WANTED: Yogurt Shop Killer in Austin
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High crime junkie on your host ashly flowers and today for our throw back episode were headed down to gool taxes to a city i've actually been to a few times Austin, and I know Austin has a lot to offer. But if you are like me, if you have the crime junkie brain, then when you hear Austin, texas, you probably think of one of its most infamous cases, one that has haunted the community in Austin for over thirty years, high crime junkies. I'm your host, ashly flowers, and i'm bread.

And you guys, before we jump in and I tell you about our case today, does that anyone care if I give you like a little mini story before the story? And i'm like, totally yeah, it's a rtp ical question. You guys are crime jankez. I don't know if you saw this brit in the news. There was a girl named Olivia ambrose who was abducted and her sister, I mean, I think SHE hadn't if I go missing father, because her sister was able to find her and save her, because he was able to do to find my iphone and locate her, that's awesome.

Even more proof that everyone should have. And if I got missing folder, yes.

that's literally like the whole crazy story. SHE was out one night and there's like surveilling of her getting like taken forcefully away by this guy. And police didn't know who this guy was or where he was.

And again, I don't know if you actually had this. I go missing folder, but he had a sister who at least knew her information enough that SHE could track IT down. They didn't have to wait for a warrant, and they were actually able to go and save her before anything really harmful physically happened to her.

And so she's now safe. She's back with her family. It's an amazing story and again, a reason everyone should have.

And if I go missing folder, even if you don't want to use all of the information, like there is some key pieces in there your family should have, so you can always go to our website, crime junky podcast dot com, to download that free resource. Highly recommend. And now today is a special episode, because IT was picked for all of you by our patrons on patriot.

I decided to let them choose our next case because I let them pick our halloween case on patron, which we did on a lisa leon. And IT has by far been the most popular case we've ever done. People are still talking about IT, so clearly they know how to pick good cases. And so I thought i'd let them do IT again. And this is the case of the Austin yoga shop murders.

On december six, nineteen ninety one, seventeen year old allies a Thomas got ready for work at her house, putting on her, I can't believe, its yoga uniform and pulling her hair into a scrunch y when SHE left to make IT on time for her seven o'clock shift, SHE nor her family had any way of knowing that he would never come home. Allies I got to work and was soon met there by her friend and coworker Jennifer harper.

Son, who was also seventeen analyzer, had actually helped Jenny get the job there, and both girls were just trying to make some extra money. They in high school, they wanted some spending cash, wanted gas money, people, their cars. So on that night, I was just the two of them working that evening, and their shifts were pretty short.

The store actually closed at eleven o'clock, and if they could start cleaning up early, they'd be out of their pretty quickly. And they were pretty sure tonight would be a breeze. Because Jennifer analyzer, I had extra help.

Jennifer had a Younger sister named Sarah, who was fifteen, and Sarah had been hanging out at the mall, which was just a couple of blocks away with her thirteen old friend amy air. After the more close, the two of them went over to the believe its yogurt shop to help allies and Jennifer close down. Amy and sera stayed in the back since they weren't technically employees and they weren't in uniform.

And I think they just kind of helped things away, maybe washing dishes, they had some pizza and just kind of hung out while eliza and Jennifer stayed in the front. Now my first job was actually at an ice cream plays, and we would always start the nightly clean up well before officially closing. And that's what the girls did that night.

They started putting up the chairs. They started wiping down the tables, cleaning out the machines, restocking the napkins. All of IT. Jennie went out to the lobby while allies the state behind the counter to do like the cleaning in the back and ring up the couple of last minute customers that were flowing in.

And we know IT was her behind the counter, not just because of witnesses, but IT was her register number used to check these people out. Shortly before closing, a woman enters the shop and she's actually just picking up some ice cream to take home to her husband. And when he entered, SHE comes to in a brush stop.

There are only two other customers in the store. And for whatever reason, they make her very uncomfortable. SHE described them as two teens who are facing one another as they exit at this table.

They aren't eating frozen yoga or anything at all, from what you can see, but they are focused on some kind of sc in between them. And the boy that he can see, he describes as having darker skin. Maybe his panic, but maybe he could have just been very ten.

