You Never Can Forget: Serial Killer Robert Eugene Brashers, the Yogurt Shop Murders, and the Burger Chef Murders

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01] Hi, I'm Anya, and today we are going to be discussing the Burger Chef murders in conjunction with a serial killer we've been covering a lot lately. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of violence and murder, as well as rape and sexual violence and suicide.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_01] So this is kind of two worlds colliding for us, I think, because we have obviously the case that we began this show with is the Burger Chef murders. This is the quadruple homicide that occurred in Speedway, Indiana and Johnson County, Indiana technically, in 1978, and that was the first case we ever covered.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_01] A case we've been dedicating a lot of resources to lately is the Yogurt Shop Murders, or specifically the crimes of the man who perpetrated the Yogurt Shop Murders in Austin, Texas in 1991. That man's name, Robert Eugene Brashers.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00] And I remember, Anya, one of the reasons we started the Murder Sheet and one of the reasons why our original focus was on other restaurant homicides was because we wondered if the people responsible for the Burger Chef murders, if they had committed any other murders. So we wanted to look at a bunch of other restaurant homicides to see if there were any similarities or dissimilarities to some of the things that happened in Burger Chef.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00] And I remember one of the cases we would sometimes wonder about was this Yogurt Shop case. Was it possible that the person who did Burger Chef also did the Yogurt Shop? Now, all these years later, we now know who did the Yogurt Shop. And so we can discuss that question with a bit more specificity.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00] And I think one thing to remember, Anya, is that when you're looking at these cases and when you're acting as an investigator, either in an official capacity or just as a listener, you have to walk a very fine line.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_00] You have to be open to every possibility. Because when you're not, then you get blinders on and you might miss something. But you also have to be skeptical. Being open to everything doesn't mean you have to accept that everything possible is equally likely. So you have to be skeptical, but you have to be open.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00] And with that in mind, I think it would be interesting to talk about whether or not we think the same person is responsible for Yogurt Shop and Burger Chef.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely. And I think you just summed up my opinion about this possible theory. It's open, but skeptical. And I think that's a good way to be. I think sometimes I started off very open to everything in Burger Chef. I've gotten kind of jaded, gotten kind of burned out. And over time have become a little bit. Sometimes I feel like when I see a new theory or theories kind of batting around that don't have a lot of specificity to them, I kind of become like the annoyed mom driving around my kids who are screaming for McDonald's.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01] And I say, you know, we got food in the fridge at home. And I sometimes feel that way about Burger Chefs. We have plenty of decent theories that already exist. But I think there's enough to this one that we have to consider it and we have to talk about it and we have to highlight what we don't know and what we do know and what maybe is something that points toward this theory and maybe some things that point away from it. So we're going to get into all that now. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_00] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01] And this is You Never Can Forget. Serial killer Robert Eugene Brashears, the yogurt shop murders and the Burger Chef murders.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00] Anya, before we get into the nitty and gritty of this, I wanted to mention that there's... We are going to, I think, after I finish talking, you're going to get like maybe a 30-second summary of each of these cases and then we're going to look at it more in depth.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_01] Might be longer than 30 seconds, but yeah.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00] Some of you out there may be saying, well, what is this Burger Chef case you speak of? It's a very, very complicated case. And one of the things that makes it complicated and one of the things that make it so frustrating is that I could sit here, Anya can sit here, and we could make a pretty good case against maybe five or six completely different groups of people. But we couldn't make a great case against any of them. So there's a lot of potential suspects.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00] It's really hard to know what to believe. Some people certainly have been lying. It's hard to know who's lying and why. It's a very complicated case. If you want just the basics beyond what we're about to discuss, I believe we once did kind of a primer episode, which Anya is going to include a link to in our show notes.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_00] We've also, God knows we've done a bunch of episodes about this case, getting into it really in a granular level. And I think we also have a list of those, don't we?

