Were The Yogurt Shop Murders ever solved? Details from the HBO docuseries, explored

HBO's latest four-part docuseries, titled The Yogurt Shop Murders, follows a case, more than three decades old, where four teen girls were mysteriously killed. The yogurt shop where the crime took place was later burned down to wipe out all evidence. The 1991 case has troubled authorities for more than three decades and to this date remains one of the most gruesome and devastating cases in the history of Austin, Texas.

The HBO docuseries, directed by Margaret Brown, details the 1991 case and the investigation that followed after the yogurt shop with the bodies of the four girls inside it was found ablaze before midnight. The sensitive docuseries also revealed that the murders remain unsolved to this day, even though four boys were arrested for the murders.

Keep reading to find out what happened after the crime was discovered.

The Yogurt Shop Murders: The Investigation after the crime

Two of the four girls who were murdered worked at the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop, and the other two were waiting for the elder girls to end their shift so that they could catch a ride home with them. However, none of them knew that they would never get out of the yogurt shop. Instead, shortly before midnight, firefighters arrived at the scene to find it ablaze.

After the fire was put out, they found the four girls. The front door was locked from the inside, and the back door was open, without any signs of struggle. The girls were found dead after being shot and gagged and having their hands tied with their own clothes; at least one of them had been subject to sexual abuse.

Was there any evidence left after The Yogurt Shop Murders

The yogurt shop had been burned down, making sure that no evidence was left behind, making it impossible for the authorities to zero in on a list of suspects. They did discover the kind of guns that were used for killing the girls and deciphered that two different guns, and possibly two different people, were responsible for the crime. Instead, a list of 342 names was drafted as suspects.

However, eight days after the crime, Maurice Pierce, another teenager, was arrested in a nearby mall carrying a .22 caliber gun. This gun matched the description of one of the murder weapons, leading to Pierce being questioned regarding The Yogurt Shop Murders. He ended up implicating three other teenagers named Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott, and Robert Springsteen in his statement.

Four boys were implicated and arrested for The Yogurt Shop Murders

The boys were arrested but later released for lack of evidence. However, eight years after the case, they were arrested again by new officers who were appointed to the case. The arrests were made on the basis of two confessions, which, after some time, began to crumble down as they appeared to be coerced out of them.

Two of the boys were convicted and found guilty; however, the convictions were overturned after a year on the basis of constitutional rights. Later, DNA tests on swabs taken from the victims' bodies after the crime revealed samples that did not belong to any of the four boys.

To this date, the authorities have had no other leads on the case, except for the presence of two men in the shop that day who haven't been accounted for.

It's been 34 years since The Yogurt Shop Murders, and the case remains unsolved to date.

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Read more: The Yogurt Shop Murders: What happened to the teens? Disturbing details of the 1991 incident, explored

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