Austin investigators say DNA, ballistics link Robert Eugene Brashers to 1991 yogurt shop murders

Austin officials announced on a morning press conference that new forensic comparisons link Robert Eugene Brashers to the 1991 slayings of Amy Ayers, Jennifer Harbison, Eliza Thomas and Sarah Harbison at a north Austin yogurt shop.

"We now have evidence linking a specific individual to this case, Robert Eugene Brashers. The only, the only physical evidence located at that scene has been matched to him," Austin Chief of Police Lisa Davis said.

The announcement followed a multiagency review of decades-old evidence that combined expanded DNA testing, manual searches of Y-STR (male-line) profiles in state databases and a National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) hit that connected a spent .380 cartridge found at the yogurt shop to at least one other unsolved homicide. Detective Daniel Jackson, who inherited the investigation in 2022, told reporters that the South Carolina State Laboratory returned a 27-marker Y-STR match to a profile developed from evidence in Greenville, S.C., and that a subsequent direct-comparison STR test on biological material from a victim's fingernail clippings matched Brashers with a reported statistical weight of about 2.5 million to 1 in favor of Brashers over an unrelated individual.

Dr. Dana Kadavy, director of Austin Forensic Science, said independent laboratories and different testing methods produced consistent results. "The DNA…