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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening i'm your host nick and with me as always we close like starsky and hutch here is the captain it's good to
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be seen it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend today we got some more of that pickle
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beer best made pickle beer by the good folks over at martin house brewing company they have some other versions of
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this that i wish that i would have tried while we were there they have a spicy pickle a bloody merry pickle beer but
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today it's best made pickle beer by martin house brewing garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five
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cheers to our friends a big cheers is due in fact first up cheers to matt and trina and parts
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unknown and a big we like you jib to ashley in greenville tennessee and there's another ashley out there but she
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is in rayford north carolina cheers to you well hell let's cheers all the athletes and a big cheers to amanda in
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washington dc next up cheers to tyrell and amanda in denham springs louisiana and last but certainly not least we have
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a big ron swanson please and thank you that goes out to dr roy from round rock texas everyone we just mentioned they
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went to our website truecrimegarage.com and helped us out with this week's beer fund for the beer run and for that we
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thank you bwin beer run if you need more true crime garage for your ear balls check out our bonus show
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called off the record we love to do case updates every other week and if you're not listening then you're not nasty and
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that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] uh [Music] [Music] when apd sergeant jon jones was asked
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about how he would describe the yogurt shop crime scene he simply said wholesale carnage
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now as to the crime scene and how things were found we're going to review that now but keep in mind the uphill battle
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for crime scene techs the detectives and the arson investigators this place was a
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mess and think back to our trailer at the top of yesterday's show when sergeant jones
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wrote a note to the district attorney that said robbery plus sexual assault plus multiple child victims plus bondage
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plus gunshot wounds plus fire heat smoke water damage plus no known witnesses equal the homicide arson and da's worst
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nightmare put a big underline under fire heat smoke and water damage so obviously smoke heat and fire damage
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from the fire the fire at one point getting so hot that the shelving unit melted along with
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items on it and because of the fire we're also going to have water damage at the crime scene
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one from the powerful blast of the firefighter's hoses but compound that with the fire having caused a pvc pipe
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break which was flooding the store before the firefighters were on the scene let's also keep in mind that no
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one arriving to the fire is expecting to find murdered victims of course unfortunately you have fatal
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fires but here we have an arson set with the purpose of covering up the murders and
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the crimes committed between the times of 1103 pm and 11 48 p.m i have said time and time again captain
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how much i hate a situation when emergency services are responding to one type of call when in all actuality they
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are in fact responding to a scene where much more has gone down it's always difficult for the investigators because
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you often cannot undo the actions taken by those responding to the scene like we
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know fire destroys evidence water destroys evidence and it's already a difficult crime scene because it's a
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public place there's going to be a lot of evidence that there was multiple people in that building at one point
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during that day yes and again the responders responding to one type of call and then finding out something else
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it always severely hurts the investigative process some examples mara murray they're
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responding to a broken down vehicle or a single car accident when this actually was also a missing person
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possibly abduction possible homicide yeah or john bernay ramsay they're responding to a kidnapping
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not a murder in the house here we have a fire and a fire coming from a restaurant
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they likely have responded to many of these types of calls and other local food vendors grease fires or the store
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closes and someone simply left a burner on it happens all of the time here we have arson to destroy evidence to
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further cloak the killer's identities as they flee into the night well unlike you
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said this place is known to close at 11 so when you see that there was a fire and it's almost midnight
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as first responders were thinking all this fire happened after people locked up and went home so what else was found
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at the scene well in the process of prosecuting two of the arrested four the prosecutor went into a lengthy and
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graphic description of the crime scene a little warning here i know this is a true crime show but this crime scene is
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particularly gruesome prosecutor robert smith said that firefighters had to break down the front
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door of the store because it was locked with the key still in the lock he said firefighters could not see into
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the store because of smoke after the fire had been put out they discovered amy ayres body first
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and then the bodies of the other three girls ayers was found lying in the middle
