After 34 Years We Finally Know Who Killed The Yoghurt Shop Girls

In 1991, a fire at an Austin yoghurt shop led firefighters to a scene so horrific it would haunt them forever: four teenage girls murdered in one of Texas’ most shocking crimes. The Yoghurt Shop Murders became a case that devastated families, traumatised a city, and remained unsolved for more than three decades. Now, thanks to advances in DNA technology, investigators believe they’ve finally identified the killer. Margaret Brown, director of HBO and A24’s The Yoghurt Shop Murders, explains the wrongful confessions, the families’ fight for answers, and the extraordinary twists that changed everything. LINKS Watch the latest episode of The Yogurt Shop Murders on HBO MAX here https://www.hbomax.com/au/en/shows/yogurt-shop-murders/5a5fea94-4819-4a1d-b66d-9fd2179a7d1c. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. New Mamamia subscribers get $40 off — $20 off an annual membership and $20 off your TWOOBS order. Click here to subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/twoobs-discount-code/?utm_source=shownotes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=discounts&utm_content=twoobs-ron. Already a subscriber? Click here for your $20 TWOOBS discount code https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscriber-hub/exclusive-offers/. T&C's apply. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations https://www.instagram.com/truecrimeconversations/?hl=en Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or send us a voice note. https://help.mamamia.com.au/en-US/send-a-podcast-voice-note-467960 Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. CREDITS Guest: Margaret Brown https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533976/Host: Gemma Bath https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmabath/?originalSubdomain=au Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahli-blackman-205a891b7/?originalSubdomain=au Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Video Editor: Rory Nix Audio Designer: Scott Stronach Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  It's 11:47pm on Friday the 6th of December 1991. And the Austin Fire Department has received a call about a blaze at a yogurt shop in the city's north. When firefighters arrive, they enter the premise and quickly get to work extinguishing the fire. But as the flames die down and the smoke clears, a horrifying scene is revealed. Four teenagers, four children, lay dead on the floor. They've been brutally murdered in the tiny workspace that sits behind the shop's serving area. A cheerful, family-friendly store that sells fun-coloured yogurts with the tagline, "Where healthy never tasted so good."

• 0:47Speaker 00

  What these firefighters witness will haunt them for many years to come, leaving some with PTSD and others with acute emotional distress. What they've just discovered is about to become the biggest crime Austin, Texas has ever seen. A crime that will steal a city's innocence and leave three local families heartbroken.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  I'm Gemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. A warning, today's episode includes child murder and graphic descriptions of violence. Please take care while listening. The murders of 13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, and sisters 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and 15-year-old Sarah Harbison shocked the entire world with the brutality of the crime unlike anything many of these first responders on the scene had ever seen. The girls were tied up with their own clothing and shot in the head.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  There was evidence of sexual assault on three of the four victims. Solving this crime has not been straightforward. In fact, it's taken 34 years, with the person responsible finally discovered, thanks to some incredible detective work and the developments of DNA science in 2025. Robert Eugene Brasches, however, the serial killer who did this, died by suicide in 1999. He will never see the inside of a jail cell for this horrific crime. Today's guest has been working on an HBO A24 documentary series called The Yogurt Shop Murders for the last few years.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  She never expected that her deep dive into a decades-old crime would turn into breaking news. Margaret Brown is a highly acclaimed American film director, who was kind enough to invite us virtually into her kitchen to talk about the murders, the families, the various suspects over the years, what it was like making the documentary, and the incredible twists that have recently emerged in this story. Here's Margaret. Margaret, thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations. You released this documentary more than 30 years after the crime. Is this a crime that stayed with you? What made you want to revisit it?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  I live in Austin, so I've been hearing about the crime since I got here in the late 90s. And people would talk about it at parties. It was something, I was actually just having dinner with, I mean, lunch with a friend, and he was talking about how he, like, he moved here way before I did in the early 90s. And he was talking about how he would go to this gun shop and all the cops in Austin would just be talking about the crime. It was really like in the 90s, something that people just talked about all the time. There were billboards up all over the city. So it was just sort of literally hovering over you.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Because I've heard, and I've heard a lot in your documentary, people using the phrase, "it took the city's innocence." So it really was kind of the biggest crime that the city had seen, is that right?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I mean, again, I wasn't here when it happened, but I definitely moving here. And I have so many, I mean, I have friends who were on the cheerleading team with those girls. Like, I, I, it's something that like...

• 4:27Speaker 01

  It it's Austin still sort of feels like a small town in a way, even though now it's one of the biggest cities in America. And it's kind of like a thing where everyone has a story about it. A lot of people feel really, really deeply connected to the crime.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  There was a breakthrough in this case, this decades old case, a month, a few weeks after you premiered?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Three weeks.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Three weeks. Did you know that was coming?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  I had a sense because I um just I I had a sense because I could tell, I could tell there was some excitement um on the police force. But, you know, they're not going to share anything with me before they share it with the families. But I had I had a sense something was coming out.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  What are the chances, though? Like, you premiere and then three weeks later? That is crazy.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  It's crazy of a thirty four year old crime.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. I want to go back to the start. I want to take listeners through this case. Can you tell us about Austin in nineteen ninety one? I know you weren't there, but what was it like? Was there much crime? Can you kind of set the scene for us?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  You know, um, the the crime happened to four white girls. White people in Austin, I think, felt really protected back then. And it it wasn't like Barbara, the mother of two of the girls who were killed, said she always says it was four white girls. It was big news, big news. You know, that's the way she phrases it. And um, I think that there was this sense of just safety. Kids rode their bike everywhere. I mean, Sonora, who was Eliza's sister, was another one of the four girls that were murdered. She talks about just riding her bike all around that neighborhood where they were murdered. I think there was just a sense of nothing really happens like that in Austin. It was like a quiet university town. And um, but you know, it was also kind of a place where there

