REPORTER: In 1991,
four teenagers were shot
and m*rder*d
inside a yogurt shop
in this strip mall.
I still can't believe it.
I just get to a point that
I couldn't cry a lot anymore.
SPEAKER: I don't know
that the city of Austin
has ever been the same
since the Yogurt Shop Murders.
We surmised the Yogurt Shop case
was a robbery gone bad.
SPEAKER 2:
And then the fire was started.
I was in water up to here.
INVESTIGATOR:
So much of the evidence
was contaminated,
so taking fingerprints
was kind of pointless.
SPEAKER 3: A boy named
Maurice Pierce decides
to go to Northcross Mall
with a g*n.
INVESTIGATOR:
Maurice got arrested
with a .22 p*stol.
SPEAKER 3: He said Forrest
borrowed his g*n.
When asked who else was
with him,
Maurice said Rob Springsteen
and Michael Scott.
INVESTIGATOR:
Could they have done it?
Did they?
I don't know.
Where's the evidence?
The police need
additional eyes and ears.
It's just gonna take
the right phone call,
the right little piece
of information.
SPEAKER 4: This was
the kind of case that never left
anybody who worked on it.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[LEAVES RUSTLING]
SONORA THOMAS:
I use this office to write
and, sometimes,
I see clients online up here.
Yeah, so these
are some childhood photos
of the two of us
with our cowboy hats on
in Texas.
MARGARET BROWN:
And we might not get through
the whole thing.
-SONORA: Right, right, okay.
-MARGARET: Yeah.
[CLEARS THROAT] All right.
Um... Hmm.
♪ [SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING] ♪
Just take a breath here.
[YOUNG SONORA LAUGHS]
-MARIA THOMAS: Okay, okay.
-[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
MARIA: Aw, that's sweet.
SONORA:
"My name is Sonora Rose Thomas."
Give me a kiss, Sonora.
SONORA: "On December 6th, 1991,
my only sibling,
my older sister,
Eliza Hope Thomas, was k*lled.
-I was 13 years old."
-At the scene of the crime.
SONORA: "At the moment
my sister was k*lled,
I was fast asleep
six blocks away.
If my dad had not been away
that night,
I would have been with my sister
and I would have been
the fifth victim.
As it was, I spent many years
wishing I had been there.
Today, I can say
that I'm glad to be alive.
I know now that this life
still contains beauty...
but I have not always
known that.
This book is my life story.
These murders were said
to have shattered the innocence
of the small city of Austin.
They continue to devastate,
puzzle, and fascinate many.
As a surviving sibling,
I have alternated
between disgust
for the ongoing fascination
and awe
that the public continues
to be horrified by an event
that has shaped every aspect
of my life.
In one of the first
videotaped interviews
with my mother,
just a few days
after the m*rder,
I can be seen in the background
hyperventilating
while my grief-stricken mother
talks to the reporter
and shows him
my sister's bedroom."
She always put her hair way up,
you know,
and then she'd have clips
and then wash
her face real good at night
and I can just still see her.
SONORA: "While reporters
were not allowed
at the girls' joint funeral,
one film crew
opened a door to the church
to grab what little footage
they could.
That's why I almost never return
phone messages
left by reporters.
And yet, when I was
a freshman in college,
a reporter came to my dorm room
to interview me.
This interview proved
more difficult
than I had ever imagined.
A simple question like,
'What was your sister like?'
left me blank.
'She loved animals, right?'
The interviewer prodded.
All of a sudden,
I realized this woman
knew more about her than I did.
Memories live
because we talk about them,
but my family didn't talk
about Eliza,
so my memories became dormant.
I wrote five pages in my journal
the day after that interview.
The interviewer had begun
to wake up those memories,
and I didn't want
to forget them again.
Still, I had to manage the shame
of forgetting."
♪ [MUSIC STOPS] ♪
MARGARET:
What is the shame of forgetting?
Just that I feel bad. Yeah.
That somehow it's my job
to keep her alive
through my memory.
♪ ["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] ♪
This is Robert.
Hey, Shannon, how are you?
-SHANNON: I'm good, how are you?
-I'm doing pretty good.
♪ [PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING] ♪
[SPRAY CAN HISSING]
[WHIRRING]
What you plan to do
with your time,
how you plan to spend,
you know, the rest of your life.
So, I want it to be positive
in that sense.
Um, what we will not,
under any circumstance, do
is discuss facts in the case.
So, that means
you do have to take some care
when it comes to talking
about things like,
uh, "Isn't it true
that you confessed?" Yes.
So, I want you to talk about why
and how it came to be
that you confessed.
That you never realized
for one moment
that it could lead to you
going to death row.
Uh, do you want me to wear
the black jacket
and black slacks,
or the black jacket,
or the blue jacket
and black slacks?
I wouldn't even bother
to wear a jacket.
I think if you wear the shirt,
slacks, dark socks, shoes,
-you're going to be just fine.
-All right.
♪ [BROODING MUSIC PLAYING] ♪
JOHN JONES: Told you it was
a hideous color, didn't I?
[CHUCKLES] I only worn it once.
Yeah, this is four girls here
that are now dead.
For what reason? I mean,
surely they couldn't have
that much money in there.
Um, the price of life
seems to be getting cheaper
and cheaper these days.
I'd gone to Sheplers
and bought that shirt.
That's the first time I wore it.
