In 1991, Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, Jennifer Harbison and Sarah Harbison were killed in a yogurt shop in North Austin.
AUSTIN, Texas — A billboard in Austin once asked, “Who killed these girls?” after four teenagers were murdered at a North Austin yogurt shop just weeks before Christmas in 1991.
For decades, their families – and the public – mourned them, never knowing who was responsible. Now, there is an answer.
On Friday, law enforcement sources confirmed to KVUE that the so-called “Yogurt Shop Murders” have been solved. The girls were killed by American serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers.
As the families and others impacted reconcile with the sudden closure, many are reflecting on the young lives of the victims: 13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, and sisters 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and 15-year-old Sarah Harbison.
Thomas and Jennifer Harbison both worked at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop on West Anderson Lane, while Ayers and Sarah Harbison had stopped in before closing time on Dec. 6, 1991, the night of the crime.
After the murders, the perpetrator – now identified as Brashers – set the building on fire.
In the days immediately following the crimes, KVUE followed the story, getting to know the girls’ families and who they were.
“I went to the KVUE news director and asked permission to approach the families of the girls in order to learn more about who they were,” former KVUE reporter Dick Ellis said in 2019. “Even though the parents were understandably distraught, they agreed to talk to me and take me and my camera into the girls’ bedrooms to learn more about the routines of their daily lives.”
Ellis’s interviews were broadcast in a series of reports on KVUE shortly after the murders.
“I knew there was more to the story than pictures of the crime scene,” Ellis said in 2019. “It was the little things that told the stories of who those girls were. One of them collected miniature cats and horses. Another had dozens of pictures of her best friends. Another was a track star at her school.”
All four of the girls were involved with Future Farmers of America (FAA), where they met and became friends. Ellis told KVUE there were many home videos of the girls hanging out at FAA events as they showed the animals they had raised.
Ellis’s reports from 1991 can be viewed below. The first focuses on the Harbison sisters, Jennifer and Sarah; the second on Eliza Thomas; and the third on Amy Ayers.