TX TX - Yogurt Shop Murders, Austin, 6 Dec 1991

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Even if there is DNA - the City of Austin Lab is no more due to poor techniques and shoddy material. It lost certification. I hope that the DNA was done by another lab because even if it was prior to the lab losing certification, it casts doubt on the competence of the lab itself.
 
MicheleT said:
Even if there is DNA - the City of Austin Lab is no more due to poor techniques and shoddy material. It lost certification. I hope that the DNA was done by another lab because even if it was prior to the lab losing certification, it casts doubt on the competence of the lab itself.
Click to expand...

I heard on our local news that the DNA tested from the girls was not done by the local Austin crime lab and it was tested at more then one lab as well.

The problem though isn't with the lab, the APD has blinders on concerning this case. The current detective has said publicly that he believes they had the right guys. APD is covering their bums at the cost of those girls. They royally screwed up this case from the get go and won't admit it. It is due to all those false confessions and leaked info that in the end, imo the only way this case will be solved is by DNA and since the scene was compromised due to water from putting out the fire and due to crucial evidence being lost, APD will need to bring in a suspect and well, it's a vicious circle since the current people in charge feel like they had their guys.

Mel


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The Y-SRT testing of the virginal swab taken from Amy was done at Fairfax Identity Labs of Richmond Virginia in 2007. This was a new technology that the Austin lab was not able to preform. This was the test that the prosecution ordered. The only reason the test was ordered is that they were afraid that they would have difficulty wining the retrials of Springsteen and Scott now that they could not use each confession against the other and the defenses were in better positions to attack the accuracy of those confessions. The hope was that a positive match to any of the four would clinch the case. The discovery of DNA of the unknown male greatly undermined the prosecution's case.

After multiple delays while the prosecution scrambled to identify the unknown DNA, mostly by checking lab personnel and first responders, the judge lost patience and warned that he wanted this case brought to trail. The defense then requested funds to conduct Y-SRT testing on the other three girls. The prosecution fought it but the judge ok'ed the request.

On December 26, 2008, DA Ron Earle announced his retirement. At his final press conference he said of the Yogurt Shop case "We thought we had the right guys " ( note the passed tense).

On December 30, the Lab that did the resting on the three other girls announced their initial findings: two more more male profiles were identified from swabs taken from both Jennifer and Sarah that were different from the unknown profile from Amy and all four of the original suspects. One of these was matched to Jennifer's boyfriend but the other is still unmatched.

The only reasonable conclusion one can draw is that unknown male raped Jennifer first and then Sarah, thereby transferring some of her boyfriend's DNA. Also, none of the four suspects raped anyone, contradicting Springsteen and Scott's confessions.

At that point, amid further delays, both defense teams began fighting to get Springsteen and Scott out on bond. After six months, the judge relented and let the two out without bail to await their trial. He also gave a final deadline of October 28 2009 to bring the case to trial.

On the deadline, October 28th, Rosemary Lehmberg, the new DA, threw in the towel. She told the judge that they had not identified the two DNA profiles and were not ready for trial. The judge then dismissed the charges against the two. In her statement to the court, Lehmberg made it clear that she still thought the four were guilty and she expected to eventually re-file charges against them.

To this day, all of the detectives who were part of the investigation that led to the arrests and convictions are convinced that the four are guilty and the mystery DNA is a result of contamination. The two original detectives, Jones and Huckabay, are convinced they are innocent.
 
I just finished Beverly Lowry's book and I would like to have some discussion on this case. There were some unanswered questions in the book so I would appreciate any insight.

1) Although the 4 teenage boys were hooligans, troublemakers and petty thieves, they were not the types to commit a horrible, atrocious torture and killing. This was not a robbery and not a one-time event. This was done by someone evil who had done it before and would do it again. McDuff perfectly fits the bill. I understand he was cleared but why? Did he have an alibi that was ironclad? Most importantly, has his DNA been tested (surely his DNA still exists in other samples). He confessed too. And, because there were actually 3 unknown DNA samples, have all of McDuff's running buddies been thoroughly checked out? Austin Police Department needs to explain.

2) Although it seems obvious that Springsteen and Scott were railroaded, some parts of their stories are still bothersome. The fact that Pierce volunteered (at the mall) that the gun he was carrying might have been used by someone else in the killings (which it actually wasn't) is disturbing. Why would he do that if he didn't think there might be some involvement? He was covering his tail. Also, how did Springsteen know (and could demonstrate) the contorted position in which Amy laid after she died? There weren't any photos of that released.

3) The book mentions in a brief paragraph near the end that Scott gave his gun to a friend to dispose of. That friend served time in jail for the act. But it is confusing as to whether or not he really disposed of the gun or made it up. Can anyone shed light on that?