• 6:21Speaker 01

  was a lot of counterculture. Um, I think Slacker, Richard Linklater's movie came out in nineteen ninety one. And um, it was it was definitely a place where like, um, you know, it was like a lot of counterculture, like hippies, um, the punk scene. Like, it was definitely somewhere that was, you know, not necessarily like normal Texas.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  And the yogurt shop for Australians, the closest I can kind of. Compare it to is like a Yochi where it's like selfs. It's it's the same thing, but the modern version where you self-serve kind of yogurt and then you put toppings on top.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, that sounds like.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  It's the same thing, but obviously that was the nineties version, the yogurt shop in Austin. And to help kind of paint the picture for listeners, it was kind of in a a strip mall. So it's not a hugely trafficked area, is it? It's kind of, it's it's not in a mall, it's.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  It actually was, it was near this mall called North Cross Mall and it was like walkable to the mall. So it kind of was an area where like teenagers hung hung out. There was a creek behind it where people would go and like drink beer, like get away from your parents. So again, it sort of was a place like a lot of my friends say that creek behind North Cross Mall was where people went to like hang out and like get away.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  The victims, I want to say their names before we get to their stories. We've got seventeen year old Eliza Thomas, seventeen year old Jennifer Harbison, her sister, fifteen year old Sarah Harbison and thirteen year old Amy Ayers. Can you tell us a bit about them? Who were they?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Um, they were four girls who knew each other from FFA, which is called Future Farmers of America. And they raised farm animals together. Um, but that's not as sort of like, I I think they weren't like all, um. They actually like back in Austin, my friends had said those kind of people were called kickers, which are just like, it's like shit kickers, like like cowgirls. But I don't think you could stereotype them cleanly that way. Like they were definitely, um, you know, they were also on the cheerleading team. Um, some of them were like Jennifer was a runner. Um, I think Eliza wasn't really like that at all.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Her father was a university professor or like part of that stereotype. So I think they were, you know, um, they they were bound by their love of like farm animals and country music. But that wasn't like the totality of who they were.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  December sixth, nineteen ninety one.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  Only Jennifer and Eliza were actually on shift that day at the yogurt shop. So how did the younger girls come to be there?

• 9:05Speaker 01

  They came because they were, um, they were all gonna hang out that night. And, um, I, I believe that like Sarah was gonna spend the night with Amy. And so, um, she went over because Jennifer would drive them home. So they went over from the mall, they walked over from the mall. And they were having pizza from the Mr. Gaddy's next door. So they were sitting in one of the booths, having pizza, waiting for the two. And I think they were helping them clean. Like, you know, you, when, when you close the yogurt shop, there's all this cleaning you have to do. And so they were probably helping out in the back.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Do we know anything about the shift prior to the murders? The, what they were doing prior to that? Have, have any of the customers or anything helped piece that together?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Actually, John Jones, um, the head investigator at, at the beginning. He, um, he had a, had a whole, like, he, he got in touch with everyone who had been at the yogurt shop before that. And he hypnotized them, he talked to all of them. Um, so to piece together exactly what you're talking about. So we do have a map of everyone who was on the, at the yogurt shop. I, I believe from like 3pm until it closed.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  How were authorities first alerted to anything wrong? Anything that, that was happening at the shop?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  There was a fire reported at the shop. And so, um, we actually are, strangely, there was a camera crew with John Jones the night of this crime. And so they have him getting the call and telling him to go to the yogurt shop. And people, like, we had to do, it was very hard to make that footage. And I still wonder sometime if people think it's a reenactment. But no, it really was true that there was a camera crew in the car with him the night of the crime. And they filmed him getting the call.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  I didn't even think while watching the documentary, but you're right. How, how was their footage of the lead detective arriving? That is crazy.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  And he talks about how he was in, he was with these reporters. And, you know, they were talking about how nothing ever happens in Austin. And they were just riding around with him. And they, Houston, so many things happen in Houston. And, and then the biggest crime in like Texas happens like while they're in the car.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  I know.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  So the firefighters arrived expecting, you know, a structure fire. They walked in on something horrific. Can you help to explain that? And a warning to listeners, it is very graphic, but can you tell me what they found?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Well, they were putting out the fire and someone noticed a body part and a hand, I believe. And or maybe a leg and they realised that it wasn't just a fire, like someone was trying to cover it up. Someone was trying to cover up a crime.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Once they kind of walked further into the room, they found four bodies, the four bodies of the girls.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  First, at first they found three, like when you listen to the tape and the film, they say it's a triple homicide. And then they correct it and say it's a quadruple homicide because one of the girls was apart from the other three. So basically the fire started and the firemen, when they came on, came in, obviously started putting out the fire. So it basically flooded the area that had been burned.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  The girls had been kind of stripped or partially stripped and gagged. And I can only imagine what that scene would have looked like for those emergency responders. Was there, we know that they were shot, that's how they were killed. Was there any evidence of sexual assault?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yes, and the the full proof of that wasn't really revealed until this year.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Really? Is that because of DNA and DNA back in the nineties wasn't quite as strong?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  I believe so, yes.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  When you say the full extent wasn't realised until this year, were all the girls assaulted?

• 13:04Speaker 01

  I believe three were assaulted.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  I, there was a reason I wanted to make this and it's because, you know, I'm from Austin. And I don't watch true crime, I guess, because.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  You know, I don't necessarily like thinking about what was done to these girls or what they were thinking when they died. And since I made it, I've, you know, installed a security system in my house. I mean, it made me incredibly paranoid working on this, and I really don't know how people make true crime over and over. And when you're asking me the graphic questions, it's like, it's interesting. Like, I mean, I know all the answers, but it's something I thought about a lot because I know all the family members so well. And we, this was not a show where we, we did, we tried not to focus on some of these details just because I know how hard they are for the families. And it's just so horrific that, you know, I try to stay away from it.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  I realize that it's part of the story and you have to delve into it, but I, I almost never talk about that part of it. And the editors, you know, they know how sensitive I am, and there's some pictures I have never even looked at. And, and ones we purposefully did not put in the documentary because we felt like no one needs to see this.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  It is really hard.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I guess I wanted to say that because, you know, when you're asking me these questions, it's honestly like, I am really interested in psychologically what happens to people when you're dealing with like trauma, like something this traumatic in our lives, we all have to deal with trauma. But my interest in the story is really like, these people went through probably the most horrific thing you can go through, which is your daughters are murdered and you sense they're probably almost definitely sexually assaulted, although it's not something I really talked about with the parents because I didn't feel like that was something I needed to talk about. And then, you know, it's all over the media, so everyone feels like they have a piece of it.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  And then you don't really know what happens. There's, there's people who are accused, but there's always a question. And so I was really interested because we all encounter grief in our lives, you know? And, um, but these people have the most extreme form of it you can even imagine. And so I guess the reason I wanted to tell this story is because I thought that could be helpful to people to go there, you know?

