HBO Max’s ‘The Yogurt Shop Murders’ Examines a Notorious Austin Cold Case
New docuseries from Austin-based filmmaker Margaret Brown explores the lingering trauma, tangled investigation, and enduring mystery behind the 1991 tragedy
On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were killed inside a frozen yogurt shop in North Austin. The brutality of the crime stunned the city, which had fewer than 500,000 residents at the time, and where such violence once felt unthinkable. In the decades since, the case has remained one of Austin’s most notorious and unresolved tragedies.
Premiering Sunday, August 3 on HBO and HBO Max, “The Yogurt Shop Murders” is a four-part documentary series that revisits the case more than three decades later. Directed by Margaret Brown (“Descendant,” “The Great Invisible”) and produced by A24 and Fruit Tree, the series examines the investigation and its lasting impact on the families involved. Produced by A24 and Fruit Tree, the series airs weekly with new episodes debuting Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
“I lived in Austin in the late 90s and people would just like talk about it at parties,” Brown said. “They would talk about the crime, their theories of the crime… I saw the archival footage and was intrigued by the complexity of the crime.”
About the case
The victims—Amy Ayers, 13; sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, 17 and 15; and Eliza Thomas, 17—were last seen closing the shop. Hours later, their bodies were discovered in the aftermath of a fire set to cover the crime. The brutality of the murders stunned Austin, a place where such violence once felt remote.
Brown and her team sift through decades of interviews, interrogation tapes, archival news coverage and conversations with family members, journalists and former investigators. The result is a portrait not only of a failed investigation but of the long shadow it cast. There are false confessions, PTSD diagnoses, coerced statements and overturned convictions. And through it all, people trying to make sense of what happened and why answers remain elusive.
“Barbara Ayers said to me early on… people were like, oh, is there going to be closure? She’s like, you can never use the word closure. There’s never closure,” Brown recalled. “You learn how to live alongside it, but there’s never closure.”
Brown doesn’t push for resolution. Instead, she focuses on the people most affected by the case and the emotional toll of revisiting their experiences.
“It was so hard to make this that we all were just like, how are we going to finish this?” Brown said. “It was just so hard bearing witness to the trauma that these families went through and just sitting with their pain.”
SXSW world premiere
Some of the most intimate footage in the series comes from filmmaker Claire Huie, who captured early interviews and moments after the murders that had never been widely seen before. “She was a very new filmmaker, but she has a way with people that’s very organic and people feel comfortable around her,” Brown said.
The first episode screened at SXSW earlier this year. For many in the room, it was the first time seeing the story told in such personal detail. “The Ayers family was there. Sonora was there. The whole cold case unit was there in a row, crying,” Brown recalled.
The memory of what happened there remains a part of Austin’s history. For some, it may represent a turning point.
“I think to say something like Austin lost its innocence, it’s sort of like a catchphrase,” Brown said. “But I think there’s truth in there.”
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