And I made a promise
talking to the families,
that the next time
they saw me wearing that shirt,
it's because the case
was solved.
And so I haven't worn it since.
It's been hanging in the closet
for 30 years.
This is the box.
This was the one that was on all
of the billboards around town.
[PAGES RUSTLING]
Under confessions, oral,
you know,
I got a chart here,
and actually it's...
you have to pull it apart,
because this was two,
we listed all the confessions,
whether they were oral
or written, or bragging.
There's six written ones
and probably 40 or so verbal.
♪ [TENSE MUSIC PLAYING] ♪
JONES: I wasn't
the best interrogator.
I'm more the support guy,
you know, with evidence
and all of that.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
JONES: And, you know,
Hector Polanco
knew interrogation.
d*ck ELLIS:
A homicide investigator
for five years,
Polanco has never had
a m*rder case go unsolved.
We'll get to the bottom of this,
and we'll come
with a positive conclusion.
And, uh...
That I can promise you.
You know, he was the Cobra.
You know, he had the reputation
in homicide for
solving the tough cases.
[JONES MUMBLING]
Ah, interview with Shawn Smith.
Buddha Shawn Smith.
He was interviewed
by Sergeant Polanco,
who managed
to get a confession out of him.
We felt so good about it.
Matter of fact, I brought
the shirt down to the station,
and we called in
the homicide secretary.
She was typing up
the grand jury indictment
for him and the people
he said was with him.
We felt good about it.
♪ [TENSE MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪
We had called the SWAT unit
in because, you know,
we were going to go out
and arrest all these folks.
And then it fell apart.
MIKE HUCKABAY:
The sad thing about it
is Hector really
is a good investigator.
He is a very good investigator.
But he don't use it right.
I have seen him get confessions
from somebody that did not have
a thing to do with it,
but Hector can scare the sh*t
out of you and make you confess.
He can. He's okay with it.
As long as he gets a confession,
he's okay.
You asked me,
"Why would somebody confess
if they didn't do crap?"
You can get in somebody's head
real easy if you know how.
And most investigators know,
"If I keep you here
long enough...
I have you signing
that confession
before you leave."
You think, "There ain't no way
that's going to happen.
There's no way
you're gonna..."
A bull of crap. [LAUGHS]
You want me to prove it?
MARGARET:
Y'all have to come
get her out of jail.
JONES: Cops can lie to you,
and Hector
was very good at that.
Girl number two started towards
the back door,
I guess, because
she was only tied in the front.
When I talked
to Buddha Shawn Smith,
Shawn goes, "Well,
Hector had me convinced
that I actually did it."
He convinced Shawn
that we had it on video.
We had him on video
from the Chevron station
across the street.
There was some element
of truth in there.
There was a station
across the street,
and it did have a camera,
but we didn't have
anybody in it.
That was one of the confessions
pretty early on.
♪ [SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING] ♪
JONES: Another confession
was Alex Briones.
He said that he burned them,
and I looked at his confession,
and he said
that he got 1200 dollars,
1300 dollars,
something like that.
And I said,
"Well, that's wrong."
And then I got asked by Hector,
"Well, how much was taken?"
I wouldn't tell him,
neither would Huck.
That was kind of one of those
hold back things.
Information that only
the bad guy and us have.
A truth test, as it were.
Hector was hard
to go up against,
but Huck and I kind of
held onto each other and go,
"We can't. We just can't."
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
Hector Polanco
messed his case up big time.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
HUCKABAY: I don't know that can
ever be undone what he did.
I don't know how much time
we wasted
over nothing.
I use this office to write
and sometimes
I see clients online up here.
Yeah, so these are some childhood photos
of the two of us
with our cowboy hats on in Texas.
And we might not get through
the whole thing.
-Right, okay.
-Yeah.
All right.
Just take a breath here.
Okay, okay.
That's sweet.
"My name is Sonora Rose Thomas."
Give me a kiss, Sonora.
"On December 6th, 1991,
my only sibling, my older sister,
Eliza Hope Thomas, was k*lled.
-I was 13 years old."
-At the scene of the crime.
"At the moment my sister was k*lled,
I was fast asleep six blocks away.
If my dad had not been away that night,
I would have been with my sister
and I would have been the fifth victim.
As it was, I spent many years
wishing I had been there.
Today, I can say
that I'm glad to be alive.
I know now that this life
still contains beauty...
but I have not always known that.
This book is my life story.
These murders were said
to have shattered the innocence
of the small city of Austin.
They continue to devastate, puzzle,
and fascinate many.
As a surviving sibling,
I have alternated between disgust
for the ongoing fascination
and awe that the public continues
to be horrified by an event
that has shaped every aspect of my life.
In one of the first videotaped interviews
with my mother,
just a few days after the m*rder,
I can be seen
in the background hyperventilating
while my grief-stricken mother talks
to the reporter
and shows him my sister's bedroom."
She always put her hair way up,
you know, and then she'd have clips
and then wash her face real good at night
and I can just still see her.
"While reporters were not allowed
at the girls' joint funeral,
one film crew opened a door to the church
to grab what little footage they could.
That's why I almost never return
phone messages left by reporters.
And yet, when I was a freshman in college,
a reporter came to my dorm room
to interview me.
This interview proved more difficult
than I had ever imagined.
A simple question like,
'What was your sister like?'
left me blank.
'She loved animals, right?'
The interviewer prodded.
All of a sudden, I realized this woman
knew more about her than I did.
