The detectives are close to having what they came for. And then, just after seven o’clock, Merrill makes what from the police point of view is an unfathomable mistake by issuing a precipitous Miranda warning.
Rob comes to, as if from a swoon. Having seen the TV shows, he knows what happens next. They’re not just talking; he’s in custody. He refuses to sign. He needs to talk to his wife. And to an attorney. He’s not saying anything bad about the officers; he just needs to go home and “clean up my mess.”
“There’s the door,” says the flustered, abashed Merrill. Springsteen hasn’t implicated Mike Scott or the other two, and they barely touched on the fire. But if he won’t sign the Miranda, they have to let him go. They even give him a ride.
By eight that night, some twelve hours after he finished restocking shelves at Kroger, Rob is at home with his family, having given the Austin cops a verbal statement describing his participation in the Yogurt Shop Murders. Some of the details he provided match Scott’s, but many do not. Some match the crime scene, yet, again, many do not.
In the years to come, Rob will recant. During his trial, when his attorney asks him to tell the jury why he confessed to something he didn’t do, he says, “I guess I gave up on myself.” He had assumed that once he got out of that room, he could take a lie-detector test—in West Virginia, not Texas—and that eventually forensic tests—fingerprints, DNA, blood, hair, whatever—would prove he hadn’t been in the ICBY shop. There is, however, one thing he said that might be more important than he’d realized. In the final hour of his interrogation, Lara had pushed him to admit what he did to thirteen-year-old Amy Ayers sexually. Just admit it, he kept saying. Say it, Rob, just say it.
Eventually, Rob yielded. Yes, he said. Yes, okay, he did it.
Lara demanded the words.
“Okay,” Rob said. “I put my dick in her pussy and I raped her.” And, still wearing the ball cap low on his forehead, he looked up through those devilish eyebrows as if to say, Is that enough?
Game over.
Before being extradited to Texas, Rob will take a polygraph test in which he tests out as truthful when he says he didn’t commit the murders and doesn’t know who did. Although the results of the original rape-kit test performed on Amy Ayers were negative, and even when more sophisticated DNA tests exclude Robert Springsteen IV from having left bodily fluid anywhere at the scene, the “dick in her pussy” statement will, according to his lead lawyer, seal his fate. Once the jury heard it, Jim Sawyer believes, his client was a dead man.
—
Lara, Neff, Merrill and Meyer fly back to Austin. Merrill works for three days on a transcript of the interrogation, as all three of them struggle to recall words and phrases lost due to the clock-camera’s malfunction. Still not satisfied, Merrill sends the video and the Nagra tape to the Houston crime lab, and then to the BATF lab in Washington. Both work to enhance the videotape by merging sound from the Nagra into it, a kind of jerry-rigged voice-over they hope will create the semblance of an authentic recording. On the stand, Merrill will say that maybe 85 percent of the audio was accurate. There are also eight or nine minutes in the processed audiotape that don’t appear on the video at all. But Springsteen said he did it. And he said he’d raped Amy Ayers. Next to that, everything else seemed pale and stingy.
ARRESTS
Paul Johnson called in the task force. Though they had confessions, there were holes, contradictions, inconsistencies. Above all, they needed the weapons, and for Maurice to confess. A few days later, Johnson himself teamed up with APD cop Douglas Skolaut and drove to Irving to interview Pierce in his lawyer’s office. There, they told him he was about to be arrested, but if he confessed, he could at least prove he wasn’t the ringleader like the other guys said. But Pierce again denied any involvement in the murders, and the detectives came back empty-handed. Fuentes and Hardesty then drove to Lockhart to pick up Welborn and transport him to APD headquarters, where Fuentes produced the first and last pages of Mike’s statement. Rob had also confessed, he told Forrest; both men had implicated him, and so had Maurice. Brilliant at keeping his mouth shut, Forrest also gave them nothing.