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I'm not trying to brag, but I feel like our miniseries on this, our kind of ongoing miniseries of which this episode is a part of, is very in-depth and probably where you're going to get a lot of information on Burger Chef and a lot of the different types of theories and different kind of speculations that have occurred over the years. So if that's something you're interested in, I've compiled a playlist to make it easier to listen to. I will link to that. And I'll also link to the primer episode that Kevin mentioned. But thank you for saying that.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01] And I'll also include a link to our playlist on the murders committed by Robert Eugene Brashears, which is also still ongoing, and interviews with some of the people that kind of helped investigate him. That is going to be something where you can kind of get caught up on what he's done and whatnot. But this episode, I'm going to try to keep it kind of pretty specific as far as the crimes of just kind of discussing the basics and the circumstances of each one.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_01] And after I do that, I was thinking it would be good to maybe start with a discussion of some of the similarities and some of the key differences between what these crimes look like on the surface. Does that... Yeah, that makes sense. Sounds good. Okay, great. So let's start with the one that happened first, and that is, of course, the Burger Chef murders.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01] So the victims in that were 20-year-old Jane Freight, the assistant manager at the Burger Chef restaurant on Crawfordsville Road in Speedway, Indiana, which is, of course, a suburb of Indianapolis where the Speedway is. Quite literally, the Indy 500 happens there. So she's 20 years old. She's working there as the assistant manager, and they are closing the restaurant. So who is the crew of the restaurant?

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_01] That would be Ruth Ellen Shelton, and she is 17 years old. And she is one of the kids working there. Just a normal, right? Like, she's just like... My heart goes out to Ruth. Ruth was really into computers. She'd probably be, like, super rich right now because, like, she was a kid who was always into that, always into the tech, the math.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_01] Very smart. Danny Davis, 16 years old. He was an aspiring airman, I believe, and he was also, I think, a talented amateur photographer. He was in his school's Latin club, so I was a Latin student in high school, so I was related to that. He was 16 years old. Mark Flemons was 16. He was a kid. Very charismatic. Very fun. He was kind of known to be, like, doing, like, karate moves sometimes in the restaurant. He was a great kid, too.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_01] So all these kids, they disappear from this restaurant. Okay? They vanish overnight as they're supposed to be closing. Usually, it's considered that they disappeared between 11 p.m. and midnight, somewhere in there. No one knows exactly for sure. On, you know, between November 17th, 1978 and November 18th, 1978. Unfortunately, it's not treated very seriously at first.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_01] It's, like, almost treated like, hey, maybe they're off goofing off, even though that makes no sense and that's not how people usually behave. The restaurant is found with, like, coins on the floor. The girls' purses are apparently still in the restaurant. It all looks very bad, but it's not treated that seriously. On that Sunday, the bodies of all four victims are discovered in the woods of Johnson County.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_01] To give you a sense, Speedway, Indiana, is on the west side of Indianapolis. It's, like, adjacent to the west side of Indianapolis. Johnson County is to the south of Indianapolis. So they are transported across county lines. I think you and I feel like it was probably about a 20-minute drive. Does that sound right? Maybe a little bit longer. And they're abducted from the restaurant, driven to Johnson County. They're each murdered. I will briefly discuss how they were each murdered because I think that's important.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01] Jane was stabbed in the heart and with such force that the blade broke off inside of her. So she was stabbed twice. Was it twice? She was, like, she was stabbed in the heart, so that's what killed her. Ruth and Danny were each shot multiple times in the head and neck with a .38 caliber gun. And that is how they died.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_01] It's almost like as if they were shot execution style while lying down, face down on the ground. Mark was unfortunately the most bizarre and haunting, I think, in some ways in terms of manner of death. He died from essentially asphyxiating on his own blood. He suffered some blunt force trauma to his face. Fell backwards in such a way that it almost positioned his head in such a way that he drowned in his own blood,

