The 2nd Location

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 8

In this episode I talk about the trial and conviction of the second defendant to be tried for the Austin Yogurt Shop murders, Michael Scott and the subsequent successful appeals of Michael Scott and Rob Springsteen.
Sources include:
Beverly Lowry, Who Killed These Girls?
Corey Mitchell, Murdered Innocents

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 7

Years after the murders 4 young men were arrested and 2 eventually would go to trial and be convicted. In this episode I discuss the first trial which would result in Rob Springsteen's conviction and  death sentence.
 
Sources include:
Corey Mitchell, Murdered Innocents
Beverly Lowry, Who Killed These Girls?

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 6

The 4 suspects, Rob Springsteen, Mike Scott, Maurice Pierce, and Forrest Welborn are all arrested.  And in this episode I cover pre-trial motions, battles over the evidence, and the state's attempt to find some evidence against the accused other than those confusing confessions.
Sources include:
Beverly Lowry,  Who Killed these Girls?
Corey Mitchell, Murdered Innocents

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders and Why Innocent People Confess: The Reid Interrogation Method and the Wrongful Conviction of Darrel Parker

I have been talking about the Austin Yogurt Shop Murders. Four teenage girls were raped and murdered in closed frozen yogurt shop in Austin, Texas in 1991.  After 8  years of investigation the police focus on 4 young men that were teenagers at the time of the murders. And even though all 4 men are completely innocent 2 of the men confessed to a crime that they didn't commit.
It's hard to understand that innocent people confess to crimes that they didn't commit. In an attempt to understand this phenomena in this episode I cover the Reid technique, a method of interrogation that manipulates a suspects mind.
But from the beginning there were problems with the Reid interrogation method.  One of the first cases were the Reid technique was used was the questioning of Darrel Parker in relation to the death of his wife, Nancy Parker. Darrel confessed to killing his wife and it would not be until decades later that his name would be cleared after a serial killer confessed to Nancy's murder.  
The New Yorker, The Interview, Douglass Starr
Chris Minor, WQAD8 for ABC, Quad City man gets justice 56 years after wrongful murder conviction
HEEDING THE LESSONS OF HISTORY: THE NEED FOR MANDATORY RECORDING OF POLICE INTERROGATIONS TO ACCURATELY ASSESS THE RELIABILTY AND VOLUNTARINESS OF CONFESSIONS Steven A. Drizin* & Marissa J. Reich** 
 

Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 5

Eight years after 4 teenage girls are found murdered in a burning Austin, Texas yogurt shop the police have focused their cold case invetsigation on 4 suspects that had been removed from the active suspect list almost immediately after they came under suspicion in the weeks after the murders.
With no evidence that implicates any of these suspects, no fingerprints, no DNA, no eyewitnesses the police focus on getting the suspects to confess. It works. 2 of the suspects confess and implicate each other and their 2 other friends in the murders.
In this episode I focus on the false confessions of Mike Scott and Rob Springsteen.

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 4

About 8 years after the murders of 4 teenagers in an Austin, Texas yogurt shop the police focus on 4 young men that where teenagers at the time of the murders. What put these guys on the police's radar? One young man had been found in the local mall with a gun a gun in his waistband 8 days after the murders. The teens had been inactivated as suspects earlier but after reviewing the casefiles the police  refocus on the 4 young men, and they start by questioning Mike Scott who will wrongfully confess to a quadriple murder, setting into motion 2 trials and 2 wrongful convictions. And this whole time no one is looking for who really killed Eliza Thomas, Amy Ayers, and Sarah and Jennifer Harbison. Wrongful convictions hurt both the acused and the victims.

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 3

5 years after 4 teenagers are murdered at closing time at a yogurt shop on Austin, Texas the case is given a new lead investigator Paul Johnson. Johnson is assigned with going back into the files and seeing if there are any old leads that should be followed up on. He focuses on Maurice Pierce a teenager who was stopped at the mall near the yogurt shop just 8 days after the murders, Maurice was carrying a .22. All four victims had been shot with a .22.
Over the next few years the investigation focuses on Maurice and 3 of his teenage friends. Even when Maurice was first picked up at the mall he passed a lie detector test where he denied being involved in the murders and his .22 underwent ballistic testing that showed that it wasn't the murder weapon. 

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 2

While closing up a small yogurt shop 4 teenage girls were murdered in an Austin, Texas on December 6th, 1991.  Just 8 days after the murders Maurice Pierce was caught by an off-duty police officer flashing a .22 at the local mall. The police were immediately suspicious.  The mall was close to the yogurt shop and the girls had all been shot by a .22 caliber gun. 
When the police interrogate Maurice he implicated his friend Forrest Welborn in the murders. After Maurice passes a polygraph, the police  secretly record a conversation between Maurice and Forrest, and ballistics tests show that Maurice's gun was not the murder weapon, the police don't believe that Maurice and his friends were involved in the murders.  That is until 7 years after the murders when Maurice and his 3 friends become the focus of the investigation. 
 

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Episode 1

The evening of December 8th, 1991, started off innocently enough 2 teenage girls were working the closing shift at the local yogurt shop in Austin, Texas on a Friday night. Also in the shop with the 2 older girls that were working that night were the younger sister of one of the workers and her even younger friend.  The younger girls were just hanging out and helping with the closing of the shop and afterwards they planned to hitch a ride home with the older sister for a highly anticipated sleepover.  
 What started as an evening of work and friendship would end in murder. By 11:48 p.m. all 4 girls would be dead, but not before they were forced to strip naked, sexually assaulted, and then shot in the head. Before the killers fled they set the yogurt shop on fire, leaving the 4 girls lying on the floor of the backroom to be discovered by firefighters. It’s 28 years later and we still don’t know “Who Killed These Girls?,” but with the advancement of DNA technology science is closing in on the killers. Who murdered Eliza Thomas, Sarah Harbison, Jennifer Harbison, and Amy Ayers? At this point we are waiting for science to give us the answer. 
Sources:
"Who Killed These Girls?: The Unsolved Murders that Rocked a Texas Town," Beverly Lowry
"Murdered Innocents," Corey Mitchell
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-yogurt-shop-murders-austin-texas-families-investigators-haunted-by-unsolved-case/
48 Hours, CBS News
Are Two Never-Identified Customers Key to Solving Austin's Yogurt Shop Murders?, Stephanie Slifer
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yogurt-shop-murders-are-two-never-identified-customers-key-to-solving-austin-texas-case/
 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yogurt-shop-murders-are-two-never-identified-customers-key-to-solving-austin-texas-case/

Tommy Zeigler and the Florida Furniture Store Murders Episode 13...The End for Now

Speculation alert! In this we episode explore theories about how the murders unfolded that night, Christmas Eve 1975.  Was it a family annihilation, a robbery gone wrong, or a planned hit on Tommy Zeigler that was interrupted by his wife and in-laws resulting in their murders and the wrongful conviction of Tommy Zeigler.  It's all guesses people and I welcome your theories. Let's all meet back here when the DNA results come in.
Sources include:
Phillip Finch, Fatal Flaw: A True Story f Malice and Murder in a Small Southern Town available in pdf on the website https://www.tommyzeiglerisinnocent.com/
Tampa Bay Times, numerous articles by Leorona LaPeter Anton including The Blood and Truth Podcast
 https://www.tommyzeiglerisinnocent.com/  , a website that I believe is maintained by Lynn-Marie Carty.