- Coming up on "Austin InSight, one of the grizzliest crimes in Austin history has finally been solved.

We'll get reaction from the woman who wrote the book on the Yogurt Shop Murders.

Plus we're talking about safety in Rundberg, Austin's most diverse neighborhood.

"Austin InSight" starts right now.

- [Narrator] Support for "Austin InSight comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Suerte, Este and Bar Toti restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in Central Texas.

(lively music) - Hi there, and thanks for joining us.

I'm Laura Laughead.

For years, a billboard in Ben White and South Congress bluntly asked the question, "Who killed these girls?"

34 years later, authorities now say they know the answer.

They've solved the Yogurt Shop Murders.

Using DNA evidence collected at the murder scene, police have now identified Robert Eugene Brashers, a potential serial killer, as the man responsible for killing four teenage girls at a small yogurt shop in North Austin in 1991.

The girls were stripped naked and tied up, shot, at least one of them sexually assaulted, and then the shop was set on fire.

Brashers committed suicide in 1999 during a standoff with police in Missouri.

The murdered girls were 13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison and Jennifer's 15-year-old sister Sarah Harbison.

This week the families of the girls expressed gratitude to law enforcement for finally ending their long wait for answers and to the public for the outpouring of support over the years.

- The million kindnesses that have been extended to me and my family have gotten us to this moment.

Some of us... I think of my mom today and I wish she were here.

Our reality doesn't change after today.

Our families are still too small, still missing an essential ingredient, and we are lesser for it.

- Everybody is concerned for the solving of the case.

Everybody was concerned about all of us here because they know the tragedy was so painful and continues to be.

But I really just came to say thank you for the Austin Police Department and all the love and support that you have given us over these 34 years, and I thank you for that.

(audience applauding) - For more on this case, we are joined by author Beverly Lowry whose book "Who Killed These Girls?"

has been compared to Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood."

We have Beverly with us now.

Beverly, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- So Beverly, what's your reaction to this news?

Did you ever imagine that one day this cold case would finally be solved?

- I wondered.

I wasn't sure, and given the direction the investigation was still in in the early 2020s, I wasn't sure.

Once they promoted Dan Jackson to be head of the cold case unit, a hope came to everybody that he would actually solve it.

- Can you take us back in time to when the murders happened in 1991.

Austin was different and much smaller.

Can you explain how this case affected the city back then?

- I didn't live here, but my son and daughter-in-law did.

And I lived in D.C.

And once when I came home, not too long after the murders, something new was going on in the case and I asked my son, "Are the Yogurt Shop Murders ever gonna be out of our lives?"

And he said, "No, they're with us forever."

And that's how people felt.

It was shocking.

And, you know, I've interviewed a lot of people for this book.

Nobody I talked to, you didn't feel their heart sink when they talked about this case.

It affected everybody who came close to having anything to do with it.

And even just people who lived here at the time, it was so unexpected and horrific.

- Even for people who maybe weren't even alive at the time who have grown up in Austin or grown up coming to Austin, it's this haunting, this cloud hanging over.

But what do you think of now how the new investigative work was done?

- Through science, not through theory, not through confessions, through the science that would produce hard evidence.

And that's what Dan Jackson, the head of the cold case unit since 2022, did.

He stuck to what he could prove, what he could see.

And that's why it was solved, I mean, pure and simple.

- And that DNA evidence, investigators this week have made clear was what clinched this, was the defining moment.

- Yes.

- And, you know, I wanna add another layer to this journey for you is from what we've read, writing about the parents' grief in this book made you revisit your own story of the loss of a child.

Can you talk about what that was like in your personal connection here?

- My son Peter was killed in a hit-and-run incident.

I don't know who hit him.

I don't know if they intended to hit him or hit him by accident and kept going or what.

So that uncertainty lives with me now.

And it was the uncertainty that the parents faced that connected me to the case.

It's hard enough to lose a child, but to not know exactly how it happened and if it was violent, who did it.

And that's what they have suffered for 34 years.

- And that kind of pain is just unimaginable.

And now that these families, they finally have that answer, they finally have that closure, this case is making international news.

What do you hope years from now people remember from this case?

- I hope they remember a number of things.

One is that the DNA, the only full profile they could get, DNA profile that could be obtained from the crime scene that was on the girls that was complete, you know, the scene of the crime behind the yogurt shop was set ablaze, burned and then 500 gallons of water was sprayed to put out the fire.

So it's really hard to come by full profile, but Amy Ayers, who was the youngest of the four girls, she was only 13 at the time, apparently fought back because she had DNA under her fingernails and the water didn't affect that, the fire didn't affect that.