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section of the store that's his words to be clear this is still the back room but she is found in
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the front portion of this back room the other three victims were located at the very back of the store near the melted
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shelving unit and the back door amy ayers was found without clothes and on her side face down
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near her was an empty cash drawer the medical examiner determined her cause of death to be strangulation and gunshot
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wounds to the head a 22 caliber bullet was recovered the other three were found in the back
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portion of the store in the back room sarah harbison was found gagged with her hands tied behind her investigators
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determined that she had been sexually assaulted smith said her body was extensively burned
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eliza thomas was found on top of sarah harbison in a similar manner her body and face were burned beyond recognition
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and she was identified by dental records so do they think accelerant was used on
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their bodies no and well and that's frankly a difficult question to answer because through
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through the course of time the fire investigation and their determinations have changed or been modified let's say over
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the years so in the original investigation and i have a good portion to cover this later
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there was general thought that there was not much of an accelerant used at all and we'll circle back to that but we
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have smith who said that investigators believe that jennifer harbison's body was originally on top of the other two
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girls however she was found nearby having been moved either by the fire or the blast of the water hoses and smith
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makes it pretty clear to the court that they believe all the girls were dead before the fires were started the
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prosecution reasoned that since all had been shot in the head their bodies were moved and stacked as they were all found
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face up but that statement isn't completely clear about the crime scene exactly so what he's referencing here
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is the bodies of the three girls that were found at the very back of the store because we know amy ayers was found in a
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slightly different location she's found face down however the other three girls were found face up leading them to
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believe because of the way that they were shot that they had to have been moved after
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they were shot and killed because the fire was so intense the crime scene unit had to sift with shovels and screen to
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find evidence eventually they found some bullet shells in the corner near the rear door of the store investigators
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found a pile of burned clothes included were remnants of denim fabric and clothing from all of the girls as
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well as a heart-shaped belt buckle that had belonged to amy ayers however police
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teams never recovered the belt that went with this belt buckle a ring that belonged to sarah harbison's
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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
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take that ring off for some reason is what smith says right sarah's wallet was also found there again this is another
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indication i don't know if there was money in the wallet but just another example of maybe money's
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not the prime goal here yeah i mean this case is very confusing because even just
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like having the victims undress what's what's the purpose if you know that you're going to start a fire to try
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to get rid of some evidence what would be the purpose of having them undress well the other crimes committed that
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night will dictate the purpose of having them undress yeah obviously though the guns used to kill
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the girls was a 22 caliber and a 380 caliber weapon they have never been found but could be identified by the
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characteristics left on the discharge bullets so we've not located these weapons but if they were ever located
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and tested in comparison to the bullets used to kill the girls we would be able to determine
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if it was in fact the match well the strangulation feels a little personable to me personable or necessary right so
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we have one victim that was that was strangled and but she was also shot twice right so what that tells me is
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there's a chance that someone may have thought that she was dead when in fact she was not or maybe
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she put up a fight this is going to lead us to hold back information so those of you that have listened to this
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show long time listeners you already know what holdback information is however if we have anybody a new
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listener maybe somebody from texas that wants to check out our coverage of this case because of the 30-year marker
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coming up or maybe just a drunk listener that stumbled onto our show by accident i am fell fell into
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our shop fell right into the garage hold back information is pretty simple stuff
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it's information that only the experts only the law enforcement agency investigating the case
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and the medical examiner's office would know you are simply holding on to this information and holding it back from the
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public because especially in a high profile crime or high profile case as is the austin
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yogurt shop murders case you will have false confessions and we will have plenty of them in this
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case and so it's important to hold back some specific details so that when those
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false confessions start coming in you can weed out the persons that did not commit this
