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delicious recipes [Music] [Music] n [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:01:41
you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
00:01:45
as always we close like stari and Hutch here is the captain it's good to be seing it's good to see you thanks for
00:01:52
listening thanks for telling a friend today we got some more of that pickle beer best made pickle beer by the good
00:02:04
folks over at martinous Brewing Company they have some other versions of this that I wish that I would have tried
00:02:11
while we were there they have a Spicy Pickle a Bloody Marry pickle beer but today it's best made pickle beer by
00:02:18
Martin house Brewing garage grade 4 and a half bottle caps out of five cheers to
00:02:23
our friends a big cheers is due in fact first up cheers to Matt and Trina and Hearts unknown and a big we like your
00:02:31
jib to Ashley in Greenville Tennessee and there's another Ashley out there but she is in Rayford North Carolina cheers
00:02:40
to you well hell let's cheers all the Ashley's and a big cheers to Amanda in Washington DC next up cheers to Terell
00:02:47
and Amanda in Denim Springs Louisiana and last but certainly not least we have a big Ron Swanson please and thank you
00:02:55
that goes out to Dr Roy from Round Rock Texas everyone we just mentioned they went to our website true Crim garage.com
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and helped us out with this week's beer fund for the beer run and for that we thank you BW R you in beer run if you
00:03:13
need more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our bonus show callede off the Record we love to do
00:03:19
case updates every other week and if you're not listening then you're not nasty and that's enough of the business
00:03:27
all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music]
00:03:49
[Music] crime when APD Sergeant John Jones was asked about how he would describe the
00:04:03
yogurt shop crime scene he simply said wholesale Carnage now as to the crime scene and
00:04:10
how things were found we're going to review that now but keep in mind the uphill battle for Crime Scene techs the
00:04:18
detectives and the arson investigators this place was a mess and think back to our trailer at the top of yesterday's
00:04:27
show when Sergeant Jones wrote a note to the district attorney that said robbery
00:04:32
plus sexual assault plus multiple child victims plus bondage plus gunshot wounds
00:04:39
plus fire heat smoke water damage plus no known Witnesses equal the homicide arson and DA's worst nightmare put a big
00:04:49
underline Under Fire heat smoke and water damage so obviously smoke heat and fire damage from the fire the fire at
00:04:58
one point getting so hot that the shelving unit melted along with items on it and because of the fire we're also
00:05:06
going to have water damage at the crime scene one from the powerful blast of the
00:05:10
firefighter's hoses but compound that with the fire having caused a PVC pipe break which was flooding the store
00:05:18
before the firefighters were on the scene let's also keep in mind that no one arriving to the fire is expecting to
00:05:25
find murdered victims of course unfortunately you have fatal fir but here we have an arson set with the
00:05:32
purpose of covering up the murders and the crimes committed between the times of 11:03 p.m. and 11:48 p.m. I have said
00:05:41
time and time again Captain how much I hate a situation when emergency services are responding to one type of call when
00:05:49
in all actuality they are in fact responding to a scene where much more has gone down it's always difficult for
00:05:56
the investigators because you often cannot undo the actions taken by those responding to
00:06:02
the scene like we know fire destroys evidence water destroys evidence and it's already a difficult crime scene
00:06:10
because it's a public place there's going to be a lot of evidence that there was multiple people in that building at
00:06:16
one point during that day yes and again the responders responding to one type of
00:06:21
call and then finding out something else it always severely hurts the investigative process some examples Mara
00:06:29
Murray they're responding to a broken down vehicle or a single car accident when
00:06:34
this actually was also a missing person possibly abduction possible homicide yeah or John Benet Ramsey they're
00:06:41
responding to a kidnapping not a murder in the house here we have a fire and a fire coming from a restaurant they
00:06:49
likely have responded to many of these types of calls and other local food vendors grease fires or the store closes
00:06:57
and someone simply left a burner on it happens all of the time here we have arson to destroy evidence to further
00:07:05
cloak the Killer's identities as they flee into the night well and like you said this place is known to close at 11:
00:07:14
so when you see that there was a fire and it's almost midnight as First Responders you're thinking all this fire
00:07:21
happened after people locked up and went home so what else was found at the scene
00:07:26
well in the process of Prosecuting two of the arrest did for the prosecutor went into a lengthy and graphic
00:07:34
description of the crime scene a little warning here I know this is a true crime
00:07:39
show but this crime scene is particularly gruesome prosecutor Robert Smith said that firefighters had to
00:07:46
break down the front door of the store because it was locked with the key still in the lock he said firefighters could
00:07:53
not see into the store because of smoke after the fire had been put out they discovered Amy air 's body first and
00:08:01
then the bodies of the other three girls SS was found lying in the middle section
00:08:06
of the store that's his words to be clear this is still the back room but she is found in the front portion of
00:08:13
this back room the other three victims were located at the very back of the store near the melted shelving unit and
00:08:20
the back door Amy SS was found without clothes and on her side face down near her was an empty cash drawer the medical
00:08:28
exam determined her cause of death to be strangulation and gunshot wounds to the
00:08:33
Head a 22 caliber bullet was recovered the other three were found in the back portion of the store in the back room
