Men wrongfully accused of yogurt shop murders declared innocent

Crime Men once wrongfully accused of Texas yogurt shop murders are declared innocent after suspect identified Updated on: May 29, 2026 / 10:26 AM EDT / CBS/AP Add CBS News on Google Case update: On May 28,  the City of Austin agreed to pay a settlement of $35 million to be split among the men. Four men who were wrongfully accused of the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders were declared innocent by a Texas judge on Thursday, formally clearing their names in a courtroom for the first time since the killings of four teenage girls that haunted the city for decades."You are innocent," state District Judge Dayna Blazey said during a hearing in a packed Austin courtroom.The declaration was aimed at closing a dark chapter for the men and their families, and for a city that was shaken by the brutality of the crime and investigators' inability to solve it for decades. Blazey called her order "an obligation to the rule of law and the obligation to the dignity of the individual."Cold case detectives announced last year that they had connected the killings to a suspect who died in a 1999 standoff with police in Missouri.Two of the original four suspects, Michael Scott and Forrest Welborn, were in the packed courtroom with family members to hear prosecutors tell the judge that they are innocent. Robert Springsteen, who was initially convicted and spent several years on death row, did not attend. Maurice Pierce died in 2010."Over 25 years ago, the state prosecuted four innocent men ... (for) one of the worst crimes Austin has ever seen," Travis County First Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger said at the opening of the hearing. "We could not have been more wrong." Pictured are Maurice Pierce, Forrest Welborn, Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott.  CBS News/AP A declaration of "actual innocence" is a key step for the men and their families to seek financial compensation for the years they spent in jail or in prison. "All four lived under the specter of th...