Original subtitles

♪ (SOFT MELODY PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS) ♪

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

♪ (R&B SONG PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS) ♪

Oh, man.

Um, do you have any more of this particular shirt?

Because it jumps from a 16 and a half, 34,

- to a 17 and a half, 37. - Okay.

Sixteen and a half.

CLAIRE HUIE:

I'm getting clothes for the 48 Hour interview

and more extra clothes to go to court

and nice dress clothes and stuff like that.

CLAIRE:

Good? Good.

CLAIRE:

Yeah, they are a little bit long.

I think we need to go with the 29s.

JERRY: There you go.

Did you want to go shorter?

But that's basically where they should live.

Well, if that's the way they're supposed to be

then that's the way they're supposed to be.

I'll go with that then.

Yeah, any time, all your slack should hit about

right at the back of the heel.

That's rule of thumb.

Yeah, see, I'm so used to doing this with my mom,

but all my family's out of state right now.

- Oh, my gosh. (CHUCKLES) - So...

- You're on your own. (LAUGHING) - Yeah, finally.

And I'm sure you probably think it's really funny,

but we're doing a documentary

because I just got off death row.

Oh, okay.

(POLICE SIREN BLARING)

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

NEWSCASTER 1: Four young Austin girls dead.

NEWSCASTER 2: at the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop, where two of them worked.

NEWSCASTER 1: Shot and killed during an apparent robbery.

NEWSCASTER 3: The bodies were found

in the back of the shop, badly burned.

NEWSCASTER 4: Authorities are sifting through the evidence

hoping to find some answers.

LANIER PRINCIPAL: The Lanier school community have been saddened

by the tragic deaths of four young ladies

for whom we mourn today.

AMY NEWMAN: I can't believe it happened.

I guess I had to see for myself that it really did.

You don't ever think anybody's going to come

into a yogurt place...

(SNIFFLES) ...and shoot you and all your friends.

This just doesn't happen at the yogurt place. (CRYING)

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

You sure have been most helpful and very generous today,

so I'll definitely come back and do business with you.

Because I used to be a salesman at Radio Shack myself...

- JERRY: Oh, did you? - so I understand

a little bit of what you're going through, yeah.

Yeah, I've spent two years in a county jail

and then four years on death row

and then two years in population.

NEWSCASTER: Seventeen-year-old Jennifer Harbison,

her 15-year-old sister Sarah, and 17-year-old Eliza Thomas

all died from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.

Thirteen-year-old Amy Ayers was shot twice

in the back of the head.

REPORTER: "Senseless" is a word being used most often

as police describe Austin's worst murder case.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

- First name? - ROBERT SPRINGSTEEN: It's Robert.

Robert.

- And your last name, Robert? - ROBERT: Springsteen.

Oh. (CHUCKLES)

Not related to Bruce, though?

Well, as a matter of fact, I am. He's like my dad's sixth cousin.

So, I guess it would... Make him my seventh cousin.

JERRY: Wow.

-All righty. Got you all set, guys. -All right.

- Good luck to you. - ROBERT: Thank you.

Everything's going to work out okay? (CHUCKLES)

ROBERT: It sure seems that way, at least for right now.

You're off to a good start, man.

- Thank you, Jerry. - Thank you.

I appreciate your... - Hey, no problem.

- assistance today. - You bet. You have a good one.

JERRY: Thank you very much.

♪ ("DEVIL TOWN" BY ALLEGRA KRIEGER PLAYING) ♪

♪ I was livin' in a devil town ♪

♪ Didn't know It was a devil town ♪

♪ Oh lord It really brings me down ♪

♪ About the devil town ♪

♪ I was livin' in a devil town ♪

♪ Didn't know It was a devil town ♪

♪ Oh lord It really brings me down ♪

♪ About the devil town ♪

♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪

ASSISTANT: Is this okay?

JUSTIN ZEIFWACH: A little higher, please.

A little higher, a little higher. There you go.

MARGARET BROWN: Whenever you're ready, just tell me.

- Yeah. - MARGARET: I think we're ready.

- You ready? - Yeah.

- Let's go. - MARGARET: Let's do it.

- Thank you, sir, for doing this. - You're welcome.

MARGARET: I am curious

about what initially drew you to the story.

I just was curious about how you got involved in this,

the yogurt shop.

Okay.

MARGARET: How does it feel to be part of this thing,

31 years later?

What does that feel like?

(SIGHS) Uh...

MARGARET: I'm interested in the trauma that surrounds

-this case because... -The what?

MARGARET: The trauma that surrounds this case.

The depth that people like you cared about it.

You know, I'm interested because Austin is where I live.

I remember this case. I know how important it is.

But also, like, is there a way

that this story can help with healing?

♪ (SENTIMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Um, that's a very open question. (LAUGHS)

MARGARET: Yeah, I think it is.

At a point, it's just, do you want to...

Do you want to be the weak person

and just have this thing totally consume your life?

Or do you want to go ahead and live?

