Police detail path to yogurt shop suspects

Detective in yogurt case says Pierce was first dismissed as having a 'mental problem'

By Leah Quin American-Statesman Staff

Posted: Dec. 1, 1999

Relatives and friends of four slain girls cried quietly Tuesday as they listened to a videotaped interview of one of the suspects in the yogurt shop killings, in which a police detective pressed him to confess.

"This is like persecution, hearing this testimony," said Barbara Ayres, mother of victims Jennifer and Sarah Harbison. "I left yesterday and thought, `My God, it's only Day One.' And we're not even going through the trial yet."

Forrest Welborn and Maurice Pierce were both juveniles on Dec. 6, 1991, the day four teen-agers were shot inside an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt store in North Austin, where two of the victims worked. Prosecutors are presenting evidence this week to have Welborn and Pierce transferred to adult court for trial.

On Tuesday, Austin police detective Paul Johnson detailed the path that led investigators to Pierce and Welborn, years after the two were questioned and cleared by police shortly after the killings.

Pierce was arrested Dec. 14, 1991, for carrying a .22-caliber revolver in Northcross Mall, near the yogurt shop. He told police that Welborn, who was with him during the arrest, had used the gun in the yogurt shop slayings.

Detectives questioned Welborn, who denied any involvement. They also questioned Pierce's girlfriend, who said she last saw Pierce the night of the slayings, along with Welborn and the other suspects, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, when they dropped her off at home at 11:15 p.m.

Police also collected slugs from the revolver but could not compare them to the damaged slugs from the girls' bodies, Johnson said Tuesday. After Pierce passed a polygraph test, they closed the file on him and Welborn.

In 1997, while reinvestigating the case, Johnson said he reopened that file.

"I found that it did not appear to have been closed justifiably," Johnson told prosecutor Gregg Cox. He said detectives initially had dismissed Pierce as perhaps having a "mental problem that caused him to make the story up."

Defense attorneys hammered on the fact that Welborn and Pierce never admitted guilt, although police said both insisted they don't remember much about that night. Both passed lie-detector tests and agreed to talk with police several times during the past few years. Pierce also underwent hypnosis in his lawyer's office, detectives testified.

Both Springsteen and Scott have confessed, police said, although each gave various accounts of his and the others' involvement. In September, police detective Douglas Skolaut tried to get Welborn to admit to being the lookout while the slayings were being committed.

"You hear it in your head every day," Skolaut said in the videotaped interview, which was played in court Tuesday. "You know you could have stopped it. Did you want it to end? Did you? Did you?

"I don't remember," Welborn said.

"Bull----, you do remember," Skolaut said. "You can hear those blood-curdling screams. You can hear the gunshots. You're hearing it right now. . . . You're hearing those girls scream and cry. You're never going to forget it."

After 25 minutes, Welborn asked to leave, and the interview was over.