Thank you
 
Very late to the party but my 2 cents...
If you noted the retractions that came from local media and Texas Monthly 6 months after allegations that Detective Merrill coerced confessions with a weapon, then you would have seen that Detective Merrill, in the full video, poked Scott in the back of his head with his finger.
As with most local residents all they remember from that particular moment is a freeze frame and a blacked out finger.
Please keep that in mind.
 
Generally in "confessions" by the innocent they were actually spoonfed information that they recite back or were given clues on what to say.
 
colette said:
Generally in "confessions" by the innocent they were actually spoonfed information that they recite back or were given clues on what to say.
Click to expand...

Completely agreed. Having seen the videoed confessions in their entirety though, I do not believe that to be the case in this situation.


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Back in the "good ol' days", law enforcement boiled down to "figuring out who did it, beating a confession out of them, then turning it over to the courts". Once courts began to take a serious look at this system, other tactics had to be found. What developed was what became known as "The Reid Technique". It is an interrogation method that utilizes psychology to get the subject to confess to a crime without coercion or violence. It requires the interrogator to gradually convince the suspect that he is the only person who is "on their side" and going along with the interrogator is in their best interest. ( It utilizes many of the same techniques salesmen are taught)

Many guilty perpetrators have who thought they could "talk their way out" have ended up confessing to serious crimes when subjected to the Reid Technique. It really works; not always but very often. The big problem with it is that it all too often results in false confessions; and there have been many well documented cases. Some people who made false confessions claim they were convinced by the interrogator that they had actually committed the crime, others were convinced the only way to save themselves from the Death Penalty was to confess even though they knew they were innocent. Some claim that they were led to believe that even though they knew innocent, somehow, by confessing, they would be helping to nab the "real" perpetrator.

One common characteristic of false confessions obtained this way is that the subjects seems to know "details that were not reported by the media". Obviously, during long discussions of the crime, which is part of technique, subjects figure things out. The interrogator will manage to let the subject know if some details he is providing are "wrong" so he can "correct" them. In known False Confession cases there is a pattern of subjects being " right" about details the interrogators knew but " wrong" about details
they didn't know.

Twenty five years ago, it seemed incredulous to jurors that anyone would confess to a crime they didn't commit. Today, it is a well understood problem.

Akin to the false confession is the providing of false evidence or information against a third party. I wonder if Pierce volunteered the information that the gun he was carrying may have been used by someone else ( I think he fingered Welborn) due to the pressure of a Reid interrogation.
 
colette said:
If one of the girls had sex with her boyfriend then later was raped, those cells from the boyfriend could then transfer to the next girl raped by the killer.
Click to expand...

Yes, and that did happen in this case. One of the girls - I believe it was Eliza, had a boyfriend and his sperm was found on her, and in another girl in the case. No one believes for a minute the boyfriend actually had sex with the other girl, it was just transfer and of course the boyfriend wasn't investigated.
 
I was living in Austin when this was happening!!! We were all terrified.


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I just read this whole thread and did some research on a few articles. I'm going to share some things that really stood out that might be worth some conversation:

From: http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-12-16/scene-of-the-crime/
"That timeline, Farrelly, Garcia, and Saw­yer believe, may very well have revealed the real killers: two men who were in the yogurt shop sitting at a booth as the girls cleaned the shop, stocked the napkin dispensers, and turned the chairs upside down onto the tops of the dining room tables. Farrelly, Sawyer, and Garcia declined to divulge any specific details about the customers or what they said about the two men they saw, because the customers were never called to testify in court, but other sources with knowledge of the case have confirmed a basic account of what the final two customers, a married couple, told police happened on Friday, Dec. 6, 1991, just before 11pm. (Contacted by the Chronicle, the witnesses declined to comment for this story.)
According to police statements, the couple saw two men sitting at a booth and acting strangely; by watching their reflections in the plate glass shop front, the woman could see the men from where she was sitting. The woman said the pair made her uncomfortable, sources tell the Chronicle. The couple left as the girls began to close up shop, leaving the two men alone with them.
Indeed, considered in sequence with the recollections of at least one other witness who did testify, it appears to the defense lawyers that more than one person at the shop might have come into contact with at least one of the men the couple had seen. According to Dearl Croft, a former police officer who in 1991 ran a security company, when he visited the shop around 10pm that evening to buy yogurt for himself and two friends, he was approached by a man wearing a military fatigue-style jacket. The man was loitering in the customer line, ushering other customers to order first; when Croft came in, the man asked if he was a cop and offered to allow Croft to also pass him in line. Croft refused, and when the man finally approached the counter, he ordered only a can of soda. After he paid, he moved around the counter and headed to the back of the store; Croft asked where he'd gone and was told by Eliza Thomas, who as the store's shift supervisor was operating the register, that she'd allowed him to go into the back to use the restroom.
Croft was uneasy and testified that he hung around the counter for a few more minutes to see if the man ever returned; according to Croft, he never did. "[T]here was just something that didn't feel right, you know," he testified at Scott's trial in 2002. With his yogurt beginning to melt, Croft said, he left the store."

