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

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 27 May 2026, 1 h 05 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/3261fb28-ce05-4644-9275-b455005234bc/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

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. 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. Already a subscriber? Click here for your $20 TWOOBS discount code. T&C's apply. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. 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 Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman 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 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: It's eleven forty seven pm on Friday, the sixth of
[0:07] Speaker 1: December nineteen ninety one, and the Austin Fire Department has
[0:11] Speaker 1: received a call about a blaze at a yogurt shop
[0:13] Speaker 1: in the city's north. When firefighters arrive, they enter the
[0:17] Speaker 1: premise and quickly get to work extinguishing the fire. But
[0:21] Speaker 1: as the flames die down and the smoke clears, a
[0:24] Speaker 1: horrifying scene is revealed. Four teenagers four children lay dead
[0:31] Speaker 1: on the floor. They've been brutally murdered in the tiny
[0:34] Speaker 1: workspace that sits behind the shop serving area, a cheerful,
[0:38] Speaker 1: family friendly store that sells fun colored yogurts with the
[0:42] Speaker 1: tagline where Healthy Never Tasted So good. What these firefighters
[0:48] Speaker 1: witness will haunt them for many years to come, leaving
[0:52] Speaker 1: some with PTSD and others with acute emotional distress. What
[0:57] Speaker 1: they've just discovered is about to become the big guest
[1:00] Speaker 1: crime Austin, Texas has ever seen, a crime that will
[1:05] Speaker 1: steal a city's innocence and leave three local families heartbroken.
[1:17] Speaker 1: I'm Jemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations,
[1:21] Speaker 1: a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes. By speaking
[1:25] Speaker 1: to the people who know the most about them. A warning.
[1:28] Speaker 1: Today's episode includes child murder and graphic descriptions of violence.
[1:33] Speaker 1: Please take care while listening. The murders of thirteen year
[1:38] Speaker 1: old Amyare's, seventeen year old Eliza Thomas, and sisters seventeen
[1:43] Speaker 1: year old Jennifer Harbison and fifteen year old Sarah Harbison
[1:46] Speaker 1: shocked the entire world with the brutality of the crime,
[1:51] Speaker 1: unlike anything many of these first responders on the scene
[1:54] Speaker 1: had ever seen. The girls were tied up with their
[1:58] Speaker 1: own clothing and shot in the head. There was evidence
[2:02] Speaker 1: of sexual assault on three of the full victims. Solving
[2:06] Speaker 1: this crime has not been straightforward. In fact, it's taken.
[2:11] Speaker 2: Thirty four years, with the person.
[2:13] Speaker 1: Responsible finally discovered thanks to some incredible detective work and
[2:18] Speaker 1: the developments of DNA science in twenty twenty five. Robert
[2:23] Speaker 1: Eugene Brushes. However, the serial killer who did this died
[2:27] Speaker 1: by suicide in nineteen ninety nine. He will never see
[2:31] Speaker 1: the inside of a jail cell for this horrific crime.
[2:34] Speaker 1: Today's guest has been working on an HBO A twenty
[2:37] Speaker 1: four documentary series called The Yogurt Shop murders for the
[2:40] Speaker 1: last few years. She never expected that her deep dive
[2:44] Speaker 1: into a decade's old crime would turn into breaking news.
[2:49] Speaker 1: Margaret Brown is a highly acclaimed American film director who
[2:53] Speaker 1: was kind enough to invite us virtually into her kitchen
[2:56] Speaker 1: to talk about the murders, the families, the various aspects
[3:00] Speaker 1: over the years, what it was like making the documentary,
[3:04] Speaker 1: and the incredible twists that have recently emerged in this story.
[3:08] Speaker 1: Here's Margaret. Margaret, thank you for joining us on True
[3:12] Speaker 1: Crime Conversations. You released this documentary more than thirty years
[3:19] Speaker 1: after the crime. Is this a crime that stayed with you?
[3:22] Speaker 1: What made you want to revisit it.
[3:24] Speaker 3: I live in Austin, so I'd been hearing about the
[3:27] Speaker 3: crime since I got here in the late nineties, and
[3:31] Speaker 3: people would talk about it at parties. It was something
[3:34] Speaker 3: I was actually just having dinner with I mean lunch
[3:36] Speaker 3: with a friend and he was talking about how he
[3:41] Speaker 3: like he moved her way before I did in the
[3:43] Speaker 3: early nineties, and he was talking about how he would
[3:46] Speaker 3: go to this gun shop, and all the.
[3:49] Speaker 2: Cops in Austin would just be talking about the crime.
[3:52] Speaker 3: It was really like in the nineties, something that people
[3:54] Speaker 3: just talked about all the time. There are billboards up
[3:58] Speaker 3: all over the city, so it was just sort of
[4:00] Speaker 3: literally hovering.
[4:01] Speaker 1: Over you because I've heard, and I've heard a lot
[4:03] Speaker 1: in your documentary people using the phrase it took the
[4:06] Speaker 1: city's innocence. So it really was kind of the biggest
[4:09] Speaker 1: crime that the city had seen, Is that right?
[4:12] Speaker 3: I mean again, I wasn't here when it happened, but
[4:15] Speaker 3: I definitely moving here, and I have so many I mean,
[4:19] Speaker 3: I have friends who were on the cheerleading team with
[4:22] Speaker 3: those girls. Like it's something that like its Austin still
[4:28] Speaker 3: sort of feels like a small town in a way,
[4:30] Speaker 3: even though now it's one of the biggest cities in America,
[4:33] Speaker 3: and it's kind of like the thing where everyone has
[4:35] Speaker 3: a story about it. A lot of people feel really
[4:38] Speaker 3: really deeply connected to the crime.
[4:40] Speaker 1: There was a breakthrough in this case. There's decades old case,
[4:46] Speaker 1: a month, a few weeks after you premier it three weeks.
[4:51] Speaker 1: Did you know that was coming?
[4:52] Speaker 3: I had a sense, because I just I had a sense.
[5:00] Speaker 3: I could tell. I could tell there was some excitement
[5:05] Speaker 3: on the police force. But you know, they're not going
[5:08] Speaker 3: to share anything with me before they share it with
[5:10] Speaker 3: the families, but I had a sense something was coming on.
[5:14] Speaker 1: What are the chances though, like you premiere and then
[5:17] Speaker 1: three weeks later that is crazy.
[5:20] Speaker 2: It's crazy. I have a thirty four year old.
[5:22] Speaker 1: Crimeh I want to go back to the start. I
[5:25] Speaker 1: want to take listeners through this case. Can you tell
[5:30] Speaker 1: us about Austin in nineteen ninety one. I know you
[5:32] Speaker 1: weren't there, but what was it like? Was there much crime?
[5:35] Speaker 1: Can you kind of set the scene for us?
[5:37] Speaker 3: You know, the crime happened to four white girls. White
[5:40] Speaker 3: people in Austin. I think felt really protected back then,
[5:44] Speaker 3: and it wasn't like Barbara, the mother of two of
[5:47] Speaker 3: the girls who were killed, she always says it was
[5:50] Speaker 3: four white girls. It was big news, big news, you know,
[5:53] Speaker 3: That's the way she phrases it. And I think that
[5:57] Speaker 3: there was this sense of just safety.
[5:59] Speaker 2: P kids rode their bike everywhere.
[6:01] Speaker 3: I mean, Sonora, who was Eliza's sister, was another one
[6:05] Speaker 3: of the four girls that were murdered. She talks about
[6:07] Speaker 3: just riding her bike all around that neighborhood where they
[6:10] Speaker 3: were murdered. I think there was just a sense of
[6:13] Speaker 3: nothing really happens like that in Austin. It was like
[6:15] Speaker 3: a quiet university town, but you know, it was also
[6:20] Speaker 3: kind of a place where there was a lot of counterculture.
[6:24] Speaker 3: I think Slacker Richard Lanklater's movie came out in nineteen
[6:27] Speaker 3: ninety one, and it was it was definitely a place where, like,
[6:32] Speaker 3: you know, it was like a lot of counterculture, like
[6:35] Speaker 3: hip ees, the punk scene, like it was definitely somewhere
[6:39] Speaker 3: that was, you know, not necessarily like normal.
[6:43] Speaker 1: Texas and the yogurt shop for Australians, the closest I
[6:47] Speaker 1: can kind of compare it to is like a yochi,
[6:50] Speaker 1: where it's like it's the same thing, but the modern
[6:55] Speaker 1: version where you self serve kind of yogurt and then
[6:57] Speaker 1: you put toppings on top.
[6:59] Speaker 2: Okay, it sounds like this it's the same.
[7:01] Speaker 1: Thing, but obviously that was the nineties version the yogurt
[7:05] Speaker 1: shop in Austin. And to help kind of paint the
[7:09] Speaker 1: picture for listeners, it was kind of in a strip mall,
[7:12] Speaker 1: so it's not a hugely trafficked area, is it. It's
[7:15] Speaker 1: kind of it's not in a mall, it's.
[7:18] Speaker 2: It actually was.
[7:19] Speaker 3: It was near this mall called North Cross Mall, and
[7:22] Speaker 3: it was like walkable to the mall, so it kind
[7:25] Speaker 3: of was an area where like teenagers hung out. There
[7:28] Speaker 3: was a creek behind it where people would go and
[7:30] Speaker 3: like drink beer, like get away from your parents. So again,
[7:33] Speaker 3: it sort of was a place like a lot of
[7:36] Speaker 3: my friends say that creek behind North Cross Mall was
[7:38] Speaker 3: where people went to like hang out and like get away.
[7:42] Speaker 1: The victims, I want to say their names before we
[7:45] Speaker 1: get to their stories. We've got seventeen year old Eliza Thomas,
[7:49] Speaker 1: seventeen year old Jennifer Harbison, her sister, fifteen year old
[7:52] Speaker 1: Sarah Harbison, and thirteen year old Amy Ayres. Can you
[7:56] Speaker 1: tell us a bit about them? Who were they?
