A flashlight finds a burned human foot in the back of the yogurt shop.
1. Cold Cases covers the Yogurt Shop Murders in Austin, Texas, a 1991 case that changed the city.
2. Carter Roy hosts the episode and frames it around the question of why so many people confessed to one crime.
3. The episode asks what investigators do when a murder case produces dozens of confessions instead of one clear suspect.
4. On December 6, 1991, Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas were working at I Can't Believe It's Yogurt in a strip mall in Austin.
5. Jennifer was 17, Eliza was 17, and the shop was almost empty on a Friday night in December.
6. Sarah Harbison, age 12, and Amy Ayers, age 13, were waiting in the yogurt shop after spending the evening at the mall.
7. After the store closed, an officer saw smoke coming from the building and firefighters found four bodies inside.
8. Sergeant John Jones later described the scene as "Wholesale carnage."
9. Medical examiners found that the girls were dead before the fire started.
10. Eliza, Jennifer, and Sarah died from single gunshots to the head, while Amy Ayers was shot twice and also punched and strangled.
11. Investigators found clothes and shoes in the back room, along with missing underwear and other items that suggested sexual assault.
12. Because the crime scene was burned, police had to identify the victims by clothing, jewelry, and items found in the parking lot.
13. Witnesses saw two teenage boys sitting in the shop with a small bag and heard a clicking sound like marbles knocking together.
14. The Austin Police Department got 50 to 75 calls a day and ruled out about 25 suspects early on.
15. The FBI Behavioral Science Unit said the offenders were probably at least two people in their late teens or early 20s, with one more domineering than the others.
16. Hector Polanco obtained confessions from suspects after hours of questioning, but at least two of those statements later fell apart.
17. Maurice Pierce, Forrest Wellborn, Rob Springsteen, and Mike Scott became central to the case after police revisited old tips and interrogations.
18. In 1999, Mike Scott and Rob Springsteen confessed, but later ballistics and DNA testing failed to match them to the crime.
19. The episode has a documentary style, with Carter Roy narrating the timeline in a steady, detailed, and retrospective voice.
20. People interested in true-crime investigations, false confessions, and forensic review would likely keep listening.
