In December of 1991, four teenage girls were brutally murdered in Austin, Texas. The case remains unsolved. And four young men were railroaded for the crime.
Jennifer Harbison was born on May 9th, 1974. Jennifer was a student at Lanier High School, and was the acting president of her school’s chapter of the Future Farmers of America. In 1991, she was a 17-year-old high school senior, who held a part time job at a local ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt’ branch of a national chain of shops. She worked there with her best friend, Eliza.
Eliza Thomas was born on May 16th, 1974. She was also senior at Lanier High School, 17 years old, and a member of the school’s chapter of the Future Farmers of America.
Sarah Harbison was born on October 28th, 1976, and was Jennifer’s younger sister. She was a student athlete, and an overachiever. She was a freshman at Lanier High School, following in her sister’s footsteps. She was 15 years old.
Amy Ayers was born on January 31st, 1978. Her older brother, Shawn, had been involved in the Future Farmers of America, and introduced the group to Amy, who took to it like a fish takes to water. She participated in the Lanier High chapter, and had plans to attend the school when she had graduated from Burnet Middle School. She quickly became good friends with Sarah, and, by extension, the other members of the group, including Jennifer and Eliza.
On Friday, December 6th, 1991, Jennifer and Eliza were working the closing shift at the yogurt shop. Sarah and Amy had gotten a ride from Jennifer earlier in the evening to the Northcross Mall, where the shop was, and had intended to hang out and watch a movie. When the movie ended, the girls went to the yogurt shop to wait for Jennifer to finish up and give them a ride home.
Nearing the last of the shop’s business hours, a few witnesses noticed odd behaviour from some customers. One witness described a man in a “fatigue-like” jacket hustling customers in front of him as he stood in line. When the witness insisted the man go ahead of him, he asked the man if he was a police officer, seemingly anxious about the answer. Then, the man ordered a can of soda, and asked if he could use the restroom. (Some theorize that this is the man who propped open the back door.)
A couple also noticed that two young men were sitting in a booth closest to the cash register, doing nothing but drinking from cans of soda. The couple found it odd, but left just before closing, not wanting to hold the girls up.
It’s speculated that Jennifer and Eliza, with the help of Sarah and Amy, began their closing routing – putting chairs on tables, refilling napkin dispensers, counting the register, and other cleaning duties. Presumably, someone locked the front door.
Just before midnight, a police officer patrolling the area around the shop noticed flames. He called in a report to the dispatcher, and waited for firefighters to arrive. They made quick work of extinguishing the blaze, but they made a grisly discovery. Inside the burnt out shop were four charred bodies.
Three of them were found in a corner, gagged, bound with articles of their own clothing, and stacked slightly on top of each other. Another was found separate from the others, as if crawling towards the back door, which had been found propped open.
The bodies were quickly identified as Jennifer, Eliza, Sarah, and Amy. Jennifer, Eliza, and Sarah had been shot in the head, execution style with a .22. Amy, who had crawled away, was shot a second time, as the first had missed her brain.
The autopsies revealed that an accelerant had likely been used to light the blaze. They also revealed a that a second gun, a .38, had been used in the murders.
Investigators discovered that at approximately 11:03 PM, the transaction button “No Sale” was punched into the register, opening the drawer, and $540 was taken from the register.
The arson investigation indicated that the blaze had begun in the kitchen area, where the girls had been found. The investigation found that the fire had burned so hot, that the girls’ bodies had begun to melt into the floor, and their teeth had started to burn away.
The arson investigators theorized that styrofoam cups of some kind of accelerant, like lighter fluid, had been placed near the girls to increase the speed at which the flames would char their bodies. The investigators also theorized that it was likely that the culprit, or culprits, responsible had experience with arson, and knew what to do to cover their tracks.
The investigation also revealed a blow to the criminal investigation – the water used to douse the flames had very likely washed away huge amounts of physical evidence. And, to add insult to injury, the culprit(s) had deliberately contaminated the scene, by spreading chocolate syrup and other ingredients all over the shop, and on the girls.