And so they got a full DNA profile from her fighting and it 100% matched the full DNA profile of Robert Eugene Brashers.

And that's what they were looking for.

That's what they needed to absolutely be sure they had the right person this time.

- It was her bravery.

- Yes.

- That directly led us to today.

And I know her parents were quoted as saying that they were very proud of her.

- Well, and Bob Ayers, the father, said several times, "Amy would've fought back."

(Beverly chuckling) And you think, "Well, it's just dad."

But he was right.

He was absolutely right.

She did.

- He knows his daughter.

- And you know, that's not to say the other girls didn't, but hers was the fight that won the case really.

- Well, indeed, I hope, and we all hope this revelation can bring not only justice but peace to everyone impacted by this.

Well, Beverly Lowry, author of "Who Killed These Girls?

", thank you so much for sharing your research with us.

- You're welcome.

Thank you.

(somber music) - It's home to about 55,000 people and it's arguably Austin's most diverse neighborhood.

Nearly half of residents speak two languages, but is it also Austin's most dangerous area?

We're talking about Rundberg, and it's the focus of our community-based journalism project Decibel, led by senior multimedia reporter Blair Waltman-Alexin who joins us now with a special report.

Blair, you've been looking into the safety question for months, but the answer to the question "Is Rundberg safe?"

is complicated.

- Yeah, that's right, Laura.

Rundberg is considered a high crime area and data would support that.

But both residents and experts that we spoke to said that safety in Rundberg is a complex problem.

- Welcome, welcome, everybody.

Thank y'all so much for coming to the... - [Blair] Tonight, as it often does, the Dobie Middle School cafeteria has been transformed into a community gathering space.

District 4 council member Chito Vela, who has promised this will all wrap up before the "Alice in Wonderland" production starts next door, is here to talk about one specific thing: safety.

- We want people to be able to get from one side of Rundberg to the other side of Rundberg, you know, without having to go through a very kind of dark and possibly a dangerous area.

- [Blair] Safety is a big concern for Rundberg.

It has a reputation as one of Austin's most dangerous neighborhoods.

- There was a lot of prostitution, you know, drugs, all that.

- [Blair] But others say that reputation has overshadowed the truth about this community.

- The core area of Rundberg, it's safe.

- [Blair] So is Rundberg safe and what do residents here need?

(pensive music) (engine rumbling) (door slamming) Officer Ruben Espinoza has been with the Austin Police Department for 18 years and he's spent all of that time here in Rundberg.

- I did day shift patrol, very Spanish-speaking, accident investigator.

I've been very busy in Rundberg.

- So he knows the area's reputation.

- This area you mostly see is a lot of violent crimes, but the core area of Rundberg, it's safe, but there's this small, and there's few individuals that make it dangerous in these little spots that are dangerous.

The majority of Rundberg area is safe.

(lively music) - [Blair] But what does he mean by the Rundberg area?

There's a couple different ways to look at it.

The Austin Police Department breaks the city down into sectors.

Rundberg is in the Edward sector and it's large, about the same size as all of Round Rock.

They used to break down crime stats by sector, but now they go by council districts.

Rundberg is in District 4.

They don't line up perfectly but a few areas that APD considers hotspots show up in both.

Georgian and Powell, for example, and Lamar and Rundberg.

But what do those numbers show?

- So when we look at the data, last year, 2024, when you take into account all nine regions or all nine sectors within the city, Edward was number one, unfortunately with homicides, unfortunately with a lot of the violent crimes.

One of the things that we've noticed this year is that the first quarter of 2025, our homicide rate is down.

We've also noticed that there's also a decrease in some of our other violent crimes.

- [Blair] Crime statistics from APD show the area does have higher rates of crime.

In 2024, District 4 accounted for 23% of the homicides in Austin, and 22% of aggravated assaults.

Those numbers are pretty consistent over the past couple of years.

But we also need to take a step back and get a better look at these numbers.

How much crime is taking place in Austin?

- Yeah, in general, Austin crime statistics are going to show lower levels of violent crime, at least relative to other cities of similar size.

- [Blair] Jamein Cunningham is an assistant professor of law and public policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

And he says, compared to cities like ours, Austin has a relatively low crime rate.

- The main number that people look at are things such as homicides.

Homicides are gonna be much lower than other cities of similar size.

As it relates to property crimes, things like car theft, those things may be on the rise, but still relatively less than other cities.

- [Blair] But that's still a problem residents have to live with.

- [Speaker] I miss the good old times, man.

Like that's what I needed.

- That's when they actually had a dollar menu, right?

- [Speaker] Yeah.