[7:59] Speaker 3: They were four girls who knew each other from FFA,
[8:02] Speaker 3: which is called Future Farmers of America, and they raised
[8:07] Speaker 3: farm animals together. But that's not as sort of like
[8:13] Speaker 3: I think they weren't like all they actually like back
[8:18] Speaker 3: in Austin, my friends had said those kind of people
[8:20] Speaker 3: were called kickers, which are just like it's like shit kickers,
[8:23] Speaker 3: like like cowgirls. But I don't think you could stereotype
[8:27] Speaker 3: them cleanly that way, like they were definitely you know,
[8:32] Speaker 3: they were also on the cheerleading team. Some of them were,
[8:35] Speaker 3: like Jennifer was a runner. I think Eliza wasn't really
[8:39] Speaker 3: like that at all. Her father was a university professor
[8:42] Speaker 3: or like part of that stereotype. So I think they were,
[8:45] Speaker 3: you know, they they were bound by their love of
[8:49] Speaker 3: like farm animals and country music, but that wasn't like
[8:52] Speaker 3: the totality of.
[8:54] Speaker 2: Who they were.
[8:55] Speaker 1: December sixth, nineteen ninety one, only Jennifer and Eliza were
[8:59] Speaker 1: actually on shift that day at the yogurt shop. So
[9:02] Speaker 1: how did the younger girls come to be there?
[9:05] Speaker 3: They came because they were they were all going to
[9:08] Speaker 3: hang out that night, and I believe that, like Sarah
[9:12] Speaker 3: was going to spend the night with Amy, and so
[9:16] Speaker 3: she went over because Jennifer would drive them home. So
[9:19] Speaker 3: they went over from the mall. They walked over from
[9:22] Speaker 3: the mall and they were having pizza from the Mister
[9:25] Speaker 3: Gaddy's next door. So they were sitting in one of
[9:27] Speaker 3: the booths having pizza, waiting for the two And I
[9:30] Speaker 3: think they were helping them clean, Like you know, when
[9:33] Speaker 3: you close the yogurt shop, there's all this cleaning you
[9:35] Speaker 3: have to do, and so they were probably helping out
[9:37] Speaker 3: in the back.
[9:38] Speaker 1: Do we know anything about the shift prior to the
[9:41] Speaker 1: murders that what they were doing prior to that. Have
[9:44] Speaker 1: any of the customers or anything helped piece that together.
[9:47] Speaker 3: Actually, John Jones, the head investigator at the beginning, he
[9:53] Speaker 3: he had a had a hole like he got in
[9:57] Speaker 3: touch with everyone who had been at the yogurt shop before.
[10:00] Speaker 2: That and he hypnotized them.
[10:03] Speaker 3: He talked to all of them so.
[10:06] Speaker 2: To piece together exactly what you're talking about.
[10:08] Speaker 3: So we do have a map of everyone who was
[10:12] Speaker 3: on the at the yogurt shop.
[10:14] Speaker 2: I believe from like three pm until it closed.
[10:17] Speaker 1: How were authorities first alerted to anything wrong, anything that
[10:22] Speaker 1: was happening at the shop.
[10:24] Speaker 3: There was a fire reported at the shop, and so
[10:29] Speaker 3: we actually are strangely, there was a camera crew with
[10:34] Speaker 3: John Jones the night of this crime, and so they
[10:37] Speaker 3: have him getting the call and telling him to go
[10:39] Speaker 3: to the yogurt shop and.
[10:40] Speaker 2: People like we had to do.
[10:44] Speaker 3: It was very hard to make that footage and I
[10:47] Speaker 3: still wonder sometime if people think.
[10:48] Speaker 2: It's a reenactment.
[10:49] Speaker 3: But no, it really was true that there was a
[10:52] Speaker 3: camera crew in the car with him the night of
[10:53] Speaker 3: the crime and they filmed him getting the call.
[10:56] Speaker 1: I didn't even think while watching the documentary but you're right.
[10:59] Speaker 1: How was their footage of the lead detective arriving That
[11:03] Speaker 1: is crazy and.
[11:04] Speaker 3: He talks about how he was in he was with
[11:07] Speaker 3: these reporters and you know, they were talking about how
[11:10] Speaker 3: nothing ever happens in Austin and they were just riding
[11:12] Speaker 3: around with him and they are Houston. So many things
[11:15] Speaker 3: happened in Houston and then the biggest crime and like
[11:18] Speaker 3: Texas happens like while they're.
[11:20] Speaker 1: Oh my god, I know. So the firefighters arrived expecting,
[11:26] Speaker 1: you know, a structure fire. They walked in on something horrific.
[11:32] Speaker 1: Can you help to explain that? In a warning to
[11:36] Speaker 1: listen as it is very graphic, but can you tell
[11:39] Speaker 1: me what they found?
[11:40] Speaker 3: Well, they were putting out the fire and someone noticed
[11:44] Speaker 3: a body part and a hand I believe, and or
[11:48] Speaker 3: maybe a leg and they realized that it wasn't just
[11:52] Speaker 3: a fire, like someone.
[11:53] Speaker 2: Was trying to cover it up. Someone was trying to
[11:55] Speaker 2: cover up a crime.
[11:56] Speaker 1: Once they kind of walked further into the room, they
[11:58] Speaker 1: found four bodies, the four bodies of the girls.
[12:01] Speaker 3: First, at first they found three, like when you listen
[12:04] Speaker 3: to the tape in the film, they say it's a
[12:07] Speaker 3: triple homicide and then they correct it and say it's
[12:10] Speaker 3: a quadruple homicide because one of the girls was apart
[12:12] Speaker 3: from the other three. So basically, the fire started and
[12:16] Speaker 3: the firemen when they came in, obviously started putting out
[12:19] Speaker 3: the fire, so it basically flooded the area that had
[12:22] Speaker 3: been burned.
[12:24] Speaker 1: The girls had been kind of stripped or partially stripped
[12:28] Speaker 1: and gagged, and I can only imagine what that scene
[12:32] Speaker 1: would have looked like for those emergency responders. Was there
[12:37] Speaker 1: we know that they were shot, that's how they were killed.
[12:40] Speaker 1: Was there any evidence of sexual assault?
[12:42] Speaker 2: Yes, and the.
[12:46] Speaker 3: Full proof of that wasn't really revealed until this year.
[12:52] Speaker 1: Really is that because of DNA and DNA back in
[12:55] Speaker 1: the nineties wasn't quite as strong I believe, so, yes,
[12:59] Speaker 1: when you say full extent wasn't realized until this year.
[13:02] Speaker 1: All the girls assaulted.
[13:04] Speaker 2: I believe three were assaulted.
[13:06] Speaker 3: Wow, there was a reason I wanted to make this,
[13:10] Speaker 3: and it's because you know, I'm from Austin and I
[13:16] Speaker 3: don't watch true crime.
[13:17] Speaker 2: I guess because you know I don't.
[13:21] Speaker 3: I don't necessarily like thinking about what was done to
[13:25] Speaker 3: these girls or what they were thinking when they died.
[13:27] Speaker 3: And since I made it. I've you know, installed a
[13:33] Speaker 3: security system in my house. I mean, it made me
[13:35] Speaker 3: incredibly paranoid working on this, and I really don't know
[13:37] Speaker 3: how people make true crime.
[13:39] Speaker 2: Over and over.
[13:40] Speaker 3: And when you're asking me the graphic questions, it's like,
[13:43] Speaker 3: it's interesting, Like, I mean, I know all the answers,
[13:45] Speaker 3: but it's something I thought about a lot because I
[13:48] Speaker 3: know all the family members so well, and this was
[13:51] Speaker 3: not a show where we did We tried not to
[13:54] Speaker 3: focus on some of these details just because I know
[13:58] Speaker 3: how hard they offer the families and it's just so horrific.
[14:01] Speaker 2: That, you know, I try to stay away from it.
[14:04] Speaker 3: I realize that it's part of the story and you
[14:07] Speaker 3: have to delve into it, but I almost never talk
[14:11] Speaker 3: about that part of it, and the editors, you know,
[14:15] Speaker 3: they know how sensitive I am. And there's some pictures
[14:17] Speaker 3: I have never even looked at, and once we purposefully
[14:20] Speaker 3: did not put in the documentary because we felt like,
[14:24] Speaker 3: no one needs to see this.
[14:25] Speaker 1: It is really hard.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess I wanted to say that because
[14:30] Speaker 3: you know, when you're asking me these questions, it's honestly, like,
[14:33] Speaker 3: I am really interested in psychologically what happens to people
[14:39] Speaker 3: when you're dealing with like trauma, like something this traumatic.
[14:42] Speaker 2: In our lives, we all have to deal with trauma.
[14:44] Speaker 3: But my interest in the story is really like, these
[14:47] Speaker 3: people went through probably the most horrific thing you can
[14:50] Speaker 3: go through, which is your daughters are murdered and you
[14:56] Speaker 3: since they're probably almost definitely sexually assaulted. Although it's not
[14:59] Speaker 3: some thing I really talked about with the parents because I.
[15:03] Speaker 2: Didn't feel like that was something I needed to talk about.
[15:07] Speaker 3: And then you know, it's all over the media, so
[15:09] Speaker 3: everyone feels like they have a piece of it, and
[15:12] Speaker 3: then you don't really know what happens. There's people who
[15:15] Speaker 3: are accused, but there's always a question. And so I
[15:19] Speaker 3: was really interested because we all encounter grief in our lives,
[15:21] Speaker 3: you know, but these people have the most extreme form
[15:26] Speaker 3: of it you can even imagine. And so I guess
[15:28] Speaker 3: the reason I wanted to tell this story is because
[15:30] Speaker 3: I thought that could be helpful to people to go there.
[15:33] Speaker 1: You know, it's a really hard line to walk when
[15:36] Speaker 1: you work in the true crime world and telling these
[15:38] Speaker 1: stories is how do you tell the story and what
[15:41] Speaker 1: happened while not retraumatizing the victims going into too much detail?
[15:46] Speaker 1: But also balancing that. So you did a really great
[15:50] Speaker 1: job of that in that I think when people watch
[15:53] Speaker 1: your documentary, they will understand what happened to the girls,
[15:56] Speaker 1: But it isn't sensationalized graphic kind of content.
[16:00] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[16:01] Speaker 3: I mean there's some of it just sensational because of
[16:03] Speaker 3: what it is and you can't get away from it
[16:05] Speaker 3: to tell the story. But we talked about that a
[16:08] Speaker 3: lot on our production team, like how much is too much?