People don't want to talk about their grief.

That's private.

It's just, I've learned to deal with it in different ways.

People are afraid to share the brutality

that they've been through.

MARGARET: What comes up first when you think of her?

Uh, for one, it's been 30 years, seven months, and five days

and I still can't believe it.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

CLAIRE: There are a lot of details to the case.

There are a lot of people with strong opinions.

You think you know one thing and then you talk to somebody

and they convince you of an entirely different thing.

That's right. On this day in 1991,

four teenagers were shot and murdered

inside what was a yogurt shop in this strip mall.

What you're reduced to is just people's experiences

of the crime and its effects.

♪ ("PEPPER" BY BUTTHOLE SURFERS PLAYING) ♪

♪ Some will die in hot pursuit Fiery auto crashes... ♪

INTERVIEWER 1: We're here in the drag in Austin, Texas,

asking people about life on other planets.

Whoa, check it out, check it out. Bam!

♪ I don't mind The sun sometimes... ♪

INTERVIEWER 1: What'd you have for breakfast this morning?

I don't remember. I was pretty wasted.

INTERVIEWER 2: Are you a student?

Uh, no, actually. I'm just in a band mostly.

REPORTER: Someone with some big bucks had big plans

to change the landscape.

AUSTIN RESIDENT: I feel bad about being displaced

by all those people coming here, right.

And it makes me wonder

what's going to happen in the future.

♪ (SONG FADES) ♪

CLAIRE: Austin used to be a little college town.

And then it started to become a big city.

And a big-city crime happened here.

CLAIRE:

Well, it was one of the most shocking stories I've heard

in the 20 years that I've lived here.

People were scared to go out.

People were scared to go get yogurt.

I mean, how scary is that?

I don't know that the city of Austin

has ever been the same since the yogurt shop murders.

I mean, that was a loss of innocence

for this town for sure.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

CLAIRE: The yogurt shop murders was like a ghost story

that people told.

It was always told in hushed tones,

"This happened here."

Partly because nobody has all the details.

Also because it was never solved.

This case was so big in Austin.

It was exciting to work on a film about it,

even if I didn't really know what I was doing.

CLAIRE: So, that was in, I think all of this filming took place

is around 2009, I guess.

And I'm sure you probably think

it's really funny, but we're doing a documentary

because I just got off death row.

Oh, okay.

CLAIRE: I was taking a video class and I had access

because I had this friend who had worked on the case.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Can you see it from there?

CLAIRE: Hold it out... Hold it up like that.

And then I didn't finish it.

Of course, I had all this amazing footage

to look back on.

LOUIS AKIN: Um, tonight, we're going out

to the... where the yogurt shop used to be, the building,

to test a theory.

CLAIRE: This was a kind of case

that never left anybody who worked on it.

When these shootings happened,

there were a bunch of boys drinking in a creek

right behind the yogurt shop.

It's where that cash advance store was.

That used to be the yogurt shop.

There were booths along the sides

and there were tables in the middle.

And the cashier would be behind that...

Looks like a fica tree, but I think it's plastic.

And that counter there

where people would come up and order yogurt.

Behind that, they had the refrigerators

and there's a separate room back there.

And it was back there that the girls were killed

and that the place was set on fire.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

AKIN: It's a little chilling standing here like this.

There was a terrible tragedy here.

Let's go head down and we'll position

the film crew.

CLAIRE: This case doesn't make any sense.

And everybody who was touched by it

can't get to the bottom of the narrative.

(RADIO BEEPING)

- POLICE DISPATCH: Jonesy. - JOHN JONES: Yeah.

POLICE DISPATCH: Did you hear about the call 2900, West Anderson?

- Yeah, I'm headed over there. - POLICE DISPATCH: Okay.

I'll meet you out there.

- (DEVICE BEEPING) - JONES: 2900.

- (WALKIE TALKIE BEEPING) - Homicide four.

(POLICE SIREN BLARING)

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JONES: People ask me all the time, "How long are you in homicide?"

And my response is, "153 bodies."

Because that's how you measure time

when you're a homicide detective.

NEWS ANCHOR: In some cities across the state,

people are killing each other in record numbers.

Tonight, we take a look at Austin

as crime reporter Lisa Kosolou

continues her Channel 7 news close-up.

JONES: A Channel 7 reporter was doing a series

on murder in Texas.

They went riding around with me, and then we made calls.

There seemed to be a lot more random murders,

random violence.

And then while we were at the last call,

they called me on my handheld radio.

(RADIO BEEPS)

Okay, I'm copying the fire part.

You cut out on the first part of that, though.

And I go, "Fire?"

because they wouldn't need me for it.

POLICE DISPATCH:

- (RADIO BEEPS) - That's 10-4. Going around.

(SIRENS BLARING)

JONES: (CLEARS THROAT) A triple fatality.

A murder. Great.

(SIRENS BLARING)

(RADIO BEEPS)

JONES: Uh, where do I need to come to, in here?