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crime and we won't go into the psych the psychology of why or who would make a false confession
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we pointed that out and went over that quite a bit in our first time around in this case but let's review the holdback
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information here captain this was decided on december 7th so the next day the next afternoon less than 24 hours
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after the girls were killed the austin police department decides we are going to make a list and they
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created a list of 13 pieces of evidence to be held back and those items were number one how and where the fire was
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started but do we know where the fire started the fire has always been a bit of a pisser here in this case here
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captain you're a pisser for seven years we were told well again they're holding back this information but later we
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learned that for seven years the arson investigators all agreed that the fire started on the shelves that
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shelving unit that melted now this shelving unit is located near where three of the bodies were recovered
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but it's always been believed that the fire started like on the second or third shelf
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and was started using things that would easily go up in flames right we have like paper products
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on this shelf we also have styrofoam products on the shelving unit anybody that's ever been in cub scouts and
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tossed a a styrofoam cup into a campfire you know how quick those babies go up there were also things on this shelving
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unit that would have been highly flammable right like paint cans aerosol cans things of that nature right they're
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basically using that as their starter when confessions start coming in one thing that i found that was
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completely bizarro is that a lot of the confessions we have people saying that the fire was started
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on the victims that they piled up the victims and then put some type of accelerant in
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several of the confessions they say lighter fluid from like like a zippo can lighter fluid douse the that on top of
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the victims and then lit them that seems to that narrative seems to have changed
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right around the time that they're looking to convict these four individuals that they arrested the next
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piece of holdback information number two the key in the front door we've already
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discussed that how they would put the key in lock it from the inside before closing up for the whole night and then
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leave through that door and then eventually sliding that key back underneath the door right this is
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something that would not be known to many people outside of employees of the icby store number three
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how much money was taken we can't say for certain how much money was taken we have in our notes 540 dollars
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was missing from that night number four how the girls bodies were arranged so the stacking process and where they
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would be located inside the store is valuable information because again we're going to have confessions come forward
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and they're not going to be able to put the bodies where they were eventually found but when you have so many first
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responders i think you said there's over 50 firefighters at the scene nearly 50 i
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don't know how many actually went into the store itself it's a good possibility that some of
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this information would be leaked out to the public yes and it absolutely was and austin pd admits that
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over the years that they were aware that somehow some of this information got out
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in fact but at the end of the day if you're a respon first responder responding to
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what you think is a fire and now you're dealing with four women that were brutally murdered
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that's something that weighs on you if you end up telling a couple people because you're struggling with that
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you know i i know that it hinders an investigation but these first responders are human right
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but there's a lot of information on this list that won't be obvious to just somebody responding to the fire right
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and the other thing too here we're not sitting on this information pretending that only one person knew the answers to
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all 13 of these right we sit here 30 years later and don't know the answers to all 13 of these ourselves wow so but
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we still believe that the killer does the killer yes then would have known the answers to these questions or the the
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hold back information number five what was used to bind the girls number six that the office was not entered
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that's a very interesting one because again we have a situation remember that small office
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has a locked door on it and they were able to determine that that door was not accessed so yeah a lot and look a lot of
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these back areas they're not like and i don't know what kind of door this would have been but like when i used to teach
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and teach guitar lessons in the strip mall like those back office we there were chintzy doors i wouldn't take much to
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break one of those down if the door was locked you could huff and puff and blow the door down but but i agree with you
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on the sense that i don't know how much stealing money or getting money for this
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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
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office if you take 540 or whatever the amount ended up being from the register you're probably looking for some more