00:08:41
Sarah Harbison was found gagged with her hands tied behind her and investigators
00:08:45
determined that she had been sexually assaulted Smith said her body was extensively burned Eliza Thomas was
00:08:52
found on top of Sarah Harbison in a similar manner her body and face were burned beyond recognition and she was
00:08:59
identified by dental records so do they think accelerant was used on their bodies no well and that's frankly a
00:09:08
difficult question to answer because through through the course of time the fire investigation and their
00:09:16
determinations have changed or been modified let's say over the years so in the original investigation and I have a
00:09:24
good portion to cover this later there was General thought that there was not much of an accelerant used
00:09:30
at all and we'll Circle back to that but we have Smith who said that investigators believe that Jennifer
00:09:36
harbison's body was originally on top of the other two girls however she was found nearby having been moved either by
00:09:44
the fire or the blast of the water hoses and Smith makes it pretty clear to the court that they believe all the girls
00:09:51
were dead before the fires were started the prosecution reasoned that since all had been shot in the head their bodies
00:09:58
were moved and stacked as they were all found face up but that statement isn't completely clear about the crime scene
00:10:07
exactly so what he's referencing here is the bodies of the three girls that were
00:10:12
found at the very back of the store because we know Amy SS was found in a slightly different location she's found
00:10:19
face down however the other three girls were found face up leading them to believe because of the way that they
00:10:26
were shot that they had to have been moved at after they were shot and killed because the fire was so intense the
00:10:32
crime scene unit had to sift with shovels and screen to find evidence eventually they found some bullet shells
00:10:40
in the corner near the rear door of the store investigators found a pile of burned clothes included were remnants of
00:10:48
denim Fabric and clothing from all of the girls as well as a heart-shaped belt buckle that had belonged to Amy SS
00:10:58
however police teams never recovered the belt that went with this belt buckle a ring that belonged to Sarah harbison's
00:11:06
boyfriend was also found so this was a ring that she wore on her finger and she took the time and made the effort to
00:11:14
take that ring off for some reason is what Smith says right Sarah's wallet was also found there again this is another
00:11:22
indication I don't know if there was money in the wallet but just another example of maybe money not the prime
00:11:30
goal here yeah I mean this case is very confusing because even just like having the victims
00:11:37
undress what's what's the purpose if you know that you're going to start a fire to try to get rid of some evidence what
00:11:43
would be the purpose of having them undress well the other crimes committed that night will dictate the purpose of
00:11:50
having them undress yeah obviously though the guns used to kill the girls was a 22 caliber and a 380 caliber
00:11:57
weapon they have never been found but could be identified by the characteristics left on the discharged
00:12:05
bullets so we've not located these weapons but if they were ever located and tested in comparison to the bullets
00:12:13
used to kill the girls we would be able to determine if it was in fact the match
00:12:19
well the strangulation feels a little personal to me personable or necessary right so we have one victim that was
00:12:27
that was strangled and but she was also shot twice so what that tells me is there's a chance that someone may have
00:12:35
thought that she was dead when in fact she was not or maybe she put up a fight this is going to lead us to hold back
00:12:43
information so those of you that have listened to this show longtime listeners you already know what hold back
00:12:50
information is however if we have anybody a new listener maybe somebody from Texas that wants to check out our
00:12:57
coverage of this case because of the 30-year marker coming up or maybe just a drunk listener that stumbled onto our
00:13:04
show by accident oh yeah fell fell into our sh fell right into the garage hold back information is pretty simple stuff
00:13:12
it's information that only the experts only the law enforcement agency investigating the case and the medical
00:13:19
examiner's office would know you are simply holding on to this information and holding it back from the public
00:13:27
because especially in a high-profile crime or high-profile case as is the Austin yogurt shop murders case you will
00:13:37
have false confessions and we will have plenty of them in this case and so it's important to hold back some specific
00:13:45
details so that when those false confessions start coming in you can weed out the persons that did not commit this
00:13:53
crime and we won't go into the psych the psychology of why or who who would make
00:14:00
a false confession we pointed that out and went over that quite a bit in our first time
00:14:05
around in this case but let's review the hold back information here Captain this
00:14:11
was decided on December 7th so the next day the next afternoon less than 24 hours after the girls were
00:14:19
killed the Austin Police Department decides we are going to make a list and they created a list of 13 pieces of
00:14:27
evidence to be hel back and those items were number one how and where the fire was started but do we know where the
00:14:35
fire started the fire has always been a bit of a pisser here in this case here Captain you're a pisser for seven
00:14:43
years we were told well again they're holding back this information but later we learned that for seven years the
00:14:51
arson investigators all agreed that the fire started on the shelves that shelving unit that melted now this
00:14:58
shelving unit is located near where three of the bodies were recovered but it's always been believed that the fire
00:15:06
started like on the second or third shelf and was started using things that would easily go up in flames right we
00:15:14
have like paper products on this shelf we also have styrofoam products on the shelving unit anybody that's ever been
00:15:22