What place of business is this?

POLICE DISPATCH:

- (RADIO BEEPS) - JONES: Okay.

By the time I got there,

as I pulled into the parking lot,

was when they called me on the radio

and said they found a fourth one.

I had to go in through

the party shop, which was next door,

because I couldn't go in the front door

because the fire department was still in there

knocking down the fire.

(POLICE SIRES BLARING IN A DISTANCE)

JONES: It was still smoldering.

They had pulled down the ceiling,

so there was water everywhere.

There was steam everywhere. There was smoke everywhere.

As it started to clear out, you could see the bodies.

Three together and then one away from the others.

I'm not at all afraid to go in the room

to see a dead person.

I don't want to see no dead child.

That don't work with me.

(INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER)

JONES: The obvious question when you got females

that are stripped, shot, and burned is,

were they sexually assaulted?

When a body's been declared dead,

it belongs to the medical examiner.

The medical examiner wanted to just load them up

and take them down to the morgue

to do an autopsy.

But I wanted them to wait until DPS got there

so they could do swabs,

because DNA was something fairly new then.

But I knew and Huck knew that that was important.

And if it hadn't been for Huck...

You know, he's the one who talked 'em into waiting

until DPS got there.

We called the manager.

She said there's only supposed to be two girls there.

Only Jennifer and Eliza actually worked there.

♪ (MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

REESE PRICE: It was my first day of my vacation,

and my mother-in-law knocked on the door

and said, you know, "You got a phone call.

The police are on the phone for you."

And no phone call in the middle of the night

is a good call. Never.

I was just kind of like, "Yes, sir?"

He said, "We've had a fire at the yogurt shop."

And I'm looking at the time and I'm like,

"Okay, let it burn?"

You know, I was kind of kidding because I knew

that the girls would have been finished.

And he says, "Well, I need you to sit down."

I'm like, "I'm fine. What's... What's wrong?"

And he said, "No, no, no. I need you to sit down."

And again, he tried to warn me.

And I said, "No, sir, what's wrong?"

And he said, "Well, we have four dead bodies."

And my knees went... They just... Boom!

And he said, "Can you come up here?"

It's slow motion. It's literally slow motion.

There was like this mist.

And I could see the yogurt shop

and there was just lights flashing everywhere,

sirens, fire trucks.

And I remember sort of a panic hitting in,

"Okay, this is real.

This is real. This is real."

We pulled up, and I think it was Jones and Huckabay.

One of them said,

"Do you... Do you think that if we went inside,

you could identify the bodies?"

"Sure."

They said it'd be better for me to do it

than their families.

I was only 24.

I wasn't thinking fire and burned people.

I agreed to it because it was the right thing to do,

and I still feel that to this day.

It was just best.

There was fire trucks in the back alley

and there was media everywhere.

We wound up going through the front of the store.

There's no lights. Dark.

You know, you got the counter, the machines,

and then there's the door that leads you to the back.

The water was dripping down on you, and it was dark.

It was... It was just ominous.

And, um, there wasn't anything there to identify.

So...

They didn't have faces.

There's no clothing.

Fire's, um, very destructive.

It's not forgiving.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JONES: What we found in the back there

was we found four victims.

That's all we can comment on right now.

REPORTER 1: Were the victims together

or were they in different parts of the building? Can you...

No, I can't. Can't give you that either.

REPORTER 2: Were they bound in any way?

Can't give you that.

REPORTER 2: Was there any sign of forced entry to the building?

Can't give you that.

REPORTER 2: What can you give?

Just what I gave you.

It's still very early in the investigation, okay?

And there'll probably come a point

that we need that information to solve this case.

Put your hand. Hold on, put your hand right here.

SONORA THOMAS: It's already turned on, Liz.

Right here. I know. She puts her hands over here. And look.

Okay. Yeah.

SONORA: I was 13.

I was at my dad's house.

And then, in the middle of the night,

there was banging on the front door.

Give me a kiss, Sonora.

And they didn't really know anything.

I mean, that was like the confusing part

about that night.

As they came in and they were like,

"There was a fire."

And said something happened to Eliza.

Yeah. It was such a confusing scene.

I just remember... and I... My body just started

to have this really strong reaction

and my... my teeth just started chattering.

Yeah. I remember at one point just putting my hand in my mouth

to try to stop my teeth from chattering.

My parents were divorced.

So, at some point we had to go

to tell my mom what was going on.

Hi, Sonora, how are you?

And my mom wouldn't come out of the house to talk

to the police officer.

I just remember my dad, you know, saying, you know,

"Take care of your mom" and then leaving.

My mom like, went to her room...

and I just started cleaning the house.

And at some point, I turned on the TV

and this story was on the news.

REPORTER 1: The first sign that something was wrong

came just after midnight last night.

That's when a passing police officer

noticed smoke coming out of the store.

REPORTER 2: But once the smoke cleared,

firefighters made a grim discovery.

They found the bodies of four young victims.