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01] which is absolutely horrifying, but also bizarre because the implication is that if he had landed differently, he might have survived, in which case, like, why would the killers leave that to such a chance? But anyways, that is how they each died. There have been many suspects over the years, but no one has ever been convicted. This remains a cold case and a case that haunts Indiana. Now, let's go to the Austin Yogurt Shop murders, occurred in Austin, Texas.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_01] This was December 6, 1991. The restaurant was I Can't Believe It's Yogurt, which was on West Anderson Lane in Austin, Texas. And again, four individuals are murdered in this. 17-year-old Eliza Thomas and 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison were two young employees who worked at this yogurt shop. And Sarah Harbison was Jennifer's younger sister. She was 15.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01] And Amy Ayers was Sarah's 13-year-old friend. And so the two younger girls were visiting the two older girls. I think there was going to be a slumber party of some sort. They're hanging out. And they are found inside the restaurant. What initially attracts—so before midnight, it's noticed that the restaurant is on fire.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_01] And when firefighters and police and whatnot respond, they make a horrifying discovery in the back of the shop. The girls are burned. They're nude. And they're bound and gagged with their own clothing. And they've been shot. And they've been shot to death.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_01] In terms of the caliber of the gun, I believe there was some discrepancy between them. And so I think it was that Harbison—Jennifer, the Harbison sisters and Eliza Thomas were each shot. And they were all located near each other. Whereas Amy Ayers was somewhat separate from the others.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_01] I believe they were all shot with a .22 caliber gun. And then maybe Amy was also shot with a .380 caliber pistol as well. So some different treatment of Amy, therefore. So those are—and also I think there was obviously signs of sexual assault with them. Now, evidence obviously was problematic because there was a fire.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01] But ultimately, that crime was conclusively—points to being perpetrated by serial killer Robert Eugene Brashears. And I can get into a timeline of what he did. Or we can—why don't we just start off with talking about the similarities here and the differences?

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_00] I actually—before we start talking about the similarities and differences, there's a couple of points I want to make. First of all, you always, in a situation like this, you start looking for reasons to exclude people. And one reason to potentially exclude Mr. Brashears as a suspect in the Bergeschev case would be if he was, like, way too young to do it.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_00] If in 1978 he was, like, 8 years old, I mean extreme, then he's probably not a good suspect for the case. But correct me if I'm wrong, but in 1978 he was about 20?

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, that is correct. So he would have been 20 years old at that time. He was born March 13, 1958. He would have been 20. And frankly, if you look at crime stats, young men are a problem.

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[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_00] For instance, Ted Bundy, we don't know. He's a guy that kills people or kill people. I'm not sure he was in Indiana in the 70s. Was there any sort of a connection between Mr. Brashears and the state of Indiana?

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_01] Yes.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_00] Can you tell me what that is?