But this one guy has his hand in the sack, and he's like rolling something around that sounds like change, or maybe marbles. And SHE remembered having the urge to ask the girls if they were OK alone in there with these guys. But the girls seemed fine.

They were chatting, they were happy. So SHE kind of convinces herself, like a lot of us do, that she's just being paranoid, that she's being crazy. So he decides not to say anything and he leaves the shop later on.

There's another couple that comes in. They come in while the girls are doing their free closing routine. It's a man and a woman. And when they come in, they noticed two guys sitting at a booth closest to the cash register. And I kind of want to describe this store to use.

So when you walk in, you basically see a row of booths on your left, you see some tables in the middle, and you see a row of boots on your right. And these boys were sitting in the row of boots on the left side, and they were farther away from the door, but closest to the cash register, and basically this long counter. And then you can go through through this like door way into the back.

Okay, that makes sense.

So the couple says that when they walk in, Jennifer was out in the lobby and cleaning up, just like we said, analyzer was behind the register and they didn't even know IT at the time, but there were the other two girls in the back. But again, they said we didn't see them, we didn't hear them. We had no idea the couple gets their yogurt and they sit down to eat instead of taking IT to go.

And the woman said he was kind of ease dropping on the girls like as they were chatting. And SHE felt like, for whatever reason, the men were eased, dropping as well, because they weren't really talking to one another. They, as far SHE could tell, weren't eating or drinking anything.

So SHE, too, felt that I was a little bit strange that these men were just sitting here so late without any kind of ice cream. And as the woman is sitting in the booth now, she's sitting in the chair that is facing the outside window. And it's late at night.

It's after ten thirty, which means that it's completely dark. And you know how when it's dark, like there is like the reflection you see more than you see outside when all the lights are on. Yes, well, he said he remembers looking.

And SHE can see the two men almost behind her, and one of the guys has his back to her. And so she's really hard for her to get an idea of what this guy looks like. And SHE even says he is just assuming their guys based on, like, their general form.

But the one with his back to her had a padded tent jacket on. And the other one SHE could kind of see because he was facing the glass as well, and he looked thin with maybe light Brown hair, but he was really hard to make up any kind of distinguishing features from that far away, like looking in a glass reflection. Finally, at ten forty seven, the couple decides that they should ve like the girls are clearly trying to clean up, they don't want to be in their way.

And so they leave, leaving the two men behind as the only patrons in the restaurant. Now, IT was policy for the store that at ten fifty, about three minutes after this couple left, that the girls were supposed to lock the door from the inside. This would basically prevent any new customers for coming in, but IT would allow the people who are still inside to get out.

And we know they did this because later on, the keys would still be found in the lobby door. And we know that they continued with their cleanup routine because almost all the napi dispensers have been refilled. Almost all of the chairs were propped up on the table, all except for one. And this is something that, to me and many people, years and years later, stands out the booth, closes to the counter.

The one that everyone says they saw two strange men or two strange boys at, still had, after they came in, photographed at, later, an empty np can holder, when all of the other np can holders in the place where and IT had no chair on the end of the table, like all of the other booth. And clearly that was because someone was in that booth preventing jennie from cleaning IT. What happened after ten forty seven is unknown.

Did the girls asked the tune to leave at closing time, prompting the mental like pull a gun on them? Did the men pretend to leave to ease their worries and then slip back in the back door, which was later found propped open? We may never know.

All we know is that whatever happened likely happened at eleven o three pm when alisa hit the button for no charge sale on the register, which opened the cash register draw. This was the trigger ing incident when the killer or killers took around five hundred dollars in cash. But the real thing of value they took were the four lives of those girls in the shop.

That night, about an hour later, a cop on patrol smoke billowing up from the shopping center where the yoga shop is located. He calls IT in at eleven forty eight, and the fire department is dispatched. Most of them admitted that foul play wasn't even on their minds.

When they pulled up, the windows were completely black. Smoke was pouring out of them. It's very common for businesses to leave stoves on after closing.

And they thought that's probably would happen here. Like there was a restaurant, the place caught fire. But what they eventually realize is that the I C B Y didn't have any stokes.