All had been shot in the head.

The victims are identified as Eliza Thomas...

SONORA: And my sister's picture was on the news.

I remember going to bed and just thinking...

like, "I've never woken up on a day

that my sister wasn't alive," you know.

There's no Sonora without Eliza. There's no Eliza without Sonora.

REPORTER 2: 17 years old

and a student at Lanier High School.

Jennifer Harbison, also 17 years of age

and her 15-year-old sister, Sarah Harbison.

Both girls were Lanier High School students.

It was just unspeakable

that someone did this on purpose.

It was unspeakable.

You know, you just have all those regrets of...

of not protecting.

DICK ELLIS: Home video tapes give us intimate glimpses

of the girls and their personalities.

Jennifer was 17. Sarah was 15.

Jennifer's athletic claim to fame was track.

Sarah loved the game of basketball.

BARBARA AYRES-WILSON: These balloons here

are from Sarah's last birthday.

DICK: Barbara and Frank Suraci spend a lot of time

in their daughter's rooms.

This is Jennifer's room.

She too was a tomboy.

Two weeks after the murders,

a reporter came to our house and he said,

"You're not crying."

And I said, "I don't have anything left."

As a matter of fact, this is Jennifer's pin

from the yogurt store for her uniform.

I just get to a point that I couldn't cry a lot anymore.

DICK: Jennifer and Sarah shared a passion,

F.F.A., raising sheep.

BARBARA: They really just love those animals.

They just love them.

DICK: Frank and Barbara

still do not believe their girls are gone.

They know someday the killers will be caught.

BARBARA: We chose to be public about this from the beginning,

hoping that it would help solve our case sooner.

And so, any opportunity that we had

to be in front of a camera at any time,

most of us parents would do that.

DICK: If there was ever anyone who was nearly born

in the saddle, it was Amy Ayers.

CROWD: (SINGING) ♪ Happy birthday... ♪

DICK: Amy's birthday.

At 12, she got her cutting horse, Copy.

Her love of animals took her to the F.F.A.

And it was through the F.F.A.

that she became friends with Jennifer and Sarah Harbison.

PAM AYERS: Didn't have to worry about those two when they were together.

We knew that they were going to be safe in what they did.

DICK: That was until the night of December 6.

Amy and her three best friends were... (VOICE FADES)

SHAWN AYERS: The clearest memory I have of her

is the first time I got to hold her.

And I was sitting in a rocking chair,

her on my lap.

I remember, because I wanted a little sister so bad.

I didn't want a little brother.

So, when I had a little sister, I was bayonets.

I got everything I wanted right there.

♪ (EMOTIONAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Back him a little bit there.

There's not one day that I do not think of her,

or Sarah, Jennifer, or Eliza, any of them.

(INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT OVER PA)

SHAWN: My dad's always ranched.

We always had animals, did cowboy stuff.

I mean, that's how I was raised.

The best way to live or raise kids is on a ranch.

If you're on a ranch, you've got everything you want.

We had our own milk cows, we had a garden,

we had our own beef.

I'd ride a horse to the mailbox.

It's just the little things like that.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

BOB AYERS: The kids, they seen calves and horses be born,

seen them grow up, seen them get fat,

seen some die.

You know, it was real life, it was real.

♪ (SENTIMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BOB: When I think of her, I think of horses.

But ever since she was knee-high to a duck,

she liked the horses.

SHAWN: If you're riding a cutting horse you're riding a cutting horse.

You're doing the same thing that the adults are doing.

There's no "kid version" of riding cutting horses.

It's all the same thing.

(HORSE NEIGHS)

BOB: A lot of times I'd be riding some colts

and I'd be having a problem, I'd just stick her on him.

For a couple of days, she'd ride him in the pasture,

do this, do that.

Come back and my problems were over.

She just knew animals.

PAM: She was happy.

I mean, she could be very serious.

She's kind of an old soul

but she was happy and most happy around animals.

So, when I see kids and animals together,

it really reminds me of her.

BOB: And after we'd moved to Austin,

she got involved with the Junior F.F.A.

MISSY HESTER: Future Farmers of America.

The farm was kind of like... our, like, little getaway.

(PIG GRUNTING)

MISSY: After school, everybody'd go to the farm.

We'd raise animals and stuff together.

That's how I got to know

Jennifer and Liza and Amy and all of them.

To me, F.F.A. teaches me

to be a better person, and, um,

you know, to just learn more about people

and how things work.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

- (THUNDER RUMBLING) - (INDISTINCT CHATTER)

SHAWN: The thing that sucks is the older I get,

the less I can remember about her.

And I mean, I try to remember, I don't know why it's happening.

It bugs me.

But it's... I mean, it's weird.

Smile!

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

BEVERLY LOWRY: I had written a previous book about a murder.

And I learned to deal with extreme behavior.

The extremities of what people are capable of.

What a human being can do to another human being.

MARGARET: So, we were going back to the day it happened

and the 48 hours afterward.