in Cub Scouts and tossed a a styrofoam cup into a campfire you you know how quick those babies go up there were also
00:15:31
things on this shelving unit that would have been highly flammable right like paint cans aerosol cans things of that
00:15:41
nature right they're basically using that as their starter when confessions start coming
00:15:46
in one thing that I found that was completely Bizarro is that a lot of the confessions we have people saying that
00:15:54
the fire was started on the victims that they piled up the victims and then put some type of accelerant in several of
00:16:02
the confessions they say lighter fluid from like like a Zippo can lighter fluid doused the that on top of the victims
00:16:10
and then lit them that seems to that narrative seems to have changed right around the time that they're looking to
00:16:17
convict these four individuals that they arrested the next piece of holdback information number two the key in the
00:16:24
front door we've already discussed that how they would put the key in lock from the inside before closing up for the
00:16:31
whole night and then leave through that door and then eventually sliding that key back underneath the door right this
00:16:40
is something that would not be known to many people outside of employees of the icby store number three how much money
00:16:49
was taken we can't say for certain how much money was taken we have in our notes
00:16:54
$540 was missing from that night number four how the girls bodies were arranged so the stacking process and where they
00:17:02
would be located inside the store is valuable information because again we're going to have confessions come forward
00:17:10
and they're not going to be able to put the bodies where they were eventually found but when you have so many First
00:17:15
Responders I think he said there's over 50 firefighters at the scene nearly 50 I
00:17:21
don't know how many actually went into the store itself it it it's a good possibility that some of this
00:17:27
information would be leaked out to the public yes and and it absolutely was and Austin PD admits that over the years
00:17:37
that they were aware that somehow some of this information got out in fact but at the end but at the end of the day if
00:17:44
you're respon first responder responding to a what you think is a fire and now you're dealing with four women that were
00:17:53
brutally murdered that's something that weighs on you if you end up tell telling
00:17:58
a couple people because you're struggling with that you know I I know that it hinders an investigation but
00:18:05
these First Responders are human right but there's a lot of information on this list that won't be obvious to just
00:18:14
somebody responding to the fire right and the other thing too here we're not sitting on this information pretending
00:18:20
that only one person knew the answers to all 13 of these right we sit here 30 years later and don't know the answers
00:18:27
to all of these ourselves well so but we still believe that the killer does the killer yes then would have known the
00:18:35
answers to these questions or the the hold back information number five what was used to bind the girls number six
00:18:44
that the office was not entered that's a very interesting one because again we have a situation remember that small
00:18:52
office has a locked door on it and they were able to determine that that door was not access
00:18:59
so yeah a lot and look a lot of these back areas they're not like and I don't know what kind of door this would have
00:19:05
been but like when I used to teach in a teach guitar lessons in the strip mall like those back office we there were
00:19:12
chintzy doors I wouldn't take much to break one of those down if the door was locked you could huff and puff and blow
00:19:19
the door down but but I agree with you on the sense that I don't know how much stealing money or getting money for this
00:19:28
crime had much to do with anything the floor safe is in the office right even if you don't know that a safe is in this
00:19:36
office if you take $540 or whatever the amount ended up being from the register you're probably
00:19:43
looking for some more cash the office whether you think there's a safe in there or not is the place where that
00:19:50
additional money would be you would at the very least access it and look around hell I worked at a place where we had a
00:19:58
break in overnight they couldn't figure out how to open the safe so they removed
00:20:04
the whole entire safe they just took it with them right and it was located like a week or two later about 2 or 3 hours
00:20:11
away on the side of the highway with the door missing so people get creative when
00:20:16
they're looking for money here we got a couple people that or offenders that either aren't looking for money or can't
00:20:23
fight their way out of a paper bag number seven the office key was still under the cash register okay again you
00:20:30
would need this key unless you're going to huff and puff and blow that door down
00:20:34
you're going to need this key to get into the locked office right and I cannot imagine a situation where I am
00:20:42
holding guns two children and demanding to know where the money is that one of them doesn't offer up that here's the
00:20:51
key to the locked office in the back no because it was it was company policy to drop the
00:21:03
money at the end of the night it was also company policy that this is where they would leave their personal
00:21:07
belonging so Eliza Thomas arrives at work just before 700 p.m. and she places all of her personal belongings inside of
00:21:16
that locked office to which later the next day when they're going through the crime scene they find all of her
00:21:23
personal items still inside of that office yeah I agree that with a gun to your head you're not going to hold back
00:21:29
that information number eight the caliber of weapons used and we know that to be a 22 and a 380 of course the the
00:21:37
whole city is going to know that guns were used the key here is that they do not know what calibers were used they
00:21:43
also would not know that two different guns were used and this is also something that the firefighters would
00:21:50
not know when responding to the scene right and very likely something that even crime teexs and medical examiners
00:21:56