(people laughing) - [Blair] Abel Lopez grew up in Rundberg in the Brownie community and remembers having a hard time sleeping when he was a kid.

- Like I would hear gunshots every day from the age of like 8 to 12.

All I saw was gangs, drugs, and violence, you know?

Obviously that's where the issues come, where we're like, this is normal to us.

- [Blair] So why is this happening in this part of town?

Dr.

Cunningham has some thoughts on that.

- There's several predictors of places that have higher or lower levels of crimes.

We know that places that are more segregated along racial and income lines, we know that if there's a population with less educational attainment or have less access to jobs, where high levels of crime.

(pensive music) And this basically has to do with access to opportunity, access to stable employment, access to quality education.

- [Blair] Rundberg does sit within Austin's Eastern Crescent, an area where predominantly Black and Latino communities were pushed following the city's 1928 master plan.

It's an area that still struggles with higher levels of poverty.

Recent census data shows that the median family income in Rundberg is about $50,000 per year.

That is well below the city average of over $91,000 per year.

The area is also more affordable than other parts of town, making it the best option for many people who are less likely to call the police.

- Individuals in minoritized communities, younger people, immigrant groups are less likely to contact the police.

- [Blair] Rundberg is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Austin.

About half the residents speak languages other than English at home, according to US Census data.

It's about 30% for all of Austin.

(people speaking in Spanish) Rundberg residents come from all over, but a lot come from Spanish-speaking communities.

And right now Abel says many Latino residents are afraid if they call for help, they'll be the ones in handcuffs.

- A lot of Latinos is like, "Oh, well, we don't call the cops because immigration."

Nobody's calling because they're afraid that they're gonna be like, "Oh, who are you?"

- [Blair] That's a fear that's only increased.

In the last few months, ICE deportations have become much more visible.

Several have taken place in Rundberg, including one during a traffic stop by Dobie Middle School.

And Trump has called for ICE to increase detention and deportation efforts, especially in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.

This is a good place to point out that immigrants are actually 40 to 60% less likely to commit crimes than US citizens.

- Have a lot of family violence issues.

- [Blair] Immigrants are also less likely in general to call the police for help.

- Right now a hot topic is what's going on with the immigration?

- [Blair] But Espinoza says that's gotten much worse in recent months.

- They're scared of being deported.

I tell 'em right off the back is that APD, we don't ask for immigration status.

All we're doing is addressing the crime.

We want all victims to feel safe and come out and talk to us.

(static buzzing) - If ICE asked you for assistance in an operation, where would you stand?

- No, that is not our role.

The role of the federal government, that's their role.

It is not our role here.

It will never be a priority for me.

- [Blair] Police Chief Lisa Davis has said before that APD is not coordinating with ICE, but other Texas law enforcement agencies are.

Earlier this year, Governor Abbott ordered the Department of Public Safety to assist ICE with finding and arresting immigrants with arrest warrants.

But immigrants with no criminal background are also being arrested.

A report by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune showed that the Trump administration knew the majority of 238 Venezuelan immigrants hadn't been convicted of any crimes.

They were arrested and deported anyway.

(screen whooshing) And during the last legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill that requires sheriffs to partner with ICE.

And different police departments can have different relationships with ICE.

It can be confusing to know who has what power.

So many residents feel safer not risking a 911 call.

- So Blair, what steps are being taken to make Rundberg safer?

- Yeah, several efforts are under way to address community safety.

And it's important to note that they involved way more than just the police department.

As we're gonna see in part two, it's less about handcuffs and more about sidewalks.

So we have an area with residents more likely to be victims of crime, but who are less likely to call the police.

How do you make that area safer?

(tranquil music) One way has less to do with handcuffs and more to do with sidewalks.

It's a method called crime prevention through environmental design.

- So crime prevention through environmental design is us working to reduce like the crime in an area.

We worked with the City of Austin and we did a light survey and now they're all LED.

So it's a lot brighter so they feel safe.

That's a huge thing.

- The situation of the economy and everything that's here, everything that's presented doesn't cost a dime.

The investment is time.

- [Blair] APD is also testing something called the Crime Free Multi-Housing program.

Police work with apartment complexes to fix environmental hazards, like lighting and clearing shrubs.

Complexes can also get connected with resources like APD's Family Violence or Victim Services Unit.

Espinoza says it's about combining data with community outreach.

- We can be proactive and work with all these community members in the outreach 'cause right now, the community definitely wants to see this change.

They want a better quality of life.

And there's so many... - And this method is backed by research.

Studies show that there's a correlation between traffic and domestic abuse.