Just over a week after the murders, police believed they had found their first lead. They’d gotten a tip about a 16-year-old boy who’d been seen at the mall with a gun the night of the murders. Police picked up Maurice Pierce, and brought him in for questioning.
The gun in his possession was a .22, the same calibre that had been used in the murders. Maurice was quick to admit that the gun was the murder weapon. Furthermore, he admitted to loaning it to a friend, Forrest Welborn, who’d been there. Not only that, but he also admitted to fleeing town in a stolen Nissan Pathfinder with Robert Springsteen, and Michael Scott.
Forrest was soon brought in for questioning, and subjected to a polygraph test. He passed, as did Maurice when he was administered a polygraph of his own. Through intense, in-depth interviewing, lead investigator Detective John Jones found Maurice to be less than credible.
Maurice couldn’t stick to a timeline, and Forrest outright denied any involvement. All Maurice had was a gun, and his word. Detective Jones even tried to arrange for Maurice to wear a wire around Forrest, and get him to confess. Forrest didn’t say a word.
Detective Jones cleared both Maurice and Forrest of any involvement in the murders. He determined that Maurice was dealing with mental health issues, and that had caused him to falsely confess. The investigation was back at square one.
Investigators decided to reach out to the FBI in order to come up with a profile of the killer, or killers. The profile indicated that the murders were likely committed by more than one killer, and that the murders had no been planned. In all likelihood, the killers were familiar with the area, and had planned to rob the yogurt shop. Then, the incident had escalated. The profile indicated that it was unlikely the killers would strike again, as the murders appeared desperate.
The profile also indicated that one killer was likely a dominant personality, and the other a follower. The profile went on to describe the ‘leader’ as an individual who was likely uneducated, had a history of problems with authority and discipline, avoided confrontation unless certain of victory, had unstable employment, had a criminal record, had a history of abuse, was familiar with the area around the shop, and likely took pride in his appearance. He would have enlisted the help of someone vulnerable, and susceptible to being led and manipulated.
A few months after the murders, in March of 1992, police released a composite image of a man that had been seen around the area the night of the murders. The man was seen driving an older model white four-door vehicle believed to be a Chevrolet.
That same year, another theory began forming. It was possible that Kenneth Allen McDuff may have been involved in the murders.
McDuff was a Texas serial killer who’d been captured before for the murders of 3 individuals. Later, due to prison overcrowding, he was paroled in 1989. (I’ll go into further detail at a later date – this warrants its own case study.)
In December of 1991, he was known to be in the Austin area. That year, he was implicated in the murders of Melissa Northrup, and Colleen Reed. McDuff had abducted Colleen in late December of 1991, after the murders of Jennifer, Eliza, Sarah, and Amy. By the time McDuff was suspected of the murders of Melissa and Colleen, he’d fled to Kansas City.
McDuff then appeared on both “America’s Most Wanted”, and “Unsolved Mysteries”, which led to his arrest. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. While on death row, McDuff confessed to several other crimes that investigators had linked him to.
In 1998, just prior to his execution, Kenneth Allen McDuff confessed to the Austin yogurt shop murders. He had hoped that this would buy him some time, that investigators would believe his claims, and he would live a little longer – they couldn’t execute their prime suspect without proper investigation, could they?
On November 17th, 1998, McDuff got his answer – they could.
After the execution of Kenneth Allen McDuff, investigators looked into his claims. The compared his fingerprints and DNA to samples that had been found at the scene, and had survived both the arson, and its extinguishing. No feasible link was found between McDuff, and the murdered girls.
Prior to McDuff’s execution, the investigation into the Austin yogurt shop murders had gone frigid cold. Unti 1996, when Detective Paul Johnson took over the case.
While the case was under review from a fresh team, that team pinned all its hopes on an old theory. A theory that would lead them all so very, absolutely astray.
Stay tuned for part two.
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Sources:
Yogurt Shop Murders: The Night Austin, Texas Lost its Innocence – Leah – Medium
The Unsolved Austin Yogurt Shop Murders – Christine – The True Crime Files
The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Michael Whelan – Unresolved
True Crime Garage Podcast – Austin Yogurt Shop Murders – Episodes 81 and 82