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cash the office whether you think there's a safe in there or not is the place where
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that additional money would be you would at the very least access it and look around hell i worked at a place where we
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had a break in overnight they couldn't figure out how to open the safe so they removed the whole entire
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safe they just took it with them right and it was located like a week or two later about two or three hours away on
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the side of the highway with the door missing so people get creative when they're looking for money here
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we got a couple people that are offenders that either aren't looking for money or can't fight their way out of a
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paper bag number seven the office key was still under the cash register okay again you
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would need this key unless you're gonna huff and puff and blow that door down you're gonna need this key
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to get into the locked office right and i cannot imagine a situation where i am holding
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guns to children and demanding to know where the money is that one of them doesn't offer up that
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here's the key to the locked office in the back no because it was it was company policy to drop the money
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at the end of the night it was also a company policy that this is where they would leave their personal belongings so
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eliza thomas arrives at work just before 7pm and she places all of her personal belongings inside of that locked office
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to which later the next day when they're going through the crime scene they find
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all of her personal items still inside of that office yeah i agree that with a gun to your head you're not going
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to hold back that information number eight the caliber of weapons used and we know that to be a 22 and a 380. of
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course the the whole city is going to know that guns were used the key here is that they
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do not know what calibers were used they also would not know that two different guns were used and this is
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also something that the firefighters would not know when responding to the scene right and very likely something
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that even crime techs and medical examiners would not know until later in the autopsy process but
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it's also evidence that points to more than one attacker yep unless you're double fisted we have more than one
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killer here number nine the two pairs of the victims underpants were missing never found at the scene now i guess
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it's not too hard to believe that they may have just gone up in smoke because we have a fire here but it seems
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to me like they're pretty thorough about what was found at the scene and what was
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not right number 10 this is key man and this is one that has really stuck with me throughout the
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years amy ayers was missing her leather bomber jacket okay so there's a little bit of a story here
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from my understanding this bomber jacket was a men's or a boy's bomber jacket and i believe this
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belonged to her older brother at one point but it was like one of her favorite things you know something that she wore
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this is also another indication that you know this is a a girl coming up and she's realizing hey
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i'm going out with friends on a friday night and i'm starting to feel like a real
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teenager here because i'm doing you know older kids stuff and so while we say money doesn't seem to be
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of the utmost importance to these perpetrators one of them went out of their way to take the leather bomber
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jacket from the scene see to me that feels personable it seems like i mean yeah look it could
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just be that they fancied that jacket but to me you start leaning to towards the idea
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did these attackers take two pairs of the victim's underwear do they take this jacket for
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other reasons other than they might just like the jacket could be some kind of trophy
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if we're talking about uh serial offender or or otherwise number 11 amy's bruise under her chin from a
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blow of some kind so at some point she is struck under the chin with either an item or a fist that left a bruise under
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her now one thing we need to point out here captain that's key to this case and to the understanding of the crime scene
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itself is the three girls that are found in the very back of the yogurt shop are
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significantly more burned charred and damaged than amy ayers so where you're going to have a lot of
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information about amy ayers that's simply due to her proximity to where the fire
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started right right fire started in one location and it spreads through there from it spreads from there
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well we have first responders arriving on the scene probably well not probably it's within minutes of the fire being
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set we don't know exactly what time the fire was set but we do know that the place was not on
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fire at 1103 when somebody hit that no sale button we had the fire being reported at 11 47 pm number 12 that amy
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was strangled in what she was strangled with number 13. that amy was shot twice with two
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different caliber guns all of our other victims were only shot once and as we said and as noted in who killed these
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girls this list will have to be revised several times [Music] [Music] [Music] all right we are back
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thank you for joining us you smell lovely cheers so there's so many things about this