Improving sidewalks and lighting has been shown to bring down crimes like aggravated assault and burglary by more than 1/3.

And having green spaces like parks and green belts can also reduce crime.

Abel says it also just helps you feel better about your community.

- When kids are getting off the buses, they're having to walk on ditches, like they're having to walk down a ditch just to try to get to their house because on either side of the street, there's no sidewalk.

It's like who wants to take care of it?

It makes you feel some type of way where there's, you know, the way that the system's set up, the way that the city's, you know, like fixing these streets and we're sitting there like, "When is it gonna be us?

When are we gonna get these nice things that we see in all these other neighborhoods?"

(vehicle rumbling) (machinery drilling) - [Blair] Austin has been working to add more sidewalks as part of the city's strategic mobility plan.

Rundberg is one of the priority areas.

In their 2023 report, they said there's about 2,800 miles of sidewalk in Austin, but about 1,500 is still missing.

Their goal is to finish missing sections in high-priority areas by 2033.

(vehicles whooshing) So environmental design is one way to reduce crime.

(people laughing) - [Speaker] You see what I'm saying?

I'm good, I'm good.

- [Blair] Community groups, like the ones Abel works for, are another.

Abel works with two organizations, Jails to Jobs, which tries to help formerly incarcerated people find work and housing to prevent recidivism, and ATX Peace, and I'll let Abel explain that group's work.

- Our goal is to work with the individuals that are at the highest risk at committing gun violence or becoming victims of gun violence.

Almost everybody on staff that works directly with the community have experienced either being victim of gun violence or at one point been involved with drugs, gangs, but have successful reentry.

And I feel like that's where we're able to connect more with the population we're trying to serve.

- See you next week.

- [Blair] With both programs, Abel and the rest of his team are trying to make sure individuals don't make a life-altering decision out of desperation.

- We had individuals say, "Man, like I was about to rob that store because I'm starving."

Our goal is to do the prevention piece before it actually happens.

- [Participant] But it's never too late to start, man.

It's never too late but also, it's never to early.

It's never too to start.

- [Blair] And groups like this can be effective.

One study found that in cities with a population of over 100,000 people, each community group contributed to a 1.2% drop in the homicide rate and a 1% drop in violent crime.

The problem is money.

(lively music) In 2015, a pilot program called Restore Rundberg was launched.

It was funded by an Obama era Department of Justice grant, and it increased foot patrols in Rundberg and kickstarted new community groups.

Within two years, the numbers of violent crime dropped by 5% and property crime fell by 14%.

But in 2017, the funding ran out and the program stopped and crime rates returned back to their pre-2015 levels.

- This is kind of the situation that we're in.

I've called it death by 1,000 cuts.

- [Blair] Now federal cuts from the Trump administration are slashing into funding for programs like Abel's.

He says two staff have already been let go and they've had to reduce their client service budget by 50 to 75%.

So while the need remains, the assistance they can offer is shrinking.

- The hard thing is when we see some funding coming in and it's gone, funding coming in, or grant coming in, and it's gone.

There's just more distrust, more distrust.

Where I believe that it should be a steady like, "Hey, this is here to stay.

This is the funding and this is the resources."

And eventually that's where the community starts feeling more safe, and not just safe, it's like appreciated.

Like, okay, they see us.

- And this is what public officials have to deal with.

Can we provide public safety but also deal with through calls?

I haven't come across a city that's, you know, overflowing with funds.

And so this is a conversation that, you know, most struggle with.

(upbeat music) (singer vocalizing) - [Player] Oh, oh, oh.

- [Blair] So is Rundberg safe?

Most people will tell you, by and large, yeah, it is safe.

But experts say improving it means investing in it, and that can be a challenge.

But despite the reputation and the data, it's also someone's home.

- I grew up on the streets and, you know, I remember, you know, a lot of good times, you know?

It was just... You know, I have a five-year-old daughter and sometimes she still hears, you know, to her they are fireworks and it's like, when is it gonna stop, man?

(pensive music) - So Blair, what are you reporting on next in Rundberg?

- Yeah, so as you know, we are in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month right now, and there are a lot of events happening in Rundberg.

So we're asking residents how they're celebrating their culture in the face of increased immigration crackdowns.

- Well, Blair, thank you for those reports and we look forward to seeing what you report on next.

- Thanks.

(lively music) - That's our show.

Thanks so much for watching.

Remember, you can catch up on full episodes of "Austin InSight" any time in the PBS app or watch our stories from the show on the Austin PBS YouTube page.

We'll see you soon.

(lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music ending) - [Narrator] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Suerte, Este and Bar Toti restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in central Texas.

(happy music)