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely. So one thing and so we've interviewed Robert Eugene Beshears is one of his daughters, Deborah. Wonderful woman. She's somebody who's very much open to telling her father's story so that she can raise awareness and let other people know, hey, he might have done more crimes because police seem to think it's possible he did more crimes. So she's very open about it. And we spoke with her. I'll include links to that in our show notes. But she pointed this out.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01] And I also confirmed this by looking at newspaper records on by accessing the South Bend Tribune on newspapers dot com, a terrific resource. So the South Bend Tribune issue that went out Thursday, June 3rd, 1976. I talked about how the John Adams High School in that city graduated May 30th. And Robert Eugene Beshears is listed as one of those graduates. The full name, Robert Eugene Brashears.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01] So she confirmed also that the family did have ties to South Bend, Indiana. She believed that not only did Robert, her father, go up and graduate from John Adams High School, but that. So he had an older brother named Doulis Woodrow Beshears Jr. He's an older brother. And he also apparently went up to Indiana with the family. So now I want to point something out. So that links him to Indiana.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01] Now, South Bend is quite, you know, it's a distant South Bend is up in the very northern part of of Indiana. And it's a distant South Bend. So I don't know what the driving distance between these things are, but it's certainly considerable. Yeah. I mean, I'm actually going to look that up. So South Bend to Speedway driving is apparently about two, almost three hours.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01] So, again, like that's not nothing. I mean, Midwesterners, we drive a lot, right? We're running around in our cars.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_00] It's not nothing, but it's pretty close to nothing. Because let's be honest, Anya, if you look at any like two or three year period, literally millions of people passed through Indiana, live in Indiana. And just like any other state, a percentage of those people are either murderers or capable of violence and murder. So it doesn't really mean that much. It's just a reason not to immediately exclude.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_01] I want to point out, though, also, Robert Eugene Brashears is a figure. When we look at serial killers, you have serial killers who like have a specific territory where they hunt and go for prey. And Robert Eugene Brashears was very much a nomad. He was a rover. He was going to all kinds of states. He didn't really have any connection to Austin, Texas, when he did this horrible thing to these four young girls. But he was still there.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_01] Some have speculated maybe he was on his father lived in out west at that time. Maybe he was on his way to there. But like he would go to different places and do stuff, even places he didn't have a connection. So as far as like a lot of things make it hard to rule out because it's like he's not bound by geography in the way that other serial killers may be.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_00] So another way we can either potentially include or exclude them, or at least are talking about percentages, is to look at the crimes and discuss how similar or dissimilar they are. With that in mind, I again want to make an obvious point. We don't live in a world where people necessarily always commit all their murders in the exact same way.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_00] But when we look at Rashear's crime, correct me if this is not your impression, there seems to be a lot of similarity in how he committed those crimes. So I potentially would find it very, very interesting if we were to look and do a close comparison of yogurt shop and burger shop and if there were a lot of similarities between them.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I want to talk about the similarities that I feel are important first, and then we can talk about some of the key differences because there are some pretty substantive differences here. So I guess let's start with location. Obviously, I can't believe it's yogurt and burger chef are both essentially restaurants there. They sell food and they are staffed with a number of young employees and young people within the shop.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_01] So in terms of the location, this type of retail store, you know, one's a burger joint. One's more of like kind of capitalizing on the frozen yogurt trend that was a big deal. But they still both sell food. And I think they're sort of similar in that way.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00] And I guess they're both tend to be staffed by young people.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, those kinds of things often are not always, but often. Now, the victimology, let's talk about that. We talked about the young people. The yogurt shop victims, the two were 17 and not much older for Burger Chef. You had Jane was the assistant manager. She was only 20 and then three teenage employees.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01] So, you know, the yogurt shop victims trended younger with Amy Ayers being 13. Youngest of Burger Chef were Danny and Mark at 16. But, you know, there's young people who are being targeted with this violence. And in both cases, an entire crew of employees, two in the case of yogurt shop and four in the case of Burger Chef.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_01] So this is someone who's bold enough to come in and say, I'm going to take all of these employees or overpower them or whatever. I'm going to confront a group of people. In terms of when this happened, there's similarities. I believe both restaurants closed. Burger Chef closed around 11 p.m. that night. Yogurt shop closed around 11 p.m. that night. And what we're seeing is it's the cover of darkness.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_01] It's evening time. It's taking advantage potentially of closing procedures. It's ambushing people when they're trying to get out of there. And that's very similar. And then you have the types of killings. Well, first of all, you have four victims. All four people in the shop, in the store at a certain time are murdered. And you have in Texas, you have four.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_01] First of all, in both cases, you have different murder weapons being used. There's a lot of diversity and disparity with Burger Chef. There's not as much with yogurt shop, but you do have an additional gun being used on airs, on Amy. And you have in both cases, some of the victims are shot. All four are shot to death in yogurt shop in Texas. And then two out of four are shot to death in Indiana. So I think that's notable.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_01] That's similar. And then, unfortunately, you have the tragic situation of evidence being destroyed in both cases. In Texas, I think it was a little bit more understandable. The shop is on fire. They have to fight the fire first. Fighting a fire with water destroys evidence. You know, and fire destroys evidence.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_00] But in Burger Chef, the evidence was basically destroyed or lost through the negligence, for lack of a better word, of the investigators. So while the end result in both cases is the same, that evidence was destroyed or lost, I think it's important to stress there was a key difference in that in yogurt shop, the evidence was lost because of the actions of the killer.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_01] Yes.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_00] And in Burger Chef, it was lost basically because of the chance.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_01] In terms of similarities, though, both crimes haunted these communities. Whenever you have four young people senselessly killed in these circumstances, brutally killed, haunting to, you know, it's been haunting to that part of Indiana and Indiana as a whole. It's in certainly yogurt shop haunted Texas, haunted Austin in particular.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01] Both crimes as a result of the publicity around them and the kind of horror of it have generated many, many tips, many of which were most of which I imagine are totally useless.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_00] So I'm just going to give you my opinion here, Anya, about those similarities. They are similarities, certainly. I don't find them terribly compelling because I think, unfortunately, we live in a world where a lot of people prey on those they think are weak.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_00] And I think if you're someone who wants to rob or hurt someone, it's not unusual for you to look at a time when, oh, the people I'm interested in, they're going to be by themselves. They're going to be in a vulnerable spot at night with nobody around them. I think there's probably a lot of crimes that happen with young people being targeted at closing time at restaurants.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, we certainly have made a whole list of instances where that's happened. I don't know if I would say it's common, but it's something that does happen. I agree with you. Many of these similarities feel superficial and largely linked to the fact that both are retail establishments. But what we're going to go into is many aspects of these crimes do not align.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01] So I'm going to say that, but then I'm going to turn all that on its head at the end because there's a factor here that I've kind of alluded to that I think kind of bothers me. Bothers me. And I'll be curious if it bothers you, too.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_00] I don't even know what you're going to say. Have you told me this in the past?