The firefighters worked to put out the flames, and later the officer said, you know, had we had known what we were stepping into, we probably would have done IT differently. Because when the firefighters went in, there was really no concern for preserving evidence or a crime scene. They just went in to put out a fire.

And you know, i'm no professional, so I don't know what the differences is to me. I'd think you can only put out a fire one way, but maybe there are certain techniques they can use or maybe it's everybody looking back and just being a little harder on themselves knowing how the case ended up almost thirty years later. But as they moved through the store, fighting off the flames, they could barely see through their mask.

But the one thing that caught their eye was a foot and bar. I don't know this happens to you, but there are certain memories that are like I should in my brain, when someone bring something up, like you get that first flash of something. And the firefighter who found them says that any time he thinks back on the crime scene, or he thinks about this case many, many years later, it's that image that's conjured up in his mind of that single fut, charred black, but distinctly human.

And that's when they all realize that they weren't dealing with a Normal fire. They saw a second body almost right away, and then a third body, and something about the positioning of the first two, the way the girls were stacked one on top of the other, naked and bound. They knew that this was going to be a homicide investigation.

The homicide detective that was on duty at the time, his name was john Jones, and he ended up being called to the scene. And it's actually kind of crazy because we have tape of him getting this call that very night because he was doing alright along with a new station. They were doing the story on crime and taxes.

We've been in awesome for a couple of days and really we're getting nothing awesome. Was still kind of a small town back in one thousand nine hundred and ninety one with very little violent crime. And there was even this offhand comment made on the very last day before this call came in.

Something along the lines of like you know, you probably won't get a lot for your story here, but at least you're going to used in the next day like that's the big city that's we're you're able to get crying to report on. But little did they know that night they would get one of the biggest crimes in Austin, maybe even in texas history. Here is the call that comes in to detective Jones.

Yeah, yeah. Headed over there, 玫 姐。 对， twenty hundred. 这样 business。 摇 一 弯。

I think for.

Trip of fatality murder. great. Now that's a shop and said.

Where do I need to come to here? What place of business is, is.

Track, and I get around from the side as a while.

stretched across. And as the light before he even arrived on scene, the men at the scene of the crime radio him back and say, make that four bodies and even with the warning, detective Jones had no clue what he was about to walk into. When detective Jones walked through the yoga shop, still thick with smoke that was filling his lungs, he was horrified at what he saw.

The girls had been burned so badly that their bodies had melted and they had become part of the floor that they were found on. They were all found in the back of the store. And in most of the retailers of the story, you'll hear IT generalized as they were stacked at top one another and then set on fire.

But that's not exactly right, or IT might be right. But we really have no proof, and it's kind of speculation at this point. The way that they were recorded as being found by homicide was Sarah was lying on the floor by the back door.

Eliza was laid on top of her and right next to them was Jennifer. And amy was actually so far this way more towards the entrance leading to the front of the store. And it's possible that more than just sera analyzer were stacked and somehow the velocity of the water used, possibly like pushed Jennifer off of the others.

But it's also possible that Jennifer and amy were always positioned how they were. And I think it's safe to say that at least amy was never in the same area as the other grow because SHE was the least burned of all of them position on her stomach or her right side. SHE was somewhat recognizable, and IT was her, the Youngest of all of them.

That gave detective Jones the first indication that they would later find signs of sexual assault between her nude and spread legs was an ice cream scoop point IT up toward her pelvic bone before the girls were transported one at a time to the medical examiner's office for an auto py to be performed, rape kits were performed on the scene. Now, usually this would be like super ona, like you don't do anything on the scene. All of this is done at the M.

S. Office right protocol was clear on this matter, but the detective in charge was adamant about breaking protocol. Too much had already been lost to do to the fire and the water damage.

They could not risk losing any more evidence or contaminating anything by transport. So after a tiff with the M. S. Office, like they kind of got into IT, they ended up agreeing and taking rape kits there.

Now I tell you this because by the time the medical examiner's office got the girls, there was so much hostility built up between BMI and the detectives. And this could have LED the M. I. Not being as thoro as they Normally would because they didn't do something that Normally is done in every single arson case. They did not swab any of the bodies for accelerate.