would not know until later in the autopsy process but it's also evidence that points to more than one attacker
00:22:04
yep unless you're double fisted we have more than one killer here number nine that two pairs of the victim's
00:22:10
Underpants were missing never found at the scene now I guess it's not too hard to believe that they may have just gone
00:22:17
up in smoke because we have a fire here but it seems to me like they're pretty thorough about what was found at the
00:22:23
scene and what was not right number 10 this is key man and this is one that has really stuck with me throughout the
00:22:31
years Amy SS was missing her leather bomber jacket okay so there's a little bit of a story here from my
00:22:41
understanding this bomber jacket was a men's or a a boy's bomber jacket and I believe this belonged to her older
00:22:49
brother at one point but it was like one of her favorite things you know something that she wore this is also
00:22:56
another indication that you know this this is a a girl coming up and she's realizing hey I'm going out with friends
00:23:02
on a Friday night and I'm starting to feel like a real teenager here because I'm doing you know older kids stuff and
00:23:10
so while we say money doesn't seem to be of the utmost importance to these perpetrators one of them went out of
00:23:18
their way to take the leather bomber jacket from the scene see to me that feels personable it seems like I mean
00:23:26
yeah look it could just be that they fancied that jacket but to me you start leaning to the towards the idea did
00:23:33
these attackers take two pairs of the victim's underwear do they take this jacket
00:23:41
for other reasons other than they might have just like the jacket could be some kind of trophy if we if we're talking
00:23:48
about uh serial offender or or otherwise number 11 Amy's bruise under her chin from a blow of some kind so at some some
00:23:58
point she is struck under the chin with either an item or a fist that left a bruise under her now one thing we need
00:24:06
to point out here Captain that's key to this case and to the understanding of the crime scene itself is the three
00:24:13
girls that are found in the very back of the yogurt shop are significantly more burned charred and damaged than Amy SS
00:24:22
so where you're going to have a lot of information about Amy SS that simply due to her proximity to where the fire
00:24:30
started right the fire started in one location and it spreads through there from it spreads from there well we have
00:24:38
First Responders arriving on the scene probably well not probably it's within minutes of the fire being set we don't
00:24:44
know exactly what time the fire was set but we do know that the place was not on
00:24:49
fire at 11:03 when somebody hit that no sale button we have the fire being reported at 11:47 p.m. number 12 that
00:24:58
Amy was strangled and what she was strangled with number 13 that Amy was shot twice with two
00:25:05
different caliber guns all of our other victims were only shot once and as we said and as noted in who killed these
00:25:13
girls this list will have to be revised several [Music] times [Music] this show is sponsored by better help do
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00:27:55
joining us you smell Lov cheers so there's so many things about this case that make me wonder like did
00:28:05
they have a plan did these attackers have a plan to take out one of the victims right away so then they have
00:28:16
less victims to try to control possibly and it's it's a sad situation of course again we will never
00:28:24
really know until the proper person is found and locked up or persons or persons correct however I I think that
00:28:33
we can probably deduce some things about the the attackers and their actions and
00:28:39
their plan and this is one thing that I thought that has always been another misstep in this investigation now I want
00:28:47
to be clear here and and give kudos where it should go and that should go to the Austin PD in this regard where
00:28:54
Austin PD basically said in this invest investigation we are only concerned about the who we are not going to spend
00:29:02
our whole time spending our tires on the why right so but sometimes the why leads
00:29:09
you to the who well and when you're sitting here at our position captain in a smelly garage we have to examine the
00:29:16
who what why when and how come and I think I threw some extra things in there that weren't necessary but you get what
00:29:24
I'm what our show does we throw in a couple things that are not necessary yeah so I think here when I review this
00:29:31
what I'm seeing is a situation where maybe you're not so worried about being outnumbered if you are the perpetrator
00:29:38
right there's four girls you're going to be outnumbered unless you have four perpetrators or more the situation that
00:29:45
you do have is we have a lot of terrible things going on in a short period of time so there's a lot of moving parts
00:29:53
and pieces within the course of about 45 minutes is really what I want to focus focus on and in 45 minutes we have
00:29:59
sexual assault we have terrorizing the girls we have robbery we also have an arson that set and we have the the
00:30:08
perpetrators successfully fleeing the scene all within about a 45 minute span now what that indicates to me if you're
00:30:16
going to set an arson you're somewhat of a sophisticated criminal and I don't mean people always get this wrong they
00:30:23
think oh here Nick goes calling some Maniac a a brilliant IQ criminal criminals I'm sophisticated meaning that they
00:30:37
understand that this fire will destroy evidence that this fire will help this fire will increase the probability and
00:30:44
the likelihood that they are not caught and so this fire is set for that purpose and that purpose alone well and
00:30:52
also it's when you're calling somebody criminally sophisticated you're basically saying
00:30:57
they're they're a bigger douchebag they're a bigger dingdong ass frog you know that's what you're saying it's not
00:31:04
a compliment you're you're putting the individual down that means that this dirt bag thought more about this crime
00:31:11
and how not to get caught the other thing too that the arson indicates to me is that high level of concern of being
00:31:19
caught and getting away with what they did so you're going to want to not be detected and gunshot are loud and this