So Skolaut and Meyer drove him to the former site of the yogurt shop for a surprise meeting with Mike Scott, who walked straight up to Welborn and said, “Hey, Forrest. Remember me? I’m Mike Scott. I told the police everything,” and suggested that he do the same. Clearly shocked, Forrest said he had no idea what the fuck Mike was talking about or why he’d signed that statement, then turned away and just stood there gazing toward Shoal Creek. So Lara and Hardesty took Mike home, and Skolaut drove Forrest back to headquarters, where he conducted a wildly inept interrogation, going on far too long himself, describing the girls’ screams and telling him over and over again that he was there when they were killed, and even if he didn’t kill any of them, he could’ve stopped what was going on—giving Forrest little time to offer anything other than the occasional “I don’t believe I was there.” But he came to when the cop informed him that no matter what he said or didn’t say, he was going to be arrested. That being the case, Forrest said, he was ready to go home right now. “There’s the goddamn door,” Skolaut told him, and Forrest left. The interview had lasted twenty-five minutes.
A friend of mine who lived in Lockhart for a while used to take her car, a beater in constant need of repair, to Forrest Welborn’s shop. She said he was a sweet guy and often refused to charge her. In the second of three Yogurt Shop episodes on 48 Hours, aired in April 2000, after the arrests, Erin Moriarty interviewed Forrest on the front porch of a small frame house he was hoping to buy. The floorboards of the porch sagged and skipped; the support beams leaned; the place seemed little more than a shack. Obviously, he couldn’t afford to work for anybody for free, but my friend was nice to him and he liked her, so he had. Like others, she couldn’t imagine his being involved in any kind of violence. Some people to this day believe that Forrest Welborn was seriously damaged by this case, ruining whatever shot he had at a better life.
—
Knowing that photos of all four suspects would soon appear in local newspapers, the APD sent officers to interview some of the original eyewitnesses. Dearl Croft was shown three photo sheets with head shots of six young men, including Scott at seventeen, Springsteen at fifteen and Pierce at sixteen. While most of the other pictures were in black and white, Maurice’s was in color. Croft couldn’t make an identification.
When Lusella Jones was shown the same photos, she, too, was unable to positively finger anybody. But when asked which one looked “most” like the young man she’d seen in the yogurt shop on December 6, 1991, she chose photo number five—Maurice Pierce—on the first sheet. Not a bad response to take to the grand jury, although far less conclusive than what the APD and the DA’s office were hoping for.
There was also the matter of Maurice’s eyes, which were a memorable icy blue. In the lineup photo, his eyes are dark and dull and his photo has been cropped close to his face, leaving his hair color a mystery. A dark band around his forehead is presumably from a cap, but it might seem like his hair. When questioned on the witness stand, Lusella Jones will say that for her skin coloring was the best way to determine identity. During her original report in 1992, she thought that one boy might be Latino, but maybe not. Dark, at any rate.
—
Out of respect, John Neff called John Jones before the story broke. Assuming that the arrests were the natural follow-up to the work he’d done, Jones congratulated him.
Friday, October 1, the Statesman’s page-one headline made it official: ARRESTS LIKELY IN YOGURT SHOP KILLINGS: POLICE HAVE SUSPECTS IN 1991 DEATHS OF 4 TEENS. No names were given, but it was reported that two of the four had confessed, that another had been questioned shortly after the murders, that none currently lived in Austin. According to a “high-ranking law enforcement official” who spoke to the paper on condition of anonymity, they hadn’t made arrests before now because “you don’t want to solve just part of
the case. We knew if we had arrested two of them right away, the other two would clam up. We have to bring all four to justice.” As for the suspect who’d been questioned in 1991, that tip “wasn’t taken as far as it could have been.”
Jones’s mood darkened. He couldn’t help but take personally the implication that he’d somehow let Maurice Pierce off the hook.
Four days later, on October 5, Paul Johnson wrote up separate affidavits, in which he swore he had good reason to believe and did believe that each of these four men had committed the offense of felony and capital murder. He took the documents to 167th District Court judge Mike Lynch, who read his brief descriptions of the suspects’ involvement in the crimes and decided there indeed was sufficient probable cause to issue arrest warrants to Robert Burns Springsteen IV, Michael James Scott, Maurice Earl Pierce and Forrest Brook Welborn on four counts of capital murder during the commission of a robbery. Under Texas law, prosecutors aren’t required to offer bail to adults accused of a capital crime, so none was set for Springsteen and Scott. To ensure their legal rights, Lynch appointed attorneys to represent them.
