In September 2025, Austin police announced they had finally identified the man responsible for assaulting and murdering four teenagers in 1991—a case that would go on to be called the “yogurt shop murders.”
The big break came when an Austin detective re-tested the .380 shell casing recovered from the yogurt shop—the only physical evidence. In a matter of hours, the detective was notified of a “hit” to an unsolved 1998 murder in Kentucky. Further investigation revealed a match of the suspect’s Y-STR profile to another unsolved murder in South Carolina.
Back in Austin, the lab confirmed Robert Eugene Brashers’ Y-STR profile in the sexual assault kits of the four teenagers. The lab also retested the fingernail clippings of one of the girls and generated an STR profile. That STR profile was compared directly to Brashers—and matched. At this time, DNA from the 1998 unsolved Kentucky murder was also directly compared with Brashers and he cannot be excluded as the perpetrator…