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case that make me wonder like did they have a plan that these attackers have a plan to
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take out one of the victims right away so then they have less victims to try to control
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possibly and it's it's a sad situation of course again we will never really know until the
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proper person is found and locked up or persons or persons correct however i i think that we can
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probably deduce some things about the the attackers and their actions and their plan
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and this is one thing that i thought that has always been another misstep in this
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investigation now i want to be clear here and give kudos where it should go and that should go to the austin pd in
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this regard where austin pd basically said in this investigation we are only concerned about the who we
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are not going to spend our whole time spending our tires on the why right so but sometimes the why
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leads you to the who well and when you're sitting here at our position captain in a smelly
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garage we have to examine the who what why when and how come i know i think i threw some
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extra things in there that weren't necessary but you get that's what our show does we throw on a couple things
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that are not necessary yeah so i think here when i review this what i'm seeing is a situation where
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maybe you're not so worried about being outnumbered if you are the perpetrator right there's four girls
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you're gonna be outnumbered unless you have four perpetrators or more the situation that you do have is we
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have a lot of terrible things going on in a short period of time so there's a lot of moving parts and pieces within
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the course of about 45 minutes it's really what i want to focus on and in 45 minutes we have sexual assault we have
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terrorizing the girls we have robbery we also have an arson that's set and we have
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the the perpetrators successfully fleeing the scene all within about a 45-minute span
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now what that indicates to me if you're going to set an arson you're somewhat of
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a sophisticated criminal and i don't mean people always get this wrong they think oh here nick goes calling some
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maniac uh a brilliant individual i'm not saying that this was any type of high iq
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criminal here or criminals i'm simply saying criminally sophisticated meaning that they understand that this fire will
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destroy evidence that this fire will help this fire will increase the probability
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and the likelihood that they are not caught and so this fire is set for that purpose
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and that purpose alone well and also it's when you're calling somebody criminally sophisticated you're
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basically saying they're they're a bigger douchebag they're a bigger ding dong ass frog you know
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that's what you're saying it's not a compliment you're you're putting the individual down that means that this
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dirtbag thought more about this crime and how not to get caught the other thing too that the arson indicates to me
00:28:20
is that high level of concern of being caught and getting away with what they did so you're going to want to not be
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detected and gunshots are loud and this is a short period of time i don't think that you are using those
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guns until you have to which would be at the very end when when you are done doing whatever it is that you set out to
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do that is what you plan to do at the end right of those events no witnesses burn the place and flee
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and so i think that the shooting and unfortunately the additional injuries to amy ayers
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were items that were not necessarily planned but were necessary because she did not
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and i i hate to even say these words but here you go she did not die when the others did every one of the
00:29:19
other girls we shot they died as expected amy ayers did not die as expected and therefore we end up with a second
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gunshot we end up with the strangulation at some point and we have some of the medical
00:29:35
information that will back that thought up then assuming that the gunshots happened at different times yes
00:29:43
i don't believe for a second that she was shot at the exact same time with two different guns well not at the exact
00:29:49
same time i'm just you're saying that it could be seconds later though right i mean we're talking the amount
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i'm not going to go into it because i don't have the the stomach for it and i don't have the heart to do it
00:30:03
but just sit back and think without forcing me to do this how many horrible crimes happen in a
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span of just 45 minutes and that's being that's giving extra time i don't even think
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they were there that long no and so you know you're you're doing things very quickly and the science that will back
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up the thought of her being shot twice and why is simple amy ayers was shot through the
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back of the head the same with the same 22-caliber gun used on the other girls but in her case the bullet did not enter
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the brain right and so i think that is why we have she's reacting to this and then the killers are reacting to her
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reaction you know we saw in the lane bryant shootings several people they're all laid down the same way face down on
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the floor gun to the back of the head and one of them twitched or moved or something
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happened and it didn't work it didn't kill one of them but it killed the rest of them but it's also possible that this
00:31:06
could be a sign that that there was uh soft bullets and meaning that those bullets would
00:31:13
have been bullets can become soft over time and so these bullets could have been older bullets that's possible yes
00:31:22