• 15:33Speaker 00

  It's a really hard line to walk when you work in the true crime world and telling these stories is how do you tell the story and what happened while not re-traumatizing the victims, going into too much detail, but also balancing that? So. You did a really great job of that in that I think when people watch your documentary, they they will understand what happened to the girls, but it isn't sensationalized graphic kind of content.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's some of it is just sensational because of what it is and you can't get away from it to tell the story, but I we talked about that a lot on our production team, like how much is too much because because it was really, this was a really hard thing to make and, you know, eight twenty four got therapy for the whole team and, um, you know, so it's it's not, I and I think that's something that's really necessary in stories like this because it's very hard to process and sit with these people when they're when they're reliving this, just just so you can get their interview, you're asking these people to go through this thing again, you know, and it's it's hard to ask people to do that and um, and it's hard to watch them go through it.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Well, you you mentioned you spoke to kind of sisters, fathers, mothers, brothers, friends of these girls. What did you personally take away from those conversations from revisiting their grief and their memories?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I mean, it really helped me personally think about things in my own life and how I talk to people about hard things that happened to them and how I process it for myself because, I mean, when you're talking to someone like Barbara, um, who's the mother of two of the girls that died, like she is sort of like this zen master in, you know, a middle aged lady's body, you know, and she's just dealt with so much and she deals with it with such lightness and grace. And, you know, all of the families have had to go through the unimaginable and it's just really interesting and to watch how people, everyone deals with grief differently.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  What I found interesting was watching how Public the families were, they really gave themselves to the media in an effort to try and find the killers. But I think it's Barbara that tells you that it really started to take a toll.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I realised too, it's, you know, when I interviewed her, it was thirty three years later, and Sonora, Eliza's sister, is very close to her. Eliza is one of the girls that was murdered. And Sonora told me that, you know, Barbara had said that she was in bed for a month after the interview. And it's just hard to think I did that to somebody.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Another detail that got to me that I hadn't thought of, and it's like the ripple effect of crime, is the twenty four year old manager of that yogurt shop that was called in to identify them. And the grief on her face when you're interviewing her about that.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  How was that for you?

• 18:38Speaker 01

  I mean, it was, it was very difficult to get her to do that interview because she's carried it with her her whole life. And, and she also felt like a mother to those girls, Eliza and Jennifer, and particularly Eliza. And so I think she felt this responsibility. She was supposed to be on shift that night. And she felt that responsibility of not being there, doing something that could have protected them, although we know now there's nothing she could have done. But, you know, I think that to have to live with that would be so difficult. So I was really honoured that she finally decided to do the interview. I

• 19:19Speaker 01

  know it was really hard on her. But, you know, when you make these films, you try to support everyone as much as you can. But, and, and just to allow them, you know, as much as they want to talk about it or not.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Well, you went as far as kind of talking about a fifth victim in your documentary, which was Sonora, the sister.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Can you tell us about working with her and how much this crime affected her? Because why was she the fifth victim?

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Well, I wouldn't say that it's definitely just Sonora. I would say that the fifth victim could be the city. I mean, I think that episode, the fifth victim, you could translate it as Sonora. But the fifth victim could be like the city of Austin. It could be John Jones. You know, it could be Bob Ayers, you know, the father of Amy or Pam Ayers. I mean, it's, again, like you said, this crime had a real ripple effect in how people, everyone felt so connected to it. But yes, Sonora, I mean, Eliza was her best friend. And I'm actually incredibly close to Sonora now because she kind of went through this with us.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  And she is someone who, after this happened to her when she was, you know, a preteen, she is now a therapist and helps people deal with their own trauma. And I just thought that was so incredible that she would turn her own pain into something that helped other people. Like, that's how she transposed what happened to her, the loss of her sister and best friend.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  And she was a very strong person, you could tell. She's been through a lot.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  She's been through a lot, yeah. She's incredibly articulate. Honestly, all the family members are incredibly articulate. It was, you know, you can't pick the people you're making a film about in a circumstance like this. There's no, in many documentaries I make, there's like almost a casting process where you find like the best people. But with this, like, I couldn't believe it. Like, I mean, I think it's maybe because all the family members were, I mean, Bob Ayers is like an incredible storyteller. Like, he basically comes from central casting of incredible storytellers. But, you know, yeah, I was so blessed to have these people who are so articulate with, you know, Shaun, his son, like how to express what had happened to them.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  How did you get so many? People that were close to this story on board because you had everyone, you had, you know, the judges, all the police officers, all of the family members. I can imagine that was a huge effort to try and convince everyone.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  I had a team. I mean, I had, it wasn't just me, but I have been doing this a long time. And I think the way is because like, I don't really know why everyone talked to me. I, I, maybe I'm really persistent. But I, I also think that like, I, I, I don't try to parachute in. I try to like, talk to people a lot before, or as much as they want to. Sometimes people are like, yes, I'll talk to you. But with something like this, it's like this traumatic and also that was so long ago. And some people are like, I'm done with that. I talked about that for 20 years. I'm done. You have to kind of be like, well, you know, I think this is why you should talk to me. And, and

• 22:52Speaker 01

  I usually explain like, my approach, which is kind of a little different than maybe some of the other people who have talked to them in the past that are really focused on. Because I was more interested in, in the grief and how maybe sharing how they've dealt with this could help other people instead of like, the glorious details, you know. So I could, I could, I could say that. And sometimes they'd be more interested, but sometimes not. Sometimes people are just done, you know. So it was really, yeah, I'm not really, the answer is I don't really know why everyone talked to me. But I'm glad they did.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  Can you tell us a little bit about what that early investigation looked like? Because there were quite a few things that kind of got in the way, mainly the fact that there was a fire and that there was a lot of water. So in, in the way of evidence, what were they working with? What was John, that lead investigator, working with?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I mean, it's kind of a perfect storm of this is fucked, you know, like, there's, there's, um, there's.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Nothing much to work with. Like you can't, you know, if, if, I mean, this is horrific, but if like, you can't like, there's, there's nothing that they could, the, the thing that was, that really saved it was the fact that like, they, they um, did DNA, which was like a nor- not a normal thing back then. It was um, it was something that was a new thing. And um, Huck, John's partner, was kind of a charmer, you know, and he convinced um, the coroner to like, who wanted to just take the bodies, to wait for the DNA to get collected. And that is literally what, one of the main things that solved this case, was that like, Huck is a charmer.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  From pretty early on, the police kind of surmised that it was a robbery gone wrong? Is that what they were kind of working with?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  That's, that was one of the um, the lead theories was, is a robbery gone wrong?

