AUSTIN — Four men wrongfully convicted in one of Austin’s most notorious murder cases have been officially exonerated, more than 30 years after the crime.
Maurice Pierce, Robert Springsteen, Mike Scott and Forrest Welborn were cleared of involvement in the 1991 killings of four teenage girls at an “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt” shop. Travis County Judge Dayna Blazey formally declared them innocent, removing the convictions from their records.
Police earlier identified Robert Eugene Brashers as the sole perpetrator. Brashers, who died in 1999, was linked to the murders through forensic and DNA evidence. The victims were Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, and Jennifer and Sarah Harbison.
Travis County District Attorney José Garza filed a motion last year to revisit the case and formally exonerate the wrongfully convicted men. Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger said the county’s earlier prosecutions had caused decades of harm to the defendants.
Springsteen, who was sentenced to death and spent 10 years in prison, described his wrongful conviction as a period of “chaos and uncertainty.” Scott was sentenced to life, while charges against Pierce and Welborn were later dropped.
Both Springsteen and Scott had long maintained their confessions were coerced. Attorneys said the exoneration allows them to move forward while acknowledging lasting emotional impacts from the wrongful convictions.
Pierce, who experienced a mental health episode in 2010 and was fatally shot by police after attacking an officer, did not live to see the official exoneration.