Robert Springsteen’s Settlement: $35M Split and DNA Exoneration

On May 28, 2026, the Austin City Council unanimously approved a $35 million settlement in the yogurt shop murders case, compensating four men who were wrongfully accused, and in two instances convicted, of the 1991 killing of four teenage girls at an Austin frozen yogurt shop. The payment closes out federal civil rights and common-law claims tied to nearly three decades of wrongful prosecution, and it followed a February 2026 court order formally declaring all four men innocent after DNA linked the murders to a different man.¹

How the $35 Million Is Divided

The settlement splits the money among the four men and one estate:

Robert Springsteen: $9.85 million
Michael Scott: $9.85 million
Forrest Welborn: $4.85 million
The estate and family of Maurice Pierce: $10 million

In exchange, the recipients agreed not to pursue further legal action against local officials, including past and present city council members, police chiefs, and Travis County prosecutors.²

Austin is funding the payments with $450,000 from its Liability Reserve Fund and covering the rest through bond issuance, with the debt to be repaid through property taxes.¹ At the council meeting, Mayor Kirk Watson said, “I hope that this proposed financial settlement agreement also brings some relief and closure.”³

Why the City Paid: Coerced Confessions and Two Wrongful Convictions

The four girls were killed on the night of December 6, 1991, at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop on West Anderson Lane. The victims were Jennifer Harbison, 17; her sister Sarah Harbison, 15; Eliza Thomas, 17; and Amy Ayers, 13. The shop was set on fire, and the crime scene evidence was badly damaged.⁴

The case stalled for years. In September 1999, a cold-case task force arrested Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn, and Maurice Pierce for capital murder. All four had been teenagers when the killings took place, and no physical evidence connected any of them to the crime. The cases against Springsteen and Scott rested almost entirely on confessions both men said were beaten out of them.⁵

Scott was questioned for roughly 20 hours over multiple days. Video from one session showed a detective jabbing a revolver into his head. Springsteen was interrogated in West Virginia for about five hours, and only a portion was recorded, with the tape running out before the actual confession. Springsteen later said, “I was berated and berated and berated by the police officers. Until they obtained what it was they wanted to hear, they were not going to allow me to leave. And basically, they broke me down.”⁵

The interrogations had roots in a broader pattern. Detective Hector Polanco, a lead investigator on the original 1991 task force, had previously coerced a false confession from Christopher Ochoa in an unrelated 1988 murder case, sending Ochoa and Richard Danziger to prison for over a decade before DNA cleared them. A 1992 internal city inquiry had already found that Austin’s homicide unit was plagued by coercion, false confessions, and incomplete reports. Polanco was later fired for perjury tied to another coerced confession, reinstated by an arbitrator, and retired in 2001.⁶⁷

Springsteen was convicted of capital murder in May 2001 and sentenced to death. Scott was convicted in September 2002 and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors used each man’s confession against the other at their separate trials. Two grand juries declined to indict Welborn, and charges against Pierce were eventually dropped, though he spent three years in the Travis County Jail.⁸⁹

How the Convictions Collapsed

In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington tightened the rules on using one person’s out-of-court statements against another. On May 24, 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned both convictions, finding that the trial court had violated the men’s Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses by allowing one defendant’s confession to be used against the other.⁸

With new trials looming, prosecutors ran the crime scene DNA using newer methods. The results excluded Springsteen, Scott, and the other two men and pointed instead to an unknown male. On June 24, 2009, a federal district judge released Springsteen and Scott on bond. By October 28, 2009, prosecutors conceded they could not go to trial, and State District Judge Mike Lynch granted a motion to dismiss all charges. Springsteen had spent nearly ten years behind bars, five of them on death row, and became the 139th person exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973.¹⁰⁸

The 2025 DNA Match and the Innocence Ruling

In August 2025, the South Carolina State Lab used Y-STR DNA analysis to match an unknown male profile from under victim Amy Ayers’ fingernails to Robert Eugene Brashers, a serial killer and rapist born in 1958 who died by suicide in 1999 during a standoff with police. Investigators confirmed that the .380 pistol Brashers used to kill himself was the same weapon he had been carrying when stopped by Border Patrol on December 8, 1991, less than 48 hours after the yogurt shop murders. A spent .380 casing from the scene was also linked to an unsolved Kentucky murder connected to Brashers.⁴¹¹

In December 2025, Travis County District Attorney José Garza filed a motion to formally exonerate all four men. On February 19, 2026, Judge Dayna Blazey of the 460th District Court declared Springsteen, Scott, Welborn, and Pierce actually innocent and dismissed all charges with prejudice.¹² Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger told the court it was “our turn to accept responsibility” and said the wrongful prosecutions had left the defendants “screaming into the wind” for decades. Garza apologized to the exonerees and their families after the hearing.¹³

Why Compensation Took So Long

Dismissal in 2009 did not put money in Springsteen’s pocket. Under Texas law, he could not access state compensation through the Wrongful Imprisonment Act without a formal finding of innocence, and Texas Comptroller Susan Combs denied two applications from him.¹⁴ Springsteen then sued the Comptroller in federal court, seeking both compensation and a declaration of actual innocence. In September 2013, a U.S. magistrate judge recommended dismissal, finding that the Eleventh Amendment barred the suit, that federal courts could not compel a state official to act under state law, and that a federal innocence finding would not satisfy the Texas statute, which required the finding in a habeas corpus proceeding. The case was dismissed without prejudice.¹⁵

That left the men without recourse until the 2025 DNA match and the 2026 innocence ruling opened the door to a settlement with the city.

Why an Estate Received $10 Million

Maurice Pierce did not live to see the settlement or the exoneration. After his release, Pierce struggled with his mental health. On December 23, 2010, he was pulled over for running a stop sign in north Austin, fled on foot, and was chased by Officer Frank Wilson. During a struggle, Pierce grabbed a knife from Wilson’s duty belt and cut the officer’s neck, severing his carotid artery. Wilson then shot and killed Pierce. Wilson survived.¹⁶ At the exoneration hearing, Pierce’s daughter Marisa said her father never recovered from his incarceration and described his death as “the result of a justice system that actively hunted” him.² Pierce’s share of the settlement, the largest of the four, went to his estate and family.

1
KXAN. Austin Approves $35M Settlement for Men Exonerated in Yogurt Shop Murders
2
Austin American-Statesman. Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Settlement Approved
3
FOX 7 Austin. Austin Yogurt Shop Murders: City Approves $35M for 4 Wrongfully Accused Men
4
City of Austin Police Department. Significant Breakthrough Made in 1991 I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt Murders
5
American Bar Association. Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott
6
Texas Monthly. Hector Polanco, Andre Causey, and False Confessions
7
Death Penalty Information Center. City of Austin to Pay $35 Million to Compensate Men Wrongfully Convicted in Decades-Old Murder Case
8
Death Penalty Information Center. All Charges Dismissed Against Former Texas Death Row Inmate
9
Spectrum News. Men Wrongly Accused of Grisly Yogurt Shop Murders Reach $35 Million Settlement With City
10
Innocence Project. Charges Dismissed in Texas Case
11
ABC News. Haunting Yogurt Shop Quadruple Killings Solved Three Decades Later
12
KTVL. Travis County Judge Exonerates Four Men in 1991 Austin Yogurt Shop Murders
13
KUT. Austin Yogurt Shop Murders Court Declares Men Innocent
14
Courthouse News Service. Released Murder Suspect Loses Compensation Claim
15
GovInfo. Springsteen v. Combs, No. A-13-CV-427 LY
16
Austin Chronicle. Former Yogurt Shop Suspect Killed by APD