Robert Springsteen speaks with reporters after his 2009 release from custody.

Photo by Jana Birchum

Tuesday marked the 20th anniversary of the grisly yogurt shop murders – a quadruple murder that remains unsolved. On Friday, Dec. 6, 1991, police found sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, 17 and 15 respectively; Amy Ayers, 13; and Eliza Thomas, 17, bound and shot and burned in a fire that police said was set to cover the crime at the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop on Anderson Lane. The case went cold until investigators announced in 1999 that they'd found the guilty parties – Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott, and Robert Spring­steen, four young men who were high school students at the time of the crime. Although there was no physical evidence tying any of the four to the scene, Springsteen and Scott confessed to the crime after extensive questioning by police. Although each recanted, they were individually convicted before their convictions were later overturned. Charges against Pierce were dropped in 2003 for a lack of evidence, and two grand juries failed to indict Welborn. In 2008, unknown male DNA was found in Ayers' body; subsequently, in 2009, prosecutors dismissed all charges against Springsteen and Scott. The case remains open.