The piece about the guy who went behind the counter is interesting. It seemed as if Eliza Thomas knew the individual who went behind the counter to use the restroom and let him go to the back room, which is also where the back door was. He probably hung out there a while until the officer left. Two men had been lingering for at least an hour before close. The front door was locked at close, which means they stayed behind, probably because the girls allowed them to. Did they meet them that night and befriend, or did they know them for a while? Either way, they didn't think they were a threat up until the murder took place. Did the 2 who went to the movies meet them and bring them back? Did these guys meet the girls in the shop that night and ask what they were doing after? Did they all know each other before this night? No matter what the answer is, it seems as if there were plans made for after close with these guys.

The can of soda was left unopened on the counter. After the door was locked and the shop was closed, the whole group would have gone to the back room, which is when this all took place, somewhere within a half an hour to forty-five minutes. All we know for certain is that one of these guys raped two of these girls. Probably the girls were stuck there at gunpoint, but the backdoor was also right there and no one was able to escape, though it's the way these two males exited, since the front door was still locked.

I want to also share a couple interesting comments that are on this article in the commentary.

One comment:
It was a guy that resembled Timothy Mcvie! I was at Dallas night club that night down the street from the yogart shop! Around 11:30 and 12:00pm a guy came into the club and sat next to me! He was wearing a army fatigue jack had red hair and unshaven scraggly red beard. He was acting very strange and was out of place. He started talking to me and I asked him what was wrong with him, he said he was nervous as he drank the bud Weiser beer really fast. He told me that he was fom Killeen and that he had been in the Gulf war! This guy was trying to hide something by his actions and I remember this guy till this day! I called tip line but was never called back by cops! I left Dallas nite club and headed north to Anderson ln and saw firetruck and police cars in yogart shop center when I turned right into Anderson ln from Burnet rd! I hope they catch these murderous s.o.b or at least get to the bottom of this crime.
Another:
I was 19 years old and working at the Northcross Movie Theater the night this happen. I probably sold tickets to the two younger girls who died that night because the report had said they had gone to see a movie earlier before they came to the shop. I lived and worked in that area. It is my belief that who ever murdered these young beautiful girls, who were close to my age at the time, knew them. I had a strange experience with a random guy who just showed up out of the blue a few weeks before it happened. He would ice skate at the rink and make friends with all the regular kids especially the girls. He was in his mid twenties, tall, medium build, light brown hair, high check bones, long nose. He asked me out and at the last minute I had a bad feeling about it and so I cancelled on him. He left me over a dozen messages on my answering machine that day. It freaked me out. I saw him one more time at the mall and then he disappeared right around the time of the murders. It haunts me to this day.
 
Maurice Pierce's confession to APD that Wellborn told him he had used the .22 in the killings made no sense. By implicating Wellborn, he would have implicated himself as well, if he had in fact taken part in the killings with the other three.

Michael Scott's answers to interrogators were often in the form of a question. You could literally put question marks at the end of his answers. He was being fed APD's version of what happened. When Springsteen is interrogated, after being denied an attorney, they walk him through the exact same version. That is classic coercion. But the problem is, the identical stories told by Scott and Springsteen, which ends up being the ONLY evidence the state has in this case, ends up being false. By the state's own words, they claimed there was a "5th man" there. But no fifth man was ever mentioned in the sworn affidavit. So, where is your case now, knowing that the confessions were bogus.

All four teens were questioned shortly after the killings. These were not real bright kids and supposedly they just committed a quadruple homicide, yet, police get no confessions then? Hell, they even put a microphone on Pierce and tried to get him to illicit a confession from Wellborn, who from what I understand, was "slow." Wellborn has no idea what Pierce is talking about, zero.

Can I say with 100% certainty that none of these boys were involved? No, they were in that area of Austin that night, as were thousands of other people. But there were no credible witnesses that linked them to crime. No fingerprints, no DNA, no indication of them having obtained any money, outright false statements in their confessions about going into the office, which was locked... If they were involved, APD literally completely just completely lucked out in getting them.

