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During a Friday in December 1991, Jennifer Harbison and her coworker Eliza Thomas, both 17, were wrapping up at the dessert shop where they worked. Staying behind for a lift were Jennifer's sister, 15-year-old Sarah Harbison, and Sarah’s friend, 13-year-old Amy Ayers.

Moments before 12 AM, a fire at the shop drew firefighters and police, who made a grim discovery: the young victims had been tied up, murdered, and showed indicators of assault. The fire destroyed the bulk of physical proof, with the exception of a cartridge that had ended up in a drain and trace amounts of genetic material, among them material beneath Amy Ayers' nails.

The Crime That Stunned Texas

The frozen yogurt shop case traumatized the city of Austin and were branded as one of the most notorious cold cases in the United States. After years of investigative roadblocks and false accusations, the murders ultimately contributed to national legislation enacted in the year 2022 that permits victims' families to ask for cold cases to be reopened.

Yet the crimes continued to baffle investigators for nearly 34 years – until now.

A Major Breakthrough

Law enforcement officials revealed on Monday a "significant breakthrough" made possible by modern methods in bullet matching and forensic science, said the local leader at a media event.

Forensic clues point to Robert Brashers, who was named after his death as a repeat offender. More murders may be linked to him as DNA analyses continue to improve and widespread.

"The only physical evidence located at that scene has been linked to him," explained the city's police chief.

The case hasn't reached conclusion, but this represents a "significant advance", and the suspect is considered the sole perpetrator, authorities confirmed.

Families Find Answers

Eliza's sister, a therapist, shared that her thoughts were divided following the tragedy occurred.

"One portion of my brain has been demanding, 'What occurred to my sister?', and the remaining part kept repeating, 'I will never know. I'll pass away without answers, and I need to make peace with it,'" she recalled.

When she learned about this progress in the investigation, "both sides of my thinking started melding," she explained.

"Finally I comprehend what happened, and that relieves my suffering."

Innocent Men Exonerated

The breakthrough not only bring peace to the grieving families; it also definitively absolves two suspects, teenagers at the time, who insisted they were coerced into admitting guilt.

Robert Springsteen, then 17 years old at the time of the killings, was sent to death row, and Scott, a 15-year-old then, was sentenced to life. The two asserted they gave confessions after hours-long interrogations in the year 1999. In 2009, the two were set free after their verdicts were thrown out due to court rulings on admissions absent tangible proof.

Legal authorities withdrew the charges against Springsteen and Scott in the same period after a forensic examination, referred to as Y-STR, showed neither man corresponded against the genetic material found at the crime scene.

The Investigation Advances

The Y-STR profile – indicating an unidentified male – would ultimately be the decisive factor in solving this case. In 2018, the DNA profile was sent for reanalysis because of scientific progress – but a countrywide check to investigative bodies returned no genetic matches.

This past June, the lead detective assigned to the investigation in 2022, considered a new approach. It had been since the ballistics from the shell casing had been uploaded to the NIBIN database – and in the years since, the system had been significantly improved.

"The technology has gotten so much better. Actually, we're dealing with three-dimensional imaging now," Jackson said at the news event.

They got a match. An unresolved killing in another state, with a similar modus operandi, had the identical kind of shell casing. Jackson and another official met with the law enforcement there, who are continuing to investigate their open file – and are testing materials from a rape kit.

Connecting the Dots

This development got Jackson thinking. Might there exist further clues that might match against cases in other states? He recalled instantly of the DNA profile – but there was a challenge. The Combined DNA Index System is the countrywide system for police, but the evidence from Austin was not complete enough and limited to upload.

"I suggested, well, it's been a few years. Additional facilities are doing this. Systems are expanding. Let's do a national inquiry again," the detective said.

He distributed the years-old genetic findings to police departments around the country, asking them to check by hand it to their local systems.

There was another hit. The genetic signature aligned exactly with a genetic evidence from another state – a 1990 murder that was closed with help from a DNA firm and an expert in genetic genealogy in recent years.

Building a Family Tree

The genealogist developed a family tree for the murderer from that case and found a family member whose biological evidence suggested a close tie – almost certainly a brother or sister. A magistrate ordered that Brasher's body be dug up, and his DNA aligned against the crime scene sample.

Normally, she is can move on from solved cases in order to work on the following case.

"Yet I have {not been