[16:11] Speaker 3: Because because it was really this was a really hard
[16:13] Speaker 3: thing to make and you know, A twenty four got
[16:16] Speaker 3: therapy for the whole team and you know, so it's
[16:20] Speaker 3: it's not And I think that's something that's really necessary
[16:22] Speaker 3: in stories like this because it's very hard to process
[16:25] Speaker 3: and sit with these people when they're when they're reliving
[16:30] Speaker 3: this just just so you can get their interview.
[16:32] Speaker 2: You're asking these people.
[16:34] Speaker 3: To go through this thing again, you know, and it's
[16:38] Speaker 3: it's hard to ask people to do that, and it's
[16:40] Speaker 3: hard to watch them go through it.
[16:42] Speaker 1: Well, you you mentioned you spoke to kind of sisters, fathers, mothers, brothers,
[16:47] Speaker 1: friends of these girls. What did you personally take away
[16:52] Speaker 1: from those conversations from revisiting their grief and their memories.
[16:57] Speaker 3: I mean, it really helped me personally think about in
[17:00] Speaker 3: my own life and how I talk to people about
[17:03] Speaker 3: hard things that happened to them, and how I process
[17:05] Speaker 3: it for myself, because I mean, when you're talking to
[17:09] Speaker 3: someone like Barbara, who's the mother of two of the
[17:13] Speaker 3: girls that died, like she is sort of like this
[17:17] Speaker 3: zen master in you know, a middle aged lady's body,
[17:22] Speaker 3: you know, and she's just dealt with so much, and
[17:26] Speaker 3: she deals with it with such lightness and grace. And
[17:29] Speaker 3: you know, all of the families have had to go
[17:33] Speaker 3: through the unimaginable. It's just really interesting and to watch
[17:38] Speaker 3: how people everyone deals with grief differently.
[17:41] Speaker 1: What I found interesting was watching how public the families were.
[17:46] Speaker 1: They really gave themselves to the media in an effort
[17:51] Speaker 1: to try and find the killers. But I think it's
[17:53] Speaker 1: Barbara that tells you that it really started to take
[17:55] Speaker 1: a toll.
[17:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I realized too. It's you know, when
[17:59] Speaker 3: I interview her. It was thirty three years later, and Sonora,
[18:04] Speaker 3: Eliza's sister, is very close to her. Eliza's one of
[18:07] Speaker 3: the girls that was murdered, and Sonora told me that,
[18:11] Speaker 3: you know, Barbara had said that she was in bed
[18:15] Speaker 3: for a month after the interview, and it's just hard
[18:17] Speaker 3: to think I did that to somebody.
[18:18] Speaker 1: Another detail that got to me that I hadn't thought of,
[18:21] Speaker 1: and it's like the ripple effect of crime is the
[18:24] Speaker 1: twenty four year old manager of that yogurt shop that
[18:27] Speaker 1: was called in to identify them, and the grief on
[18:32] Speaker 1: her face when you were interviewing her about that. Yeah,
[18:36] Speaker 1: how was that for you?
[18:38] Speaker 2: I mean it was it was.
[18:41] Speaker 3: Very difficult to get her to do that interview because
[18:44] Speaker 3: she's carried it with her her whole life. And she
[18:48] Speaker 3: also felt like a mother to those girls, Eliza and Jennifer,
[18:53] Speaker 3: and particularly Eliza, and so I think she felt this responsibility.
[18:59] Speaker 3: She was supposed to be on that night, and she
[19:01] Speaker 3: felt that responsibility of not being there doing something that
[19:05] Speaker 3: could have protected them, although we know now there's nothing
[19:08] Speaker 3: she could have done, but you know, I think that
[19:13] Speaker 3: to have to live with that would be so difficult.
[19:15] Speaker 3: So I was really honored that she finally decided to
[19:18] Speaker 3: do the interview.
[19:19] Speaker 2: I know it was really hard on.
[19:20] Speaker 3: Her, but you know, when you make these films, you
[19:25] Speaker 3: try to support everyone as much as you can, but
[19:31] Speaker 3: and just to allow them, you know, as much as
[19:34] Speaker 3: they want to talk.
[19:34] Speaker 2: About it or not.
[19:36] Speaker 1: Well, you when as far as kind of talking about
[19:39] Speaker 1: a fifth victim in your documentary, which was Sonora the sister.
[19:46] Speaker 1: Can you tell us about working with her and how
[19:48] Speaker 1: much this crime affected her, because why was she the
[19:51] Speaker 1: fifth victim?
[19:52] Speaker 3: Well, I wouldn't say that it's definitely just Sonora. I
[19:57] Speaker 3: would say that the fifth victim could be the city.
[19:59] Speaker 3: I mean I think that episode the fifth victom is
[20:02] Speaker 3: you could you could translate as Sonora.
[20:04] Speaker 1: But.
[20:06] Speaker 2: The fifth victom could be like the city of Austin.
[20:09] Speaker 3: It could be John Jones it you know, it could
[20:12] Speaker 3: be Bob Ayres, you know, the father of Amy or
[20:16] Speaker 3: Pam Ayres.
[20:16] Speaker 2: I mean it's.
[20:18] Speaker 3: Again, like you said, this crime had a real ripple
[20:20] Speaker 3: effect in how people. Everyone felt so connected to it.
[20:26] Speaker 3: But yeah, Sonora, I mean Eliza was her best friend.
[20:30] Speaker 3: And I'm actually like incredibly close to Sonora now because
[20:35] Speaker 3: she kind of went through this with us, and she
[20:38] Speaker 3: is someone who, after this happened to her when she was,
[20:43] Speaker 3: you know, a preteen, she is now a therapist and
[20:50] Speaker 3: helps people deal with their own trauma. And I just
[20:52] Speaker 3: thought that was so incredible that she would turn her
[20:54] Speaker 3: own pain into something that helped other people. Like that's
[20:56] Speaker 3: how she transposed what happened to her of her sister
[21:00] Speaker 3: and best friend.
[21:01] Speaker 1: She was a very strong person. You could tell she's
[21:04] Speaker 1: been through a lot.
[21:06] Speaker 2: He's been through a lot.
[21:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, she's just incredibly articulate. Honestly, all the family members
[21:11] Speaker 3: are incredibly articulate. It was you know, you can't pick
[21:16] Speaker 3: the people you're making a film about in a circumstance
[21:19] Speaker 3: like this. There's no In many documentaries I make, there's
[21:21] Speaker 3: like almost a casting process where you find like the
[21:24] Speaker 3: best people.
[21:25] Speaker 2: But with this, like I couldn't believe it, Like, I mean,
[21:28] Speaker 2: I think it's maybe.
[21:29] Speaker 3: Because all the family members were I mean, Bob Ayers
[21:34] Speaker 3: is like an incredible storyteller, Like he basically comes from
[21:38] Speaker 3: Central casting of incredible storytellers. But you know, yeah, I
[21:44] Speaker 3: was so blessed to have these people who are so
[21:46] Speaker 3: articulate with you know, Sean his son, like how to
[21:50] Speaker 3: express what had happened to them?
[21:52] Speaker 1: How did you get so many people that were close
[21:56] Speaker 1: to this story on board because you had everyone, you
[21:59] Speaker 1: had you know, the judges, that all the police officers,
[22:03] Speaker 1: all of the family members. I can imagine that was
[22:05] Speaker 1: a huge effort to try and convince everyone I had
[22:08] Speaker 1: a team.
[22:08] Speaker 2: I mean I had, it wasn't just me.
[22:10] Speaker 3: But I have been doing this a long time, and
[22:14] Speaker 3: I think the way is because like.
[22:19] Speaker 2: I don't really know why everyone talked to me.
[22:21] Speaker 3: I maybe I'm really persistent, but I also think that
[22:26] Speaker 3: like I don't try to parachute in I try to
[22:30] Speaker 3: like talk to people a lot before or as much
[22:33] Speaker 3: as they want to. Sometimes people are like, yes, I'll
[22:35] Speaker 3: talk to you, but with something like this, it's like
[22:38] Speaker 3: this traumatic and also that was so long ago, and
[22:40] Speaker 3: some people are like, I'm done with that.
[22:42] Speaker 2: I talked about that for twenty years. I'm done.
[22:45] Speaker 3: You have to kind of be like, well, you know,
[22:48] Speaker 3: I think this is why you should talk to me.
[22:51] Speaker 3: And I usually explain like my approach, which is kind
[22:54] Speaker 3: of a little different than maybe some of the other
[22:59] Speaker 3: people who have talk to them in the past that
[23:01] Speaker 3: are really focused on because I was more interested in
[23:05] Speaker 3: in the grief and how maybe sharing how they've dealt
[23:09] Speaker 3: with this could help other people instead of like the
[23:12] Speaker 3: glorious details, you know, so I could I could. I
[23:15] Speaker 3: could say that and sometimes they'd be more interested, but
[23:18] Speaker 3: sometimes not. Sometimes people are just done. You know, so
[23:22] Speaker 3: it was really yeah, I'm not really the answer is,
[23:25] Speaker 3: I don't really know why everyone talked.
[23:27] Speaker 2: To me, but I'm glad they did.
[23:29] Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about what that
[23:33] Speaker 1: early investigation looked like, because there were quite a few
[23:36] Speaker 1: things that kind of got in the way, mainly the
[23:38] Speaker 1: fact that there was a fire and then there was
[23:39] Speaker 1: a lot of water. So in the way of evidence,
[23:42] Speaker 1: what were they working with, what was John that lead
[23:45] Speaker 1: investigator working with.
[23:46] Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of a perfect storm of this
[23:49] Speaker 3: as fucked, you know, like there's there's there's nothing much
[23:55] Speaker 3: to work with, Like you can't you know if I mean,
[23:58] Speaker 3: this is horrific, but if like you can't, like there's
[24:03] Speaker 3: there's nothing that they could The thing that was that
[24:06] Speaker 3: really saved it was the fact that like they they
[24:10] Speaker 3: did DNA, which was like a not a normal thing
[24:13] Speaker 3: back then. It was it was something that was a
[24:18] Speaker 3: new thing, and Huck John's partner was kind of a charmer,
[24:23] Speaker 3: you know, and he convinced the coroner to like who
[24:27] Speaker 3: wanted to just take the bodies to wait for the
[24:30] Speaker 3: DNA to get collected, And that is literally what one
[24:33] Speaker 3: of the main things that solved this case was that
[24:36] Speaker 3: like Huck is a charmer.