In your mind, what are the most pertinent thing

of those first 48 hours?

BEVERLY: Uh, I think...

what really, if you want to get down to it,

made this almost impossible to solve

was the fire and the water.

Especially the water.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MIKE HUCKABAY: When I got inside the yogurt shop,

I was in water up to here.

That's how much the fire had come in there.

JONES: Turns out a lot of the firemen were kind of

worried that they had disturbed the crime scene.

You know, there was soot everywhere.

So much of the evidence was probably contaminated.

So, taking fingerprints was kind of pointless,

although we tried.

We found the key left in the front door,

but that was apparently part of the process

of when they got ready to close,

to put the key in the front door.

We went through the whole procedure

front to back.

First of all, if there was some customers in the store,

you'd lock the door and they would sit

and usually finish.

There were some people that would stay

and I know that there was regulars

that they knew or felt comfortable with.

We had a radio

and they would dance in the back and giggle,

and they were always smiling, always happy.

It was a job, but I don't know that it was work to them.

They had a set order.

I do believe the toppings were put away.

Machines were cleaned,

but the gaskets weren't put back on.

I think there was a bucket still sitting there on a ladder.

There was still water in the sink

where they were washing the topping ladles.

My guess is they were close to being finished.

But they had extra help.

The other two girls, I'm sure, were put to work.

BEVERLY: Earlier that night, Sarah and Amy,

the two younger girls,

had been walking around Northcross Mall.

Jennifer picked them up when the mall closed

and took them to the yogurt shop.

Northcross Mall is blocks from the yogurt shop.

I mean, it's walking distance, really.

But, you know,

safe side, she went and picked them up,

brought them back, ordered pizza,

and they may have been in the back

helping clean up when the intruders came.

We surmised the yogurt shop case was a robbery gone bad.

That it went sideways because the bad guys,

however many there were,

weren't aware that there were two more girls

in the back of the store.

So, they'd been casing it even for a short period of time,

all they would have seen was the two girls out front.

So, they were up against four.

Four F.F.A. girls on top of that.

Who knows what all happened in there,

but it didn't take long.

JONES: Maybe they were in there 20, 25 minutes.

And then it would have probably taken another 15 minutes

for the fire to build up to the point

to where it was noticeable to the guy next door

in the party shop.

I think the girls tried to get out the front door,

and took off running.

And they stopped them, took them back in the back,

And thought, "You're going to call the cops?"

So they kill 'em.

And then the fire was started.

♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JONES: The bodies were in two locations.

The three girls were stacked near the back door.

And then the fourth one, which was Amy,

was ten, 13 feet away from the others.

HUCKABAY: All four girls were tied with their own underwear,

brassieres...

and was shot in the back of the head

with a .22 caliber pistol.

JONES: There were two guns used, a .22 and a .380.

The .22, the round is small and soft

and it's just about impossible to get ballistics off a .22.

The .380 round that had been used on Amy, found it in a drain

and it was perfectly preserved.

The lands and grooves told us exactly what kind of gun it was.

We knew what we were looking for exactly.

♪ ("IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR" BY ANDY WILLIAMS PLAYING) ♪

Northcross Mall was really beautiful

and big and fun.

There was an ice-skating rink.

Christmas decorations were out and Santa Claus around.

The movie theaters showed The Rocky Horror Show

and they did these dramas where they acted out

the parts at midnight.

That's where kids went to hang out,

to walk around, not so much to buy anything.

♪ (EERIE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BEVERLY: A week after the yogurt shop murders,

a boy named Maurice Pierce decides

to go to Northcross Mall,

the same mall that Sarah and Amy had been

in the previous week,

and walk around with a gun, a pistol,

in the waistband of his jeans.

And it was loaded,

and he had bullets in his pocket.

His young disciple, Forrest Welborn

just adored Maurice and would do pretty much

whatever he could do to be in his presence

because he was magnetic, Maurice.

And they were walking around the mall with this gun.

JONES: Maurice got arrested

with a .22 pistol at Northcross Mall

which was two blocks away from the yogurt shop.

We'd put out that we were looking for a .22 and a .380.

So, I get a young kid over there

who's got a .22 pistol and is two blocks away.

BEVERLY: They took him and he was questioned

by a cop named Hector Polanco.

DICK: A homicide investigator for five years,

Polanco has never had a murder case go unsolved.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

JONES: Hector interviewed him

for three or four hours, I guess,

before he called us in and we came in.

I just took down what he said and I'd stop every now and then

and ask him to clarify stuff.

"My name is Maurice Earl Pierce,

I'm 16 years old.

I am at the Austin Police Department

giving this statement to Sergeant J. Jones

concerning what I know about

the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt murders

last Friday night."

"I picked up Forrest Wellborn from McCallum High School.

We rode around for a while, went to my house.

Forrest said, "Let's get the gun."

So I took it out of my closet where I kept it,

and he put it in the glove box.

Forrest and I went up to Northcross Mall.

