Who killed these women?
That’s the query that accompanied the photographs of Amy Ayers, sisters Jennifer Harbison and Sarah Harbison, and Eliza Thomas on billboards round Austin, Texas, asking the general public for assist fixing their brutal 1991 murders within an area yogurt store. The ultimate episode of HBO‘s four-part docuseries The Yogurt Store Murders wrestles with the enduring tragedy of the case as, greater than three many years later, investigators are nonetheless looking for to reply the identical query.
Over the course of 4 episodes, director Margaret Brown has concurrently dug into the twists and turns of the 34-year-old chilly case whereas additionally primarily specializing in the lasting trauma felt by the surviving members of the family who’ve tried to make peace with such an unimaginable loss. Definitely, the small print of the case are gripping however, in the end, she wished the collection to be about “coping with trauma in our lives, and the way we are able to and might’t maintain on to reminiscence and all its sides.”
To perform that concerned in-depth interviews with these most affected by the deaths of Amy, Jennifer, Sarah and Eliza — their mother and father and siblings.
“It’s actually onerous since you don’t know what’s going to set off individuals, and actually, actually various things triggered everyone….you begin to suppose, ‘Oh, I can predict this.’ You may’t,” Brown mused. “One factor I realized is, grief is completely different for everyone.”
The Yogurt Store Murders
Courtesy of HBO
The extra that Brown let go of her expectations and gave into the discomfort of that course of, she realized that an important a part of the method was main with the right intentions.
“You must do it anyway. So that you would possibly upset somebody. They could yell at you. You would possibly say the mistaken factor,” she defined. “So long as you’re coming from a spot of real curiosity and care, that’s the perfect you are able to do, however it was actually onerous as a result of I did stroll in concern of re-traumatizing individuals. I believe usually, if I did say one thing and it was a misstep…I’d simply say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t imply it that approach. That is my intention.’ That normally subtle it, in a approach. Not all the time.”
When it got here to encouraging the households to take part, Brown provides that she didn’t push them as a lot as she has prior topics, particularly Barbara Ayres-Wilson, mom of Jennifer and Sarah Harbison. Although she ultimately did get Ayres-Wilson to take part, Brown says she treaded notably evenly as she got here to be taught all that she and the opposite surviving members of the family had suffered.
“I had talked to Barbara for a very long time, and I simply thought I’d by no means be capable of get her to do it, as a result of she was simply executed with media. She advised me as soon as that every time she talks to the media now, it took her weeks to get well, and she or he would simply lay in mattress,” Brown stated. “When she advised me that…my producers had been like, ‘Are you gonna ask Barbara?’ And I’d really feel like, ‘F*ck, no, I’m not gonna ask Barbara. Barbara’s been by way of sufficient.’ It was each her youngsters.”
If there’s one factor that everybody can agree upon on this convoluted case it’s that these households have been by way of sufficient. All through the years, there have been numerous breakthroughs that appeared promising solely to result in a lifeless finish. A decade after the murders, two males went to jail for the crimes solely to be launched in 2009 when these convictions had been overturned.
“I make it some extent to maintain the households as up to date as I can. I believe, greater than you’ll a standard case, simply because I believe after these 34 years, they need to know that this case shouldn’t be sitting in a basement someplace, and that’s actively being labored,” Austin Detective Dan Jackson tells Deadline. “I work on this case nearly every single day of my life.”
Jackson says the households “know that I can’t inform them every part,” however something he can share, he does. He’s as open as he could be in press interviews, too, admitting that there are “different avenues that we’re attacking on this case” that he gained’t be capable of share, however he does give particulars on the one avenue that he can: DNA proof.
Among the many leads that Jackson continues to pursue entails a really small pattern of DNA from a vaginal swab of one of many victims, which stays unidentified. Y-STR checks carried out on that small quantity of DNA had been instrumental in overturning the convictions towards the prior suspects and doesn’t match anybody recognized to have been on the crime scene, together with investigators. To today, these working the case stay hopeful it’ll at some point be capable of assist really resolve it.
DNA testing expertise has quickly superior since 1991 and, quickly, Jackson says it could possibly be potential to construct a way more vivid DNA profile with the quantity that they’ve left from that swab. On the time of the murders, that might not have even been fathomable.
“The quantities of DNA that you simply want are minuscule in comparison with what they had been simply a few years in the past,” he stated. Across the time of the murders, investigators would have wanted “a pool of blood” to extract a workable quantity of DNA to construct a profile.
“Now we’re down to some cells, and we are able to even do it with mixtures that we couldn’t do even a yr in the past,” he added. “We’re cautiously optimistic about what we are able to do.”
For all of the frustrations of the Yogurt Store case, detectives have exhibited fairly an unbelievable quantity of foresight relating to the DNA element of the case. The documentary particulars how, upon discovering the grisly scene, the primary investigators on the scene satisfied the coroner to not transfer the our bodies till they’d been swabbed for DNA, although it went towards standard knowledge on the time.
Added Brown: “The truth that [the detectives] satisfied them to remain and swab the our bodies was — thank God, as a result of there can be nothing now, if that hadn’t occurred.”
That’s why, although there could also be causes to really feel discouraged concerning the case given there are so few solutions after 34 years, Jackson says he stays hopeful and assured that there’s extra to uncover within the Yogurt Store investigation.
“We have now come thus far that there’s hope that we are able to progress the case. If there wasn’t any hope or nothing that could possibly be executed, then why even work on it anyway?” he stated. “I be ok with it. There’s one thing we are able to get executed right here.”
Detectives are nonetheless looking for particulars on The Yogurt Store Murders. Anybody with data is encourages to succeed in out at www.austincrimestoppers.org or at yogurtshop@austintexas.gov. Folks can even submit suggestions anonymously by way of the Crime Stoppers QR code beneath.