00:31:29
is a short period of time I don't think that you are using those guns until you have to which would be at the very end
00:31:37
when when you are done doing whatever it is that you set out to do that is what you plan to do at the end right of those
00:31:45
events no Witnesses burn the place and flee and so I think that the shooting and unfortunately the additional
00:31:55
injuries to Amy airs were items that were not necessarily planned but were necessary because she did not and I I
00:32:08
hate to even say these words but here you go she did not die when the others did every one of the other girls we shot
00:32:17
they died as expected Amy SS did not die as expected and therefore we end up with
00:32:24
a second gunshot we end up with the stra angulation at some point and we have some of the medical information that
00:32:33
will back that thought up than assuming that the gunshots happen at different times yes I don't believe for a second
00:32:41
that she was shot at the exact same time with two different guns well not at the
00:32:45
exact same time I'm just you're saying that it could be seconds later though right I mean we're talking the amount
00:32:52
I'm not going to go into it because I don't have the the stomach for it and I I don't have the heart to do it but just
00:33:00
sit back and think without forcing me to do this how many horrible crimes happened in a span of just 45 minutes
00:33:09
and that's being that's giving extra time I don't even think they were there that long no and so you know you're
00:33:18
you're doing things very quickly and the science that will back up the thought of
00:33:23
her being shot twice and why is simple Amy SS was shot through the back of the head the same with the same 22 caliber
00:33:30
gun used on the other girls but in her case the bullet did not enter the brain right and so I think that is why we have
00:33:39
she's reacting to this and then the killers are reacting to her reaction you know we saw in the Lane Bryant shootings
00:33:48
several people they're all laid down the same way face down on the floor Gunn to
00:33:52
the back of the head and one of them twitched or moved or something happened and it didn't work it didn't kill one of
00:33:58
them but it killed the rest of them well and it's also possible that this could be a sign that that there was uh soft
00:34:07
bullets and meaning that those bullets would have been bullets can become soft over time and so these bullets could
00:34:15
have been older bullets that's possible yes and the thing here too is a 22 caliber gun is typically used in a
00:34:23
situation and I don't I don't want to paint the picture of of anybody thinking that this is some type of mob hit a 22
00:34:31
caliber gun is typically used in a crime where your plan is to shoot the individual in the head and kill them
00:34:38
with one shot why because most of the time a higher caliber bullet will do what is called a through and through
00:34:46
meaning that it enters the body at some point and it goes through the body and exits the body at some point mhm with a
00:34:54
22 caliber bullet you want to do you're looking to do as much internal damage as
00:35:01
possible if you want to kill somebody with one bullet so a 22 is often used because it's not powerful enough in most
00:35:09
cases to do a throughand through shot it will go into the body and then it bounces off of a lot of stuff doing a
00:35:16
whole lot of damage in the process well I think it makes people wonder when looking into this
00:35:21
case are there separate victims is she separate from the yeah I don't see a situation
00:35:27
here and again we don't know we're kind of guessing here but I don't see a situation that one that there was even
00:35:32
enough time to to do it in this manner that that somebody went out of their way to kill one and then terrorize the other
00:35:40
three or the reverse of that kill the other three and terrorize one right for an extended period of time I'm seeing
00:35:47
again they're doing something that's necessary and what's really interesting here is that we're talking about a
00:35:56
difference of a few minutes and I mean this is sad and heartbreaking to think about but the difference of a couple of
00:36:04
minutes could be the time that goes by when they learn that what killed the other girls didn't kill Amy and so had
00:36:14
they not figured that out in that very brief time period She may have been able to get up and
00:36:21
flee and I think that that's what she was in the process of doing I think she she was crawling
00:36:27
away from the other bodies I think she was shot originally in the very same local as the other three girls and at
00:36:35
some point she's reacting to the situation and crawled away or started to flee somehow mustered up the strength to
00:36:43
try to get away and unfortunately our killers are still in that room or still present and have the awareness to see
00:36:51
her reaction well it's also confusing because like you said law enforcement is not going to sit around and try to
00:36:57
figure out the why but maybe they're not going to try to sit around and figure out the why because seems very confusing
00:37:03
in this case you have money left behind so you have a room that they didn't even
00:37:08
go into which has a safe you would think that if they had much knowledge of this business at all that they wouldn't
00:37:19
have left that bag of money behind nor would they leave that safe behind so what was successful in killing the other
00:37:26
girls and was attempted on Amy is what is called a contact gunshot wound this is where there is evidence that proves
00:37:37
that the gun was right next to or up against the skin right at the time that the gun is fired
00:37:45
do you have a gut feeling yourself because you know this is the second time that we've been been able to look into
00:37:53
this case do you have a gut feeling as to motive or or why unfortunately I think the motive
00:37:59
here was sexual assault and probably multiple sexual assaults that's what I lean towards as well it would not
00:38:09
surprise me if these perpetrators were previously in the yogurt shop and that could be earlier that day or could be
00:38:16
the week before or days before I think that they were well aware that this was the type of
00:38:24