• 24:49Speaker 00

  Can you explain, um, they found like evidence of multiple guns, which was a, a big part of the investigation?

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Yes. Um, there were two guns at the crime. Um, there's something that one of the investigators calls a dancing gun. It's like, it's like called an AMT backup model. And um, it's like this tiny little gun. Um, and there was that, that was one of the guns. And then there was a larger gun as well. And they were both used in the crime.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Next, the confessions that surfaced just one week after the crime, and the red flags that had police feeling cautious. You know the drill. You pick the couch, pay the deposit, then wait 12 weeks praying it matches the living room. Let's skip that. Mamma Mia is giving one lucky subscriber a $5,000 voucher for B2C furniture to spend on pieces that are in stock and ready to ship right now. High-end style, zero weight. To enter, head to mamma mia dot com dot A U forward slash subscribe. You'll unlock all our subscriber-only podcasts, articles, and our fitness app, Move. Already subscribed? You're already in the running. Offer ends October 31st. T's and C's apply.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  A week after the murders, two teenage boys were walking around a nearby mall, the mall that you mentioned before, with a gun. Can you explain what happened there? Because it was 16-year-old Maurice and 15-year-old Forrest.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  Obviously, police were called. What happened?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  So this was, you know, people were getting um, It was basically like he had the same kind of gun that was used at the crime. And so he got pulled in and interrogated all night long. And the person who interrogated him was the kind of like star interrogator at the Austin Police Department, who had also gotten five other confessions from people too. So he was obviously very good at getting confessions. You know, so Forrest confessed. He's a, you know, 16 year old boy who stayed up all night, probably intimidated. But at the time, you know, we just know that he confessed and, you know, we have the confession and it's in the documentary.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  And it basically like he implicates other people, people other than himself.

• 27:08Speaker 00

  So he implicates two other boys?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Three other boys. He implicates Forrest Welburn, who was his best friend at the time. And he mentions Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, who were with him at the time and the next day, actually as well.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  So he confessed, but nothing really came of that because these boys, we know now we're going to talk about, were arrested and much later, many, many years later. So why did nothing happen at the time? Why was that kind of evidence kind of left and parked?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  I think because John Jones felt like it just didn't add up.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  He got the confession. People knew that this cop Hector Polanco was really good at getting confessions. And there was no evidence. And so it was just a confession. And, and I think John just thought like that it just wasn't enough. So they went out. Maurice went out and he wore a wire and he spoke to Forrest and said that, you know, what happened that night? Like, you know, did you shoot these girls? And Forrest is like, what are you talking about? Like, he has no idea what he's talking about. And he goes, but you said it. And Forrest is like, man, I was joking around. Like, what are you talking about?

• 28:26Speaker 01

  And, and so I think at that point, John was just thought that, oh, this is, these are just kids, you know?

• 28:34Speaker 00

  He shows you in your documentary, two pages worth of confessions, like all different names, which was wild to me that. And he had in like a column that a lot of them were bragging, why, why would people, it's quite hard to get your head around, why would people brag about a horrific crime like this?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Well, I think, I think about it this way, like you're a teenager, you know, you're trying to brag to your friends. Like, it just seems so unreal. I mean, I've thought about this, obviously, for years, but um, I can remember what it was like in high school. And it's like, it's like, it's like a dark humor. Well, like, oh, did you do it? You know, um, I, I, I, I can only surmise it's something like that. Just like kids being disgusting, you know, but not capable of murder. But, I mean, like, I think, um, I can't remember the exact number. I think there were seven written confessions and like fifty or, so people were confessing all over town.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  But like you said, I guess kids, I mean, they don't realize how serious it is to do something like that. They think they're having fun.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  No, these are teenagers, you know?

• 29:41Speaker 00

  I wanted to skip us forward to the end of nineteen ninety two, because there was a confession there that was taken really seriously out of Mexico. What happened there?

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, there were, there were some Mexican suspects and it turned out that they were tortured by their own government to get the confessions. And Huck Jones's partner went down there to just see what was up. And he realized straight away that they didn't know anything about the crime. They were being like fed what to say. And um, you know, it was, it was definitely one of those situations where it was immediately clear from someone who knew the crime that they didn't know any of the correct details.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Then if we fast forward again to nineteen ninety seven, a new team, a new police kind of task force is put on the case and kind of Huck and Jones are pushed to the side.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Why? And, and what was the effect on those two men who had been working for years on this case?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  They were really, so they got really close to the families and that was something, this was such a high profile case in Austin. Everyone was talking about it all the time. One of the reasons I took the job was because I realized there was like mountains of archival footage about this. Like I knew that I would be able to portray Austin in that moment in a really crystal clear way because the city and the media was fascinated with it. And so I knew that I had the materials to build the story because you don't always have that. You sometimes have to recreate it and I knew that I would not have to do that.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  I could see the footage and I could see that like there was this version of Austin back then and of details of how it all went down back then that I would be able to really put the story together. But to answer your question, they made this decision Huck and Jones to kind of include the families in the investigation in a way, like let them into the police station in a way that I don't think, they just felt for them so deeply. I mean, I think Huck and Jones were really empathic people and they, there was a lot of pressure on them to solve it, but they also came to love the families. And in a way that was, made it really hard on them and they got, when they couldn't