[24:38] Speaker 1: From pretty early on, the police kind of surmised that
[24:41] Speaker 1: it was a robbery gone wrong. Is that what they
[24:44] Speaker 1: were kind of working with?
[24:45] Speaker 2: That's that was one of the lead theories, was a
[24:48] Speaker 2: robbery gone wrong.
[24:49] Speaker 1: Can you explain they found like evidence of multiple guns,
[24:54] Speaker 1: which was a big part of the investigation.
[24:57] Speaker 3: Yes, there were two guns at the crime. There's something
[25:01] Speaker 3: that one of the investigators calls a dancing guns. It's
[25:04] Speaker 3: like called an AMT backup model and it's like this
[25:08] Speaker 3: tiny little gun, and there was that. That was one
[25:13] Speaker 3: of the guns, and then there was a larger gun
[25:14] Speaker 3: as well, and they were both used in the crime.
[25:17] Speaker 1: Next, the confessions that surfaced just one week after the
[25:20] Speaker 1: crime and the red flags that had police feeling cautious.
[25:24] Speaker 1: A week after the murders, two teenage boys were walking
[25:27] Speaker 1: around a nearby mall, the male that you mentioned before
[25:30] Speaker 1: with a gun. Can you explain what happened there? Because
[25:34] Speaker 1: it was sixteen year old Maurice and fifteen year old Forest. Yes,
[25:39] Speaker 1: obviously police were called what happened?
[25:42] Speaker 2: So this was you know, people were getting.
[25:46] Speaker 3: It was basically like he had the same kind of
[25:48] Speaker 3: gun that was used at the crime, and so he
[25:51] Speaker 3: got pulled in and interrogated all night long. And the
[25:56] Speaker 3: person who interrogated him was the kind of like star
[26:01] Speaker 3: interrogator at the Austin Police Department who had also gotten
[26:05] Speaker 3: five other confessions from people too, so he was obviously
[26:09] Speaker 3: very good at getting confessions, you know.
[26:12] Speaker 2: So Forrest confessed.
[26:15] Speaker 3: He's a you know, sixteen year old boy who stayed
[26:17] Speaker 3: up all night, probably intimidated. But at the time, you know,
[26:21] Speaker 3: we just know that he confessed, and you know, we
[26:23] Speaker 3: have the confession and it's in the documentary and it
[26:26] Speaker 3: basically like he implicates other people other than himself.
[26:32] Speaker 1: So he implicates two other boys.
[26:34] Speaker 2: Three other boys. He improcates Forrest Welburn, who was his
[26:39] Speaker 2: best friend at the time, and he mentions Robert Springsteen
[26:44] Speaker 2: and Michael Scott who were with him at the time
[26:47] Speaker 2: and the next day actually as well.
[26:50] Speaker 1: So he confessed, but nothing really came of that because
[26:54] Speaker 1: these boys we know now we're going to talk about
[26:57] Speaker 1: were arrested and much later, many many years later. So
[27:01] Speaker 1: why did nothing happen at the time. Why was that
[27:04] Speaker 1: kind of evidence kind of left and parked?
[27:06] Speaker 3: I think because John Jones felt like it just didn't
[27:10] Speaker 3: add up, he got the confession. People knew that this cop,
[27:14] Speaker 3: Hector Polanco, was really good at getting confessions, and there
[27:17] Speaker 3: was no evidence, and so it was just a confession
[27:20] Speaker 3: and and I think John just thought like that it
[27:25] Speaker 3: just wasn't enough. So they went out. Maurice went out
[27:30] Speaker 3: and he wore a wire and he spoke to Forrest
[27:33] Speaker 3: and said that.
[27:36] Speaker 2: You know what happened that night, like you know, did
[27:39] Speaker 2: you shoot these girls? And Forrest is like, what are
[27:42] Speaker 2: you talking about?
[27:43] Speaker 3: Like he has no idea what he's talking about, and
[27:45] Speaker 3: he goes, but you said it.
[27:46] Speaker 2: And Forrest's like, man, I was joking around, like what
[27:49] Speaker 2: are you talking about?
[27:51] Speaker 3: And so I think at that point John was just
[27:55] Speaker 3: thought that, oh, this is these are just kids.
[27:57] Speaker 2: You know.
[27:58] Speaker 1: He shows you or documentary two pages worth of confessions
[28:02] Speaker 1: like all different names, which was wild to me. That
[28:06] Speaker 1: and he had in like a column that a lot
[28:08] Speaker 1: of them were bragging. What why would people It's quite
[28:11] Speaker 1: hard to get your head around why would people brag
[28:14] Speaker 1: about a horrific crime like this?
[28:17] Speaker 3: Well, I think I think about it this way, like
[28:18] Speaker 3: you're a teenager, you know, you're trying to brag to
[28:22] Speaker 3: your friends, Like it just seems so unreal. I mean,
[28:24] Speaker 3: I've thought about this obviously for years, but I can
[28:28] Speaker 3: remember what it was like in high school, and it's
[28:30] Speaker 3: like it's like a it's like a.
[28:31] Speaker 2: Dark humor, well like, oh did you do it? You know?
[28:35] Speaker 3: I can only surmise it something like that, just like
[28:39] Speaker 3: kids being disgusting, you know, but not capable of murder.
[28:44] Speaker 3: But I mean, like, I think I can't remember the
[28:48] Speaker 3: exact number. I think there were seven written confessions, and
[28:51] Speaker 3: like fifty or so people were confessing.
[28:53] Speaker 2: All over Town's crazy.
[28:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, but like you said, I guess kids, I mean,
[28:57] Speaker 1: they don't realize how saurious cities to do something like that.
[29:01] Speaker 1: They think they're having fun.
[29:03] Speaker 2: No, these are teenagers, you know.
[29:05] Speaker 1: I wanted to skip us forward to the end of
[29:08] Speaker 1: ninety ninety two because there was a confession there that
[29:10] Speaker 1: was taken really seriously out of Mexico.
[29:14] Speaker 3: What happened there, Yeah, there were there were some Mexicans suspects,
[29:18] Speaker 3: and it turned out that they were tortured by their
[29:22] Speaker 3: own government to get the confessions, and Huck Jones's partner
[29:26] Speaker 3: went down there to see what was up, and he
[29:28] Speaker 3: realized straight away that they didn't know anything about the crime.
[29:30] Speaker 3: They were being like fed what to say, and you
[29:34] Speaker 3: know it was It was definitely one of those situations
[29:39] Speaker 3: where it was immediately clear from someone who knew the
[29:41] Speaker 3: crime that they didn't know any of the correct details.
[29:44] Speaker 1: Then if we fast forward again to nineteen ninety seven,
[29:47] Speaker 1: a new team, a new police kind of task force
[29:51] Speaker 1: is put on the case and kind of Huck and
[29:52] Speaker 1: Jones are pushed to the side. Yes, why and what
[29:57] Speaker 1: was the effect on those two men who had been
[29:59] Speaker 1: working for years on this case.
[30:01] Speaker 3: They were really so they got really close to the families,
[30:05] Speaker 3: and that was something. This was such a high profile
[30:10] Speaker 3: case in Austin. Everyone was talking about it all the time.
[30:13] Speaker 2: One of the reasons I took the job was because I.
[30:17] Speaker 3: Realized there was like mountains of archival footage about this,
[30:21] Speaker 3: Like I knew that I would be able to portray
[30:24] Speaker 3: Austin in that moment in a really crystal clear way,
[30:27] Speaker 3: because the city and the media was fascinated with it.
[30:30] Speaker 3: And so I knew that I had the materials to
[30:33] Speaker 3: build the story. Because you don't always have that, you
[30:37] Speaker 3: sometimes have to recreate it.
[30:40] Speaker 2: And I knew that I would not have to do that.
[30:42] Speaker 3: I could see the footage and I could see that,
[30:44] Speaker 3: like there was this version of Austin back then and
[30:49] Speaker 3: of details of how it all went down back then,
[30:53] Speaker 3: that I would be able to really put the story together.
[30:55] Speaker 3: But to answer your question, they may this decision Huck
[31:01] Speaker 3: and Jones to kind of include the families in the
[31:05] Speaker 3: investigation in a way like let them into the police
[31:08] Speaker 3: station in a way that I don't think they just
[31:11] Speaker 3: felt for them so deeply. I mean, I think Huck
[31:13] Speaker 3: and Jones were really empathic people and there was a
[31:17] Speaker 3: lot of pressure on them to solve it, but they
[31:19] Speaker 3: also came to love the families and in a way
[31:23] Speaker 3: that was made it really hard on them, and they
[31:26] Speaker 3: got when they couldn't solve it right away, they got
[31:29] Speaker 3: just it really I think it affected their marriages. It
[31:34] Speaker 3: was just it took a toll. It took a toll
[31:36] Speaker 3: in so many people. I mean, moving forward asking me
[31:40] Speaker 3: that question again with the lawyers who were involved, I mean,
[31:44] Speaker 3: there was a real ripple effect on how this crime
[31:49] Speaker 3: affected everyone it touched. But at the beginning, it was
[31:52] Speaker 3: really Jones and Huck and trying just trying anything they
[31:56] Speaker 3: could to make these families feel better, and part of
[31:58] Speaker 3: that was just letting them in to the process in
[32:00] Speaker 3: a way that I think was highly unusual at the.
[32:02] Speaker 1: Time because Paul Johnston, the new kind of investigator that
[32:06] Speaker 1: took over. He was a very different operator.
[32:08] Speaker 3: Yes, he felt like he's I think he saw what
[32:11] Speaker 3: had happened with them and that they had gotten they
[32:14] Speaker 3: were diagnosed with PTSD and told they had to stop
[32:17] Speaker 3: working on it because they were it was affecting their
[32:20] Speaker 3: work and they were taken off of the case, which
[32:23] Speaker 3: was very hard for both of them because they really
[32:25] Speaker 3: really wanted to solve it. And I think they're both
[32:28] Speaker 3: very good investigators. And Paul had a really different approach,
[32:31] Speaker 3: but probably part of it was just looking at the
[32:33] Speaker 3: effect on Jones and on Huck and being like, well,
[32:38] Speaker 3: obviously that didn't work, so I'm going to try a
[32:40] Speaker 3: different tack, you know, and not get close to the
[32:43] Speaker 3: families and start over, you know. And so he was
[32:47] Speaker 3: he took the opposite approach that I'm not going to
[32:50] Speaker 3: get close to the families, I'm going to look at
[32:53] Speaker 3: everything again, I'm going to start over.