Now part of the reason that this might have happened, like in addition to the hostility, is because everyone at the scene agreement that they couldn't smell any on the girls on the floor where the bodies were found, or on any of the ligature used to buy them. But whether everyone agreed or not, standard practices dictated that they should have been swapped anyways, but they weren't, which is going to play a major factor in the case later. And while we're talking about IT, there's a lot that wasn't done that looking back, should have been done, but Austin was not ready for this.

Their crime scene tech had only processed maybe one other r in case before this one. So no one dusted the bathroom for fingerprints. Not everyone on the scene was wearing boodie. They didn't keep the lock on the back door to see if maybe he was like tempered with.

They didn't save a lot of the materials that were found in the back with the girls, and maybe none of those things would have helped solve the case years later or even at the time, but now will never know exactly 啊。 The medical examiner's office was able to confirm that at least some of the girls had been sexually assaulted. They don't ever officially rule out any girls, but I think some of them were so badly burned that nothing could conclusively be saved or collected.

The girls had each been shot in the head with a twenty two, but again, amy's body was a little different than everyone else is because he had actually been the only one who was shot twice, once on the side of the head with the twenty two. But when that didn't kill her, a second larger calibre weapon, likely a three eighty, was used to shoot her again. He also had a Bruce under her chain, indicating that he had struck, and he had also been strangled before being shot again.

It's hard to tell if amy was singled out for some reason, or if all of the girls were tortured like this before their death, but their bodies were too burnt to show any signs of IT. So who would have done this? This was really a gruesome m scene, and was IT really a robbery gone wrong? Or were these girls targeted? And the five hundred or so dollars I were taken was just an after thought.

Neither scenario made sense to investigators. These girls had no enemies. They weren't in to anything. The ferrari's. And if the eleven of three register opening is any indication, IT seemed they put up no fight when handing over the money.

So why police tried to hold a lot of the crime scene details back in the early days. They didn't want the public to know about em's bruises or how many times he had been shot, or about the ice cream scoop between her legs. They didn't want the public to know where the fire actually started, which, according to early reports, was like the shelving unit next to eliza and Sarah and Jennifer. They didn't want to say what was used to buying the girls or how much money was even taken.

okay. And forty seven. And one of our patrol losses called in the small, coming out from, I can't believe, is yoga by the park, got here short there. After what we found in the back tails, we found four victims.

We're hello as a homicide right now, because that appears in one other victims were struck in the hair where the victims, together with a different part of the building no, I can't can give you that either. can. Give you that just what I gave you is still very early in investigation. okay?

The idea was if they could hold some of these key pieces back, they could weed out false confessions, and they'd be able to know if theyve ever got somebody for this, if he was telling the truth by comparing statements to the facts never released to the public. And this was a nice idea in the beginning. But slowly, fact started leaking out.

Like, for example, someone who worked in the medical examiner's office would go up with their hair dresser who would tell them next client about the latest inside our news that they heard on the case. And just like that, the news outlets and the public started reporting on things. Police tried to keep quiet, not everything, but way more than the police wanted, because they, again, they did use those facts to eat people out.

As crazy as IT is to imagine, they got lots of people who try to confess these crimes. But one by one, detective Jones would realize that their account didn't line up, and he would eliminate them from the suspect pool. But the pool of suspects was growing faster than they could even eliminate people.

At one point in the investigation, there were over like three hundred and fifty suspects. But a week into the investigation, one lead really jumped out. And investigators, a sixteen year old memories peers, was arrested at the more nearby and found with a twenty two caliber n, the exact kind of gun police were looking for in this crime.

When he was questioned about the crime, maries started to confess, but not saying that he did IT. He figured a friend of his, he said that a fifteen year old friend in forest ced, melbourne, had borrowed the gun that night of the murder, and he was the one who killed the girls. Now this feels huge to investigator.

You have a kid with the right kind of weapon saying that he knows who did IT. So the next step is to bring in forest and see what he has to say about marie's statement. The night of the murders, when they talk to him, force swears that he had nothing to do with the crime.