location that is secluded is a weird word to use being that it's a public place but it's
00:38:32
secluded as soon as those doors are locked for the night as soon as you turn that key on on that front door nobody's
00:38:40
coming in and I think that this is a situation where they could have either the perpetrator stumbled upon an ideal
00:38:48
situation for what it was that they wanted to do or they came there knowing or expecting to find that and that might
00:38:57
mean that they scouted this location in advance the other thing too when you go all right well maybe they stumbled onto
00:39:03
a location in a situation that was ideal for what they wanted to do you wonder where else they went that day and night
00:39:09
looking for the ideal situation you know did they walk down to Mr Gaddy and go you know what there's too many males in
00:39:17
here there's too many employees working all at once let's try a different spot yeah or it could be it could be a
00:39:24
situation where the look I think the is possibly coming from a local individual and somebody that's
00:39:31
been there multiple times around closing time and went they're they're having high school girls close up the shop this
00:39:41
there's no there's no manager on staff and on like you said seclusion sounds strange like you said because it's a
00:39:49
public place but first of all the the major places around there are shutting down at 9:00 the other plac are shutting
00:39:57
down at 10: mhm so now that gives you a whole hour that if you are from that area you know that place is one of the
00:40:04
only places open past 10 so now that that's how it makes it even more secluded and it's a yogurt shop there's
00:40:13
some sometimes when you go into a yogurt shop or the last couple times I've gone
00:40:17
into ice cream shop you're the only customer in there you get your ice cream and and you you go and strangely Captain
00:40:24
this case reminds me a lot you know people will think of Los cruus bowl or Los cruus bowling alley that case when
00:40:32
when right when you review Austin yogurt shop case and yes there's a lot of similarities and I'm not and I'm not
00:40:38
here sitting pretending that they were perpetrated by the same individuals in Las Cruz's Bowl we have a
00:40:45
pretty good description of those who the two men that carried out that crime but they are similar
00:40:52
situations what I like in this crime too and if I were to be air quotes here profiling our offenders and I think I
00:41:02
I'm of the belief that you are that we're looking at two people possibly three I cannot look at the evidence at
00:41:10
the scene and believe that one person carried this out I think that it gets difficult to go much higher than three
00:41:17
as far as the number of perpetrators but this crime reminds me a lot of the Cheshire murders where we have two
00:41:24
individuals that are going in into a home they know what to expect they know who they think will be inside of this
00:41:33
home and they sexually assault they murder and they attempt to burn down the place and once caught they're going to
00:41:44
try to sell it to the public that oh we were just there to rob the family and things got out of control things got out
00:41:52
of hand we panicked and then we ended up killing three of the four family members
00:41:57
and setting the place on fire what I would be looking for and you don't want to I don't I'm all for profiling and I'm
00:42:04
a big fan of it I guess you would say uh it sounds like a really terrible choice
00:42:09
of words but you don't you don't want your theory or your thought process to to put blinders on you in the course of
00:42:18
your investigation but over the course of years when you don't have the answers and you've not arrested someone you've
00:42:25
not locked any body up that sticks you got I think you got to start using those methods and what I would have been
00:42:32
looking for is probably two individuals that were recently released from prison and
00:42:38
probably individuals that have committed similar types of crimes in the past and
00:42:43
what I mean by that is probably not murder but I'm probably looking for somebody one or two individuals with
00:42:49
sexual assault cases one or two individuals with robbery cases maybe one of them's a robber one of them's
00:42:56
sexually assaulted in the past that's kind of where what my gut tells me to me it looks like a crime of not just
00:43:04
Opportunity by the perpetrators but also a crime that they were they were looking
00:43:09
to go out and do something maybe not of this magnitude but something horrific in
00:43:14
nature we've talked about this before you know with Bundy and other types of individuals that that some of these acts
00:43:21
they become addicted to it and I think what I'm seeing here is somebody that needed to do this for whatever reason as
00:43:30
disgusting as that is to say well my gut feeling tells me that there was two attackers but I also think that it's
00:43:38
possibly a local somebody that was making those threatening phone calls or those prank calls I think it's closer to
00:43:47
home and maybe more personal than people think it would be and also it's such a heinous crime that if there was more
00:43:55
than to attackers I think somebody would have told Somebody by now somebody would
00:44:00
have confessed yes and that that's traditionally how it works the more perpetrators you have of a crime the
00:44:06
higher probability that one of them at some point tells somebody right I mean it's just it's just math baby garage
00:44:13
math and the thing is people do it because it either weighs on their conscience or they get drunk and tell
00:44:19
somebody or they they tell somebody in a threatening manner but yeah the number of perpetrators the higher that goes up
00:44:26
the higher your probability goes up that one of them tells somebody and my guess
00:44:30
is that at least one of these individuals is currently in prison on rape charges yeah and here's the thing
00:44:39
that I would really like to know with that we talked about that DNA evidence that the FBI has they've got a match or
00:44:48
some kind of hit on it and and I don't fully understand it not going to pretend to but um I would really like to know
00:44:55
where exactly that they got their hit I do want to touch on something Captain before we get too far along here that
00:45:01