• 32:03Speaker 01

  solve it right away, they got just, it really, I think it affected their marriages, it was just, it took a toll. It took a toll on so many people. I mean, moving forward, ask me that question again with, with the lawyers who were involved. I mean, this, there was a real ripple effect on how this crime affected everyone it touched. But at the beginning, it was really Jones and Huck and trying, just trying anything they could to make these families feel better. And part of that was just letting them into the process in a way that I think was highly unusual at the time.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Because Paul Johnston, the new kind of investigator that took over, he was a very different operator.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Yes, he felt like he's, I think he saw what had happened with them and that they'd gotten, they were diagnosed with PTSD and told they had to stop working on it because they were, it was affecting their work and they were taken off of the case, which was very hard for both of them because they really, really wanted to solve it. And I think they're both very good investigators and Paul had a really different approach, but probably part of it was just looking at the effect on Jones and on Huck and being like, well, obviously that didn't work, so I'm going to try a different tack, you know, and not get close to the families and start over, you know? And so he was, he took the opposite approach that I'm not going to get close to the families.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I'm going to look at, look at everything again. I'm going to start over.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  So he was the one that kind of revisited, he revisited a lot of the tips, but he revisited the tip that we talked about with the four boys, Maurice and Forrest, and brought them all back in for interviews. You've got a lot of those interviews in the documentary, which are fascinating to watch, and you kind of unpack them. What did you make of those interviews?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Man, when I watched those interviews, I didn't know what to think.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  Really?

• 33:56Speaker 01

  You know, how do they know some of the things they know in the interviews? And it is, my best friend is a, is a reporter in Austin and she and all her reporter friends were all like, you have to do this TV show because this is the, this is the case that has more rabbit holes than any case in Texas and you'll never get to the bottom of it. And I kind of like, in addition to, you know, I took that as a challenge almost. Well, I didn't really think at the time about like, oh, this is going to be really hard to tell because it's so traumatic. I thought like, oh, wait, it's the one with the most rabbit holes? Well, that sounds interesting, you know? I didn't really know what I was doing. Like, it was very naive to be like, it's not like I thought I was going to solve it, but I thought that, um,

• 34:41Speaker 01

  I was curious about unlimited rabbit holes. And I guess what, what my point would be is like looking at, um, looking at the, the confessions, you know, at one point, Mike Scott says, you know, um,

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Like he, he, he, he says he thinks he might have killed someone and, and you know, there, there's things in it that you just can't explain unless somehow you know something about it. Or there are a few other options too, like maybe someone fed you that information. But, um, but when you're watching it fresh, you know, you're just like, how do they know that? Like this, you know, it, it's, it's, um, uh, it's, it's a, it's, it was an interesting document to have, but then you learn about the read technique and you know, you think about, well, how are these, how are these confessions done really? Because some of it feels very coerced. Yeah, I mean, Forrest, Forrest never confessed. Um, he, he always said that he'd had nothing to do with it and you know, he was trying to, all of them were trying to be helpful, you know?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  They're trying to be helpful. Um, you know, Forrest's mom talks about how all these kids were being pulled in. So you couldn't really tell. I mean, this is years later, the confessions you're talking about, but I think even years later, this was such, um, this is eight years later, and even then it's still like an alive thing in Austin. Everyone's still talking about the billboards are still all over town. It never really died. Everyone knew it was unsolved. So everyone's just going in there trying to help out, you know? Um, so that's sort of the, I think that's sort of the ethos of this. Like no one knew how serious it was until it was serious.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Does that make sense?

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, like the boys, they went and did the interviews of their own accord. They weren't arrested or anything like that.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  They're trying to be helpful. They're trying to be like good citizens.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  And they do say that in the interviews. They say, I'm here because I'm trying to help or I don't remember. And, and then kind of the, the interviews go for ages and ages and ages. And then eventually we get these two confessions from these boys.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  Kind of talking about Maurice being more of a ringleader, but then implicating themselves in kind of parts of the crime as well.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  And then what? That leads to arrests for arrests and charges?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  I mean, you have to think about like, I learned so much about, um, like in America, like the cops can lie to you. Like, I did not know that, like, you know, um, I mean, of course, like, you grow up as a teenager thinking like, avoid the cops, you know, but like, I didn't know that they could just make something up and act like it's true. And you think about that, as, as a fifteen or sixteen year old, absolutely, that's terrifying. Like, the fact that they would, like, um, share and force mom would just say he was a fifteen year old boy and the cops would just drive by his house and tell him to get in the car. He didn't have to get in the car, but he thinks he has to get in the car, you know, they're not, no one's saying, like, this is your

• 37:39Speaker 01

  choice at the time. Um, but then as young men, you know, eight years later, it's still like your trust and authority figure, you don't know they can lie to you. You know, there's not a, um, a lawyer present, just, it, it just, it's, it's kind of like, as someone, you know, an older person to that, like, I just, I, I still think if that had happened to me, I would, there's some part of me that's gonna like, trust that like, oh, they have my best interest at heart, but clearly that is not what happened.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Are you also kind of, is, is that how they would get to like a false confession, so to speak? Because this is a person of authority and you're kind of like convinced? Like, I'm trying to work out how, I know this is a big question in your documentary as well, like, how, how would someone confess to something that they didn't do?

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Well, I think, I find this question incredibly fascinating, and I think it really depends on the person. There are different types of people who confess for different reasons. And it was kind of like a perfect storm. Like, I think that, um, I think that Mike Scott, in his effort to help, was able to be convinced, and maybe, you know, um, they were making him like, walk through the crime over and over and kind of role play. And I think for someone like, the kind of person Mike Scott is, I think he was able to convince himself somehow that he did it, you know? With Robert Springsteen, he's a different kind of person. I think he was just trying to get out.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Out of the room, he like realized like this something is messed up here. They have the wrong idea about me. I'm just gonna say anything I can to get out of the room. Cause they were just, he felt trapped. So I think they both did it for different reasons. But um, but there's a technique called the read technique that is taught to police. Where um, where it it sort of walks you through how to get people to confess and Huck. Talks about how he couldn't get anyone to confess. If he wants to, you have to use it for good. Because you can get anyone that he he told me in the interview, oh, I can get you to confess to anything. You just don't even know. It's because I have this technique. I know how to do it.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  Really?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  So it's a little scary.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  But it is interesting because Maurice and Forrest were given the same treatment and they didn't confess.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  They did not confess, no.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  So it doesn't work on everyone?

