Overview
- State District Judge Dayna Blazey issued the innocence findings after an hourslong hearing in Austin, clearing Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn.
- Prosecutors and Austin Police Detective Daniel Jackson told the court no evidence ties the men to the crime and identified Brashers as the sole perpetrator, with the district attorney’s office publicly accepting responsibility.
- Advanced testing matched DNA from beneath victim Amy Ayers’ fingernail to Brashers and a ballistics review connected shell-casing data to his other crimes; records show he was stopped near El Paso two days after the killings with a .380 handgun.
- Earlier prosecutions relied on confessions from 1999 interrogations that the men said were coerced; Springsteen’s and Scott’s convictions were overturned, Pierce’s charges were dismissed, Welborn was never indicted, and Pierce died in 2010.
- The finding clears the men’s records and opens paths to compensation and civil claims, as victims’ relatives thanked investigators for solving the case and defense attorneys urged reforms to interrogation practices.