which we interviewed for the “48 hours” of this week, told correspondent Erin Moriyriti that Y-STR DNA is sometimes a tool used in criminal cases. Moore explained that “almost everyone can finish. … everyone but suspicious.”
“If his Y-STR does not match, he did not contribute that DNA?” Moriyarti asked Moore.
Moore said, “Because he was found DNA, yes, in this case, it is very important.”
Nevertheless, the prosecutors were prescribed to recreate Springstein and Scott. But before doing so, they wanted to find out who he was Mystery DNA.
District Attorney Lehmberg says more than 100 men – such as crime scenes investors and medical examiners office personnel who may come in contact with the body and have possibly have been a source of contamination – were tested. All this was no use. In 2009, without a match, the allegations against Springstein and Scott were abandoned. Nearly 10 years later, behind the bars, they were released, but it was not removed, except the open they could be re -achieved.
For years, the officials kept trying to track the source of mystery DNA. Then, in 2017, an Austin Police Investigator discovered a public online DNA database used for population studies, to see if he could get a hit. Unreliable, he did. It looked the most promising lead over the years, but there was a problem. The public database appears that the sample was presented anonymously by the FBI and no name was attached. When Austin’s officials approached the FBI in an attempt to get a name, the FBI would not provide it citing privacy laws.
Disappointed, city officials approached American Congressman Michael McCall, who are helping Austin. McCall suppressed the FBI, and “48 hours” learned that in early 2020, the FBI agreed to work with the Austin Police Department whether further tests could be done on the Y-STR DNA from the crime site.
“48 hours” learned that initially, the sample from the crime site was not very wide and had only 16 markers, but in 2020 more advanced testing came up with an additional nine markers, making the total marker counted 25. However, this more advanced testing showed that the sample from the crime site no longer proved to be a match for samples in the public DNA database. In a letter to the Congress McCall received by “48 hours”, the FBI explained the new results “decisively excluded the male donor of the FBI sample … such as, the FBI Y-STR profile is not a search lead.”
“And this was the biggest disappointment because we really thought we had,” the Congress McCall told Moriyriti.
Nevertheless, McCall says that he and Austin officials will not rest until they determine who is the DNA from the crime site.
“We are waiting … what we have left for further tests in the Crime Lab to restart DNA science,” McCall said.
According to McCall, the actual Y-STR DNA is still present from the sample found on the victim in the case of a curd shop.
“This is very limited and … that’s why we are waiting for science to improve it, because very little is left,” he said.
With DNA Research so quickly, McCall hopes that one day of DNA received 30 years ago will solve the case at the end.
“It’s all,” they say.