Memories live because we talk about them,
but my family didn't talk about Eliza,
so my memories became dormant.
I wrote five pages in my journal
the day after that interview.
The interviewer had begun
to wake up those memories,
and I didn't want to forget them again.
Still, I had to manage the shame
of forgetting."
What is the shame of forgetting?
Just that I feel bad. Yeah.
That somehow it's my job
to keep her alive through my memory.
This is Robert. Hey, Shannon, how are you?
-I'm good, how are you?
-I'm doing pretty good.
what you plan to do with your time,
how you plan to spend,
you know, the rest of your life.
So, I want it to be positive
in that sense.
What we will not
under any circumstance do is discuss...
facts in the case.
So, that means
you do have to take some care
when it comes to talking
about things like,
"Isn't it true that you confessed?" Yes.
So, I want you to talk about why
and how it came to be that you confessed.
That you never realized for one moment
that it could lead to you
going to death row.
Do you want me to wear
the black jacket and black slacks,
or the black jacket...
or the blue jacket and black slacks?
I wouldn't even bother to wear a jacket.
I think if you wear the shirt,
slacks, dark socks, shoes,
-you're going to be just fine.
-All right.
Told you it was a hideous color, didn't I?
Only worn once.
Yeah, this is four girls here
that are now dead.
For what reason? I mean,
surely they couldn't have
that much money in there.
The price of life seems to be
getting cheaper and cheaper these days.
I'd gone to Sheplers
and bought that shirt.
That's the first time I wore it.
And I made a promise
talking to the families,
that the next time
they saw me wearing that shirt,
it's because the case was solved.
And so I haven't worn it since.
It's been hanging in the closet
for 30 years.
This is the box.
This was the one that was on all
of the billboards around town.
Under confessions, oral, you know,
I got a chart here, and actually it's...
you have to pull it apart,
because this was two,
we listed all the confessions,
whether they were oral or written,
or bragging.
There's six written ones
and probably 40 or so verbal.
I wasn't the best interrogator.
I'm more the support guy,
you know, with evidence and all of that.
And, you know,
Hector Polanco knew interrogation.
A homicide investigator for five years,
Polanco has never had
a m*rder case go unsolved.
We'll get to the bottom of this,
and we'll come with a positive conclusion.
And that I can promise you.
You know, he was the Cobra.
You know, he had the reputation
in homicide for...
solving the tough cases.
Interview with Shawn Smith.
Buddha Shawn Smith.
He was interviewed by Sergeant Polanco,
who managed
to get a confession out of him.
We felt so good about it.
Matter of fact,
I brought the shirt down to the station,
and we called in the homicide secretary.
She was typing up
the grand jury indictment for him
and the people he said was with him.
We felt good about it.
We had called the SWAT unit in because
we had to go and arrest all these folks.
And then it fell apart.
The sad thing about it
is Hector really is a good investigator.
He is a very good investigator.
But...
he don't use it right.
I have seen him get confessions
from somebody that did not have
a thing to do with it,
but Hector can scare the sh*t
out of you and make you confess.
He can. He's okay with it.
As long as he gets a confession,
he's okay.
You asked me, "Why would somebody confess
if they didn't do crap?"
You can get in somebody's head
real easy if you know how.
And most investigators know,
"If I keep you here long enough...
I have you signing that confession
before you leave."
You think, "There ain't no way
that's going to happen.
There's no way you're gonna..."
A bull of crap. You want me to prove it?
Y'all have to come get her out of jail.
Cops can lie to you,
and Hector was very good at that.
Girl number two started towards
the back door,
I guess because
she was only tied in the front.
When I talked to Buddha Shawn Smith,
Shawn goes, "Well, Hector had me convinced
that I actually did it."
He convinced Shawn
that we had it on video.
We had him on video
from the Chevron station
across the street.
There was some element of truth in there.
There was a station across the street,
and it did have a camera,
but we didn't have anybody in it.
That was one of the confessions
pretty early on.
Another confession was Alex Briones.
He said that he burned them,
and I looked at his confession,
and he said that he got 1200 dollars,
1300 dollars, something like that.
And I said, "Well, that's wrong."
And then I got asked by Hector,
"Well, how much was taken?"
I wouldn't tell him, neither would Huck.
That was kind of one of those
hold back things.
Information that only
the bad guy and us have.
A truth test, as it were.
Hector was hard to go up against,
but Huck and I kind of held
onto each other and go,
"We can't. We just can't."
Hector Polanco messed his case up
big time.
I don't know
that can ever be undone what he did.
I don't know how much time we wasted...
over nothing.
I want y'all to hear this.
This is what's gonna motivate everybody.
Well, there has been
a shake-up in the task force.
Senior Sergeant Hector Polanco,
the task force supervisor,
has been reassigned amid allegations
that he coerced a suspect
into a confession.
It won't affect the investigation.
He's been there to assist
the investigators.
Nothing will change
as far as the investigation.
Do you have a theory?
Do all of you guys have a,
like, a pet theory of--
Of this case?
I don't because that's a why question,
and you can get lost in a why question.
We'll get these people caught,
and, you know, I'm going to ask them
because I'm deep down,
I guess inside, I'm curious too. "Why?"
The reason I'm asking why,
is because I need to tell the families.
Actually,
what I'm probably going to say is
I'm going to say this.
"Look, fella, fellas,
girls, whoever, you--
Now, see, in a few minutes here,
I got to go out
and wake these families up again
and try and give them some good news
in the middle of the night for a change.