[32:55] Speaker 1: So he was the one that kind of revisited He
[32:57] Speaker 1: revisited a lot of the tips, but he revisited the
[33:00] Speaker 1: tip that we talked about with the four boys, Maurice,
[33:03] Speaker 1: and Forrest and brought them all back in for interviews.
[33:08] Speaker 1: You've got a lot of those interviews in the documentary
[33:10] Speaker 1: which are fascinating to watch and you kind of unpack them.
[33:15] Speaker 1: What did you make of those interviews?
[33:17] Speaker 2: Man?
[33:17] Speaker 3: When I watched those interviews, I didn't know what to thing. Really,
[33:20] Speaker 3: you know, how do they know some of the things
[33:22] Speaker 3: they know in the interviews? And it is My best
[33:26] Speaker 3: friend is a reporter in Austin, and she and all
[33:31] Speaker 3: her reporter friends were all like, you have to do
[33:35] Speaker 3: this TV show because this is the case that has
[33:39] Speaker 3: more rabbit holes than any case in Texas and you'll
[33:42] Speaker 3: never get to the bottom of it. And I kind
[33:44] Speaker 3: of like, in addition to you know, I took that
[33:46] Speaker 3: as a challenge almost well, I didn't really think at
[33:49] Speaker 3: the time about like, oh, this is going to be
[33:50] Speaker 3: really hard to tell because it's so traumatic. I thought like, oh, wait,
[33:54] Speaker 3: it's the one with the most rabbit holes. Well that
[33:56] Speaker 3: sounds interesting.
[33:57] Speaker 2: You know. I didn't really know what I was doing.
[34:00] Speaker 3: It was very naive to be like, it's not like
[34:02] Speaker 3: I thought I was going to solve it, but I
[34:04] Speaker 3: thought that I was curious about unlimited rabbit holes. And
[34:09] Speaker 3: I guess what what my point would be is like
[34:11] Speaker 3: looking at looking at the confessions. You know, at one
[34:17] Speaker 3: point Mike Scott says, you know, like he he says
[34:24] Speaker 3: he thinks he might have killed someone, and and you know,
[34:26] Speaker 3: there's things in it that you just can't explain unless
[34:29] Speaker 3: somehow you know something about it, or there are a
[34:33] Speaker 3: few other options too, like maybe someone fed you that information.
[34:37] Speaker 3: But but when you're watching it fresh, you know, you're
[34:40] Speaker 3: just like, how do they know that?
[34:41] Speaker 2: Like this? You know, it's it's.
[34:45] Speaker 3: It's it's a it's it was an interesting document to have,
[34:48] Speaker 3: But then you learn about the read technique, and you
[34:50] Speaker 3: know you think about, well, how are these how are
[34:53] Speaker 3: these confessions done?
[34:54] Speaker 2: Really?
[34:55] Speaker 3: Because some of it feels very coerced. Yeah, I mean Forrest,
[34:58] Speaker 3: Forrest never can he always said that he had nothing
[35:03] Speaker 3: to do with it, and you know he was trying
[35:04] Speaker 3: to All of them are trying to be helpful. You know,
[35:07] Speaker 3: they're trying to be helpful. You know, Forrest's mom talks
[35:11] Speaker 3: about how all these kids were being pulled in so
[35:14] Speaker 3: you couldn't really tell. I mean, this is years later,
[35:17] Speaker 3: the confessions you're talking about.
[35:18] Speaker 2: But I think even years later, this was such.
[35:21] Speaker 3: This is eight years later, and even then it's still
[35:24] Speaker 3: like an a live thing in Austin. Everyone's still talking
[35:27] Speaker 3: about the billboards are still.
[35:29] Speaker 2: All over town. It never really died.
[35:32] Speaker 3: Everyone knew it was unsolved, so everyone's just going in
[35:35] Speaker 3: there trying to help out, you know. So that's sort
[35:39] Speaker 3: of the I think that's sort of the ethos of this.
[35:41] Speaker 3: Like no one knew how serious it was until it
[35:43] Speaker 3: was serious.
[35:44] Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
[35:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, like the boys they went and did the
[35:49] Speaker 1: interviews of their own accord. They weren't arrested or anything
[35:53] Speaker 1: like that.
[35:53] Speaker 2: They're trying to be helpful, They're trying to be like good.
[35:55] Speaker 1: Citizen, and they do say that in the interviews. They say,
[35:57] Speaker 1: I'm here because I'm trying to help. I don't remember.
[36:01] Speaker 1: And then kind of the interviews go for ages and
[36:03] Speaker 1: ages and ages, and then eventually we get these two
[36:06] Speaker 1: confessions from these boys, Yes, kind of talking about more race,
[36:10] Speaker 1: being more of a ring leader, but then implicating themselves
[36:13] Speaker 1: in kind of parts of the crime as well. Yes,
[36:17] Speaker 1: and then what that leads to arrests for arrests and charges.
[36:21] Speaker 3: I mean, you have to think about, like I learned
[36:24] Speaker 3: so much about like in America, like the cops can
[36:30] Speaker 3: lie to you, Like I did not know that, Like
[36:33] Speaker 3: you know, I mean, of course, like you grow up
[36:36] Speaker 3: as a teenager thinking like avoid the cops, you know,
[36:39] Speaker 3: but like I didn't know that they could just make
[36:41] Speaker 3: something up and act like it's true.
[36:43] Speaker 2: And you think about that as a fifteen or sixteen
[36:46] Speaker 2: year old.
[36:47] Speaker 3: Absolutely that's terrifying, like the fact that they would, like
[36:52] Speaker 3: Sharon Forrest's mom would just say he was a fifteen
[36:54] Speaker 3: year old boy and the cops would just drive by
[36:55] Speaker 3: his house and tell him to get in the car.
[36:57] Speaker 2: He didn't have to get in the car, but he
[36:59] Speaker 2: thinks he has to get in the car. You know,
[37:01] Speaker 2: they're not. No one's saying like this is your choice
[37:03] Speaker 2: at the time. But then as young.
[37:06] Speaker 3: Men, you know, eight years later, it's still like your
[37:10] Speaker 3: trust and authority figure. You don't know they can lie
[37:12] Speaker 3: to you. You know, there's not a lawyer present. Just
[37:17] Speaker 3: it just it's kind of like as someone you know,
[37:21] Speaker 3: an older person to that, like I just I still
[37:24] Speaker 3: think if that had happened to me, I would there's
[37:27] Speaker 3: some part of me that's going to like trust that, like, oh,
[37:29] Speaker 3: they have my best interest at heart, but clearly that.
[37:31] Speaker 2: Is not what happened.
[37:33] Speaker 1: Are you also kind of is that how they would
[37:38] Speaker 1: get to like a false confession, so to speak, because
[37:40] Speaker 1: this is a person of authority and you're kind of
[37:42] Speaker 1: like convinced, Like I'm trying to work out how. I
[37:46] Speaker 1: know this is a big question in your documentary as well,
[37:48] Speaker 1: like how how would someone confess to something that they
[37:52] Speaker 1: didn't do well?
[37:53] Speaker 3: I think I find this question incredibly fascinating, and I
[37:56] Speaker 3: think it really depends on the person. They're different types
[37:59] Speaker 3: of people who confess for different reasons, and it was
[38:02] Speaker 3: kind of like a perfect storm, Like I think that
[38:06] Speaker 3: I think that Mike Scott, in his effort to help,
[38:10] Speaker 3: was able to be convinced. And maybe you know, they
[38:14] Speaker 3: were making him like walk through the crime over and
[38:17] Speaker 3: over and kind of role play, and I think for
[38:20] Speaker 3: someone like the kind of person Mike Scott is, I
[38:24] Speaker 3: think he was able to convince himself somehow.
[38:26] Speaker 2: That he did it.
[38:27] Speaker 1: You know.
[38:28] Speaker 3: With Robert Springsteen, he's a different kind of person. I
[38:32] Speaker 3: think he was just trying to get out of the room.
[38:34] Speaker 3: He like realized, like this something is messed up here.
[38:37] Speaker 3: They have the wrong idea about me. I'm just going
[38:39] Speaker 3: to say anything I can to get out of the
[38:40] Speaker 3: room because they would just he felt it trapped.
[38:44] Speaker 2: So I think they both did it for different reasons.
[38:47] Speaker 3: But there's a technique called the read technique that is
[38:50] Speaker 3: taught to police where where it sort of walks you
[38:56] Speaker 3: through how to get people to confess. And Huck talks
[38:59] Speaker 3: about how he couldn't get anyone to confess if he
[39:01] Speaker 3: wants to. You have to use it for good because
[39:04] Speaker 3: you can get anyone. He told me in the interview. Oh,
[39:06] Speaker 3: I can get you to confess to anything. You just
[39:08] Speaker 3: don't even know. It's because I have this technique.
[39:10] Speaker 2: I know how to do it.
[39:11] Speaker 1: Really, So it's a little scary. But it is interesting
[39:13] Speaker 1: because Maurice and Forrest were given the same treatment and
[39:17] Speaker 1: they didn't confess.
[39:18] Speaker 2: They did not confess.
[39:19] Speaker 4: No, So it doesn't work on everyone, not everyone, But
[39:24] Speaker 4: I think you have to look at like who people are,
[39:28] Speaker 4: just like the way people respond to grief differently, people
[39:33] Speaker 4: respond to intimidation differently.
[39:35] Speaker 2: People are different, you know.
[39:37] Speaker 3: And these are also very young men who are trying
[39:42] Speaker 3: to help authority figures and they might realize a little
[39:45] Speaker 3: too late that maybe they took it too far.
[39:48] Speaker 2: I think with Rob that's what happened. He was like,
[39:50] Speaker 2: I just got to get out of here. And with Mike,
[39:53] Speaker 2: I think he just got confused. Yeah, but I don't know.
[39:56] Speaker 3: With Mike, that one's more confusing to me because like,
[39:59] Speaker 3: how do you There are experts that you know that
[40:04] Speaker 3: that talk about false confessions and why people confess. But
[40:08] Speaker 3: you know, I still I think like anyone who watches
[40:11] Speaker 3: this is going to watch it and think, like, you know,
[40:14] Speaker 3: I would never do that. But they're also not in
[40:17] Speaker 3: that situation. They're not scared, they're not sleep deprived.
