PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including physical violence, even physical and mental torture.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger said Travis County’s wrongful prosecutions left defendants “screaming into the wind” for decades, and that it was “our turn to accept responsibility.” “Simply said, both the science and the confessions can’t be true,” Strassburger said. “The truth is that Robert Eugene Brashers is guilty, and he alone committed the yogurt shop murders.” Farrelly said the lives of “the boys” were cratered by their arrests and imprisonment. That impact is still there for three, but not for Maurice Pierce, who had a mental health episode in 2010 and was shot by an Austin police officer he attempted to stab. “This case needs to change Austin. It needs to change Texas,” she said. “It is truly a miracle that we are here. A miracle that has come too late for Maurice Pierce — and has been denied for too long for Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott and Forrest Welborn.”
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QUOTE TWO OF THE DAY: "In tearful testimony, Pierce’s daughter, Marisa, said she will continue her fight for people wrongfully accused of crimes in Texas. She said the “tunnel vision” of police and prosecutors robbed him of his dignity, and that he was just an innocent boy when he was arrested at 15 years old.
Marisa said nobody heard him, or believed him, until today. "Daddy, you have your name back," she said. "The world finally hears what you were trying to say all along."
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STORY: "Four men accused in Austin's yogurt shop murders have been exonerated," by Reporter Andrew Weber, published by KUT News, on February 19, 2026. (Andrew Weber is KUT'S government accountability reporter, focussing on criminal justice, policing, courts and homelessness in Austin and Travis County.)
GIST: "Four men who were accused, two of them convicted, in one of Texas' most infamous crimes have been declared officially innocent.
Maurice Pierce, Robert Springsteen, Mike Scott and Forrest Welborn were the key suspects in the 1991 slayings of four teenage girls at a yogurt shop.
Now, more than 34 years later, Travis County Judge Dayna Blazey has stated that all are innocent, clearing their records and formally exonerating them after they were wrongfully accused in 1999.
Earlier this year, police announced they believed Robert Eugene Brashers was guilty of the killing Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, and Jennifer and Sarah Harbison at an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt shop in December 1991. Brashers died in 1999, but police were able to tie him to the murders through forensic and DNA evidence after decades of searching for the real killer.
Travis County District Attorney José Garza filed a motion to revisit the case and formally clear their names late last year.
All four suspects were implicated, investigated and later arrested in the aftermath of the murders that drew national attention and haunted Austin for decades.
Springsteen, who was sentenced to death and spent 10 years in prison, said in a written statement read by his attorney, Amber Farrelly, that his wrongful arrest turned his life into a cycle of “chaos and uncertainty."
“I have been persecuted every day,” Springsteen said. “I have lived every single day … being seen as a monster for something I did not do.”
Scott, the only exoneree who spoke in court, said the police who arrested him, and prosecutors who convinced a jury to give him life in prison, robbed him of his youth — of a full life.
"For decades I have carried the burden of wrongful conviction. Every day, I have carried the weight of a crime that I did not commit," he said. "No court ruling can return the years and the love that were taken from me, but it can acknowledge the truth: I am not guilty."
Both Springsteen and Scott maintained for decades that their confessions were coerced by police.
Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger said Travis County’s wrongful prosecutions left defendants “screaming into the wind” for decades, and that it was “our turn to accept responsibility.”
“Simply said, both the science and the confessions can’t be true,” Strassburger said. “The truth is that Robert Eugene Brashers is guilty, and he alone committed the yogurt shop murders.”
Farrelly said the lives of “the boys” were cratered by their arrests and imprisonment. That impact is still there for three, but not for Maurice Pierce, who had a mental health episode in 2010 and was shot by an Austin police officer he attempted to stab.
“This case needs to change Austin. It needs to change Texas,” she said. “It is truly a miracle that we are here. A miracle that has come too late for Maurice Pierce — and has been denied for too long for Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott and Forrest Welborn.”
Springsteen and Scott were convicted of murder in 1999. Scott was sentenced to life, while Springsteen was given the death penalty. Those cases were both thrown out in 2006 by the state's highest criminal court.
Pierce spent more than three years in jail awaiting trial before his case was dismissed in 2003. Pierce later stabbed an Austin police officer and was fatally shot in 2010. Wellborn's charges were dropped in 2000.
In tearful testimony, Pierce’s daughter, Marisa, said she will continue her fight for people wrongfully accused of crimes in Texas. She said the “tunnel vision” of police and prosecutors robbed him of his dignity, and that he was just an innocent boy when he was arrested at 15 years old.
Marisa said nobody heard him, or believed him, until today.
"Daddy, you have your name back," she said. "The world finally hears what you were trying to say all along."
After the hearing, Travis County DA José Garza apologized to the exonerees and their families, saying the time for healing had begun.
"It is my sincere hope that with this closure, we can begin to heal," he said.""
The entire story can be read at:
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FROM NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS ENTRY: LINK BELOW): "In February 1998, with the case gone cold, police decided to conduct a new investigation of the crime. They re-questioned Scott by telephone and he denied involvement. On September 9, 1999, Scott was questioned again, this time in a police station. At one point during a 12-hour interrogation, Scott said he knew the identities of the killers. On September 10, the interrogation resumed and ultimately, Scott said he had probably shot one of the girls, that he had fired a gun once and that he set the fire. On September 13, Scott was interviewed once more and said he remembered seeing Pierce with one of the girls in a separate room in the yogurt shop. He said he thought he had gagged one of the girls with paper towels or napkins. Further, Scott said the .22-caliber pistol came from Springsteen. He remembered little about the other weapon, but thought it was a semi-automatic .38 caliber. Springsteen was arrested in Charleston, West Virginia, where he was living. Police videotaped him confessing to sexually assaulting and killing one of the victims. Scott, Springsteen, Pierce and Welborn were all charged with capital murder, but ultimately the charges against Pierce and Welborn were dismissed. Springsteen went to trial first and was convicted on May 30, 2001, largely on the basis of his confession. He had recanted the confession and claimed it had been coerced." (Read on at link) HL:
10875 (Maurice Possley: August 29 2011);
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;y