you had referenced earlier um one interesting tidbit that I found along the way in my research for this week's
00:45:09
case is that a woman by the name of reys price I believe her real name is Teresa
00:45:16
or theres price but she goes by Reese price at the time of the yogurt shop murders she was 24 years old she was a
00:45:25
manager that worked at that icby store for 7 years the thing that I find interesting here is that she was
00:45:33
actually scheduled to work that night and a week or so in advance had made arrangements with one of the girls that
00:45:41
end up working that night to trade shifts right now I'm not trying to paint a picture of anybody came there looking
00:45:47
for ree price and this was the result but you said no manager on staff no manager on duty this is a you know and I
00:45:57
said an ideal situation for what it is that I believe they were looking to do a 24-year-old woman being the manager at
00:46:05
this store doesn't change if you're scouting this location I don't think that changes
00:46:13
you from two 17 year olds to going nope can't do it here nope you're you're correct if if it's a sexually motivated
00:46:21
crime yeah the other thing that I found interesting too in uh Reese prices involvement with the Austin PD she was
00:46:29
God bless her she was very helpful to their investigation and helped in any way possible that she possibly could one
00:46:36
thing that that she passed along to the detectives was she said you know me and one of the other girls we were receiving
00:46:46
harassing phone calls at the ICB store and me and one of the other girls were receiving similar types of calls at our
00:46:56
homes at our residents and she had even told them that there was a situation where she thought that she was
00:47:04
hearing some noises when she was working one night and she thought that the noises were coming from the roof that's
00:47:10
creepy she goes into the men's restroom remember they got to clean up before they leave at night and she says later
00:47:17
in the men's restroom of that icby store that she found a ceiling tile that had been moved and on the toilet seat found
00:47:28
Footprints or shoe prints on the toilet seat that's a weird way to take a dump she's telling
00:47:35
police that it's her opinion that the noises that she heard was someone coming through the ceiling and dropping down
00:47:44
into the back part of their store her belief is that again this is like a strip Plaza it's her belief that you
00:47:54
could access the icby store via ceiling from the connecting stores this is something we we don't have to put a lot
00:48:03
of thought in it it's not a theory that we have to circle underline and go crazy
00:48:08
about but it's something to consider and it's an interesting piece of this investigation and it's interesting
00:48:15
information that was passed along to the detectives yeah I might got feeling is there's a lot more to this not not only
00:48:22
are they getting threatening calls at work but the individuals that are making those threatening calls to the two girls
00:48:30
then figure out where they live and they start making calls to their house that lead those things should be taken very
00:48:37
serious interestingly enough here Captain one thing that I find completely fascinating and I think that we sit here
00:48:45
and probably share the same belief today 30 years later is the prevailing theory in the
00:48:53
Austin yogurt shop murders case and that prevailing Theory seems to be that whomever those two men were sitting at
00:49:00
that booth at 10:47 p.m. that night they most likely are the attackers and The Killers now I say most likely because we
00:49:09
can't say it definitively what we do know is this that it took several months which is kind of weird to me but it took
00:49:18
several months for customers to come forward and say hey I was this person I purchased this that night and I was in
00:49:24
there about this time and this is what I think that I saw or heard while I was there it did take a you know weeks and
00:49:31
months to collect all those people and police were actively reminding the public hey we need you to come in here
00:49:37
and tell us we it's very important this is their words quote it's very important
00:49:42
that they come forward we consider any knowledge from anyone who was in that shop before closing to be very valuable
00:49:49
police ask anyone with information to call and they give their local police number but when we talk about these two
00:49:57
individuals sitting at that Booth it's my understanding captain that those are the only two individuals that have never
00:50:03
come forward these are the only two people that we know to have been in the store that night based off of customer
00:50:09
testimonials that have not been identified right it could be and it is possible that these two individuals were
00:50:17
from out of town they were just there like every other customer with no harmful intentions at all and they left
00:50:24
before the store closed and they're not from the area and months went by and they they just never came
00:50:31
forward or didn't do not remember being there on the night that was in question that is a possibility I think it's
00:50:38
awfully slim but it certainly is a possibility if we rule that out then we have to say these are these two are
00:50:46
probably the killers and again I think it's more likely that it's two killers and not just oh we're going to be in the
00:50:52
store with the potential of being seen by other individuals and then once they lock the doors we're going to then open
00:51:00
a back door or open up the front door to let another person in the only people ever convicted in this case
00:51:10
were the two individuals that eventually were released from prison and they were
00:51:14
convicted based off of their confessions and we could go through that but I don't
00:51:18
think that we should because you can listen to episodes 81 and 82 where we go through that Muk and Meer quite a bit at
00:51:26
the end Captain what we have is of the four boys that were arrested two convicted the guns did not match right
00:51:35
it was a 22 caliber gun that led them that led Austin PD to these boys their 22 caliber gun they ran ballistics on it
00:51:45
it does not match up with the 22 that was used at the yogurt shop murder so the guns didn't match and the DNA didn't