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Not everyone, but I think um, you have to look at like. Who who people are, just like the way people respond to grief differently. People respond to intimidation differently. People are different, you know, and um, and these are also very young men. Who are trying to help authority figures and they might realize a little too late that maybe. They took it too far. I think with Rob, that's what happened. He was like, I just gotta get out of here. And with Mike, I think he just got confused.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  But I don't know with Mike, that one's more confusing to me because like, how do you? Um, there are experts that, you know, that that that talk about false confessions and why people confess, but. You know, I still, I think like anyone who watches this is gonna watch it and think like. Uh, you know, I would never do that, but they're also not in that situation. They're not scared. They're not sleep deprived. You know, um, I I think like. You you know, it's it's in a way, it's like a form of torture, just like keep someone in a room, keep telling them they did this thing like. I don't know. I mean, the brain is a crazy thing.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  Apart from those two confessions from the boys, well, men, when they confessed.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Did they have any other evidence tying them to the crime?

• 41:18Speaker 01

  None.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  So no physical evidence at all?

• 41:20Speaker 01

  No physical evidence.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Which is crazy to me because we're talking about a crime and. Springsteen and Scott were both charged and convicted. One got the death penalty, one got life on just a confession.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Correct, but those confessions are pretty grisly.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  The words that literally came out of their mouth were, I shot a gun in her head. Like, it was very, it was a big confession.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  And, and some very graphic rape details, too, that are, I would say, possibly even more horrific that that are on the confession tapes. Maybe not more, but pretty horrific things that stick in your head.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  So, as I mentioned, Springsteen and Scott were charged and convicted. Wellborn was charged but never tried after two grand juries refused to indict him. And then Pierce, so Maurice Pierce, spent three years in jail. Then the charges were dismissed and he was released. When you were revisiting all of those court proceedings around the fore, what did you make of it? I know you say you're not fully immersed in the true crime world all the time, but even, even if you aren't, like, it was wild to watch all of that kind of unfold in hindsight.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I definitely have watched, like, you know, The Staircase. And, I mean, I've watched, I've watched, like, my fair share of true crime, but it wasn't, that's not really like what I've made in my career as a filmmaker is true crime. But, I mean, I know, I know, like, you know, the structure of a lot of true crime or how that works. But, I mean, again, it was this, it was, it was fascinating. It was like, like you said, like, why, why would you confess to something you didn't do? And, you know, and you think about that a lot. And then you think about, like, you know, it's unreal that this person got, like you

• 43:13Speaker 01

  said, got like the death penalty for something with no material evidence. And, I mean, the entire Austin Police Department, well, except for a few people who are in the film, believed they did it, like, with some kind of certainty, you know? And, you know, when I was making this, Friends of mine would write me on social media who went to high school with the boys, telling me they knew the boys did it, you know, and people in Austin who just, people thought they did it.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Well, when someone confesses, you you take them at their word, but

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  The defence lawyers did actually start to poke holes in their confessions.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Mm hmm, yes.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Which you showed as well. So like, things didn't match up.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  That did not convince the jury.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  It didn't, which is, yeah, I guess a confession is a powerful thing.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  After the break, how did the victims' families react when Springsteen was sentenced to death and Scott received life in prison? I found the families' reactions really interesting to the two boys being charged, especially the death penalty. Barbara, in particular, was really upset by it and saying, I didn't want to take another life, which I found fascinating because usually these families, they want justice, especially when something so horrific has happened to a loved one.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  I think Barbara is a really, like I said before, she's kind of otherworldly. Like, I also wonder, and this is a question, it's not any kind of certainty, after, not to be spoiler, you can include this however you want, but after having made the fifth episode and asked a lot of these questions again, now that we really know, 3.7 million to one, who did this, according to Dan's work, it made me look back and wonder, you know, was there some part of these families' brain that never really believed those boys did it?

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  You know, and I wonder, in hindsight, because, you know, we were making the movie, like, we really didn't think the boys did it, you know, like, I just, I did not believe they did it when I was making it, but there was still part of me that wondered because of the confessions, because, like, there was no certainty, you know, and I also felt like I couldn't end the fourth episode by absolutely saying they didn't do it, even though I thought they didn't do it, because there was no certainty. But, so, and to take the other part of it, like, the families know, in some part of their brain, there's no material evidence, the DNA does not match. So I wonder if Barbara, in some part of her brain...

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Was like, are we making a mistake? This is a question that filmmakers ask themselves, or I asked myself. And, you know, the whole, there was a very big filmmaking team behind this. It's not just me.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  And so there's a whole, like, you know, text message chat with all of our theories going on for three and a half years with like 20 people. Just at all hours of the night, you look in the morning and there's another, you know, like, we didn't know. We're, we're, we're in the morass of it all with everyone else.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Even as someone who knows what's happened after the fact, I watched the documentary going,

• 46:35Speaker 00

  oh, did they do, like, and I knew what the answer was. And I was like, did they do it though? Did like, even though I knew. So I can completely understand when you didn't have the certainty of the actual answer, why you would have been like, oh, what do I do with this?

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Right, right. And you want to be fair to everyone. Like, I don't, I don't, um, you know, I, I don't want to, because, because I don't know. And I'm not going to pretend to know. Um, so I, you know, you have to, I feel like I had to just every day go into it with beginner's mind, you know, because I have an idea what I think, but I sure as hell don't know that.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  This is what you were talking about with rabbit holes.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  How were those convictions overturned? Because that happened many, many years later. I think around 2007, eight, if I'm right. So, you know, these, these men spent a decade, nearly a decade in prison.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Basically, the Supreme Court changed something about the law that said you can't testify against someone else. Um, like if, if, if you're involved in the case. So, so Rob and Mike had, even though it had been redacted, it was clear that they were the only witness against each other. And so it got thrown out.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  And they literally got out?