Forrest got out of the car with the gun.

I went to the bathroom,

and Forrest went somewhere else.

We split up.

So about 10:45, I just went

and sat out in the car waiting for him.

Forrest showed up at my car at about 11:30.

He got in the car and handed me the gun,

then said, 'I did something.'

I said, 'Like what?'

But he never did answer."

BEVERLY: So Maurice gave up Forrest Welborn

and said Forrest had borrowed his gun

and had disappeared for a while

and come back sweaty and the gun had been fired

and he was smelling of hairspray...

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)

which Maurice explained as a way to start a fire,

to spray hairspray and throw a match in it.

When asked who else was with him that night,

Maurice said, "Rob Springsteen...

and Michael Scott."

JONES: "Forrest and I left the mall.

We met Rob Springsteen and Mike.

Then we went riding around,

went up to the trails and shot the gun off

because Mike and Rob said they wanted to."

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BEVERLY: Michael Scott and Rob Springsteen.

They were layabouts.

They'd drank a lot of beer,

smoked weed, like a lot of kids their age.

They were looking for trouble.

The day after the murders, those four guys stole a car

and went to San Antonio to visit a girlfriend.

JONES: "Forrest and I saw a goldish tan colored Pathfinder

with keys in it.

We took it and went and picked up Rob

and Mike and went driving."

HUCKABAY: They stole a car and went to San Antone.

And they drove around and did stupid stuff

and then came back, parked that stolen car

where they had gotten it from.

JONES: "When we got back to Austin,

I dropped Rob and Mike at Rob's house.

Forrest asked me if he could borrow the gun.

I told him no. I asked him why.

He said because 'I want to go do what I did last night,

go kill some more girls.'"

Later the next day, we wired him up

and sent him out to Forrest.

JONES: And we listened to that.

We were following him on the wire.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

He was trying to lead Forrest along

and Forrest had no idea what he was talking about.

And we got Forrest in to interview him. Uh...

Forrest, he couldn't organize a two-car parade.

I mean, he just...

you know, he couldn't have held it in.

You know, we had Sergeant Polanco

and two other homicide investigators

that had been there a while.

They knew interrogation.

So, could they have done it? Yeah, they could have.

Did they? I don't know.

Where's the... Where's the evidence?

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

You get to a point...

where your inner body, soul,

and all that comes up and says, "This is the guy."

I felt that.

Just the way he acted and reacted and all this...

"Something here, Huck."

But I had to prove it.

You have to get a written confession

signed by the guy to get him indicted, you know.

If you don't have a confession,

then you better have a bunch of good evidence

to prove that he did it.

Well, we didn't have that.

We didn't have anything to prove, you know.

I mean, we had no fingerprints.

Uh...

♪ (INTRIGUING TUNE PLAYING) ♪

(RAIN PATTERING)

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

LARRY BRILL: Good morning. It's ten o'clock.

I'm Larry Brill. The families of four girls

murdered earlier this month

at a yogurt store are making a plea

for help this morning.

The investigation has been moving along slowly,

but police and the families need help to catch the killers.

We are the parents and step-parents

of the four young teenage girls

brutally slain at the North Austin yogurt shop.

On December 6, 1991.

We've been told that the community

is looking to us for leadership

and advice on ways to handle this tragedy

and what to do.

The families are still having good days mixed with bad,

so are the police.

Under the close scrutiny of an angry

and impatient public,

investigators have been going full throttle now

to turn up any new clues

as to who might have killed the four girls.

There's a lot of things that we did

in this case that hadn't been done before.

We sent undercover guys to the funerals

and had it mic'd up just in case somebody

showed up to apologize.

We pulled every ticket that was written

in that part of town,

we called two or three times for all of the customers

that had been in the yogurt shop.

Without video evidence, we're depending on people

answering the call through the media.

It's just going to take the right phone call,

the right little piece of information.

The ones that use credit cards, we knew.

But we got quite a few in that had used cash.

Everybody wanted to help.

Customers and friends of the victim have told us

about what they consider

to be suspicious people going in and out

of the restaurant.

Something else we did in the yogurt shop case,

we hypnotized everybody that was in the shop.

Maybe they had seen something the night they were in there

that looked fairly unusual.

That's how we got composites from several of them,

is we put them under hypnosis.

Police are expected to release part

of an in-depth psychological profile

developed last week with help from the FBI.

POLICE SPOKESPERSON: The assessment of the ICBY murders

are as follows.

Although the race of the offenders

in this case is difficult to determine,

it is probable that the killers are White.

Although other races cannot be eliminated

on this basis alone due to the fact

that other races do frequent this commercialized area.

The age of the offenders is also difficult to establish

but in all probability, they are in their late teens

to mid-20s.

Likely unemployed or in a menial job

not requiring contact with the public,

and likely we're dealing with residents of the area.

NEWS ANCHOR: One has a dominant personality

and manipulates the weaker ones

by forcing them to participate in some aspect of the crime.

