Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 5, 2025
The first of four episodes of A24’s true-crime docuseries The Yogurt Shop Murders aired this week, spotlighting a case I had never even heard of: the brutal, still-unsolved 1991 murders of four girls in an Austin, Texas yogurt shop. It’s a harrowing watch, but — like Prime Video’s One Night in Idaho — it approaches the material the way true crime should: centering the victims, giving the survivors space to speak, and, more than three decades later, allowing them a path, however narrow, toward healing.
For the parents, though, healing feels out of reach. It’s devastating enough to lose a child; it’s another level entirely when the loss is tied to a crime this horrific, especially one that, technically, remains unsolved. Later episodes will likely revisit the trial of two suspects whose convictions were overturned after it was determined their confessions were coerced. No physical evidence ever linked them to the scene.
But the series, produced by Emma Stone and her husband Dave McCary, isn’t focused on solving the case. Its interest lies in the wreckage left behind; not just the families but the detectives, the crime scene techs, the community. Amy Ayers, 13; Eliza Thomas, 17; Jennifer Harbison, 17; and Jennifer’s sister, Sarah, 15, were each shot in the head. At least one was raped. The killer then set fire to the store. By the time firefighters extinguished the blaze, most of the evidence was gone — no fingerprints, little usable DNA.
The cops who arrived at the scene were never the same. The footage was so disturbing that A24 paid for therapy for members of the production team. Director Margaret Brown told Variety: “My editorial team was like, ‘You can never look at [the photos].’ They were all so traumatized. I’ve seen some of them, but not all, because [the team] said, ‘They will haunt you for the rest of your life.’”
It’s that haunting. It’s that random. I found myself texting my daughters — away on an overnight trip — multiple times just to make sure they were OK. I kept thinking about the moment one parent had to call another with the news. The screams she had to listen to on the other end. It’s beyond comprehension.
This is a real-life horror film — not for the faint of heart — but it never veers into exploitation. Margaret Brown approaches the material with care, intent on showing how this crime burrowed into Austin’s identity. Even people who weren’t alive in 1991 feel its weight.
It’s also a riveting watch. People hollowed out by 30 years of grief recount what happened in raw, wrenching detail. For some, it’s a chance at closure, if such a thing is even possible in cases that never find justice. Maybe the documentary will unearth new evidence. Maybe it will rattle someone’s conscience. I don’t know.
I just know I can’t look away. Not because I need to see the killer caught (though I do), but because I need these people, somehow, to find peace.
‘The Yogurt Shop Murders’ airs Sundays on HBO Max.