As for Pierce and Welborn, because they were sixteen and fifteen at the time of the murders, their affidavits were delivered to 98th District Court judge Jeanne Meurer, who specialized in juvenile and family law. She would appoint counsel as well as set bail and the starting date of a certification hearing to determine whether probable cause existed to justify waiving her jurisdiction in this juvenile case, thus sending these two into the adult system. The “cert” hearing would include witness testimony and arguments by both sides, at the end of which the judge herself would decide what would happen next.
—
On Wednesday, October 6, the four men were arrested in a coordinated sweep: Scott just after he arrived at his storage space in South Austin; Springsteen at his home in Charleston; Pierce on his way to work; Welborn at the auto-repair shop. That afternoon, local television stations interrupted regular programming to show live footage of the four men being transported to jail. The coverage began, as usual, with the WHO KILLED THESE GIRLS? billboard. In a brief press conference, Ronnie Earle announced the arrests and Chief Stan Knee praised the persistence of the investigators who had brought to justice “four individuals for the brutal murder of four little girls.” When his turn came, Mayor Kirk Watson appealed to a familiar sentiment. “On December 6, 1991,” he said, “we, as a city, lost our innocence. Today, we regain our confidence.” This prompted Jim Sawyer to call him later that day. “What happened,” Sawyer asked, “to innocent until proven guilty?”
All of them handcuffed and shackled, Scott was taken to the Travis County jail, Springsteen to the South Central Regional Detention Center just outside Charleston, Welborn and Pierce to the Gardner-Betts Juvenile Detention Center. The names of the two younger defendants weren’t released, but when they arrived that afternoon, the courtroom was packed.
Welborn sported a droopy mustache, his brown hair hanging to his shoulders, his blue eyes brimming. His sister, mother and father were there. When Forrest heard the state ask the judge to set bail at five million dollars, he covered his face with a towel and wept. Maurice Pierce wore jeans and a white T-shirt, his light brown hair gelled in spikes. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he listened to the proceedings, and his bright eyes sometimes closed momentarily; otherwise, he let nothing show.
Described as a “diminutive woman” whose “reconnaissance eyes can lock into a target and search the soul,” no-nonsense Judge Jeanne Meurer altered the bail prices: one and a half million for Pierce, one million for Welborn. When transferred from the Juvenile Detention Center to jail, each covered his head. After making dark remarks about suicide, Welborn was put on immediate “fire watch.” To be on the safe side, Meurer also ordered psychiatric examinations for both.
Barbara Suraci, now Barbara Ayres-Wilson, attended the hearing with her new husband, Manley Wilson; so did Pam and Bob Ayers. Having sold her house and moved to Oregon, Maria Thomas didn’t make it back to Austin in time, but Eliza’s father was there. In a statement to Erin Moriarty, Pam Ayers expressed her surprise and radiant pleasure at this development, “the last thing on earth we were expecting.” Bob Ayers said he hoped they had the right guys. Barbara Ayres-Wilson dreaded revisiting December 6, 1991, and discovering exactly how horrible the girls’ ordeal had been. The questions she’d been asking herself—Were they afraid? Did they know they were going to die? Were Jennifer and Sarah close to each other when they were killed?—would now be answered, and she wondered if she was ready. So did the other parents.
—
The front page of the October 7 Statesman was top-to-bottom Yogurt Shop. One story featured profiles of the four “unremarkable” young men who’d been arrested; and people who’d known them in high school expressed shock. In newspaper and television reports, all four were characterized as dropouts and their lives chronicled from childhood through broken families, failed classes, minor crimes, marriages, low-paying jobs. Yearbook photos accompanied the stories. Austinites read the details and studied the faces, then read the stories again. A former McCallum student, a young woman who gave her name as Janet, said the boys did do a lot of roaming and hanging out back then but were never violent. Mike was the clown, the cutup, always trying to make people laugh. Rob was an oddball who insisted on speaking his mind. Maurice had the car. Forrest was the quiet one.