There are no more leads to work or people to talk to, we are 25 years later. There were numerous viable tips that were ignored by APD because they did not put the proper amount of manpower behind this case. Those tips are gone forever now. How can you interview people 25 years later that talked about encountering people that looked similar to the two men at the front booth at a nightclub down the block from the yogurt shop, people that were acting strange and panicky. APD should have dragnetted that area that night and knocked on every door and gone into every business that was open, but they didn't, and we know this from people that outright said they were not contacted. And now APD realizes they will be sued for millions if they acknowledge that the four arrests and two convictions were bogus. So they pretend that these four guys did it. How strongly are they searching for that DNA match, have no idea, but I am betting, not that strongly. This case should have been taken from APD from the start, it was a small time police force that had never made a legitimate case in any high profile case, they still haven't.
 
What I also find amusing is that Jones and Huckabee worked those four suspects in their initial investigation and dismissed them. Then, when the new detectives get the case eight years later, they get confessions from two of them. HOWEVER, the new detectives completely shut Jones and Huckabee out of their interrogations and what information they obtained. It is almost like they are doing an end around and don't want Jones and Huckabee to know they are railroading some people. Jones himself, a retired detective, outright said these four teens did not and the confession was bogus. He also called attention to something HUGE. He talks about Scott using the term "accellerant" in regards to lighter fluid. Jones remarked that was the only multi-syllable word Scott used in his confession. He also questions what teen refers to lighter fluid by that name, remarking that is in fact "cop speak." Exactly, repeating what he has been fed during interrogation.
 
Two things: One, the bathroom was not an "employee bathroom," it was the store bathroom, customers used it as well.
Two, the store policy was to lock the doors at !0:50, even if customers were still in the store. It was done to not kick people out that had already paid for their yogurt, but prevent any new customers from coming in. So it was not odd for the employees to lock the store up with strangers in the store. Nor was it odd for customers to use that bathroom. The lingerers were strangers to the girls, sure of it.
 
True Crime Garage presents good information, I just grimace so often when the Captain attempts to take the conversation off task by acting like the class clown. Nick is great, but the Captain needs to grow up.
 
The creator of the Reid technique actually included a caveat to his method for police officers, warning them only to use it if they were convinced the suspect was guilty, because you will get a confession using this technique.

kemo said:
Back in the "good ol' days", law enforcement boiled down to "figuring out who did it, beating a confession out of them, then turning it over to the courts". Once courts began to take a serious look at this system, other tactics had to be found. What developed was what became known as "The Reid Technique". It is an interrogation method that utilizes psychology to get the subject to confess to a crime without coercion or violence. It requires the interrogator to gradually convince the suspect that he is the only person who is "on their side" and going along with the interrogator is in their best interest. ( It utilizes many of the same techniques salesmen are taught)

Many guilty perpetrators have who thought they could "talk their way out" have ended up confessing to serious crimes when subjected to the Reid Technique. It really works; not always but very often. The big problem with it is that it all too often results in false confessions; and there have been many well documented cases. Some people who made false confessions claim they were convinced by the interrogator that they had actually committed the crime, others were convinced the only way to save themselves from the Death Penalty was to confess even though they knew they were innocent. Some claim that they were led to believe that even though they knew innocent, somehow, by confessing, they would be helping to nab the "real" perpetrator.

One common characteristic of false confessions obtained this way is that the subjects seems to know "details that were not reported by the media". Obviously, during long discussions of the crime, which is part of technique, subjects figure things out. The interrogator will manage to let the subject know if some details he is providing are "wrong" so he can "correct" them. In known False Confession cases there is a pattern of subjects being " right" about details the interrogators knew but " wrong" about details
they didn't know.

Twenty five years ago, it seemed incredulous to jurors that anyone would confess to a crime they didn't commit. Today, it is a well understood problem.

Akin to the false confession is the providing of false evidence or information against a third party. I wonder if Pierce volunteered the information that the gun he was carrying may have been used by someone else ( I think he fingered Welborn) due to the pressure of a Reid interrogation.
Click to expand...
 
Tuffgong said:
The creator of the Reid technique actually included a caveat to his method for police officers, warning them only to use it if they were convinced the suspect was guilty, because you will get a confession using this technique.
Click to expand...

The problem of false confessions has been known about for centuries. Ironically it was the reason that eventually the revitalised Roman Inquisition stopped using torture or other high pressure interrogation methods in the 16th century.

The problem was also identified during interrogations during witch trials in some regions of Europe, in that interrogators came to realise that some women, especially older and poorer ones, often confessed to impossible things because of intimidation or simply believing themselves guilty of something or other and therefore deserving of punishment. It eventually led to cases being dismissed and the accused released. Inquisitor Salazar of the Spanish Inquisition (unexpectedly!) wrote about this at some length.
 
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