Who Were Jennifer Harbison And Sarah Harbison? The Yogurt Shop Murders Victims- Is The Case Solved?

The sisters Jennifer Harbison and Sarah Harbison were the victims of The Yogurt Shop murders in 1991. The case still remains unsolved on the 30th anniversary of the heartbreaking incident. 

In December 1991, on a Friday night, four young girls were brutally murdered at a yogurt shop in North Austin. Jennifer Harbison, Sarah Harbison, Eliza Thomas, and Amy Ayers were the victim of the hideous crime. 

The families of the girls have worked for decades to find the closure of the crime which took away their daughter’s life. However, the crime still remains unsolved after 30 years of the horrific crime which shocked the entire nation. 

As per the recent reports, the new state and federal efforts have found promising DNA leads which have brought hope for the answer.

Who Were Jennifer Harbison And Sarah Harbison? The Yogurt Shop Murder Victims 

17-years old Jennifer Harbison and 15-years old Sarah Harbison were sisters who became the victim of the 1991 murder in a Yogurt shop. Both of the Harbison sisters were an athlete as Jennifer ran track and Sarah competed on school’s volleyball. 

They spent their early childhood with their parents in Texarkana. Later on, they moved to Austin with their mother after the divorce of their parents.

Jennifer’s parents had just brought a car with a promise of her joining a job to help make the payments. That was the reason Jennifer was working on the yogurt shop. 

Jennifer and Eliza Thomas, 17, used to work in the shop. The night of the horrific incident, Sarah, 15, and Amy Ayers, 13, arrived at the shop around the closing time. The girls were planning to attend a sleepover together. 

Amy was in eighth grade at Burnet Middle School while other girls attended Lanier High School.

Is The Yogurt Shop Murder Case Solved?

On the 30th anniversary of the Yogurt Shop Murder Case, it still remains unsolved.  Reportedly, the fire inside the Yogurt shop was so intense that collecting evidence was so difficult. 

On a horrific night, the girls were shot in the head and gagged with their own clothes.  Later on, their body was stacked on one top of another and then set on fire. During their funeral, more than 1,000 people showed up in the church for the girls. 

The reward for any kind of information hiked up from $25,000 to $125,000, but there are still no arrests. In the meantime, the families have continued to keep the case at the forefront. With their continuous effort, the new initiatives are coming forward at the state and federal levels.

The 30th anniversary of the murders brings painful memories to the families of the victims and those who tried to solve the case. The horrific unsolved crime has devasted their families, the city, and the investigators. 

 Was The Yogurt Shop Murder Suspects Arrested?

Though there have been more than 5,000 leads since the investigation, they haven’t still made any arrests. 

Back in 1992, the authorities arrested two men wanted for an unrelated kidnapping and sexual assault. They later found the resemblance to someone witnesses reported seeing outside the yogurt shop on the night of the murder. 

However, the details they provided did not match with the evidence they found on the crime scene. After eight years of the murder, the authorities made four arrests with the suspicion of their involvement in the case. 

Those men had been questioned within days of the crime. However, due to a lack of hard evidence, the police could not link them. Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Robert Springsteen, and Michael Scott were the suspects of the crime. 

Though Welborn and Pierce were initially charged, they eventually dropped the charge due to lack of evidence. Police did obtain confessions from both Springsteen and Scott.

Back in 2008, the new type of DNA testing showed none of the four men were matched, they dropped the charge against Springsteen and Scott. 

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