and the thing here too is a 22 caliber gun is typically used in a situation and i don't i don't want to paint the
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picture of of anybody thinking that this is some type of mob hit a 22 caliber gun is
00:31:35
typically used in a crime where your plan is to shoot the individual in the head and kill them with one shot why
00:31:44
because most of the time a higher caliber bullet will do what is called a through and
00:31:49
through meaning that it enters the body at some point and it goes through the body and exits the body at some point
00:31:56
with a 22 caliber bullet you want to do you're looking to do as much internal damage as
00:32:04
possible if you want to kill somebody with one bullet so a 22 is often used because it's not powerful enough in most
00:32:12
cases to do a through and through shot it will go into the body and then it bounces off of a lot of stuff doing a
00:32:19
whole lot of damage in the process well i think it makes people wonder when looking into this case
00:32:26
are there separate victims is she separate from them yeah i don't see a situation here and again we don't know
00:32:32
we're kind of guessing here but i don't see a situation that one that there was even enough time to to do it in this
00:32:38
manner that that somebody went out of their way to kill one and then terrorize the other three or the reverse
00:32:45
of that kill the other three and terrorize one right for an extended period of time i'm seeing again
00:32:52
they're doing something that's necessary and what's really interesting here is that
00:32:59
we're talking about a difference of a few minutes and i mean this is sad and heartbreaking to think about
00:33:05
but the difference of a couple of minutes could be the time that goes by when they
00:33:11
learn that what killed the other girls didn't kill amy and so had they not figured that out in that
00:33:20
very brief time period she may have been able to get up and flee and i think that that's what she was in
00:33:27
the process of doing i think she she was crawling away from the other bodies i think she was shot originally
00:33:35
in the very same locale as the other three girls and at some point she's reacting to the
00:33:40
situation and crawled away or started to flee somehow mustered up the strength to
00:33:46
try to get away and unfortunately our killers are still in that room or still present
00:33:53
and have the awareness to see her reaction well it's also confusing because like you said law enforcement's
00:34:00
not going to sit around and try to figure out the why but maybe they're not going to try to
00:34:04
sit around and figure out the why because it seems very confusing in this case you have money left behind so
00:34:10
you have a room that they didn't even go into which has a safe you would think that if they
00:34:17
had much knowledge of this business at all that they wouldn't have left that bag of
00:34:24
money behind nor would they leave that safe behind so what was successful in killing the
00:34:30
other girls and was attempted on amy is what is called a contact gunshot wound this is where there is
00:34:39
evidence that proves that the gun was right next to or up against the skin right at the time that the gun is fired
00:34:49
do you have a gut feeling yourself because you know this is the second time that we've
00:34:55
been able to look it into this case do you have a gut feeling as to motive or or why unfortunately i think the motive
00:35:03
here was sexual assault and probably multiple sexual assaults that's what i leaned towards as well
00:35:12
it would not surprise me if these perpetrators were previously in the yogurt shop and that could be
00:35:18
earlier that day or could be the week before days before i think that they were well aware that this was the
00:35:26
type of location that is secluded is a weird word to use being that it's a public place but it's
00:35:36
secluded as soon as those doors are locked for the night as soon as you turn that key on on that front door
00:35:43
nobody's coming in and i think that this is a situation where they could have either the perpetrator stumbled upon an
00:35:51
ideal situation for what it was that they wanted to do or they came there knowing
00:35:57
or expecting to find that and that might mean that they scouted this location in advance the other thing
00:36:04
too when you go all right well maybe they stumbled onto a location in a situation that was ideal for what they
00:36:09
wanted to do you wonder where else they went that day and night looking for the ideal situation
00:36:17
you know did they walk down to mr gaddy's and go you know what there's too many males in here there's too many employees
00:36:22
working all at once let's try a different spot yeah or it could be it could be a situation where the look i
00:36:29
think this is possibly coming from a local individual and somebody that's been there multiple times
00:36:38
around closing time and went they're they're having high school girls close up the shop
00:36:44
this there's no there's no manager on a staff and on like you said seclusion sounds strange like you said because
00:36:53
it's a public place but first of all the the major places around there are shutting down at nine o'clock
00:36:59
the other places are shutting down at 10. so now that gives you a whole hour that
00:37:04
if you are from that area you know that place is one of the only places open past ten so now
00:37:12
that that's how it makes it even more secluded and it's a yogurt shop there's some sometimes when you go into a yogurt
00:37:18
shop or the last couple times i've gone into ice cream shop you're the only customer in there you
00:37:24
get your ice cream and you and you look you go and strangely captain this case reminds me a lot you know people think
00:37:30
of las cruces bowl or las cruces bowling alley that case when when right when you review austin
00:37:37
yogurt shop case and yes there's a lot of similarities and i'm not and i'm not here sitting pretending that they were
00:37:44
perpetrated by the same individuals in las cruces bowl we have a pretty good description of those who
00:37:51
the two men that carried out that crime but they are similar situations what i like in this crime too and if i
00:37:59
were to be air quotes here profiling our offenders and i think i i'm of the belief that you
00:38:07
are that we're looking at two people possibly three i cannot look at the evidence at the scene and
00:38:14
believe that one person carried this out i think that it gets difficult to go much higher than three as far as the
00:38:22
number of perpetrators but this crime reminds me a lot of the cheshire murders where we have two individuals that are
00:38:29
going into a home they know what to expect they know who they think will be inside of this home
00:38:37
and they sexually assault they murder and they attempt to burn down the place and
00:38:45
once caught they're going to try to sell it to the public that oh we were just there to rob
00:38:52
the family and things got out of control things got out of hand we panicked and then we
00:38:58
ended up killing three of the four family members and setting the place on fire what i would be looking for and you
00:39:04
don't want to i don't i'm all for profiling and i'm a big fan of it i guess you would say uh it
00:39:11
sounds like a really terrible choice of words but you know you don't want your theory or your thought process to
00:39:19
to put blinders on you in the course of your investigation but over the course of years when you don't have the answers
00:39:26
and you've not arrested someone you've not locked anybody up that sticks you got i think you've got to start