He says the night of the murders he was with Morris and two other guys, both these seventeen year old named Michael Scott and Robert springsteen, and all four of the boys had taken a stolen car to send tonio, texas. So not only was forest denying this now, but there was little to no details from mars that matched the real crime scene. The only thing that tied them to the case was the fact that he looked kind of fishy, that his morice kid had a twenty two calibre on him.

But when that gun was tested, IT turns out that the ballistics s didn't match and IT wasn't the gun actually used at the crime. So maris and the three other boys, or just another set of names that Jones scratched off his list, there was eventually a profile made of the perpetrators and a kind of went like this. They said, there's at least two men.

One of them has a dominant personality. Likely these two men are both White, and in their late teens to mid one of these men is the dominant one. And the one that really like pushed this crime forward.

They think that in school he was likely in under chief. He probably resents discipline. He has an explosive personality like he gets really angry really easily.

And it's even worse when he's mixing like drugs and alcohol. He's just kind of like impulsive and explosive. They say that he's likely to get involved in physical confrontation, but only when he has the advantage.

And he's probably unemployed or has a very minimal job, but has history of changing jobs all the time. He's not super dependable, likely because of this, he lives with his parents or some kind of older person. They think that this person would have been a frequent patron of the icp wife, familiar with like the area and the streets may be even a resident of that very neighborhood.

They think the person would have had a criminal record. This person could have likely been abusive to women, or especially Young women. And they think that this person has no remorse about what they did, but might be acting strAngely, because he's super stress that whoever he did this crime with is gonna be like his downfall.

Because maybe that person is feeling some kind of regret and this confrontation like him being stressed in the other person, regretting that might lead to some kind of violent fall out. Their belief is that after this deed was done, they probably went to a secure location, and they may have even come back that night to watch police and the firefighters, but likely went away for a while after, and probably missed school or work or wherever they were post to be. Now this profile is kind of thoro, but unfortunately, IT wasn't quite specific enough, and IT really could have been any number of Young men in the area.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of the trades they described were like, yes, that sounds like someone who would do this. It's not very it's so broad. You know IT is .

yet like any kind of any kind .

of violent offender who's .

a Young man like anyone who's like been in and out of the system. I mean this, again, very, very broad to any troubled Young man. And Austin, again, was small town in the, there was in a ton of violent crime.

But IT was still a big enough town that you had a very large pool of suspects. Now, more to weeks would pass, turning into months and eventually years. This case took an immense toll on Jones, who eventually had to take a monthly from the job because he was experiencing ptsd symptoms like linked to the case.

It's all he thought about day in, day out, night and day, day and night. His relationship with his family became strange. He would have nightmares about the event this thing consumed him.

And he was really frustrated with his own people, with the police, because publicly they were saying all the right things. They're saying this case isn't cold. We have active resources working on IT. It's of the highest priority for us. But Jones felt like I was a little bit of B S.

Because if IT was of the highest priority, why weren't they getting more people assigned to the case like they had a group of investigators for like a month or so, but then everyone got pulled off. Eventually, Jones would even be pulled off as well. After about three years, he was promoted to another position, and IT would take nearly eight years after the crime, before there would be any new developments in the case.

In one thousand eight ninety nine, an officer named hector ono was the new lead investigator on the yoga job cases. And when he looked at the case as a whole, the same thing kept popping out of him. Those four boys.

In his gut, he felt that they had something to do with the crime, and he was going to prove IT. He reinterred gated the boys, pressing them for hours at a time. Maris and forest held firm.

They were not involved, but those two seventeen year old boys, well, seventeen at the night. Now it's eight years later. These are twenty six old grown men.

They were not as strong. When Michael scot was interviewed, he started by saying he had no idea what happened to those girls and his memory was terrible. But the detectives didn't take that to mean he didn't do in.

They decided IT was their job to help him remember what happened hour by hour. They break him down, eventually getting him to admit that they had case the place earlier. And he was outside of the shop when everything went down. And he says that he was Morris and his other friend, robber, who were inside well, a few more hours into the interrogation, and then Michael puts himself inside the store holding a done at some point in this interview, Michael tells police that he thinks he needs a lawyer, but they don't stop questioning him.