Now, what do you want me
to tell them?"
What a junk... Look at my junkie office.
I don't have much in here.
I do have-- You saw John, right?
I have no idea why John took this picture,
but I've had it here forever.
There's your John Jones next to a bull.
That's a very odd picture.
Over here, Victoria Gotti,
John Gotti's daughter.
This is Matt Baker, a preacher
who was convicted of k*lling his wife.
But this gives you 30 years of...
covering cases.
You know,
after you've worked on these stories,
like with John here, after you've worked
on these stories for so many years,
you know the case, you know their lives.
You know, this is not a job to me.
This is my life.
And so...
calling these individuals up, John Jones,
I mean, I call just to see how he is.
And I keep doing updates on his case.
That was the first time I was there.
Hello? Hi.
-Hi, Daddy.
-Hey.
You know, three decades.
You know, think about that.
So, yeah, he's a big part of my life.
-Hi, yeah, this is--
-Hi, I'm Erin.
I haven't gotten a chance to come in.
-I'm with CBS News.
-You are?
-Nice meeting you.
-Well, nice meeting you.
Now, you be careful what you putting out
and what you say.
-Absolutely.
-Because I'm listening to y'all.
-Sometimes you tell too much.
-We do?
-You all have a seat.
-This is Andrea.
That's Christina.
Christina, turn around and say hi.
-Hi.
-She did exactly what I said.
That's my wife, Yolanda, over there.
And mother of these two little ones here.
So, Mrs. Freeman.
Do you think this city was hit hard
by this particular m*rder?
This city has been hit hard
by a lot of murders.
And there's been many,
many more beside those.
And I don't-- I don't think,
I think this city's been hit hard
by a lot of them.
I think every time one happens,
it's hard...
'cause it affects somebody.
Do you think
more emphasis was put on this case
because the fact that these were young,
white, middle-class victims more than,
we'll say, another kind of m*rder?
Yeah. There's a lot of experience
back in those gray strands.
Everybody's on pins and needles,
at least in our administration,
because they don't wanna be painted
as doing all of this,
you know,
strictly because it's a Caucasian thing.
Actually, I think the m*rder
of any young people
kind of transcends racial lines.
-Daddy.
-I mean-- Yeah, baby?
-Daddy. See?
-Yeah.
-Yeah, I see that.
-I see that...
The city of Austin is still waiting
to see justice done.
Now, Austin police have gotten
about 2000 leads,
but so far nothing has panned out.
So today, the Austin business community
upped the stakes.
The reward for information
was quadrupled to 100,000 dollars.
We are here with the plea.
Give us the information
that will lead to the arrest
and conviction of the person
that m*rder*d these girls
and we will give you 100,000 dollars
for that information.
Yeah, we can do it on the phone
or we can bring you in. You're 17, right?
We can find her, which might be easier.
We were asking for any tip, right?
And we got any tip.
Have you ever seen the file
on that yogurt shop mur--
Oh, my Lord. Huge. Huge!
I mean, I have a hard time
even explaining to you what happened,
because... people started calling in.
We can bring you in, you're 17, right?
-What do you got?
-You got people call in and say, "Hey...
I know this guy, his name is..."
Where specifically were this--
was this person sneaking around?
And they'll give you
some kind of evidence,
"This is the guy."
Thank you for calling.
What do you do? You got to find the guy.
You got to investigate.
Yeah, he's some psychotic dude
who likes to k*ll women.
A lot of times it was,
"I heard" or "I think I saw..."
But it was our job
to glean anything useful from coming in.
Aryan Brotherhood. Tattoos deluxe,
and he was on heroin.
We had so many notes.
And at this time in homicide,
there were six officers.
That's not a lot.
After you got all these files,
we separated them.
"That's good, sort of good, nah."
Went three ways.
Good, sort of good, and bad.
We got three more of those folks
coming in this afternoon.
-They're all backstreet...
-Work this one, work that one.
I mean, constant,
constant, constant, constant.
Piles. And it kept getting bigger.
Three hundred and 42 people
that have been listed as suspects.
We're looking at pages and pages
of suspects here.
It's off the scale.
Way off the scale.
This is what I think happened that night.
I think they went in there
to get some money.
They tried setting the place on fire
to cover their tracks and haul a*s.
This is what I think. This is my theory.
Some sort of satanic ritual,
cult-like activity.
-The creek people, the persons in black.
-White supremacist groups.
A money laundering scheme.
And the vampires,
the occult, graveyard riots.
They go out and dance
and take pictures on tombstones.
The rumors ran rapid around Austin.
There was all these theories
about satanic stuff and this and that.
And they had a lot to wade through.
What you got here is party favors.
But if they haven't k*lled anybody,
I'm sure they're going to
in the next five years.
They start going after goth kids
and metalheads
and PIBs,
People in Black,
just dance club kids, teenagers.
They asked me if I was into witchcraft.
They asked me if I knew anything
about the murderers.
So many of my friends were targeted,
had SWAT teams bust into their houses,
-like, "Oh, they had a... "
-It got gnarly fast.
Like, every day.
Open the door! Police!
This is police!
Police officer!
Get down on the ground!
Get on the ground! Police officer!
Bingo. Them bones.
They took a bunch of books
and they took this.
And this is the skull
that was FedExed to me.
It's just plastic...
and suede and hair
that's been glued on it.
