The city of Austin has reached a tentative $35 million settlement to resolve claims from four men who were wrongly accused of the 1991 murders at an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop. The agreement covers Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn, and the family of the late Maurice Pierce, all of whom spent years caught in a legal nightmare for a crime they did not commit. The settlement is one of the largest wrongful conviction payouts in Texas history.
The settlement follows a February ruling where a judge officially declared the men innocent, after modern DNA science was used to identify the true perpetrator. The crime involved the deaths of four victims: 13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, and sisters Jennifer, 17, and Sarah Harbison, 15. They were bound, gagged, and shot before the building was set on fire.