Um that's super illegal, right?

yes. So this comes up leader. But what the detectives say is he says he thinks he needs a lawyer. The detectives kind of leave and they come back and just start questioning him again and he keeps talking. So the police say that they just thought he was thinking about getting a lawyer and not actually asking for one. Right then, by seven hours into this interview, Michael is now admitting to having the gun and being the one shooting on robber's command.

At some point where he is that revolved. What are you saying to you? I would shoot them next because I didn't want to do IT right the next?

I remember looking at this grow. I cry. I hear Robert. Do IT do IT. I had gunn go off.

I only pull her what?

I turned around secret.

going in one of the crazy st parts of the interview. One of the investigators brings in a revolver to air quotes, help Michael remember, and he even jobs something against the back of his head to help him remember. And this is like, very clearly, seems like intimidation is scary.

You can kind of start to see maybe somebody would want to confess under these like pressures. And the investigator says that he just used a finger and IT wasn't really the gun. But it's still a terrifying tactic that I am sure contributed to the confession that they got uh.

yeah.

they keep pressing Michael l. For details, those details that they have been holding back that only the killer would know like, what were the girls tied with? At first, Michael tries kind of skirt around IT, saying that he didn't tie them up.

IT was robber but plonkers like, no, no, no. IT takes more than one person to tie them up. So tell me what you use so you can tell in the Michael like trying to reach and trying to come up with something so he starts talking.

He's like, well, maybe at A T shirt and polo is like, okay, yeah like A T shirt and what else and then he's like, I I want to say some kind of cord and ponchos like, no, IT wasn't accord. What else was IT and they do this for a while or he's like naming things that he could have tied them up with. And pollo is no try again.

He's like about apkon and he says, no, that's not possible. So while he's not telling them what to say, he's very clearly leading him to whatever IT is he wants to hear. After twenty hours, they have a confession from Michael they think they use, and a confession that they truly believe in. I think so. Then they try the same techniques on Robert spring steam, and he starts much the same swearing that he has .

nothing to do with IT.

The that thing where you're already there, you already did the hole the hole there. I don't know that's why you telling you guys, I mean, my god, this was seven years ago, but this is for the most significant. Like you trying explain you if I was there, that part taking this, I would remember.

No, no. No, are not. I thank you all. I think this is absolutely true about you. I then must take whatever actions we need to take.

That's what you believe and that's what you think this case needs together and must get there. But i'm doing everything I can and have exceeded my minutes of healthy. You guess, where do we go now?

After hours and hours, they break him down as well until they have him confessing that he killed some of the girls himself. There was no talk of rape until police kept pushing. What else did you do? What else did you do? And he kept saying that he doesn't know.

And finally, the detectives get fed up in their tire waiting. And he just flat out says, tell me how you raped her and Robert clearly defeated just as fine. I stuck my in her, and that is all police needed.

Most of Michael and Roberts confession matched likely because I think that they were LED by the same guys, but those investigators think they matched because they really did IT with their confessions. Pyong go puts together his theory of events. He says that sixteen year old mary was the mastermind of this, Robert and Michael were the ones who pulled that off and forest was the lookout.

As word of this theory trickled back to the original investigator, Jones, he didn't believe IT still doesn't believe IT, but he had no control over the case anymore, and IT wasn't someone else's hands down. Polonica took his theory to the prosecutors who would evaluate the case against these boys. Ultimately, only two of the four men were taken to trial.

Morse and forest had never confessed to the killings, and because there was no physical evidence, I repeat, no physical evidence linking them to the scene, IT would have been a really hard conviction to get. So the prosecutors ended up dismissing all charges against more, citing lack of evidence, and they actually tried a little bit to take force to trial. But after two grand injuries wouldn't indite him, they decided to drop the charges against him as well.