00:39:33
using those methods and what i would have been looking for is probably two individuals that were recently released
00:39:40
from prison and probably individuals that have committed similar types of crimes in the past and what i
00:39:47
mean by that is probably not murder but i'm probably looking for somebody one or two individuals with sexual
00:39:53
assault cases one or two individuals with robbery cases maybe one of them's a robber one
00:39:59
of them's sexually assaulted in the past that's kind of where what my gut tells me
00:40:05
to me it looks like a crime of not just opportunity by the perpetrators but also a crime
00:40:12
that they were they were looking to go out and do something maybe not of this magnitude but something horrific in
00:40:18
nature we've talked about this before you know with bundy and other types of individuals that some of these acts they
00:40:25
become addicted to it and i think what i'm seeing here is somebody that needed to do this for
00:40:33
whatever reason as disgusting as that is to say well my gut feeling tells me that
00:40:37
there was two attackers but i also think that it's possibly a local somebody that was making those
00:40:46
threatening phone calls or there was prank calls i think it's closer to home and maybe
00:40:52
more personable than people think it would be and also it's such a heinous crime that if
00:40:58
there's more than two attackers i think somebody would have told somebody by now somebody would
00:41:04
have confessed yes and that that's traditionally how it works the more perpetrators you have of a crime the
00:41:10
higher probability that one of them at some point tells somebody right i mean it's just it's just math
00:41:16
baby garage math and the thing is people do it because it either weighs on their conscience or they get drunk and
00:41:22
tell somebody or they they tell somebody in a threatening manner but yeah the number of
00:41:28
perpetrators the higher that goes up the higher your probability goes up that one
00:41:32
of them tells somebody and my guess is that at least one of these individuals is
00:41:38
currently in prison on rape charges yeah and here's the thing that i would really
00:41:44
like to know with that we talked about that dna evidence that the fbi has they've got a match or some kind of hit
00:41:52
on it and and i don't fully understand it not going to pretend to but um i would really like to know
00:41:59
where exactly that they got their hit i do want to touch on something captain before we get too far along here that
00:42:05
you had referenced earlier um one interesting tidbit that i found along the way in my
00:42:12
research for this week's case is that a woman by the name of rhys price i believe her real name is teresa
00:42:19
or therese price but she goes by rhys price at the time of the yogurt shop murders she was 24 years old she was a
00:42:28
manager that worked at that icby store for seven years the thing that i find interesting here
00:42:36
is that she was actually scheduled to work that night and a week or so in advance had made
00:42:43
arrangements with one of the girls that ended up working that night to trade shifts right now i'm not trying to paint
00:42:49
a picture of anybody came there looking for rhys price and this was the result but you said no manager on staff no
00:42:57
manager on duty this is a you know and i said an ideal situation for what it is that i believe they were looking to do
00:43:05
a 24 year old woman being the manager at this store doesn't change if you're scouting this
00:43:13
location i don't think that changes you from 217 year olds to go on nope can't do it here
00:43:21
nope you're you're correct if it's a sexually motivated crime yeah the other thing that i found interesting too in uh
00:43:28
rhys price's involvement with the austin pd she was god bless her she was very helpful to
00:43:35
their investigation and helped in any way possible that she possibly could one thing that that she
00:43:42
passed along to the detectives was she said you know me and one of the other girls we were
00:43:49
receiving harassing phone calls at the icby store and me and one of the other girls were
00:43:57
receiving similar types of calls at our homes at our residence and she had even told them that
00:44:04
there was a situation where she thought that she was hearing some noises when she was working one
00:44:10
night and she thought that the noises were coming from the roof that's creepy she goes into the men's restroom
00:44:17
remember they gotta clean up before they leave at night and she says later in the men's restroom
00:44:22
of that icby store that she found a ceiling tile that had been moved and on the toilet seat
00:44:32
found footprints or shoe prints on the scene that's a weird way to take a dump she's telling police
00:44:39
that it's her opinion that the noises that she heard was someone coming through the ceiling and dropping down into
00:44:49
the back part of their store her belief is that again this is like a strip plaza
00:44:55
it's her belief that you could access the icby store via ceiling from the connecting stores
00:45:05
this is something we we don't have to put a lot of thought in it it's not a theory that we have to circle underline
00:45:10
and go crazy about but it's something to consider and it's an interesting piece of this
00:45:16
investigation and it's interesting information that was passed along to the detectives yeah my gut feeling is
00:45:23
there's a lot more to this not not only are they getting threatening calls at work but the individuals that are making
00:45:31
those threatening calls to the two girls then figure out where they live and they
00:45:35
start making calls to their house that lead those things should be taken very seriously interestingly enough here
00:45:43
captain one thing that i find completely fascinating and i think that we sit here
00:45:49
and probably share the same belief today 30 years later is the prevailing theory in the austin
00:45:57
yogurt shop murders case and that prevailing theory seems to be that whoever those two men were sitting at
00:46:04
that booth at 10 47 p.m that night they most likely are the attackers and the killers now i
00:46:12
say most likely because we can't say it definitively what we do know is this that it took several months which is
00:46:19
kind of weird to me but it took several months for customers to come forward and
00:46:24
say hey i was this person i purchased this that night and i was in there about this time and this is what i think that
00:46:30
i saw or heard while i was there it did take you know weeks and months to collect all
00:46:36
those people and police were actively reminding the public hey we need you to come in here and tell us we it's very
00:46:43
important this is their words quote it's very important that they come forward we consider any knowledge from anyone
00:46:49
who was in that shop before closing to be very valuable police ask anyone with information to call and they give their
00:46:57
local police number but when we talk about these two individuals sitting at that booth it's
00:47:02
my understanding captain that those are the only two individuals that have never
00:47:07
come forward these are the only two people that we know to have been in the store that night based off of customer
00:47:12
testimonials that have not been identified right it could be and it is possible that these
00:47:19
two individuals were from out of town they were just there like every other customer with no
00:47:25
harmful intentions at all and they left before the store closed and they're not from the area and months
00:47:32
