On May 13, 2026, the city of Austin, Texas agreed to pay $35 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to four men — three sur­viv­ing and one deceased — who spent years under the shad­ow of wrong­ful con­vic­tions, accused of an infa­mous quadru­ple mur­der that DNA proved none of them com­mit­ted. The set­tle­ment, which must still be approved by the Austin City Council, came less than three months after a Travis County judge declared Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn, and Maurice Pierce inno­cent of mur­der charges that once made head­lines. Mr. Springsteen had been sen­tenced to death, Mr. Scott was sen­tenced to life in prison, Mr. Welborn and Mr. Pierce were charged and pub­licly iden­ti­fied as involved in the crime but nev­er tried. Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax issued a pub­lic state­ment call­ing the set­tle­ment ​“the final chap­ter of a dev­as­tat­ing sto­ry in Austin’s his­to­ry,” and expressed ​“hope that this set­tle­ment brings a sense of clo­sure to every­one affect­ed by this horrific event.” 

In December 2025, Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza filed paper­work to for­mal­ly exon­er­ate the four men after con­nect­ing crime scene evi­dence to anoth­er man — Robert Eugene Brashers. During a February 2026exoneration hear­ing, Travis County pros­e­cu­tors opened with an acknowl­edge­ment that it was time for the state to accept respon­si­bil­i­ty for mak­ing a mis­take. Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger told the court that the wrong­ful pros­e­cu­tions had left the four men ​“scream­ing into the wind” for decades. Judge Dayna Blazey for­mal­ly declared the four men inno­cent and dis­missed all charges against them with prej­u­dice, per­ma­nent­ly clos­ing the cases. 

Mr. Scott, the only exoneree to speak in court, addressed those attend­ing the hear­ing, stat­ing, “[f]or decades, I have car­ried the bur­den of wrong­ful con­vic­tion. Every day, I have car­ried the weight of a crime that I did not com­mit.” He added, ​“No court rul­ing can return the years and the love that were tak­en from me, but it can acknowl­edge the truth: I am not guilty.” A state­ment read on behalf of Robert Springsteen described how his wrong­ful arrest and con­vic­tion turned his life into chaos and brand­ed him a mon­ster for some­thing he did not do, and an attor­ney for Mr. Welborn echoed the same sen­ti­ment. Mr. Pierce died in 2010 dur­ing an alter­ca­tion with an Austin police offi­cer. His wife and daugh­ter were at the hearing.

“Today’s deci­sion is not an act of gen­eros­i­ty. It is an act of oblig­a­tion. An oblig­a­tion to the truth; an oblig­a­tion to the rule of law; an oblig­a­tion to the dig­ni­ty of the individual.”

Judge Dayna Blazey, on the court’s deci­sion to find all four men formally innocent.

On the night of December 6, 1991, four teenage girls — Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, and sis­ters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison — were bru­tal­ly shot and left to die in a North Austin yogurt shop that was then set on fire. The crime remained unsolved for a decade. Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott were teenagers when the mur­ders occurred, and it was not until they were in their mid-twen­ties that cold-case detec­tives brought them in for inter­ro­ga­tion. Mr. Scott was ques­tioned for more than 18 hours, and Mr. Springsteen under­went a five-hour video­taped inter­ro­ga­tion ses­sion. Both Mr. Scott and Mr. Springsteen false­ly con­fessed dur­ing these inter­ro­ga­tions; both lat­er claimed their con­fes­sions were coerced. There was nev­er any phys­i­cal evi­dence con­nect­ing either man to the crime. Investigators also charged Forrest Welborn with involve­ment in the crime, but he was nev­er tried, as two sep­a­rate grand juries failed to indict him. Maurice Pierce was jailed for three years for his alleged involve­ment in these mur­ders, but charges were dis­missed against him in 2003 for a lack of evidence.

One of the lead detec­tives in the case, Hector Polanco, had pre­vi­ous­ly been accused of coerc­ing false con­fes­sions in anoth­er wrong­ful con­vic­tion case — that of Christopher Ochoa and Richard Danzinger, who were lat­er exon­er­at­ed after serv­ing more than a decade in prison for a mur­der they also did not commit. 

In May 2001, Mr. Springsteen was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for his alleged role in the mur­ders. Mr. Scott was con­vict­ed in September 2002 and was sen­tenced to life impris­on­ment. In 2005, Mr. Springsteen’s death sen­tence was reduced to life in prison as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Roper v. Simmons, which pro­hibits death sen­tences for defen­dants under the age of 18 at the time of their crime. Mr. Springsteen was 17 at the time of the murders.

In 2006 and 2007, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that pros­e­cu­tors had vio­lat­ed Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Scott’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights because they had not been ade­quate­ly allowed to cross exam­ine each oth­er dur­ing tri­al. But both men remained incar­cer­at­ed until June 2009, when a fed­er­al? dis­trict judge released them on bond after new DNA test­ing of evi­dence from the crime scene failed to match either man — or the oth­er two accused men. Charges were for­mal­ly dis­missed against both men short­ly after, while detec­tives con­tin­ued to try and match the unidentified DNA. 

In 2025, Austin cold case detec­tives linked Robert Eugene Brashers to the pre­vi­ous­ly uniden­ti­fied DNA, con­firm­ing that DNA tak­en from under Amy Ayers’ fin­ger­nail matched Mr. Brashers. Mr. Brashers died in August 1999, when he shot him­self dur­ing a police stand­off. He was con­nect­ed to sev­er­al oth­er sex crimes and mur­ders through advanced DNA test­ing fol­low­ing his death. This iden­ti­fi­ca­tion led to the real­iza­tion that four inno­cent men­were accused, charged, con­vict­ed, and impris­oned for a crime that, accord­ing to DNA evi­dence, fin­ger­print analy­sis, and bal­lis­tics analy­sis, was com­mit­ted by a man who had already been dead for near­ly a decade by the time police first inter­ro­gat­ed Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Scott.

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Sources

Jim Vertuno, Men wrong­ly accused of gris­ly yogurt shop mur­ders in Texas reach $35 mil­lion set­tle­ment with city, Associated Press, May 12, 2026; Tony Plohetski and Austin Sanders, After yogurt shop exon­er­a­tions, what jus­tice might look like for the four cleared men, Austin American-Statesman, February 23, 2026; Andrew Weber, Four men accused in Austin’s yogurt shop mur­ders have been exon­er­at­ed, KUT 90.5, February 19, 2026; Jim Vertuno, Judge declares 4 men wrong­ly accused of 1991 Austin yogurt shop mur­ders inno­cent, Associated Press, February 19, 2026; Andrew Weber, Travis County dis­trict attor­ney moves to exon­er­ate wrong­ful­ly accused yogurt shop mur­der sus­pects, KUT 90.5, December 11, 2025.