It's been rolled in the dirt.
I knew they were coming,
and that's something the police
didn't understand.
My name was on a shortlist,
and the FBI were in Europa Bookstore.
It had books on sexual deviancy.
It had books on the occult.
If you walked into that section,
someone from the FBI
would flash a badge and say,
"Do you know..." da, da, da.
Seven names or so.
And my name was one of them.
So, I got a skull.
I put it in a box with some other bones.
I was like, "Find it."
And maybe they'd realize that this is BS.
I didn't know they were going to bring
48 Hours with them though.
She supposedly runs a ring
of devil worshipers.
Dozens of them
have been telling Austin police
that Claire either committed
the yogurt shop murders
or knows who did.
This was a terrible crime,
and people are calling in to police
and giving your name. Why?
Having media enter my home
against my will,
pull things out of my closet,
parade around everything in my house...
And inside this home,
a large amount
of p*rn*graphy and S&M materials.
An awful lot of...
I guess you would describe
as macabre type of scenes.
To be shown arrested naked
and then have them cut to commercial,
come back.
"Oh...
it was nothing...
just a weirdo."
And then put that on television
again and again for 30 years.
It was just a sign how desperate they were
that they were bringing in
anybody who was a little bit different.
Some serious criticism
is being leveled against
the Austin Police Department tonight,
and it comes from the families
of the victims of the yogurt shop murders.
They want to be able to say
they've exhausted all their leads
and they've done
all they can with this.
I think they're going to sweep us
under the rug.
As time went by,
you know,
our relationship with the families
sort of got to the point to where...
I had to sort of move away.
The thing that really pissed me off
was they wouldn't ask for any help.
They wanted to solve it themselves.
They wouldn't really be honest with me.
He started asking questions.
Question, question, question.
He wanted to know this,
he wanted to know that.
Well, hell, I ain't gonna tell him.
They said, "We can't give you
that information because if it gets out--"
Well, if it gets out,
where's it gonna be coming from?
You think I'm gonna do something
to jeopardize this case?
They're nuts.
You want me to trust you
with this and you don't trust me?
He'd asked me, he said,
"What'd they do to my daughter?"
I said, "Well, she was shot in the head."
"Was she naked?"
I said,
"Bob, where are we going with all this?"
"Well, I just want to know,
did they r*pe her?"
"Bob...
stop right now.
I don't want to talk anymore
to you about this."
I said,
"This is bad for you, bad for me.
You don't want to know everything,
I promise you."
And, you know,
I'm not going to tell him all that crap.
He don't need to know that anyway.
I wish I didn't know it.
Then, you know, it gets to the point
where they come and tell you something.
Well, am I really going to believe this
or are they just saying this
to throw me off track?
You know,
I got to have some stability here.
The police department
is supposed to be on our side.
You have to trust them.
What else do you have?
There's been nothing like it before.
There's been nothing like it since.
And they just flat
did not know what to do.
There has been a break
in the yogurt shop investigation.
A confession has been received
according to the news reports
that we've heard.
It is the break we have
all been waiting for.
Three hundred, 21 days ago,
four teenage girls were m*rder*d
at a North Austin yogurt shop.
Tonight, for the first time,
they've named three men
they want to question in the murders.
They are charged
in an abduction and r*pe case
not related to the yogurt shop murders.
But during questioning,
Saavedra reportedly confesses
to the yogurt murders.
Saavedra, also known as "The Terminator,"
implicated two other people
in the murders.
One by the name of Alberto Cortez
has a striking resemblance to the man
who was seen sitting outside
of the yogurt shop
in December when the murders happened.
It's a day we look forward to,
but a day we dread at the same time.
The end may be near,
but it'll never be over.
Maybe we'll get a little consolation
if these are the guys.
I hope it's over. I hope this is it,
and I hope they can prove everything
that this man has confessed to us.
They can prove it without,
beyond a shadow of a doubt
so that it is them.
There's no mistake, and that
they have to be punished for this.
'Cause I don't wanna get the wrong person.
I just want to make sure
it's the right one.
"When we got to the ice cream shop,
I came across four girls who were there.
The first one was the only one
I could tie with the ropes.
And then I took off her clothes
and used them to tie the others,
all the while continuing to beat them
so they would be quiet
until they were unconscious."
If they are charged,
they will be tried in Mexico
because of the extradition process.
Does it bother you
that they won't even come here
to face charges
and that there is
no death penalty in Mexico?
-It bothers me.
-Does it?
It doesn't bother me.
Marie,
why do you say it bothers you still?
I want to see them.
I want them to see my hate for them.
I'm...
I hate them.
It was kind of a confusing interrogation.
The Mexican authorities were leading it.
They finally got around to giving Huck
a copy of their written confession.
That was sort of fun.
I got to go to Mexico.
And there were some
glaring deficiencies in it.
One, they had the caliber
of the g*n wrong.
Number two,
is they said they poured white gas
all over the place, which is kerosene.
We knew that didn't happen.
It was a very nice confession.
I mean, a Hollywood screenwriter
would be proud of that.
The only problem is it wasn't worth
the paper it was written on.
You know?
But, you know,
when people saw excerpts of it,
they go, "Yes, they confessed."
A lot of people believe
that people wouldn't confess
to stuff that they didn't do.
Au contraire, they do,
for whatever reason.
Today, Porfirio Carlos Saavedra
fought back tears saying he was forced
to sign a statement
saying he k*lled four girls
at the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop
last December.