But with Michael and Robert, they had confessions, and they thought with those, they could get convictions. Because of the confessions, IT made IT in up hill battle for their defense attorneys, though each man had recanted their confession and said they only confess due to coorg in IT was too late and those confessions would be used against them in court. They were each tried separately, and Michael confession was used in Roberts trial and vice's sa, but they didn't have the actual man come and testify because that would have been a disaster like, say, Michael shows up at robbert trial, takes the stand, he would have repeated what he's saying in his case like, hi, my confession was a total lie.

We didn't do IT they just made me say that and that's not very convincing. So instead of bringing the men in decor, they just use their tape conversions from earlier and showed that to the jury and they didn't actually bring them in, which means that they weren't allowed to actually confront their accuser, which is a pretty unconstitional tional thing and is going to come up later in our story. Now, the one thing that the defense did try to point out in the trial was that there were parts of their confession that didn't quite match up to the facts.

In the case, both men couldn't agree on what they used to prop open the back door, but I think the most important detail, each men said that the girls were stacked and that they used accelerant to douse the girls and let them on fire. Now, in every original report, IT said that the fire was started on the shelves near the girls, not actually on the girls. And remember, we said all of the people who were on the scene didn't smell, accelerate on the girls are their legatus on the floor around them.

But after this confession, some experts were brought in, and they changed the official ruling years later to say that the girl's bodies were the point of origin of this fire. Now, Normally this would have been something that could easily have been refuted by a defense team once the case went to trial, if we would have had those swap. But remember, for whatever reason the swap were not taken.

In this case, the defense tried to push that the men were forced into confessing. But by the time these men were in court, it's two thousand and one. And the idea of false confessions were still a very foreign a to the general public.

So a jury found IT very hard to believe. And both men were convicted of the murders. Robert was sentenced to death, and Michael was sentenced to life. In present, both men would spend years in jail before getting any of their appeals granted. Both men appealed their convictions on the basis of not being able to confront their accuser, which, as I mentioned earlier, is a constitutional right.

The higher courts agreed, and in two thousand and six, the court of appeals threw out Roberts conviction, and Michael was thrown out one year after in two thousand and seven. But even though their convictions were thrown out, they each had to remain in jail while the prosecution decided if they were going to retry the case. In two thousand and eight, the defense teams for the men do something bold. They request to have the evidence retested using all of the new DNA technology that's available.

That's brave. If the DNA evidence doesn't come back in their favor, IT could ruin everything.

right? agreed. But I think that's a testament how much they were trying to get others to hear them when they said that they were innocent, they knew in their heart of heart that that DNA would not come back to matching them, and IT didn't.

There was at least one unknown mae sample that was found in the rape kit that didn't match, or Robert or anyone connected to them. And this was ground breaking. The defense thought, here, here is our proof that you have the wrong guys go out and find the right people for this now.

But that is not exactly what the da and the investigators did. They doubled down and they didn't reinvestigate or look for new suspects. Rather, they only looked at the case again to see what else they could do to like tie IT to their jail men.

And that new DNA IT didn't bother them. They came up with a slightly different theory in their mind. Now they aren't form and involved. There is this magical fifth man who they don't know about and .

has never been brought up in any of the confessions on top of this man, literally just appearing, doesn't IT go against what Robert said in his confession that he was the one who raped the girls.

Yes, so the confession they are using to say that they did IT is now clearly wrong. But they're saying, like, oh, the confessional kind of not true, like only part of IT the parts we want to be right all right and listen .

right there picking and choosing yeah and listen.

I get up from both sides a little. I am sure some of these people really believed that they were guilty and they were just doing their best drop to keep who they thought we're dangerous men off the street. But I think it's also important to point out that after the men were convicted, pilon go had actually gotten into some trouble on another case that was overturned, where they proved that he had forced a false confession.

So knowing your lead detective on this case had a history of doing that, maybe you should take a second look. But IT seems everyone was convinced no one on the case or in the prosecution had second thoughts about the men's skilled. And they wanted to find anything they could that would prove that, but they couldn't find anything more.

And when the old jury was poor, they found out that seven of the twelve wouldn't have convicted the men had they known about the DNA evidence. So the prosecution then realize that they didn't have a case against these men, and they were forced to let them go. On october twenty eight, two thousand and nine, all charges were dismissed against Michael and Robert.