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_01] Yes.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_00] Okay.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_00] I don't remember it.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. There's something about this that, hmm, but I can't get it out of my head. But I agree with you. I think a lot of this is somewhat superficial.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_00] Talk about the difference.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_01] Let's talk about the differences. Is there substantial? Okay. So location. Austin, Texas versus Speedway, Indiana. And then also Johnson County, Indiana. Obviously, these are happening in two totally different locations. There's also the geography of the crimes. So in Burger Chef, it's very unusual. But the employees, four employees, are abducted from Speedway, Indiana, from this restaurant as they're trying to close the restaurant.

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_01] And transported to another county. And then murdered essentially in this rural wooded area.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_00] And that suggests, it doesn't guarantee, but it certainly suggests that the person or persons responsible for the crime have some sort of knowledge of the area. If I'm in Indianapolis suburb and I decide to take people out to a rural area, I need to know where I'm going. I need to know where that rural area is.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_00] So it suggests that whoever did it had some familiarity with the area.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_01] It's also a baffling. It's baffling because it's like such a risk. Four people abducted and brought out somewhere else. You are enhancing the possibility that you will be caught doing this.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_00] And in Yogurt Shop, everything happened at the restaurant, correct?

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_01] That is correct. All four victims are forced into the back rooms and murdered there. So they don't leave the restaurant. There is no, there is an abduction in the sense that anything is an abduction when I'm, if I, if I force somebody at gunpoint to go from one room to another, that's an abduction. But there's no abduction as far as like leaving the premises. So that's a pretty substantial difference because that is a hallmark of Burger Chef.

