{"id":184783,"date":"2025-08-03T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/03\/the-yogurt-shop-murders-unpacks-the-craziest-crime-in-texas\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T14:36:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:36:00","slug":"the-yogurt-shop-murders-unpacks-the-craziest-crime-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/03\/the-yogurt-shop-murders-unpacks-the-craziest-crime-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yogurt Shop Murders Unpacks \u201cThe Craziest Crime in Texas\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Margaret Brown<\/strong> doesn\u2019t want you to binge her first full TV series. The director of the new HBO true-crime<\/a> docuseries The Yogurt Shop Murders<\/em> shudders when I tell her I watched all of its hour-long episodes in one sitting. \u201cYeah, I don’t recommend that,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen we were showing it to the families, we were like, \u2018Please don\u2019t watch all four in a row.’ It was like a trigger warning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series, which premieres on HBO and streams on HBO Max on Sunday, August 3, explores a quadruple homicide that a friend of Brown\u2019s characterizes as \u201cthe craziest crime in Texas.\u201d On December 6, 1991, the bodies of 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, 13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison, and 15-year-old Sarah Harbison, Jennifer\u2019s sister, were found inside the burning remains of a strip mall frozen yogurt shop. All four had been bound, gagged, and shot, investigators later said, before an unknown suspect, or suspects, set fire to the business\u2014burning their remains and much of the crime scene in the process.<\/p>\n

Jennifer and Eliza worked at the business, an outpost of the national chain I Can\u2019t Believe It\u2019s Yogurt! Sarah and Amy, who had been spotted at a nearby mall earlier that day, had stopped by near closing time to get a ride home with the older girls, assisting with cleanup as the place closed for the night. It\u2019s not an uncommon scene, as any young fast-food worker knows: That same year, my friends often hung out as I finished my closing duties at a small-town TCBY, a similar 1990s-era frozen dessert chain. Many of you reading likely have similar memories, from one side of the counter or the other.<\/p>\n

The crime\u2019s relatable circumstances are one of the reasons so many people have been absorbed by the case\u2014but its twists and turns are wholly unique. The Austin Police Department\u2019s work on the case was damaged\u2014perhaps irreparably\u2014by one of its star cops, according to his fellow investigators.<\/p>\n

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