00:51:51
match years after the murders Advanced DNA testing revealed a bombshell the bombshell that that nobody wanted we
00:51:59
were happy when two people were locked up for this case but those results showed that DNA that was found on Amy
00:52:06
airs did not match any of the suspects and to be clear it didn't match any one in any National Database so yeah the two
00:52:16
that were convicted the DNA that was found on our victim does not match the two that was
00:52:21
convicted it also does not match the two that weren't convicted the two that were
00:52:26
arrested and the charges were dropped by the grand jury because they didn't believe that they had enough evidence
00:52:31
here so but also with such a horrible crime like this is truly done by demons how many it's
00:52:44
surprising to me how many confessions they have got yes and you know Austin Police they readily admit that over 50
00:52:52
people approximately over 50 people insane yeah have confessed to this now I want to address something real quick
00:53:01
here if you look at Wikipedia there's an entry that says that one of the confessions included Kenneth McDuff
00:53:10
who's an individual that we covered extensively in episodes 81 and 82 he's a serial killer there's no question about
00:53:16
that here's where the question comes according to that Wikipedia entry Kenneth McDuff on the day of his
00:53:24
execution confessed to the yogurt shop murders I've looked high and was left dry my friend
00:53:32
could not find any credible publication or person stating that they heard him or right
00:53:41
heard the confession on heard this confession yes he did have some some last words but they did not include
00:53:48
anything about this case or what I could find any other case now he's certainly capable of committing such horrific a
00:53:56
but again review episodes 81 and 82 we go into why we don't believe that he is our guy so then the question becomes FBI
00:54:06
has this DNA why aren't they releasing it I mean they do they just not have a match does it match somebody with a high
00:54:15
profile is it does it match somebody that they have no evidence against other than this this DNA match wouldn't that
00:54:22
be enough well I'm glad that you brought that up because let's review that real quickly here again in
00:54:28
2017 another potential breakthrough emerged an Austin detective submitted DNA evidence found in one of the victims
00:54:36
into a database that searches yst DNA samples a type of DNA profile that forensic investigators use to identify
00:54:46
male relatives of suspects a match was found the Austin Police Department requested more information about the
00:54:54
ident of the matching donor but the FBI has refused to release any information saying a federal statute so it's the
00:55:04
federal statute that prohibits it from disclosing identities of anonymous donors so I want to know more about what
00:55:15
is an anonymous donor right and I want I want to learn the ins and outs of that right despite these hurdles the families
00:55:23
have continued to work to keep the case in the Forefront their efforts have led to new crime fighting initiatives at the
00:55:30
state and federal levels again citing that same article according to that article that we cited at the top of
00:55:37
yesterday's show there are over 19,000 unsolved homicides in Texas Eliza Thomas Jennifer Harbison Sarah Harbison
00:55:49
and Amy SS are four of those unsolved homicide cases when we talk about the yogurt shop case 30 years later we need
00:55:58
to make sure that we include some of the good stuff that happened in the story I'm talking about the Austin Community
00:56:05
and the friends of the four girls that made a promise to Eliza Jennifer Sarah and Amy and their families and the
00:56:15
promise was we will not forget on February 27th of 1992 just 3 months after the murders local celebrities
00:56:24
recorded a song titled we will not forget written by local musicians and dedicated to the four slain girls all
00:56:33
proceeds from the song were donated to a fund that was set up to help solve the case on June 6th of 1992 6 months after
00:56:43
the murders the classmates of the girls at the high school set up empty chairs for Eliza and Jennifer who would have
00:56:52
graduated on that day the great City of Austin Texas made a commitment to these four girls their families the community
00:57:01
and the person's responsible that they will not forget and in the garage we refuse to forget these girls as well now
00:57:10
it seems that the FBI has the power to help thousands of people heal even if it's just a little bit and I understand
00:57:19
that there are laws and regulations that are needed to protect the people but here those laws and regulations are
00:57:26
protecting the wrong people take a look at these crimes these are some of the most horrific and unspeakable acts that
00:57:33
we have ever discussed on this show and it's 5 years of existence and all of these horrific crimes and unspeakable
00:57:40
Acts were committed in no more than a short 45-minute time period the People Protected by these laws and regulations
00:57:48
are not people at all they are the very worst of what Humanity has to offer thanks for joining us here each and
00:58:10
every week in the garage if you're digging the music for the show check it out for free on Spotify Amazon music or
00:58:18
apple music it's free so check it out Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the listeners this week this
00:58:26
week Captain we are recommending what I believe is the definitive book on the case that we covered this week the
00:58:31
yogurt shop murders and this book is called who killed These Girls by Beverly Lowry and this book came out just
00:58:39
shortly before the 25e marker for this case and covers the murders all the countless lives that
00:58:48
this story has really ruined and the evolving complications of the justice system that have frustrated the massive
00:58:56
attempts for all these years now to find and punish those who committed this horrible horrible Crime Check out who
00:59:04
killed These Girls by Beverly Lowry you can find that great title and many more on our website True Crime garage.com and
00:59:12
click on the recommended page and until next week be good be kind and don't live
00:59:27
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