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm also going to talk later about how that's also keeping people in one place is a hallmark of the crimes of Robert Eugene Brashears. I'm not aware of any case where he removed somebody from one location and brought them to an entirely new location as far as moving them like in a car. Obviously, it's different when we're talking. I mean, I mentioned the definition of abduction is pretty sensitive. But when I say abduction, I really mean like I'm taking you from one house to this location over here.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_01] Victimology, there are some differences. I think they're worth noting. In Texas, you had all female victims. All of them were teenage girls. In Indiana, you had two female victims, teenage girl in Ruth and then a young adult woman in Jane. But Mark and Danny were two teenage boys.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_01] So I don't really think that's a huge deal in the sense that serial killers take Dennis Rader, for example. He is, of course, BTK, but I'm not going to refer to him by his stupid little name that he gave himself. He's just Dennis Rader. And he was a guy who was attracted to women and girls. He was an awful, evil, evil man. But he would kill and attack men as well, even though his target and his preference were women.

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_01] So there are cases of serial killers who eliminate the men to get to the women, but even though the men aren't their predominant target. So to me, that's kind of like it's worth noting, but it's not the biggest deal in the world. In Texas, all of the victims were white, I believe. In Indiana, three of them were white. And then Mark was African-American. Again, not necessarily the biggest deal, but something to note.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_01] In Texas, two of the victims were employees and then two of them were visiting. One of them was the sister of one of the employees and then her friend. In Indiana, it was all employees. All of those are pretty superficial, but I want to be thorough. In terms of, you know, the events of what happened to these victims, there were no signs of sexual assault that we are aware of in the Burger Chef murders on any of the victims.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_01] No signs of anything like that happening. That's obviously not the case in Austin where the whole thing has all the hallmarks of a sexually motivated crime. The victims are stripped naked, bound with their own clothing, show signs of sexual assault. It's obviously a sexually motivated crime. There's no real indication that that is the case in Indiana. In Indiana, the restaurant is abandoned.

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_01] And in Austin, the restaurant is set on fire. So like destroying the crime scene, right? In Indiana, the crime scene was destroyed by chance, as you mentioned. In Indiana, there's no evidence that any of the victims were bound or restrained with ligatures in any way.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_01] That's notable because if you tie somebody up, they, even if you untie them post-mortem or whatever, it leaves marks on your skin. And there's just no indication that we've ever heard about that any of the Burger Chef victims bore any of those hallmarks of being bound.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_01] Whereas in Austin, the victims were bound and gagged with their own clothing, which again is something that you see in some other Brashear's crimes. So that's a notable difference.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, so I think it's, I don't mean to sound wishy-washy, but I think it is important to point out that if theoretically, Brashear's did Burger Chef, there would be one of his earliest, if not his earliest crime. And so it's possible that he might have refined some of his techniques and done things in a more methodical, colder, crueler way as time went on.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_00] But for me, the single most important difference is the lack of sexual assault of the victims in the Burger Chef case. Because his other crimes seem to have taken place primarily to sexually assault the victim or victims. And in the Burger Chef case, these victims, as much as I hate to say it, they were under the control of the killer or killers for an extended period prior to death.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_00] And we don't know how long they may, we don't know how long the killer or killers may have remained with them after death. And yet there's no indication that any of them were sexually assaulted. And if Mr. Brashears was the killer, I tend to believe that would have been a sexual assault.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01] I think that's a fair point. And I'll also add the murder weapons, even when we're talking about firearms, don't add up. So you had a .22 caliber gun and a .380 caliber gun in Texas. And in Indiana, it's a .38 caliber gun. Now, listen, you can get a new gun. But I think that's worth at least noting. I agree with you.