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they were never cleared of the crime, which I found out talking to Forrest, that that is a very big distinction. Because that means everyone still thinks you did it and your life is still basically ruined.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Well, he described it as I walked out of prison into another prison, basically, with everyone thinking I was guilty.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that like, um, I don't know, he must have said that in something else. That is not in my documentary. But, um, but I, I can imagine him saying it because, um, you know, he, it, it, you, I realized, because I didn't talk to any of, well, they're men now, but everyone calls them the boys. And, um, and, uh,

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Like, when you talk to Forrest, the way he talks about what he went through, um, you realize, like, he was only, I mean, man, he, he was, it, he, it affected him the least. He was in, he was in jail for three months and it ruined his life. Like, you know, he got pulled over by the cops all the time. Even when we were making it a few months ago, um, he, his lawyer would say to me, like, this something that, some cop that had been following Forrest. I mean, people were still convinced that they did it. It was insane.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  Well, Maurice died at the hands of police.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  In twenty ten. So, I mean, it followed him too.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Right, right. No, um, you know, I think he had total PTSD. He was terrified of cops and it's, that's, a cop killed him, yes.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  So the plan was to retry these men and try and get them back to prison. And then that's when the DNA kind of comes into everything. So they were going to get the DNA and retry it with modern technologies. But you kind of show that the DA, the district attorney, was kind of trying to be like, well, it's contaminated, you can't use it. And you kind of proved that that, that's not really a thing. Can you explain that?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Well, no, I mean, sometimes it absolutely can be contaminated. Um, I think that, uh, I mean, the, the site with the, with the water and the fire, things can get contaminated. But the DNA that was used to solve the crime was, um, vaginal swabs. And in this case, that was not contaminated. Just because, I don't know how much detail you want me to get into about vaginas, but it was not contaminated.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  They knew, they knew that that DNA wasn't contaminated. And then they realized that it didn't match any of the boys, men.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Well, I would say, it's not that they didn't know at the time it wasn't contaminated. It's that when DNA, the same DNA shows up at different sites and it's the same DNA, they might not know who that person is. But if it's in three different women and it doesn't match any of the boys.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  You know, that means that it's probably one person.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  So it did mean that Springsteen and Scott weren't just kind of having their charges dismissed. It kind of ruled them out.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  You could say that, but but also, for whatever reason, um, just because we didn't know who that DNA belonged to, even Dan, who ended up solving the crime, would never say on the record before he solved it that they still weren't connected to it.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Because there's, there could, there could be other reasons, like, um, maybe, um, one of them had a boyfriend, although we would have to not know who that boyfriend was, because all of the people who were connected to them in any way were tested. All of their DNA was swabbed. So it would have had to been, I mean, the, the, it was like all these incredibly improbable things that, once the DNA inside the girls did not match the boys, yeah, you, you would think if there's no other material evidence, um, these, these boys, they, like, there's no way they could have just, like,

• 51:54Speaker 01

  stayed convicted, but they were never, they were never, like, absolved of the crime. They were never, no one ever said, like, you didn't do this. So it's still hung over them.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  How did Dan, and Dan that you're talking about is the homicide cold case detective who kind of is the new person to take over the case all these years later, how did he solve this? Because he got a name, he got an actual person, a killer, he solved it.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  I mean, it is incredible that Dan solved it, and he started by testing, um, a bullet casing in a drain that John Jones had saved, which is in the first episode. And, um, you know, we showed the first episode at South by Southwest, and there's like a shot where, um, he, you know, John Jones's associate is holding the case and, and, um,

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Dan, you know, thought to go back and retest shell casings. And DNA particularly right now is just undergoing, like, weekly sometimes, getting better. So I think it was the kind of thing where he was like, I should retest that shell casing. It hasn't been retested in a while. And it so happened that he could have, he could not have, the thing that's crazy is he couldn't have solved the crime until this year because they had just found this new match to the shell casing in a different crime, in a different city in the States. And that led him to think, oh, wait, there's another gun was connected to this gun.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  And then he started connecting the DNA. And there's like two different kinds of DNA that is collected. There's YSTR DNA and STR. And YSTR is just the male lineage. And so after he found the matching gun, he was able to connect also the YSTR to some other crimes. And so he was able to find the killer, but YSTR is just a male lineage. So it could still be like thousands of people. I mean, he knew at that point that it was a serial killer who had murdered, so it's

• 54:13Speaker 01

  almost definitely the right guy. But it wasn't until he matched the STR, which is the exact person. And he found that under Amy's fingernails, that he was able to be like, this is the person who did it, 3.7 million to one. Wow. So it's actually quite complicated. Yeah. How Dan solved the crime. He had to go through a number of steps, but it kept getting closer and closer to the serial killer. And, you know, I don't think anyone, this man, Robert Braschers or Brashears, who did this crime, wasn't even on our radar. Really? Like, no one, it's one of these things, you know, because usually it's someone who knew the victims. Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Someone who's floated through town for some unknown reason still. I mean, Dan is still working on it, like they might yet find why he was in town. But um, but it's, it's, it's just wild, like it's not someone. You know, you know, this world of like, you, you know, when we were making this for as long as we were, you have this idea of who it could be. This person was not even in our stratosphere.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  You mentioned at the start of our chat, a guy that ordered Sprite. Could this have been him?

• 55:24Speaker 01

  It could have been him.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  It could have been him, but that's our only little kind of clue.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Well, if you look at, um, no, there's more clues. If you look at the fifth episode, um, this guy, Robert Brashers, he had, he has a few different ruses he would use. Dan, that Dan talks about to get in the door and some of them. He definitely went to a strip mall more than once, like he liked that. I think as you could get out the back and you could just take off, you know, um, things that were hidden. He had, he was a smart guy. He, he kind of like had a few things that he did over and over.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  You say he's a serial killer. The other crimes that he committed, were they the same? Wa- wa- was this his kind of MO?

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Well, there's overlap in different ways. I would say like, he didn't always kill people. He would sometimes, it's so weird to talk about just in a normal voice.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  I know.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Um, he would sometimes rape them and, um,

• 56:21Speaker 01

  and, and then let them go and we don't know why. Um, and you know, sometimes he would kill them. So we have these different clues to what he did because sometimes he didn't kill people. Sometimes he would let them go. Um, he, his daughter spoke to us and that was really revelatory. Because, you know, she grew up, um, in kind of a, I would call it an extremely dysfunctional family. Where, um, when he came in, he was almost like a normalizing factor because he protected the family. And, um, I mean, the way she talked, it was probably, talking to her was, was, it was, it was.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  One of the most harrowing interviews I've ever done, um, because it was just so tragic that someone who was a serial killer would, in her mind, be a stabilizing force.

