‘The Yogurt Shop Murders’ Director on Completing the Story and Interviewing the Killer’s Daughter After the Case Was Solved: ‘I Thought I Was Going to Thow Up’

On September 27, 2025, a month after the fourth episode of HBO’s docuseries “The Yogurt Shop Murders” aired, Austin police announced that they had finally solved the 1991 cold case. Robert Eugene Brashers was responsible for the brutal rape and murders of teenagers Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas and sisters Jennifer Harbison and Sarah Harbison.

That same day, Margaret Brown, director of “The Yogurt Shop Murders,” got on a plane to Austin, where the murders happened, to film the fifth episode of the series. Titled, “The End of Wondering,” the episode examines how DNA evidence led to Brashers’ conviction.

The murders had mystified police and haunted the victims’ families for more than three decades.

Brown had spent over three years interviewing the crime’s investigative teams and the victims’ parents and siblings for the first four installments of the docuseries. She says that she was “scared” to return to Austin to film another episode after police discovered that Brashers, a serial killer who died in 1999, was responsible for the crime.

Courtesy of HBO