Free Murdered Innocents by Corey Mitchell

behind Jennifer, stuck his gun to the back of her head, and pulled the trigger.
    Bang.
    Then Sarah.
    Bang.
    He saved Eliza for last.
    Bang.
    Just like that, they were all dead.
    Buddha stood in dumbfounded silence. Vick stared off into space. Hoefling leaned against a kitchen wall and slid down to the ground. Vick snapped out of it and walked over to Davis. He began to push the bodies of the dead girls together in a big pile.
    “What are we going to do with the bodies?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” replied his girlfriend.
    “Let’s burn them and get rid of them,” Davis asserted. “Go get that lighter fluid out of the car,” he ordered.
    “I ain’t moving.”
    Instead, Hoefling got up, left the yogurt shop, walked through the parking lot, crossed the street, opened the car door, grabbed the yellow plastic lighter fluid bottle, and walked back into the store. She handed the container to Davis, who poured it over the pile of bodies. He handed the bottle to Vick, who also doused the girls.
    Buddha left the building. He could not take it anymore. He ran toward the front door, through the parking lot, onto Rockwood Lane, up to Foster Lane, and then to the Metro bus stop, where he caught the number 3 Burnet Road bus. He had no destination in mind. He just wanted to get rid of the images that he witnessed.
    Buddha did not see Davis, Vick, or Hoefling again for almost ten days, until the couple stopped by to score some Ecstasy. The buy went down and nothing was said about the night at the yogurt shop. Everything seemed back to normal.
    Shawn “Buddha” Smith completed his disturbing recounting of the yogurt shop murders. Sergeant Jones asked that he commit his statement to paper. It would be the first of such written statements in the case.
    After Smith wrote and signed his statement, Jones asked if he could conduct a polygraph examination on him. Smith agreed, but asked during the preinterview, “What if my statement is a lie?” Nothing was said and the polygraph was administered.
    The results came back negative.
    Smith’s story was bullshit.
    When asked why he lied, Smith stated that after his conversation with Sergeant Polanco, he believed he was at the scene of the crime. He claimed that Polanco told him they had videotape of him at the yogurt shop. Smith also claimed that he and some buddies sat around one night at a party and discussed how they would have committed the crime. He blamed these factors for why he falsely confessed.
    Back to square one for Sergeant Jones.

CHAPTER 17
    Thursday, February 6, 1992
Interstate 35 and Seventh Street
Downtown Austin, Texas
     
    WHO KILLED THESE GIRLS ?
    The smiling faces of Amy Ayers, Jennifer Harbison, Sarah Harbison, and Eliza Thomas stared back at the passing motorists of Austin’s main thoroughfare that connects the state capital to San Antonio going south and to Dallas going north. The billboard, measuring twelve by twenty-four feet, donated courtesy of the Patrick Media Group, asked “Who Killed These Girls?” and listed the police task force telephone number. It also listed the amount of the reward money available to anyone who could provide tips in connection to the murders. It was one of twelve billboards the company donated for free.
    The parents of the girls were moved by the gesture. Through tears, Barbara Suraci insisted that the “murderers just have to come forward. They can’t look at this and not feel so much guilt and shame. They have to come forward.”
    Meanwhile, two months after the murders, Lieutenant Andy Waters, police spokesman, offered, “I think it will be solved. We don’t feel like this type of information can be covered up forever.”

CHAPTER 18
    Saturday, March 14, 1992
3:45 P.M.
     
    Shawn “Buddha” Smith gave the first written statement in the yogurt shop murders case. He also gave everyone a major headache. It would not be the last.
    Detective Mike Huckabay sat down with another criminal to discuss the yogurt shop case.