Now they let them go. But that does not mean that they are found innocent. And realistically, they could be recharged if the da ever wanted to do that or they were found anything.

And the men can't sue, saying that they were like wrongfully convicted. It's like a very sticky spot for them. Now subsequent testing was done and a second unknown males, DNA, had been found on other items of evidence, which makes this fifth man theory harder and harder to believe.

Nothing in the shops or on the girls has ever been linked to the four men. Morris ended up passing away in two thousand and ten after a totally unrelated altercation with the police. The other men are alive and maintain their innocence, but I don't think anyone is making a new and critical look at this case.

And to me, and to many people, the key to really cracking this case is to find out who those two men were sitting in the booth that night at the yoga shop. I don't think he was any of the foremen accused of this crime, and I think it's someone else who is still walking free. You know, there was another person in the store that night, like much earlier in the evening when I was still kind of puzzling and bustling, which makes me think that these men were hanging out like a really long time, which makes them even more suspicious.

But this other yogurt shop goer was actually like an off duty or x police officer, and he had a weird interaction with a guy that kind matches one of the descriptions of the two men. And this guy is like, stand in line and lets everyone like, go ahead of them, go ahead of them, go ahead of him. And he doesn't know what he's doing.

If you're just going, everybody get line ahead of you. And the guy gets like a little bit fishy and he asked them, like, are you cop? And the guy is like, yeah and is a gok? Go head, head.

He's no, you go ahead. And the guy get up to the counter. He just buys a soda. And then he says he actually like walks back and goes towards the back of the store. Now you have to enter in the back to go to the restroom. But he also, this person could have easily gone in the back and propped open the door for them to come in later when the girls would have asked them to leave. So again, I think the key to whatever happened that night is finding those two men sitting at the booth.

I feel like I bring this up in like every case, but this one seems just perfect and ripe for IT. Is there enough DNA evidence to run through, uh, genetic matching programmer system?

So I would think because they had like such a good sample from amy's rape kit, I don't know there are any swap left. But again, we said this before. Anyone who wants to take us up on IT like we will fund the testing, but I think this would be like the perfect and IT seems like a high profile enough case that .

but theyd want to do IT right?

But that only if their honest officers and prosecutors, like I think they will do that if they are, but but not if IT will .

expose a mistake that that their team made, right?

Like there could be real answers, but if they're afraid of being proven wrong and like finding out that it's linked to somebody that they can't link back to their four guys, they might not want to. And i'm not sure why being right is more important than finding justice for four Young girls, but I worry that that might be the case here.

Can the four men's defense team request IT?

no. And this is what totally sucks about the justice system. When you are the defendant, you can only request testing be dying if they're like coming after you so unless they were to bring charges against the men again, like that's the only time they could request be done. If no one has charged as pending against them.

there is no defense to be made.

The only people who can get testing or like the da are the police and it's totally in their hands and not even like the family members. I am sure they could push pretty hard, but they can't like demand IT. You can get a court order for IT IT seems a little bit backwards knowing there's so much at our fingertips now not ideal, but that's kind of a place that we're in.

I would if I were the family, I think we said this in other episodes as well, like I would be constantly pushing on the police. I don't know the family still believe these four men did IT or if they're kind of wondering if if someone else as well, even if they still think is this form and like, I don't see what harm IT would cause, there was obviously someone else involved. And if we can maybe get that person, maybe IT brings us closer to justice, whatever that means.

So I would encourage them to be putting the pressure on police, putting the pressure on the prosecution. I don't know what that looks like, just getting public attention, starting petitions, getting on the news, but it's never too late. That shouldn't be too late for these girls.

If you want more information on this case, if you want to see some pictures of the layout of the store of that booth and how there was like nothing on IT and why we think they're remen sitting there, you can check out those pictures on our website. Crime junky podcast.

don. You can also follow us on twitter at crime I pod and on instagram at crime podcast.

And we will be back next week with brand new episode.

This episode of crime junky was researched, written and hosted by me with co hosting by bt prey watt. All of our editing and sound production was done by David flowers, and all of our music, including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel. Crime junky is an audio truck production. So what do you think, chuck, do you approve?