Police believe at least one of them

has told someone else

and they're hoping this person will come forward.

You have a person out there who wasn't there, who knows.

He's standing there every day looking at a murderer

who up to this point is getting away with it.

The police need additional eyes and ears.

If you think you have something to report,

however seemingly insignificant,

your tip may earn you a substantial reward.

NEWS ANCHOR 2: A daycare group that two of the murdered girls

attended when they were in preschool,

called Child Inc.,

called for a community effort in solving the crime.

NEWS ANCHOR 3: Telephone companies paid to put billboards

on more than 40 taxi cabs in Austin this week.

HUCKABAY: Any information that anyone has

that they think might be remotely helpful

needs to be called in.

BARBARA: We want those pictures up.

We want people to know

that these beautiful girls were alive,

a part of this city,

and we don't want anyone to forget

that they lived, they were here, and they were murdered.

Whoever did this is going to have to be caught,

and they're gonna have to be brought to justice.

SONORA: I always want someone watching me...

because I know Eliza was my sister and my best friend.

And half of me died when I heard the news.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

There's somebody working around the clock on it.

Uh, we're getting numerous calls still.

And, you know,

a lot of the information is just not any good.

But we never know which piece

of information is going to be the piece

that we need to solve the puzzle.

JONES: How close we were to the families,

that's something else we did that was pretty unique.

They were pretty much a part of the investigation,

I mean, they could come and go.

They kind of walked in a couple times

when we were jacking up some suspects, but, you know.

John Jones and Mike Huckabay, they came to our house a lot.

Of course, Mike Huckabay wore boots.

He was kind of the cowboy

of the police department. We... We got along.

Bob liked me.

I'm not really a cowboy, but I, you know,

do a lot of cowboy stuff,

rodeos and stuff like that.

We just sort of connected there.

I didn't want to get real close, but it's hard not to.

They would give us some tidbits or keep us up to date.

You could see the stress on them, stress on us.

I had full faith in them.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

DAN RATHER: Two months after the murders,

members of the community came together

to try and keep alive the memory of the four teenagers.

ORGANIZER: Now the families over here, okay?

A couple of Austin composers wrote a song.

"We Will Not Forget."

Y'all you ready to do one now?

♪ (EMOTIONAL POWER BALLAD PLAYING) ♪

♪ I watch you lying there ♪

♪ You have my eyes and hair ♪

♪ I love your laughs, Your coos and sighs ♪

♪ The answer to my prayer ♪

♪ We will not forget ♪

♪ Time we had to share ♪

♪ We will not forget ♪

♪ Dreams you'll never dare ♪

♪ We will not forget... ♪

REPORTER: Several hundred people showed up to remember the girls.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

REPORTER: Some spent their time quietly reflecting,

others reminiscing about the good times they'd had.

We had walked together every day after first period.

We'd just sit there talking.

Just me and her we went down the hall.

It helps to know that there...

are more people than just you going through

the exact same thing

and feeling the exact same thing.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BARBARA: This is real painful stuff.

So, I really work hard to get back

to the funny part of it, because it's just too much.

The thing I laughed about right after the girls died

is that Americans, the way we deal with grief,

let's see, we had T-shirts, we had coffee mugs,

we had buttons, we had pins.

We have to make... We have to make a marketing opportunity

out of everything.

So, we did. We sure did. We did all that, too.

So, uh, isn't that funny?

It's got their names on it.

CLAIRE: The deeper I got into it,

the more incapable I felt

of telling the story myself.

This was Sarah's eighth grade.

You can tell she has glasses and Jennifer's senior year.

I would find myself talking about the case,

the project that I'm working on. I'm working on this project...

but the project's so dark.

And I would talk about it as if

this was, uh, like my path to professionalism.

BARBARA: And they're both smiling.

- CLAIRE: It's adorable. - BARBARA: Oh my gosh.

More white sands, more memories, more life, more...

Oh yeah, that's very, very emotional to do that, so...

CREW MEMBER: Can we get a wide shot of you

- looking through them? - BARBARA: Yeah.

People always say, "Oh, I just can't imagine."

You don't need to.

Don't even... Don't even need to think about it.

It's too much to think about,

too much to carry with you forever.

You'll have your own pain in your own way

and your own time.

You don't need to visit this one. (SNIFFLES)

It's enough.

(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

(KEY CLICKS)

CLAIRE: And then we have the sit-down interview with her.

I don't remember it very well, but she was really open.

Well, I guess can we start off

by your telling us

how your daughters were murdered?

All right, so anyway... (LAUGHS) Um...

I'm mortified by my own footage,

um, which made editing it difficult. But, um...

I think that's an insensitive way

to start an interview. (LAUGHS)

Um, and... what are you gonna do?

I mean, it is what it is.

I wanted to get to that, um...

that moment where...

you...

are sensitive to the terror that the girls faced.

And I know

that the families have thought about that.

So, I asked the question, but it sounds insensitive.

We can see how she responds.