A week after the arrests, twenty-two-year-old Amanda Statham would show up at the APD headquarters to inform Homicide that back in 1991 or ’92 her friend Mike Scott had not only told her he’d committed the murders but also showed her, her sister Sarah Adair and her mom the gun he’d used. Although Mike was the sweetest guy she knew, he’d said they’d shot the girls and chopped off their heads and feet and left them on the counter. Neither she nor her sister had gone to the police back then because their mother had told them not to, but now that Mike was under arrest…
When Maggie Halliday (the former PIB) heard the news, she walked off her waitressing job and didn’t go back. You mean the guy who’d kept her from slashing her wrists in the backyard of that house on Woodrow when they’d all hung out back then? That Mike?
—
Although the state of West Virginia had never granted a defendant’s case against extradition except on grounds of mistaken identity, David Bungard fought against sending Springsteen to Texas, arguing that because West Virginia wasn’t a death-penalty state, the harshest penalty he should have to face was life without possibility of parole. But the Kanawha County prosecuting attorney had other ideas. “If I can’t kill them here,” he joked, “maybe I can help kill them in Texas.” After a couple days’ consideration, Circuit Court Judge Charles King ruled against Springsteen, and on November 18—handcuffed, shackled, still dressed in his own clothes—he was flown by chartered jet to Austin, along with an APD officer, a Travis County ADA and, of course, Chuck Meyer.
—
All four boys were home again and nobody but nobody was not noticing. Among those paying attention was Will Sheff, lead singer of an Austin rock band called Okkervil River. Sheff had a day job back then, doing clerical work. Hearing about the arrests, somebody had switched on an office television set.
“The people at work,” he recalled, “were watching the suspects of the Yogurt Shop Murders and they were just straining to see the evil in their faces. But evil don’t look like anything.”
A year or so later, Sheff wrote “Westfall,” a mandolin-driven song about a boy who murdered a girl, which became known for its refrain:
Evil don’t look like anything.
Evil don’t look like anything.
Evil don’t look like anything.
It became Okkervil’s most popular tune.
In a different context, W. H. Auden said something similar:
Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table…
III
THE COURTS: LAW, SCIENCE, BLUNDERS
AND LUCK
CERTIFICATION
Once Judge Meurer had read the Pierce and Welborn affidavits, she picked up her phone.
“I didn’t live in Texas in 1991,” says criminal defense attorney Guillermo Gonzalez. “I knew nothing about the Yogurt Shop Murders.” Without providing a reason, the judge told Gonzalez she needed him. And when he said he already had too many commitments, “all she said was, ‘Be in my chambers this afternoon at three.’ And that”—he shrugs—“was that.”
In the landmark, unanimous 1963 decision Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court ruled that state courts were required under the Fourteenth Amendment to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who couldn’t afford their own attorneys, but the implementation of this ruling was left to the states. In Texas, some counties employ public defenders, while most, including Travis, use attorneys chosen by the judge and paid, if modestly, by the county. In splashy cases, judges often appoint hotshot lawyers because of the inevitable press coverage and notoriety, but it’s an iffy deal for popular attorneys. For a capital case—which can take years—in Travis County, the maximum pay for a lead defense attorney is fifty thousand dollars. “If you want to know the value Travis County places on a life,” one anti-death-penalty lawyer says, “it’s fifty grand.”
When Gonzalez and another defense attorney, Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez, arrived in Meurer’s office, she held out two affidavits, one in each hand. “Choose,” she said.
Gonzalez got Pierce, and Icenhauer-Ramirez landed Welborn. For the prosecution, Yogurt Shop belonged unreservedly to Ronnie Earle’s favorite death-penalty prosecutor, ADA Robert Smith, but he was busily involved with another capital case and therefore his colleague Howard “Buddy” Meyer would work the juvenile courtroom.
Who Killed These Girls? Page 22