[40:20] Speaker 1: You know.
[40:21] Speaker 3: I think, like you know, it's it's in a way,
[40:25] Speaker 3: it's like a form of torture, just like keep someone
[40:27] Speaker 3: in a room, keep telling them they.
[40:28] Speaker 2: Did this thing. Like I don't know, I mean, the
[40:31] Speaker 2: brain is a crazy thing.
[40:33] Speaker 1: Apart from those two confessions from the boys will men,
[40:36] Speaker 1: when they confessed, did they have any other evidence tying
[40:40] Speaker 1: them to the crime. None, So no physical evidence at all,
[40:44] Speaker 1: no physical evidence, which is crazy to me because we're
[40:48] Speaker 1: talking about a crime and Springsteen and Scott were both
[40:55] Speaker 1: charged and convicted. One got the death penalty, one got
[40:58] Speaker 1: life on just a confession.
[41:00] Speaker 2: Correct, But those confessions are pretty grizzly.
[41:03] Speaker 1: Well, the words that literally came out of their mouth
[41:04] Speaker 1: were I shot a gun in her head. Like it
[41:07] Speaker 1: was very It was a big confession.
[41:10] Speaker 3: And some very graphic rape details too that I would say,
[41:15] Speaker 3: possibly even more horrific that that are on the confession tapes.
[41:18] Speaker 3: Maybe not more, but pretty horrific things that stick in
[41:21] Speaker 3: your head.
[41:22] Speaker 1: So, as I mentioned, Springsteen and Scott were charged and convicted,
[41:25] Speaker 1: Welborn was charged but never tried after two grand juries
[41:30] Speaker 1: refused to indict him, and then Pierce so Maurice Pearce
[41:33] Speaker 1: spent three years in jail, then the charges were dismissed
[41:36] Speaker 1: and he was released. When you were revisiting all of
[41:40] Speaker 1: those court proceedings around the four, what did you make
[41:43] Speaker 1: of it? I know you say you're not fully immersed
[41:45] Speaker 1: in the true crime world all the time, but even
[41:48] Speaker 1: even if you aren't, like it was wild to watch
[41:51] Speaker 1: all of that kind of unfold in hindsight.
[41:54] Speaker 3: Well, I mean I definitely watched, like, you know, the Staircase,
[41:58] Speaker 3: and I mean I've watched I've watched like my fair
[42:01] Speaker 3: share of true crime, but it wasn't that's not really
[42:05] Speaker 3: like what I've made in my career as a filmmakers
[42:07] Speaker 3: true crime. But I mean, I know, I know, like
[42:11] Speaker 3: you know the structure of a lot of true crime
[42:14] Speaker 3: or how that works.
[42:15] Speaker 2: But I mean again, it was this, It was it
[42:19] Speaker 2: was fascinating.
[42:20] Speaker 3: It was like like you said, like why why would
[42:23] Speaker 3: you confess to something you didn't do? And you know,
[42:27] Speaker 3: and you think about that a lot, and then you
[42:31] Speaker 3: think about like, you know, it's unreal that this person got,
[42:36] Speaker 3: like you said, got like the death penalty for something
[42:40] Speaker 3: with no material evidence. And I mean the entire Austin
[42:44] Speaker 3: police department, well except for a few people who are
[42:48] Speaker 3: in the film, believe they did it, like with some
[42:52] Speaker 3: kind of certainty, you know. And you know, when I
[42:56] Speaker 3: was making this, friends of mine would right me on
[43:00] Speaker 3: social media who went to high school with the boys,
[43:03] Speaker 3: telling me they knew the boys did it, you know,
[43:05] Speaker 3: and people in Austin who just people thought they did it.
[43:11] Speaker 1: Well, when someone confesses, you take them at their word.
[43:14] Speaker 1: But the defense lawyers did actually start to poke holes
[43:18] Speaker 1: in their confessions, yes, which you showed as well, so
[43:22] Speaker 1: like things didn't match up.
[43:25] Speaker 2: That did not convince the jury, it.
[43:26] Speaker 1: Didn't, which is yeah, I guess a confession is a
[43:30] Speaker 1: powerful thing.
[43:31] Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, after the break.
[43:34] Speaker 1: How did the victim's families react when Springsteen was sentenced
[43:37] Speaker 1: to death and Scott received life in prison. I found
[43:41] Speaker 1: the family's reactions really interesting to the two boys being charged,
[43:46] Speaker 1: especially the death penalty. Barbara in particular was really upset
[43:50] Speaker 1: by it and saying I didn't want to take another life,
[43:53] Speaker 1: which I found fascinating because usually these families they want justice,
[43:57] Speaker 1: especially when something so horrific has happened to a loved one.
[44:00] Speaker 3: I think Barbara's a really like I said before, she's
[44:04] Speaker 3: kind of otherworldly. Like I also wonder, and this is
[44:08] Speaker 3: a question. It's not any kind of certainty after not
[44:14] Speaker 3: to be spoiler. You can include this however you want.
[44:18] Speaker 3: But after having made the fifth episode and asked a
[44:21] Speaker 3: lot of these questions again, now that we really know
[44:24] Speaker 3: three point seven million to one who did this according
[44:27] Speaker 3: to Dan's work, it made me look back and wonder,
[44:32] Speaker 3: you know, was there some part of these families brain
[44:36] Speaker 3: that never really believed those boys did it?
[44:39] Speaker 2: You know?
[44:39] Speaker 3: And I wonder in hindsight, because you know, we were
[44:46] Speaker 3: making the movie, like we really didn't think the boys
[44:49] Speaker 3: did it, you know, Like I just I did not
[44:51] Speaker 3: believe they did it when I was making it, But
[44:53] Speaker 3: there was still part of me that wondered because of
[44:56] Speaker 3: the confessions, because like there was no certainty. And I
[45:01] Speaker 3: also felt like I couldn't end the fourth episode by
[45:04] Speaker 3: absolutely saying they didn't do it, even though I thought
[45:06] Speaker 3: they didn't do it, because there was no certainty. But
[45:11] Speaker 3: so and to take the other part of it, like
[45:14] Speaker 3: the families know in some part of their brain there's
[45:17] Speaker 3: no material evidence the DNA does not match. So I
[45:22] Speaker 3: wonder if Barbara, in some part of her brain was like,
[45:26] Speaker 3: are we making a mistake? This is a question that
[45:30] Speaker 3: filmmakers ask themselves or I asked myself, and you know,
[45:33] Speaker 3: the whole there was a very big filmmaking team behind this.
[45:36] Speaker 2: It's not just me, and so.
[45:37] Speaker 3: There's a whole like you know, text message chat with
[45:41] Speaker 3: all of our theories going on for three and a
[45:43] Speaker 3: half years, with like twenty people just at all hours
[45:46] Speaker 3: of the night. You look in the morning and there's
[45:48] Speaker 3: another you know, like we didn't know we're in the
[45:51] Speaker 3: morass of at all with everyone else.
[45:53] Speaker 1: Even as someone who knows what's happened after the fact,
[45:56] Speaker 1: I watched the documentary going oh did they do? And
[46:00] Speaker 1: I knew what the answer was, and I.
[46:01] Speaker 2: Was like, did they do it?
[46:02] Speaker 3: Though?
[46:04] Speaker 1: Even though I knew, so, I can completely understand when
[46:06] Speaker 1: you didn't have the certainty of the actual answer, why
[46:09] Speaker 1: you would have been like, ooh, what do I do
[46:11] Speaker 1: with this?
[46:13] Speaker 2: Right? Right?
[46:14] Speaker 3: And you want to be fair to everyone, like I don't.
[46:16] Speaker 3: I don't, you know, I don't want to because because.
[46:19] Speaker 2: I don't know, and I'm not going to pretend to. No,
[46:22] Speaker 2: So I you know, you have to.
[46:25] Speaker 3: I feel like I had to just every day go
[46:26] Speaker 3: into it beginner's mind, you know, because I have an
[46:30] Speaker 3: idea what I think, but I sure as hell.
[46:32] Speaker 1: Don't know that this is what you were talking about
[46:34] Speaker 1: with rabbit holes. Yeah, yeah, exactly how were those convictions
[46:39] Speaker 1: overturned because that happened many many years later, I think
[46:41] Speaker 1: around two thousand and seven eight, if I'm right. So
[46:45] Speaker 1: you know, these these men spent a decade, nearly a
[46:48] Speaker 1: decade in prison.
[46:51] Speaker 3: Basically, the Supreme Court changed something about the law that
[46:55] Speaker 3: said you can't testify against someone else, like if if
[47:00] Speaker 3: you're involved.
[47:01] Speaker 2: In the case.
[47:01] Speaker 3: So Rob and Mike had even though it had been redacted,
[47:06] Speaker 3: it was clear that they were the only witness against
[47:09] Speaker 3: each other, and so it got.
[47:10] Speaker 1: Thrown out and they literally got out.
[47:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, but they were never cleared of the crime, which
[47:15] Speaker 3: I found out talking to Forrest, that that is a
[47:18] Speaker 3: very big distinction because that means everyone still thinks you
[47:21] Speaker 3: did it in your life is still basically ruined.
[47:24] Speaker 1: Well, he described it as I walked out of prison
[47:26] Speaker 1: into another prison basically with everyone thinking I was guilty.
[47:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that, Like, I don't know,
[47:34] Speaker 3: he must have said that in something else that is
[47:35] Speaker 3: not in my documentary, but I can imagine him saying it, because.
[47:41] Speaker 2: You know, he.
[47:44] Speaker 3: You I realized because I didn't talk to any of
[47:46] Speaker 3: well there are men now, but everyone calls them the
[47:48] Speaker 3: boys and and uh Like when you talk to Forrest
[47:56] Speaker 3: the way he talks about what he went through, you
[48:01] Speaker 3: realize like he was only I mean, man, he was.
[48:05] Speaker 3: He it affected him the least he was in He
[48:08] Speaker 3: was in jail for three months and it ruined his life.
[48:11] Speaker 3: Like you know, he got pulled over by the cops
[48:15] Speaker 3: all the time. Even when we were making it a
[48:17] Speaker 3: few months ago, his lawyer would say to me, like
[48:21] Speaker 3: this something that some cop that had been following Forrest.