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Because he kind of protected, like, some people, I think, as long as, the way she explains it is as long as they protect their family, that's all that matters. And, um, they don't care if they're hurting other people, the family unit is everything. So I think, like, she believes that her mother knew some of it, you know, not probably all of it, but was like protecting her father. And she would talk about how he did all these things, you know, like he would rob shonies and dress up like a woman and he would, you know, he had all these disguises and they would call him a different name in public. And all this was normalized. She was like seven years old and she just thought that was normal.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Because she came from a place where a lot scarier things happen to young women than that, than just calling your father by a different name. And, um, and so, I don't know, it just, I guess it just, talking to her made me feel really grateful that I came from a stable family, or a relatively stable one, because I was like, wow, there are other realities that you were, can be born into that are horrific, you know? And she has made it her mission to kind of apologize to all these families, um, for what her father has done, which, you know, um, she can't un, the fact that she would even wanna do

• 58:47Speaker 01

  that is, is, I don't know, I mean, she's, she's been hurt herself so much and that she, I mean, I guess, like, you know, that's, that's the right thing to do, to think of others, but, um, do you know, because she doesn't even know if when she calls these people, they're even gonna wanna talk to her, you know, because they are so scarred by what happened to their family members, but I don't know, I was really moved by that.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Well, it's not her responsibility to apologize for something her father did.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:15Speaker 00

  So that's a-

• 59:15Speaker 01

  No, it's not, no.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  No. When you found out this news, that we had the killer, the ma, you had a name, Robert. What was the reaction from you and your team? And when you started talking to everyone you'd been interviewing, you'd been making this documentary for all these years and you've got an aim.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Well, I was kind of shocked because it was it was really hard to make this. And and I was starting another project. I was literally in my car driving to a different city when I got the news. And I had to turn right back around to Austin, drop my dog off at my parents' house and like get go to shoot the press conference the next day. It was like boom, you know? And I think I knew that I wanted to make it because I felt like I felt like I had left the families with in a spot where, you know, if there was an answer now, it was like I could make a show about it and give some kind of, you know, closer closure to the story,

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  certainly not to the families, but I felt like I sort of had to do it, you know? And but it was also this weird feeling of being pulled back into this dark force for the whole team. Like, we all felt like there was no choice, like, of course, we were gonna make it. But there was also like this sort of just like, you know, boomerang where you thought you escaped the darkness and you're just pulled right back.

• 1:00:40Speaker 00

  Well, it's also you were making a documentary about a an unsolved cold case and suddenly it was becoming breaking news.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  Which would have, I can imagine, given you a bit of whiplash.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, whiplash is a better word. I remember seeing Sean Ayers after, like, when we interviewed him a a month or so after they realized that it had been solved. He was a different person.

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Like, he was so happy that there was an answer. And I mean, I don't think he I I you could feel it like it was bizarre because I was like, wait a minute, a serial killer killed your sister. But it didn't matter. It was like knowing the answer gave, I would say, across the board, every family member felt better about having an answer. Even when the answer is, I would argue, darker than, you know, what they thought it was before, there was there was there was a solidity of like, I know what happened. Because I think otherwise it just turns over in your head over and over and over.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  There's the what ifs and the wondering. And then for the, well, the three alive men of the four.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  They were only recently, in February twenty twenty six, publicly exonerated. So I can imagine for them as well, it would have felt like closure and they could move on.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know what it feels like to them if it feels as much of a relief. I think that's going to take longer. Um, I like, you know, Robert Springsteen didn't even come. I think it was just too much for him. I think, um, Michael Scott was there, um, you know, I, I don't per, I spoke to him, but I don't. Forrest like really opened up to us and shared with us, but, you know, and Maurice, I talked to his family, but Maurice died, you know? So we were not able, it was too late for Maurice. Um, but you, you saw the toll from his daughter and his ex-wife. And, um, and they were very articulate in talking through like what that process was like.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  And I don't think, you know, um, I don't think we'll really know how it affects them for a little bit of time. Like you, you know, it was funny because that was a part of the story where through Claire Huey, who was the filmmaker, who was making a film with Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, kind of that I used as a film within my film to kind of show. She was almost like a proxy for me in a way, you know? But, um, just to show how it even impacts the filmmakers, like she stopped being a filmmaker when she was making this because she felt like the story was too big and she couldn't handle it and she couldn't give them what she felt like they needed there. I mean, everything, everyone, everything this story touched, it just was sort of like a path of destruction.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Because I think Claire is a really talented filmmaker and it makes me really sad that she quit making the movie. I was glad that I was able to use her footage and honor it in some way. But, um, but just like, you know, I saw, you see, um, in this last episode, I finally get to talk to Forrest and to see Mike and, you know, you really see the impact that.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  This hat on them and their trauma is ongoing, you know, and hopefully people now really know they definitely didn't do it. I mean, three point seven million to one. I mean, you know, it's probably more likely that I committed the yogurt shop murders than, you know what I mean? It's just like, that's a lot of, that's a lot of million.

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  What do you hope people get from watching your documentary?

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  I just hope people are able to know that it's okay to grieve and to, you know, feel, I don't know. I mean, I think these, these people let us see like, how do you gracefully deal with loss? You know, um, what are ways we can deal with loss? Cause we all are going to encounter loss. And, um, I think, you know, by watching the heirs and Barbara and Sonora go through this, I mean, I think you can just, you know, I mean, I think, um, how do you bring it back to your own life? And, you know, um, there's something Barbara says, um, you get

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  your own pain in your own time. We all will, we all will. Maybe not like these people, but it's in a way, I think that's the, you know, cause we were all, at a certain point, we were like, oh my God, this story, it's, it's, it's all these rabbit holes. But I knew I didn't want to make a movie just about rabbit holes. Like I wanted to make it about something bigger than that. And then, then that's what came to me. It's like about, like, dealing with trauma and grief. How do we do that? And maintain our humanity, you know, and, um, be good to others.

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  Thank you to Margaret for joining us on this episode. You can stream The Yogurt Shop Murders on HBO Max now and find more links to her work in our show notes. True Crime Conversations is hosted by me, Gemma Bath. Our senior producer is Tali Blackman. The group executive producer is Alaria Brophy, and there's been video editing by Julian Rosario. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.