Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Who Killed These Girls?; The Case of the Shapely Shadow

 


I watched the new Netflix documentary a few weeks ago on the Yogurt Shop Murders and they interviewed Lowry. When she mentioned she wrote a book I immediately said: "Book?" and picked up my phone to put it on hold. Luckily one of the libraries I frequent had a copy. 

On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were brutally murdered in the back of an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas. The killer(s) then set the building on fire. Firefighters arrived to put it out and in the wreckage found the girls' bodies. 

From a police detective's point of view, it was a nightmare. The evidence was either burned or washed away, the building was completely soaked. They did manage to collect some things that ended up helping them finally solve the case LAST WEEK (wild, just wild). Of course this book was written before the killer's identity was revealed. Advances in DNA technology led to the testing of material found under Amy's fingernails and matched a serial killer who committed suicide in 1999.  

It is, and remains, a truly heartbreaking story because those four young women on the cusp of life were not the only victims. The police ended up arresting four young men and two of them went to prison for ten years before being released due to lack of evidence and the way their trials were mishandled. They both made false confessions, which admittedly didn't look good for them, but they also both got a lot of the facts wrong. 

I know the pressure must have been immense and it's unfortunate that it happened that way and stole all those years from those boys. My dad hated the police and thought everyone in prison was innocent because all the police do is lie. I had so many arguments with him about how not *every* cop is crooked. When things like this happen it just reinforces that negative stereotype. 

Hopefully the families of Amy, Jennifer, Sarah, and Eliza have some peace now, knowing that the man who murdered their girls is dead. 


I needed something light and quick, so I turned to a perineal favorite, Perry Mason. I know, I just reread it in January of 2024, but that's okay. It was fun to revisit. Here's the review I posted then

I'm almost done with the Perry Mason books, which seems hard to believe. The ones from the 60s don't have as much detail or originality as the ones from the 50s. They're still pretty good, but not as good. 

Janice comes to Perry's office with a heavy suitcase. Her boss, Morley Theilman (okay, Gardner, you're just making up names now), asked her to put it in a specific locker. She wants to open it to see what's in it and kept one of the keys that came with it when she bought it for him. They open it up and the suitcase is crammed with $20 bills. Perry and Della quickly turn on separate dictation machines and start reading as many numbers as they can before Perry sends Della with Janice to deposit the suitcase in the locker and send the key to an A.B. Vidal. Janice thinks Vidal is blackmailing her boss (she found a blackmail letter in his trash). 

Janice tells Perry that Theilman is missing, and naturally he turns up murdered (shockingly, neither Perry nor Paul find the body). Janice is a suspect, as are Theilman's first and second wives (the man got around). The key to the whole thing is the $20 bill a cab driver in Vegas is carrying, one of the bills from the suitcase. Who gave it to him and how did they get it?