Yogurt Shop Murders Case Solved: Serial Killer Identified Through DNA

In late September 2025, the Austin Police Department announced a forensic breakthrough in the 1991 yogurt shop murders. Cold case detective Dan Jackson, who took over the investigation in 2022, resubmitted a .380 shell casing recovered from a floor drain at the crime scene to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. Improved software produced a match to an unsolved 1998 homicide in Kentucky. A subsequent Y-STR DNA search across national laboratories returned a complete 27-allele match from the South Carolina State Lab, linking the crime scene profile to serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers through a 1990 murder in Greenville.

Retesting of biological material from victim Amy Ayers’ fingernail clippings confirmed the match to Brashers at a 2.5-million-to-one probability. Brashers, who committed at least eight murders across four states, died by self-inflicted gunshot wound during a 1999 police standoff in Missouri. He was never identified as a suspect in the yogurt shop case during his lifetime. In February 2026, Travis County Judge Dayna Blazey formally exonerated the four men wrongfully accused, declaring them factually innocent.

Part 5 provides a comprehensive account of the forensic methodology, Brashers’ criminal history, and the formal exoneration proceedings. Essential listening for anyone following cold case forensics and DNA identification advances.

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