[48:25] Speaker 3: I mean, people were still convinced that they did it.
[48:28] Speaker 2: It was insane.
[48:29] Speaker 1: Well, Maurice died at the hands of police, yes, in
[48:33] Speaker 1: twenty ten, so I mean it followed him.
[48:36] Speaker 3: Too, right, right, No, you know, I think he had
[48:41] Speaker 3: total PTSD. He was terrified of cops and it's that's
[48:46] Speaker 3: a cop killed him.
[48:47] Speaker 2: Yes.
[48:48] Speaker 1: So the plan was to retry these men and try
[48:51] Speaker 1: and get them back to prison, and then that's when
[48:53] Speaker 1: the DNA kind of comes into everything. So they were
[48:56] Speaker 1: going to get the DNA and retry it with modern technology. Geez,
[49:01] Speaker 1: but you kind of show that the DA. The district
[49:05] Speaker 1: attorney was kind of trying to be like, well, it's contaminated,
[49:07] Speaker 1: you can't use it, and you kind of proved that
[49:10] Speaker 1: that that's not really a thing. Can you explain that?
[49:13] Speaker 2: Well? No, I mean sometimes it absolutely can be contaminated.
[49:17] Speaker 2: I think that, uh. I mean the site with the.
[49:24] Speaker 3: With the water and the fire, things can get contaminated.
[49:27] Speaker 2: But the DNA that was used to solve.
[49:30] Speaker 3: The crime was vaginal swabs and in this case that
[49:36] Speaker 3: was not contaminated just because I don't know how much
[49:40] Speaker 3: detail you want me to get into about vaginas, but
[49:43] Speaker 3: it was not contaminated.
[49:45] Speaker 1: Then they knew that that DNA wasn't contaminated and then
[49:49] Speaker 1: they realized that it didn't match any of the boys.
[49:52] Speaker 3: Man, I would say, it's not that they didn't know
[49:55] Speaker 3: at the time it wasn't contaminated. It's that when DNA
[49:59] Speaker 3: the same DNA shows up at different sites and it's
[50:02] Speaker 3: the same DNA, they might not know who that person is.
[50:04] Speaker 3: But if it's in three different women and it doesn't
[50:09] Speaker 3: match any of the boys, you know, that means that
[50:13] Speaker 3: it's probably one person.
[50:16] Speaker 1: So did mean that Springsteen and Scott weren't just kind
[50:19] Speaker 1: of having their child just dismissed. It kind of ruled
[50:22] Speaker 1: them out.
[50:23] Speaker 2: You could say that.
[50:24] Speaker 3: But also, for whatever reason, just because we didn't know
[50:29] Speaker 3: who that DNA belonged to, Even Dan, who ended up
[50:33] Speaker 3: solving the crime, would never say on the record before
[50:36] Speaker 3: he solved it that they still.
[50:37] Speaker 2: Weren't connected to it, right.
[50:39] Speaker 3: Because there's there could there could be other reasons, like
[50:44] Speaker 3: maybe one of them had a boyfriend, although we would
[50:48] Speaker 3: have to not know who that boyfriend was, because all
[50:50] Speaker 3: of the people who were connected to them in any
[50:52] Speaker 3: way were tested, all of their DNA was swabbed, so
[50:56] Speaker 3: it would have had to.
[50:57] Speaker 2: Been I mean, the it was like all these incredibly.
[51:02] Speaker 3: Improbable things that once the DNA inside the girls did
[51:08] Speaker 3: not match the boys. Yeah, you would think of there's
[51:11] Speaker 3: no other material evidence. These these boys, they like there's
[51:16] Speaker 3: no way they could have just like stayed convicted.
[51:19] Speaker 2: But they were never. They were never like absolved of
[51:23] Speaker 2: the crime.
[51:23] Speaker 3: They were never No one ever said like, you didn't
[51:26] Speaker 3: do this, So it still hung over them.
[51:28] Speaker 1: How did Dan? And Dan that you're talking about is
[51:31] Speaker 1: the homicide cold case detective who kind of is the
[51:35] Speaker 1: new person to take over the case all these years later,
[51:38] Speaker 1: how did he solve this? Because he got a name,
[51:41] Speaker 1: he got an actual person, he killer, he solved it.
[51:45] Speaker 2: I mean, it is incredible that Dan solved it.
[51:48] Speaker 3: And he started by testing a bullet casing in a
[51:52] Speaker 3: drain that John Jones had saved, which is in the
[51:55] Speaker 3: first episode. And you know, we showed the first episod
[52:00] Speaker 3: sod it south by Southwest and there's like a shot
[52:02] Speaker 3: where he, you know, John Jones's associate is holding the
[52:08] Speaker 3: case and and Dan, you know, thought to go back
[52:13] Speaker 3: and retest shellcasings and DNA particularly right now is just
[52:20] Speaker 3: undergoing like weekly sometimes getting better. So I think it
[52:24] Speaker 3: was the kind of thing where he was like, I
[52:26] Speaker 3: should retest that shellcasing. It hasn't been retested in a while,
[52:31] Speaker 3: and it so happened that he could have he could
[52:35] Speaker 3: not have. The thing that's crazy is he couldn't have
[52:37] Speaker 3: solved the crime until this year because they had just
[52:41] Speaker 3: found this new match to the shellcasing in a different
[52:44] Speaker 3: crime in a different city in the States, and that
[52:47] Speaker 3: led him to think, oh wait, there's another gun was
[52:50] Speaker 3: connected to this gun. And then he started connecting the
[52:58] Speaker 3: DNA and there's like two different kinds of DNA that
[53:01] Speaker 3: is collected. There's y STR DNA and STR and y
[53:05] Speaker 3: STR is just the male lineage.
[53:07] Speaker 2: And so.
[53:10] Speaker 3: After he found the matching gun, he was able to
[53:14] Speaker 3: connect also the y STR to some other crimes, and
[53:23] Speaker 3: so he was able to find the killer. But why
[53:27] Speaker 3: STR is just a male lineage, so it could still
[53:32] Speaker 3: be like thousands of people. I mean, he knew at
[53:34] Speaker 3: that point that it was a serial killer who had
[53:36] Speaker 3: murdered so it's almost definitely the right guy.
[53:39] Speaker 2: But it wasn't until he matched.
[53:42] Speaker 3: The str which is the exact person, and he found
[53:47] Speaker 3: that under Amy's fingernails, that he was able to be like,
[53:52] Speaker 3: this is the person who did it. Three point seven
[53:55] Speaker 3: million to one. So it's actually quite complicated. Dan solved
[54:00] Speaker 3: the crime. He had to go through a number of steps,
[54:03] Speaker 3: but it kept getting closer and closer to the serial killer.
[54:07] Speaker 3: And you know, I don't think anyone, this man, Robert
[54:11] Speaker 3: Brashers or Bashers, who did this crime, wasn't even on
[54:14] Speaker 3: our radar, no one. It's one of these things, you know,
[54:18] Speaker 3: because usually it's someone who knew the victims. This was
[54:20] Speaker 3: someone who just floated through town for some unknown reasons. Still,
[54:24] Speaker 3: I mean, Dan is still working on it, like they
[54:26] Speaker 3: might yet find why he was in town.
[54:29] Speaker 2: But but it's it's it's just wild, like it's.
[54:32] Speaker 3: Not someone you know, you know, this world of like
[54:35] Speaker 3: you you know, when we were making this for as
[54:37] Speaker 3: long as we were, you have this idea of who
[54:39] Speaker 3: it could be.
[54:39] Speaker 2: This person was not even in our stratosphere.
[54:43] Speaker 1: You mentioned at the start of our chattish a guy
[54:45] Speaker 1: that ordered sprout. Could this have been him?
[54:48] Speaker 2: It could have been him, It could have been him.
[54:50] Speaker 1: But that's our only little kind of clue.
[54:52] Speaker 2: Well, if you look at No, there's more clues.
[54:55] Speaker 3: If you look at the fifth episode, This guy, Robert
[54:59] Speaker 3: Brasher's he had he has a few different ruses. He
[55:02] Speaker 3: would use that Dan talks about to get in the
[55:04] Speaker 3: door and some of them.
[55:06] Speaker 2: He definitely went to a strip mall more than once.
[55:08] Speaker 2: Like he liked that. I think as you could get
[55:10] Speaker 2: out the back and you could just take off, you know,
[55:13] Speaker 2: things that were hidden. He had.
[55:15] Speaker 3: He was a smart guy. He kind of like had
[55:17] Speaker 3: a few things that he did over and over.
[55:19] Speaker 1: You say he's a serial killer. The other crimes that
[55:23] Speaker 1: he committed, were they the same? Was this his kind of.
[55:27] Speaker 3: Mo Well, there's overlap in different ways. I would say,
[55:31] Speaker 3: Like he didn't always kill people. He would sometimes it's
[55:36] Speaker 3: so weird to talk about just in a normal voice.
[55:39] Speaker 3: He would sometimes rape them and then let them go,
[55:47] Speaker 3: and we don't know why, and you know, sometimes he
[55:53] Speaker 3: would kill them. So we have these different clues to
[55:55] Speaker 3: what he did because sometimes he didn't kill people.
[55:58] Speaker 2: Sometimes he would let them. Oh. He his daughter.
[56:04] Speaker 3: Spoke to us, and that was really revelatory because you know,
[56:09] Speaker 3: she grew up in kind of a I would call it,
[56:12] Speaker 3: an extremely dysfunctional family where when he came in he
[56:18] Speaker 3: was almost like a normalizing factor because he protected the family.
[56:23] Speaker 3: And I mean the way she talked, it was probably
[56:27] Speaker 3: talking to her was was it was it was one
[56:32] Speaker 3: of the most harrowing interviews I've ever done, because it
[56:37] Speaker 3: was just so tragic that someone who was a serial
[56:40] Speaker 3: killer would in her mind be a stabilizing force because
[56:44] Speaker 3: he kind of protected like some people, I think, as
[56:50] Speaker 3: long as the way she explains that is, as long
[56:52] Speaker 3: as they protect their family, that's all that matters, and
[56:56] Speaker 3: they don't care if they're hurting other people. The family
[57:00] Speaker 3: unit is everything. So I think like she believes that
[57:05] Speaker 3: her mother knew some of it, you know, not probably
[57:08] Speaker 3: all of it, but was like protecting her father.