went by and they they just never came forward or didn't do not remember being there on
00:47:38
the night that was in question that is a possibility i think it's awfully slim but it certainly is a possibility if we
00:47:45
rule that out then we have to say these are these two are probably the killers and again i
00:47:51
think it's more likely that it's two killers and not just oh we're going to be in the store with the potential being
00:47:58
seen by other individuals and then once they lock the doors we're going to then open the back door open up
00:48:05
the front door to let another person in the only people ever convicted in this case
00:48:14
were the two individuals that eventually were released from prison and they were
00:48:17
convicted based off of their confessions and we could go through that but i don't
00:48:22
think that we should because you can listen to episodes 81 and 82 where we go through that muck and mire quite a bit
00:48:30
at the end captain what we have is of the four boys that were arrested too convicted
00:48:36
the guns did not match right it was a 22 caliber gun that led them that led austin pd to
00:48:44
these boys their 22 caliber gun they ran ballistics on it it does not match up with the 22
00:48:50
that was used at the yogurt shop murder so the guns didn't match and the dna didn't match
00:48:55
years after the murders advanced dna testing revealed a bombshell the bombshell that that nobody wanted we
00:49:02
were happy when two people were locked up for this case but those results showed that dna that was found on amy
00:49:10
ayers did not match any of the suspects and to be clear it didn't match anyone in any national
00:49:17
database so yeah the two that were convicted the dna that was found on our victim
00:49:23
does not match the two that was convicted it also does not match the two that weren't convicted the two that were
00:49:29
arrested and the charges were dropped right by the grand jury because they didn't believe that they
00:49:34
had enough evidence here so but also with such a horrible crime like this is truly
00:49:44
done by demons how many it's surprising to me how many confessions they have got yes and
00:49:52
you know austin police they readily admit that over 50 people approximately over 50 people
00:49:59
have seen yeah have confessed to this now i want to address something real quick here
00:50:06
if you look at wikipedia there's an entry that says that one of the confessions included kenneth mcduff
00:50:13
who's an individual that we covered extensively in episodes 81-82 he's a serial killer there's no question
00:50:20
about that here's where the question comes according to that wikipedia entry kenneth mcduff on the day of his
00:50:27
execution confessed to the yogurt shop murders i've looked high and was left dry my friend
00:50:36
could not find any credible publication or person stating that they heard him or
00:50:45
heard the confession heard this confession yes he did have some some last words but they did not include
00:50:51
anything about this case or what i could find any other case now he's certainly capable of
00:50:57
committing such horrific acts but again review episodes 81 and 82 we go into why we don't believe that he is our
00:51:06
guy so then the question becomes fbi has this dna why aren't they releasing it i mean they do they just
00:51:15
not have a match does it match somebody with a high profile is it does it match somebody that they have no evidence
00:51:22
against other than this this dna match wouldn't that be enough well i'm glad that you brought that up because let's
00:51:29
review that real quickly here again in 2017 another potential breakthrough emerge an
00:51:35
austin detective submitted dna evidence found in one of the victims into a database that searches ystr dna samples
00:51:44
a type of dna profile that forensic investigators use to identify male relatives of suspects
00:51:53
a match was found the austin police department requested more information about the identity of the matching donor
00:52:01
but the fbi has refused to release any information saying a federal statute so it's the federal statute that
00:52:09
prohibits it from disclosing identities of anonymous donors so i want to know more about what
00:52:19
is an anonymous donor right and i want i want to learn the ins and outs of that right despite these hurdles the families
00:52:26
have continued to work to keep the case in the forefront their efforts have led to new crime fighting initiatives at the
00:52:33
state and federal levels again citing that same article according to that article
00:52:39
that we cited at the top of yesterday's show there are over 19 000 unsolved homicides in texas
00:52:47
eliza thomas jennifer harveston sarah harbison and amy ayers are four of those unsolved homicide cases
00:52:57
when we talk about the yogurt shop case 30 years later we need to make sure that
00:53:02
we include some of the good stuff that happened in the story i'm talking about the austin community and the friends of
00:53:11
the four girls that made a promise to eliza jennifer sarah and amy and their families
00:53:19
and the promise was we will not forget on february 27 of 1992 just three months after the murders local celebrities
00:53:28
recorded a song titled we will not forget written by local musicians and dedicated to the
00:53:34
four slain girls all proceeds from the song were donated to a fund that was set up to help solve
00:53:42
the case on june 6 of 1992 six months after the murders the classmates of the girls at
00:53:50
the high school set up empty chairs for eliza and jennifer who would have graduated on that day
00:53:58
the great city of austin texas made a commitment to these four girls their families the community and the persons
00:54:06
responsible that they will not forget and in the garage we refuse to forget these girls
00:54:12
as well now it seems that the fbi has the power to help thousands of people heal
00:54:19
even if it's just a little bit and i understand that there are laws and regulations that are needed to protect
00:54:26
the people but here those laws and regulations are protecting the wrong people take a look
00:54:32
at these crimes these are some of the most horrific and unspeakable acts that we have ever
00:54:37
discussed on this show and it's five years of existence and all of these horrific crimes and unspeakable
00:54:44
acts were committed in no more than a short 45 minute time period the people protected by these laws and regulations
00:54:52
are not people at all they are the very worst of what humanity has to offer [Music]
00:55:11
thanks for joining us here each and every week in the garage if you're digging the music for the show
00:55:18
check it out for free on spotify amazon music or apple music it's free so check it out colonel do we have any
00:55:26
recommended reading for the listeners this week this week captain we are recommending what i believe is the
00:55:32
definitive book on the case that we covered this week the yogurt shop murders and this book is called who
00:55:38
killed these girls by beverly lowry and this book came out just shortly before the 25 year marker for this case and
00:55:48
covers the murders all the countless lives that this story has really ruined and the evolving
00:55:56
complications of the justice system that have frustrated the massive attempts for all these years now to find and
00:56:02
punish those who committed this horrible horrible crime check out who killed these girls by beverly lowry you can
00:56:10
find that great title and many more on our website truecrimegarage.com and click on the recommended page and until
00:56:18
next week be good be kind and don't listen [Applause] [Music] you