Saavedra told me federal police
put a bag over his head,
a rag in his mouth, handcuffed his hands,
punched him,
and threatened to hurt his family
if he didn't sign a statement
that was read in court today.
-Be careful.
-Heavyweight Hog,
third place, Sonora Thomas.
The truth of the matter is,
many parents of children who are k*lled,
want other people to know just...
how awful it is
and what they're going through.
You don't like these?
We'd like you to have them, really.
We would.
When I see their friends, it shocks me
because they've grown up and gone on.
But these little girls
are still my little girls.
Initially,
when these parents lost their kids,
everybody wanted to talk to them,
they were in the news.
But over time, it's no longer in the news.
And their friends are saying,
"You've got to move on."
They can't move on.
They can't-- Who could move on?
You've lost your child.
Or in Barbara's case,
you've lost two children.
And the story needs to have the focus.
Otherwise, it will go unsolved.
We're going months,
and it turns into years,
and then it comes to the point
where they tell us,
you know, "We just don't have
a whole lot to go on."
When you're covering it,
you're also kind of facing your fears,
like, "If it could happen to these people,
it could happen to me."
It wasn't just the fact that there
were four young kids who were k*lled,
it was how they were k*lled.
You see a very dark side of humanity.
I guess I think it's part of my job.
And you're going to feel it, and...
and thank God you feel their pain.
I can kind of understand people.
If you're not in this position,
you just don't really know
the right thing to say
because I probably wouldn't have.
But for me, some of the things
that really anger me is,
"I'm so lucky.
You're so lucky you have another child."
Well, which one
of any one of you would choose...
which child you'd be willing to let go of?
We're fascinated by this unsolved crime,
but if you interview somebody
who survived through it,
I think the fascination
goes away pretty quickly,
'cause it's really not fascinating,
it's really sad.
I think, like,
that's the most important story to tell,
is to tell people that these events,
like the yogurt shop murders...
has a negative impact
on so many people's lives
for decades, and decades, and decades.
Like, this isn't something
that you just overcome or recover from.
That's the story
that's more important than who done it.
What's it like
for those families to go home
and go to bed that night,
and the next night,
and years to come
when their child isn't alive?
And we don't hear those stories
because those people are so traumatized.
"48 Hours called me for an interview
leading up to the 30th anniversary.
The producer had said,
'Erin Moriarty has fond memories
of your mom.'
I'm a sucker for anybody
who was nice to my mom.
During the interview, Erin Moriarty asked,
'Were your friends' parents
more protective of you after the murders?'
I responded, 'I didn't have any friends.
No one talked to me anymore.'
'How about your parents?
Were they more protective?'
I replied,
'I've been talking with other siblings
who have lost siblings,
and they all say the same thing.'
'When you lose a sibling,
you lose your parents too.'
I lost my parents that day.
My mom went to her room
and I stopped going to my dad's house."
My family never talked about my sister
after she died.
-Never?
-No.
And...
I worry about losing memories.
"The childhood house I remember
was quiet, lonely, unpopulated.
I remember coming home from school
to find the mail was still in the mailbox,
my mom was still in bed,
and my sister was still dead."
There is a kind of t*rture that continues
by the fact that it's unsolved
and it's ongoing.
"It was helpful to hear Erin speak
about other crime victims' families.
This is when I saw
that this strange genre of crime shows
doesn't just provide fodder
for the curious.
It also provides an outlet
for victims to tell a story
that no one wants to hear.
When you walk into the detective's office
at the Austin Police Department,
there are four 8x10 photographs
of my sister and the other girls
hanging right in front of the door.
Below them is a 3D model
of the yogurt shop.
Detectives will not allow themselves
to forget.
These are the first things they see
when they walk into their office.
It made me sad to note
that it's still hanging
over their heads as much as mine.
Yet knowing this allowed me
to feel a kinship with these strangers.
If I met them, I would want to hug them
and also apologize."
You have a person
out there who wasn't there,
who knows he's standing there
every day looking at a m*rder*r,
who up to this point
is getting away with it.
It's been a tough case.
It's been a tough role for most of us.
But, you know, I like to tell people
that we're peddling as fast as we can
to try to get this thing solved.
And it's all we live and breathe
and think about 24 hours a day.
You know, we wanted to do right...
and it seems like a lot of the times
we were just struggling
to keep the train on the tracks.
We know all there is to know,
you know, about the...
you know, about the crime itself.
And we've got everything ready
except who to charge with it.
When the families suggested to Huck and I,
"You know, you guys really--
I think we should...
I think y'all should get with a counselor.
I think you need to talk to somebody."
And, of course I'm going,
"Well, how weak is my sh*t?"
Where the... the families are saying,
''You guys need to go talk to somebody."
So, we both did.
That's when I got diagnosed with PTSD.
And I didn't know what that was.
I thought that was something that,
you know, you had to be in a w*r for,
you know.
"As a result of a critical memo
Mr. Jones received
from a superior officer this week,
he has not been able to function
in a normal manner.
This is not unusual in the case
of post-traumatic stress disorder."
Hi, this is-- this is Andrea.
That's my wife, Yolanda, over there.
I'm too busy to be tired.
And...
I think you get to a point where your mind
just shuts down. That's it.
A lot of times that's the way
you get conversations going.
The symptoms for PTSD listed
in the DSM-III are...
