DNA evidence has linked a man who died by suicide in 1999 to the brutal 1991 killings of four teenage girls at a Texas yogurt shop, finally bringing a degree of closure to a case that haunted the state for decades. The victims – Melissa Trotter, 19; Sarah Haile, 19; Heather Miller, 17; and Jennifer Ertel, 17 – where abducted from a Ben & Jerry’s in Kilgore, Texas, and their bodies were discovered days later in a wooded area.
For years, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott were convicted of the murders, spending over a decade in prison despite recanting their initial confessions and claiming they were coerced by police. Their convictions were overturned in 2009 after new DNA testing revealed another suspect, but the case remained unsolved until recent advancements in forensic technology allowed investigators to definitively link Paul Brashers to the crime. This revelation not only confirms the long-held suspicions of those who fought for springsteen and Scott’s release, but also connects Brashers to a string of other violent crimes across multiple states.
In 1999, authorities arrested Springsteen and Scott, both teenagers at the time, on murder charges. Both initially confessed and implicated each other, but quickly recanted, stating their statements were made under pressure from police. Despite this,both men were tried and convicted. Springsteen was initially sentenced to death, later reduced to life in prison.
Their convictions were overturned a decade later, setting the stage for a retrial. However, a retrial never occurred. In 2009, a judge ordered both men freed when prosecutors announced new DNA tests – unavailable in 1991 – pointed to another male suspect.
In 2018, Missouri authorities announced DNA evidence linked Brashers to the strangulation of a south Carolina woman in 1990, and the shooting of a mother and daughter in Missouri in 1998. The evidence also connected him to the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee. Brashers died in 1999 after shooting himself during an hours-long standoff with police at a motel in Kennett, Missouri.
the victims in the yogurt shop killings were found tied up; their hands bound with underwear and mouths gagged with cloth. Ayers was shot twice. The newly confirmed link to Brashers offers a measure of justice for the families of the four girls and underscores the power of evolving forensic science in resolving cold cases.