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_01] I think these are pretty, I think for me, the thing that stands out, as you said, is the lack of sexual assault or the lack of indication of that even being emotive about this. Brashears killed for sexual reasons. That's very clear when you, and we're going to go through his crimes and you're going to look at the pattern and we're going to look at the pattern together and we're going to see these are all very clearly sexually motivated.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_01] Even when he's going into retail establishments where you could hypothetically steal from those, it's very clear that he is predominantly a sexually motivated killer. There's no indication that a sexually motivated killer did Burger Chef. I'm not saying it's impossible that that's what was the case, but I'm saying we don't have any evidence for that that would point to that. And we, in fact, have things that point away from that, like the lack of any sort of sexual assault evidence.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_01] So, okay, so these are some, when Detective Dan Jackson of the Austin Police Department did a press conference announcing Brashears' culpability in the Austin Yogurt Shop murders, he actually kind of went over helpfully the modus operandi that he was able to identify for Brashears. Which, as you mentioned, serial killers do not necessarily start with a fixed MO. It evolves over time, but you can see the evolution.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_01] You can see it evolve usually. So, these were the things that they mentioned were hallmarks of Brashears' crimes. Ligatures used to tie up victims, often the victim's own clothing. The use of .22 or .380 caliber firearms. Sexual assault of the victims. Targeting young girls. So, oftentimes, the youngest member of the group would be the target of the most violence and the sexual assault for Brashears.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_01] And, you know, in cases where he targeted retail establishments, he would often try to enter at night or at closing. So, all of that is what we're looking for.

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_00] So, shall we quickly go through some of his other crimes and see how similar or dissimilar they appear to Brashears?

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. I'll just kind of rattle these off if that's okay. Yeah, why don't you do that? So, November 11th, 1985, Port St. Lucie, Florida. He basically meets a woman named Michelle Wilkerson at a bar. He attacks. He invites her out. So, this is the one time he kind of transports someone. But it's more of like a lure. They kind of are connecting maybe a romantic situation. She doesn't seem to want to have a romantic encounter.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_01] And he attacks and shoots her. She survives. And he is convicted of attempted second-degree murder. And that is what happens. And so, 85 is obviously about seven years after Burger Chef. Doesn't sound at all like Burger Chef. In April of 1990, he gets into the apartment in Greenville, South Carolina of Genevieve or Jenny. Is it tricky? She's 28 years old.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_01] He sexually assaults, beats, strangles her, and then dumps her in the bathtub. He's later connected to this by DNA. So, again, doesn't sound like Burger Chef. He's going into a residence. And it's obviously a sexual assault. December 6th, 1991, that's when Yogurt Shop happens. And then in March 11th, 1997, he invades a home in Memphis, Tennessee.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_01] Three other women are present. He ties them up. He ties up a 14-year-old girl. And he rapes her. He's connected to that later via DNA. And that is actually the case that breaks everything open. March 28th, 1998, about a year later, he goes to the home of Sherry and Megan Shearer. Sherry is 38. Her daughter Megan is 12. It's in Portageville, Missouri.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_01] He shoots both of them to death and horrifically sexually assaults Megan. He also bound these victims with their own clothing. So, again, this is a private residence. Later that same night, he goes to nearby Dyersburg, Tennessee. He tries to push his way into the residence of a 25-year-old woman who has children. And she fights him off. He shoots her, but he flees. She survives that.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_01] Then you have Linda Marie Rutledge in Lexington, Kentucky. That's November 7th, 1998. She's 43 years old. She works at her family's Nixon Hearing Aid Center in that city. He kills her and also sets fire to the building. So that's the one that's the closest to Yogurt Shop. Then he gets into a standoff with police in 1999.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_01] He ends up dying in January of that year after getting into a standoff in a motel room in Kennet, Missouri. So then he dies. His reign of terror ends. And that's it. Okay. So, obviously, what would you say? All of that sounds very different.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_00] All of that sounds very different.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01] Not at all similar.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_00] Not at all similar.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_01] Can I throw out...

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_00] Throw it out. I'm curious. You say you've already told me this, but I forget. What is it?