"Recurrent distressing dreams
of the event."
Yeah.
"Intense psychological distress
at exposure to events
that symbolize a traumatic event,
such as anniversaries." Check.
The chief investigator
working Austin's infamous
yogurt shop m*rder case
has been reassigned.
Senior Sergeant John Jones
has been on the case of the murders
of four girls for two-and-a-half years.
"Restricted range of affect,
such as loving feelings
or any deep, real feelings."
Zero relationships since divorce.
"Difficulty falling or staying asleep."
Check.
"Irritability."
Small check.
"Exaggerated startle response..."
Yeah, now I know why
I haven't read that in a while.
Let me get these keys
and we'll go to the vault,
and I'll show you some memorabilia
that we do still have.
This is our old archive safe
that keeps locked up with all sorts of,
lots of rich history and stuff.
And here it is.
This is the yearbook that that class
had dedicated to her that year.
This was her memory right here.
Pretty picture.
Yeah, we all were doing
our hair like that, so.
It's interesting because her time capsule
is starting to come up,
probably because it wasn't placed
in the ground correctly.
But through time and just Earth's changes,
it's starting to come up.
So, it's very concerning to me.
I don't want it
to get in the wrong hands and stuff.
So, we have a marker here
on this side of the tree,
and I think they had some plants.
I'm not sure.
But on this side of the tree over here,
is actually another marker for her.
And it says,
"Time capsule,
preserving memories of Amy Ayers,
a life that should have been spared.
February 21st, 1992."
So, this was a little bit later on.
I would only imagine
that it could be things
from her locker,
maybe some newspaper clippings.
So, this is what we have of her.
Good afternoon
and welcome to Burnet Middle School.
We're here today
for a special memorial dedication
in honor of Amy Ayers
on this, what would have been
her 14th birthday.
In and around this courtyard is where Amy
and her friends used to gather every day.
They would laugh
and talk in carefree times,
and then they gathered in sorrow.
This tree, which will bloom
white blossoms in the spring,
will be a lasting symbol
of Amy's love of life.
I like answers.
And right now I don't have much.
I got a lot of questions.
Back him up.
There's not a day that goes by
that she's not in our mind.
And if we do cutting horse stuff,
you better believe
that the first thing on our mind is Amy
and the last thing out
of that arena is Amy.
Let me try again.
Oh, yeah.
I'll never know.
That sh*t can drive you nuts.
Why did this happen?
There's never an answer good enough.
Bring him back.
Time. Thank you, Shawn.
That was Cats Royal Bandit
and Mr. Music Man himself, Shawn Ayers,
from Stephenville, Texas.
When you lose a cow,
there's nothing more irritating.
Because that means the cow won
and that is not what you want,
is the cow to win.
Through the years,
I've wondered that a lot.
What would she be like
if she was grown up...
and what would she be like
if she had kids?
It's Angie.
That's what Amy would have been like.
She's just a spitting image of her.
She's right there in front of me.
It's family-owned and operated,
independent still.
And we have
a sporting goods side for g*ns.
We're all a family
and we consider this a family,
and we need to know our patients
and know each other,
know each other's lives.
But when I came in,
they'd already known that...
I have excess baggage, I guess,
if you wanna call it that,
that I was gonna have to deal with.
I was sad for Shawn and his family.
They are victims of this crime,
and they're having to beg for answers
from the Austin Police Department.
That's when I started getting irritated.
And I started like,
"Why aren't they telling y'all anything?"
And the answer was then,
"They don't have to.
This is the way that they do it.
This is the way it has been."
But that's when I shifted over to,
"No, there's gotta be someone out there
that can answer our questions
and help us."
Every so often you get calls
from somebody about the case.
I got a phone call
from a private investigator.
She said,
"Look, I don't want to be intrusive,
but my sister-in-law told me
about your case.
I helped solve
my best friend's m*rder in Dallas.
I really think that I could help y'all."
It's very difficult to open up
to somebody and let them in
because we're very private.
And it's not the first time
we've ever been contacted
by a private investigator,
but gut reaction was,
"I think she can help."
All right. So, you'll notice the chimes
throughout the house.
So, they're all over in my backyard.
And each chime represents a client.
And so when they blow...
I can listen.
And certain ones, you know how I am,
certain ones tell me certain things,
and, you know, when I'm working
on a particular case,
I can hear 'em.
So, this is gonna represent Amy.
You're gonna put it right here,
even if it's not the--
Or right there. It's up to you guys.
-Where do you want?
-Can it fit?
-All right, you can put it there, too.
-It's going to hit.
Well, okay, so just so you know,
yours is a little bit tangled,
kind of like your case.
-So... I'm sorry.
-Pretty.
So, when we're out here working
and when I'm walking the dogs in the back,
I can hear Amy.
-I love that.
-Yeah?
-That's pretty cool.
-Isn't that fun?
I love doing it.
-Thank you.
-Yeah.
All right, guys, we're going to start.
So, what we do is we help families, right?
And this is our family
in the yogurt shop case.
Angie has worked for seven years on...
putting pressure on the police and the DA
to get information to help the girls.
And so we've gone through
what she's done
and she's gotten to a standstill
and that's where we come in.
And my group feels very lucky...
I hope I don't cry.
I'm a crier...
to have you guys come and do this.
So, watch your step, and then take a seat.
I'm going to start with you, Catherine.
Do you have anything you wanna ask?