[57:11] Speaker 2: And she would talk about.
[57:13] Speaker 3: How he did all these things, you know, like he
[57:16] Speaker 3: would rob Shoney's and dress up like a woman, and
[57:19] Speaker 3: he would you know, he had all these disguises, and
[57:21] Speaker 3: they would call him a different name in public, and
[57:23] Speaker 3: all this was normalized. She was like seven years old,
[57:26] Speaker 3: and she that was normal because she came from a
[57:29] Speaker 3: place where a lot scarier things happened to young women
[57:33] Speaker 3: than that than just calling your father by a different name.
[57:36] Speaker 2: And so I don't know it, just I guess it.
[57:42] Speaker 3: Just talking to her made me feel really grateful that
[57:44] Speaker 3: I came from a stable family, or a relatively stable one,
[57:47] Speaker 3: because I was like, wow, there are other realities that
[57:50] Speaker 3: you can be born into that are horrific, you know,
[57:54] Speaker 3: And she has made it her mission to kind of
[57:59] Speaker 3: apologize all these families for what her father has done,
[58:05] Speaker 3: which you know she can't and the fact that she
[58:09] Speaker 3: would even want to do that is.
[58:14] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[58:15] Speaker 3: I mean, she's she's been hurt herself so much, and
[58:18] Speaker 3: that she I mean, I guess, like, you know, that's
[58:21] Speaker 3: that's the right thing to do, to think of others.
[58:23] Speaker 3: But do you know, because she doesn't even know if
[58:25] Speaker 3: when she calls these people, they're even going to want
[58:27] Speaker 3: to talk to her, you know, because they are so
[58:30] Speaker 3: scarred by what happened to their family members.
[58:32] Speaker 2: But I don't know. I was really moved by that.
[58:35] Speaker 1: Well, it's not her responsibility to apologize for something her
[58:38] Speaker 1: father did, So that's no, it's not no.
[58:40] Speaker 2: No.
[58:41] Speaker 1: When you found out this news that we had the killer,
[58:46] Speaker 1: you had a name, Robert, What was the reaction from
[58:49] Speaker 1: you and your team and when you started talking to
[58:52] Speaker 1: everyone you've been interviewing, You've been making this documentary for
[58:55] Speaker 1: all these years and you've got a name.
[58:58] Speaker 3: Well, I was kind of shocked because it was it
[59:01] Speaker 3: was really hard to make this and and I was
[59:04] Speaker 3: starting another project.
[59:05] Speaker 2: I was literally in my car driving to.
[59:08] Speaker 3: A different city when I got the news, and I
[59:12] Speaker 3: had to turn right back around to Austin, drop my
[59:14] Speaker 3: dog off at my parents' house, and like go to
[59:17] Speaker 3: shoot the press conference the next day.
[59:19] Speaker 2: It was like boom, you know, And I think I
[59:23] Speaker 2: knew that I wanted to.
[59:24] Speaker 3: Make it because I felt like I felt like I
[59:28] Speaker 3: had left the families with in a spot where, you know,
[59:32] Speaker 3: if there.
[59:33] Speaker 2: Was an answer.
[59:34] Speaker 3: Now it was like I could make a show about
[59:37] Speaker 3: it and give some kind of you know, closer closure
[59:40] Speaker 3: to the story. Certainly not to the families, but I
[59:44] Speaker 3: felt like I sort of had to do it.
[59:45] Speaker 2: You know.
[59:46] Speaker 3: But it was also this weird feeling of being pulled
[59:49] Speaker 3: back into this dark force for the whole team, Like
[59:51] Speaker 3: we all felt like there was no choice, like of
[59:55] Speaker 3: course we were going to make it, but there was
[59:56] Speaker 3: also like this sort of just like you know boomerang,
[1:00:01] Speaker 3: where you thought you escaped the darkness and you're just
[1:00:04] Speaker 3: pulled right back.
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: What's also, you were making a documentary about an unsolved
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: cold case and suddenly it was becoming breaking news. Yes, yes,
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: which would have I can imagine giving you a bit
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: of whiplash.
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, whiplash is a better word.
[1:00:18] Speaker 3: I remember seeing Sean Eyres, like when we interviewed him
[1:00:23] Speaker 3: a month or so after they realized that it had
[1:00:27] Speaker 3: been solved, he was a different person, Like he was
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: so happy that there was an answer.
[1:00:35] Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't think.
[1:00:38] Speaker 3: You could feel it like it was bizarre because I
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: was like, wait a minute, a serial killer killed your sister.
[1:00:44] Speaker 3: But it didn't matter. It was like knowing the answer
[1:00:48] Speaker 3: gave I would say across the board, every family member
[1:00:52] Speaker 3: felt better about having an answer, even when the answer
[1:00:56] Speaker 3: is I would argue darker than you know what they
[1:00:59] Speaker 3: thought it was before there was there was there was
[1:01:02] Speaker 3: a solidity of like, I know what happened, because I
[1:01:06] Speaker 3: think otherwise just turns over in your head over and
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: over and over.
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: There's the what ifs and the wondering. And then for
[1:01:13] Speaker 1: the well, the three alive men of the four, they
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: were only recently, in February twenty twenty six publicly exonerated,
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: so I can imagine for them as well, it would
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: have felt like closure and they could move on.
[1:01:29] Speaker 3: You know, I don't know what it feels like to them,
[1:01:32] Speaker 3: if it feels as much of a relief I think
[1:01:36] Speaker 3: that's going to take longer. I like, you know, Robert
[1:01:40] Speaker 3: Springsteen didn't even come. I think it was just too
[1:01:43] Speaker 3: much for him. I think Michael Scott was there, you know,
[1:01:47] Speaker 3: I don't person I spoke to him, but I don't
[1:01:51] Speaker 3: Forrest like really opened up to us and shared with us.
[1:01:55] Speaker 3: But you know, and Maurice, I talked to his family,
[1:01:58] Speaker 3: but Maurice died, you know, so we were not able.
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: It was too late for Maurice.
[1:02:02] Speaker 3: But you you saw the toll from his daughter and
[1:02:06] Speaker 3: his ex wife, and they were very articulate in talking
[1:02:11] Speaker 3: through like what that process was like. And I don't think,
[1:02:15] Speaker 3: you know, I don't think we'll really know how it
[1:02:19] Speaker 3: affects them for a little bit of time, like you
[1:02:22] Speaker 3: you know, it was funny because that was a part
[1:02:24] Speaker 3: of the story where through Claire Huey, who was the
[1:02:27] Speaker 3: filmmaker who was making a film with Robert Springsteen and
[1:02:30] Speaker 3: Michael Scott, kind of that I used as a film
[1:02:32] Speaker 3: within my film to kind of show she was almost
[1:02:35] Speaker 3: like a proxy for me in a way, you know,
[1:02:37] Speaker 3: but just to show how it even impacts the filmmakers,
[1:02:41] Speaker 3: like she stopped being a filmmaker when she was making
[1:02:44] Speaker 3: this because she felt like the story was too big
[1:02:47] Speaker 3: and she couldn't handle it and she couldn't give them
[1:02:51] Speaker 3: what she felt like they needed there, I mean everything
[1:02:53] Speaker 3: everything this story touched.
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: It just was sort of like a path of destruction.
[1:02:57] Speaker 3: Because I think Claire is a really talented filmmaker, and
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: it makes me really sad that she quit making the movie.
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: I was glad that I was able to use her
[1:03:05] Speaker 2: footage and honor it in some way.
[1:03:07] Speaker 3: But just like you know, I saw, you see in
[1:03:12] Speaker 3: this last episode, I finally get to talk to Forrest
[1:03:16] Speaker 3: and to see Mike, and you know, you really see
[1:03:20] Speaker 3: the impact that this had on them, and their trauma
[1:03:24] Speaker 3: is ongoing, you know, and hopefully people now really know
[1:03:27] Speaker 3: they definitely didn't do it.
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: I mean three point seven million to one.
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's probably more likely that I
[1:03:33] Speaker 3: committed the Ogre shot murders than.
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: You know what I mean. It's just like it's a
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: lot of that's a lot of million.
[1:03:38] Speaker 1: What do you hope people get from watching your documentary?
[1:03:41] Speaker 3: I just hope people are able to know that it's
[1:03:45] Speaker 3: okay to.
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: Grieve and to you know, feel I don't know, I mean.
[1:03:52] Speaker 3: I think these these people let us see like, how
[1:03:57] Speaker 3: do you gracefully deal with law?
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: Us? You know, what are.
[1:04:02] Speaker 3: Ways we can deal with loss? Because we all are
[1:04:04] Speaker 3: going to encounter loss? And I think, you know, by
[1:04:10] Speaker 3: watching the Airs and Barbara and Sonora go through this,
[1:04:15] Speaker 3: I mean I think you can just you know, I mean,
[1:04:17] Speaker 3: I think, how do you bring it back to your
[1:04:19] Speaker 3: own life? And you know, there's something Barbara says, you
[1:04:26] Speaker 3: get your own pain and your own time. We all will,
[1:04:28] Speaker 3: we all will, maybe not like these people, but it's
[1:04:32] Speaker 3: in a way I think that's the you know, because
[1:04:34] Speaker 3: we were all at a certain point we were like,
[1:04:37] Speaker 3: oh my god, this story it's it's it's all these
[1:04:40] Speaker 3: rabbit holes. But I knew I didn't want to make
[1:04:42] Speaker 3: a movie just about rabbit holes, Like I wanted to
[1:04:44] Speaker 3: make it about something bigger than that. And then and
[1:04:47] Speaker 3: then that's what came to me. It's like about like
[1:04:51] Speaker 3: dealing with trauma and grief. How do we do that
[1:04:55] Speaker 3: and maintain our humanity, you know, and be good to others.
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: Thank you to Margaret for joining us on this episode.
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: You can stream The Yogurt Shop Murders on HBO Max
[1:05:05] Speaker 1: Now and find more links to her work in our
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: show notes True Crime Conversations is hosted by me Jemma
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: bath Our. Senior producer is Tarlie Blackman. The group executive
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: producer is a. Laria Brophy, and there's been video editing
[1:05:19] Speaker 1: by Julian Rosario. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be
[1:05:22] Speaker 1: back next week with another True Crime Conversation

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