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_01] The curveball is Doulis Woodrow Brashears Jr., his older brother. I remember that. Okay. His older brother is somebody who also killed. He murdered Alabama State Trooper David Temple in, I believe it was 1990... I'm sorry, 1979. And that whole situation, he also had a connection to Indiana.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_01] But anyways, that crime occurred September 13th, 1979. He and an accomplice went to a used car lot on Highway 31 South in Decatur, Alabama. It was a place called Sandy Motors. They wanted to steal a 280Z Datsun automobile. They arrive around 3 p.m. together in a brown and beige Chevrolet Malibu. They talk to manager Robert Hogan.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01] And they kind of do this thing where they're like, oh, we just need to call someone and make sure everything's okay. And then they come back in at one point and bind and gag Hogan, put him on the bathroom floor, lock him up, take his money, about $320. They threatened him with a gun and everything. Or maybe a knife, actually. And yeah, they put a pistol in his back. They had a knife.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01] And then they flee with this car. And unfortunately, 36-year-old Trooper David Temple, he gets the call about this robbery. Hogan got himself untied after about 10 minutes, called it in. And there's a shootout with Temple. And I think, I mean, actually, I think Brashears was kind of just shooting at him when he got pulled over. Temple dies.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_01] And ultimately, Brashears, Woodrow Brashears is killed, or Woody Brashears is killed in a later, you know, other police officers respond and he gets into a shootout. Almost kills another police officer, but that police officer survives. And he's killed at that point.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01] So, to me, if Woody Brashears Jr. was more of your typical robber kind of guy, that's where it's kind of a sticking point for me. If he's not rape-motivated, but he and his brother are trying to knock over a Burger Chef, that's a little bit more plausible for me if he's in the equation. Because we know he's a robber. Although, frankly, his targeting of this used car lot, it sounds different to me than Burger Chef.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_01] He did not kill the manager. He tied him up instead. It just seems, it seems, I think it's, I don't think Brashears, my opinion is I don't think Brashears is a great suspect. I kind of say no. But the Indiana connection is just a little bit interesting to me. The brother being a robber, too, we, I tend to think more than one person did Burger Chef. I don't think that's necessarily true, but I think it's likely.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_01] And could I see a young 20-year-old Robert Brashears being like, I'll just do it with my brother, who he idolized, according to his daughter, Deborah. He idolized his older brother. They were two peas in a pod. They were both criminals. Could I see him deferring to him and not giving in to his impulse to rape victims? Maybe. I don't know.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_01] The other caveat I want to say before we go, when we were talking to Deborah, she said something really interesting. She said that she mentioned his South Bend connection. She mentioned his kind of timeline.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_01] And then in the second episode that we did with her, which I will link to in these show notes, she said that there was a family rumor that her father told somebody that he and Woody kidnapped a woman in Indiana and that they liked her vehicle so much that they kept it. Because they knew someone in the DMV and were able to change the tag, the VIN number, everything.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01] That he and his brother did that crime together. I asked her, did they kill her? Did they just kidnap her? Did they just steal her car? She says, that's all I know. Like, this is a very vague rumor. She acknowledges, like, we don't, she's trying to find out more about this. That also doesn't match Burger Chef, but it certainly gives rise the idea that they may have been doing crimes together in Indiana. I do have a case in mind for what that could be if it is true, but I'm not going to speculate at this time because I don't want to cause any pain to the family.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_00] So basically, we're in a situation where we cannot definitively say that Brashears was not involved in this. I remember one detective often tells us the only way you can clear one person of being involved in a crime is to implicate someone else and get a conviction. We can't definitively clear this person. There are some tantalizing things. I think there are probably hundreds of people where there are probably tantalizing things.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_00] So I'm not going to sit here and say he absolutely didn't do it, but I'm going to say he's very, very low on my own list.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_01] He's very low on my list. I would love to talk to people who knew Brashears in Indiana or can link him to more locations in Indiana. If that's you, if you knew this guy, if you're from South Bend, if your mom went to South Bend and graduated in the 70s, please contact us. We want to know more. We want to trace this guy. There's enough here to interest me.

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_01] But for me, Robert Eugene Brashears is a very unlikely suspect in Burger Chef, but he's one that I don't inherently dismiss because of his brother and because of his Indiana connections. But ultimately, this crime does not look like his other crimes. And it's a long shot, but it's one that I think I'm comfortable looking into in the future. Anyways, thank you all so much for listening.

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

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