Well, I guess, um...

Well, I guess, can we start off by your telling us

how your daughters were murdered?

(CHUCKLES) Um...

Yeah, uh...

December 6 was a Friday

and... and I was at work

and I talked to the girls on the phone

and I told them I was getting off early that day.

And so, I was supposed to get off

at 4:30, and when I came home,

I was actually...

Actually it was 5:30 when I got home,

so Sarah was sitting on the couch

and she was peeling an orange

and, uh, Jennifer wasn't...

I asked her where her sister was.

She said, "She's over at Sam's."

That was her boyfriend, that was Jennifer's boyfriend.

And they had taken him home from school.

And... But Sarah was...

She said to me, she said, "I'm going out tonight."

And I said, "Oh, you are?"

Interesting that she was telling me

what she was going to do and, uh, before she asked.

And so, yeah, she said, "I am...

We're going to the mall.

Amy's going to spend the night. We're going to the mall."

I said, "Okay." And so, uh...

Anyway, just... she was in such a good mood.

She was in such a good mood.

That's the thing I remember the most about the last...

That last evening.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BARBARA: Jennifer was going to work at the yogurt shop

that night and I was so tired

because my boss had been on vacation

and Sarah wanted me to take her and Amy

to the mall

so they could do some Christmas shopping

or whatever they were doing.

And I said, "Oh, man, I just don't feel like it."

So, Jennifer,

uh, I convinced Jennifer to take Sarah with her

and to go pick up Amy before... on her way

to work and drop them both at the mall,

which was just a block or two

over from the yogurt store itself.

And, uh, so... I walked them out

to the car and they were getting,

you know, getting all their stuff together.

And, you know, I got a hug from both of them.

Of course, I told them I loved them

and got to do that last

"Y'all be careful, I'll see you and I'll talk to you later.

Y'all be careful." And off they went

and that was the last time I saw them.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC SWELLING) ♪

BARBARA: My husband and I were at the house that night,

and he was watching TV

and they had a special on Pearl Harbor.

And I just didn't want to watch it.

It just upsets me, so I didn't watch it.

So I went into the bedroom to watch TV,

the Star Trek I think is what... The reruns.

And I was in there and I was laying across the bed.

I still remember I had on my purple sweats

of the day, you know,

and I was all snugged,

but I fell asleep on top of the covers,

and he came to bed

and sort of got in under his side

and I never really got in the covers.

And then I heard...

the doorbell ring,

and it startled me because I wasn't exactly in bed

and I wasn't exactly out of bed.

And I jumped up

and he was in bed and I ran to the door

and I didn't see the girls and I was,

you know, things are running through your mind.

It's not that many feet from my bed to the front door.

So, I was looking and I turned the lights on.

And as soon as I opened the door,

there were two police officers and a lady with them.

And I said, "Skip, the police are here.

Something's wrong with the girls."

They didn't tell me that. I knew. I knew.

And he got up

and they had us sit down on the couch

and they said there had been a fire, and, um...

(SNIFFS)

and that the girls were gone, that they were dead.

And, uh, I kept trying to listen to that.

I knew that didn't make sense.

I knew that it didn't make sense

because the girls wouldn't just burn up.

They just wouldn't burn up in a fire.

And, um...

And that they were both gone.

(BREATHING SHAKILY)

And...

So, you're processing, trying to... make that work.

How can someone be and then not be?

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

BARBARA: And they wouldn't leave

until we called someone to be with us.

I didn't want anybody to know, so I just lied.

"No, we don't have anybody. We don't know anyone.

Can't tell that story."

And finally I admitted

that I had a sister that lived in this town.

And...

Um...

So, the...

the lady from the police department

called my sister.

It's so funny,

because we've laughed about this story since. She...

She jumps out of bed, and what does she put on?

Her stupid blue sweats. (LAUGHS)

So, we're both dressed in these silly sweats.

That's not funny, I know, but...

Uh...

it was just crazy.

So, she did get across town. She had to stop and get gas,

and she came across town in her blue sweats.

And, um...

and then I had to tell her...

the, um, what had really happened.

I, uh...

I... I had to tell her, and I had to see her face.

It was horrible to see her face.

You don't want to tell people horrible things.

And, uh, that was...

was a really horrible thing.

CHILD: (ON RECORDING) What?

Acknowledging someone's death is just...

is just so very hard.

And... (SNIFFS) ...so...

Of course, so then we have to call Mike Harbison,

the girls' father...

and hear his screams...

And...

and his wife got on the phone and she was saying,

"Tell me what happened.

He's screaming and I don't know what happened."

And we had to tell her.

And...

So, you have another person whose life is over.

And one more person whose life is over. And...

I had to call my sister, my other sister...

and tell them that life was over and...

and listen to the screams.

And...

This was just our house. This was just my house.

There were other houses.

Bob and Pam had to go through this. (SNIFFLES)

Maria Thomas had to go through this.

Telling the families the news of the absence of souls.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

♪ (MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