I'm interested to know
what your thoughts are
on all of the confessions
that were obtained,
what your take is
on false confessions in general.
The individual
next door in the party store,
do you have an opinion
on if he would have heard noises?
Two people were spotted sitting
in that booth at the end of the night.
Do you know if anybody has made an attempt
to see what fits in the physical space?
And I've done cases,
Sheila and I have done cases
that involve the occult.
He told someone that that night
he saw the devil come out of that shop.
I thought it was some type
of g*ng initiation.
The embezzlement, money laundering,
and the insurance is
kind of under one umbrella right now.
There's the creek people,
the PIB, People in Black.
In the back by the telephone,
there's a cross.
Do you know
or have heard something as far as that
he went and told other people something...
I hate to do this, girls. On your knees.
You're naked, you're young,
and you don't know what to do.
So, you go, one, two, three.
Well, if I'm running,
you grab this arm, I could spin.
-Amy's 13 years old.
-Right.
-These are guys.
-Right.
Would a guy really need to smack her
with a cash register drawer?
-That's vengeance.
-Or would they just punch her?
-Does that maybe point to a woman?
-You're 100 percent right.
It's very frustrating not having answers.
It has consumed me at times.
I'm just trying to do the right thing.
I'm trying to find the answers
for everybody.
So, I don't see random disarray
with those bodies.
Is there some type of symbolism
as to the position
-of the bodies?
-Great point.
It's aggravating. It's frustrating.
But who else can I ask
to give me the answers
that I'm looking for?
Head, legs, head, legs.
Head, legs, head, legs.
So, that's our work, is to disprove it,
-if we can.
-It could be nothing.
-It could be.
-It really could be nothing.
You would think after 30 years
that we would have been
a lot further along.
There's been so many people
in the police station
and in the DA's office
that have come and gone.
And every time they do that,
you have to start over.
It has been a frustrating,
painful five years
for family and friends
of Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers,
and Jennifer and Sarah Harbison.
Investigators have followed
lead after lead,
but five years later,
they are no closer to solving the case.
News 36 has learned that a number
of Austin homicide investigators
have been assigned
to look at this case once again.
The Austin Police Department
announced today
it will reopen Austin's infamous
yogurt shop m*rder case.
There's a small group
of detectives in Austin
tasked with finding any clue
that will crack this case wide open.
Paul Johnson's been working
to pour over new leads.
At that time,
people that had been assigned
to the yogurt shop case previously
had left the detail.
You know, I was reluctant to get in this.
Well, everybody else
in the homicide detail was also reluctant.
The rumors was that there were problems
with the yogurt shop case.
The investigation had already gone before,
they had come up with suspects
that had been announced publicly
and acted like, "This is them."
And it turns out,
"Well, no, it's not them."
The next day, he recants the confession.
Things like that just muddies up a case.
When the new group took over,
Huck and I were pretty much shut out.
They seemed to be saying
that we screwed it up.
I always thought
that we'd be a part of it,
that we'd be of counsel, of emeritus,
that they would still come back
to us and say,
"Hey, what do you think?"
I don't believe he and I
should have been taken off the case.
They sort of eliminated me totally.
They don't want me involved anywhere,
because I...
I throw a candle into the fire, you know?
The only thing I regret about all of that
is how we lost contact with the families.
Some people have actually
accused John Jones
of being too close to the families.
And he actually used that
to get more money,
to get more people, to get time off.
In order to put themselves up,
the new investigators put us down.
I mean, it sounds kind of rude
or crude maybe, but...
I did not have
a close relationship with the families
because I didn't want to get
too emotionally tied into their concerns.
So, here's the door, the back door.
I don't know if it has a lock on it
from the outside now.
We suspect that the suspects
had gone in front
during business hours
and unlocked the back door
to come in after hours...
and go in the back door.
This dumpster
was a little closer over here,
but the backs of the buildings
are basically the same.
This creek looks a little more grown up
than it used to be,
but the trees are 30 years older
and so I guess that's expected.
So, I started going over the case.
It was very large.
I came up with about
So, there's 2000 separate tips.
And it was just me and Ron Lara.
The APD Cold Case Unit,
born out of the yogurt shop task force.
Ron Lara was part
of the original task force,
created to solve the case.
The case continues on.
There's still, you know, tips coming in.
We would just work on one at a time.
And if we worked it up to saying,
"This is not our suspects,"
we would go to the next tip,
and the next one, and the next one.
And then we got to the Maurice Pierce tip.
Remember Maurice Pierce
was arrested roughly ten days
after the yogurt shop murders
in Northcross Mall,
which is, like, two blocks away,
with a g*n, 22-caliber.
And the Maurice tip involved four people.
Maurice Pierce himself,
Robert Springsteen,
Michael Scott, and Forrest Wellborn.
When I started this case,
I actually thought
the best I could ever do...
is probably figure out in my own mind
who I thought did it,
but never be able
to get evidence to go to trial.
And then it's like almost overnight,
my whole expectation
of how this might end up changed.
Welcome to our World! Where we serve you cookies to ensure you get the best viewing experience on our site.
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
01x02 - The Fifth Victim
Watch/Buy Amazon
Explores the tragic m*rder of 4 teenage girls at an "I Can't Believe It's Yogurt" Shop on December 6, 1991 in Austin, TX.
Explores the tragic m*rder of 4 teenage girls at an "I Can't Believe It's Yogurt" Shop on December 6, 1991 in Austin, TX.