Forrest Welborn was 15 when four teenage girls were killed at an Austin yogurt shop. For three decades, he lived as a suspect.

He was not. A judge declared him innocent in February. In May, the city of Austin agreed to pay him. The deal also covers two other men and the family of a fourth.

But Welborn, now 50, says the harm is still there. His story is the subject of a new Texas Monthly investigation called "The Yogurt Shop Killer Who Wasn't."

"I'm not free," he told the magazine. "If I was free, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

The crime shook Texas. On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were killed inside a yogurt shop in Austin. The shop was set on fire. The case went cold for years.

Texas Monthly found that police first questioned Welborn in December 1991. He was 15. He never confessed.

In October 1999, police arrested four young men. They were Welborn, Maurice Pierce, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen. Welborn was charged with capital murder, the most serious murder charge in Texas.

Texas Monthly found that Welborn was accused only of being the driver. His friend Pierce, under police questioning, had named him.

"I was never going to lie about something like that," Welborn told the magazine.

In 2000, a second grand jury did not indict him. That means the jury did not find enough proof to take him to trial. All charges against him were dropped.

The other men did not get off so easy. A jury found Springsteen guilty and sent him to death row. A jury gave Scott life in prison. Then the state's top criminal court threw out both verdicts. That came in 2006 and 2007. The two men walked free on June 24, 2009.

Pierce spent more than three years in jail. His charges were dropped in 2003. In December 2010, an Austin police officer shot and killed him during a fight. Texas Monthly says Pierce cut the officer with a knife he grabbed from the officer's belt.

The arrest had already cost him a lot. He ran a car repair shop in Lockhart. When he came back to it after his arrest, his tools had been stolen. He had to close the shop, Texas Monthly found.

Dropped charges did not end it for Welborn. His driver's license was suspended, he said, but he drove to work anyway. He said cops kept pulling him over and taking him to jail. He said a man once pulled a rifle on him at a laundromat and called him a murderer.

He drank to cope. It started in the early 1990s, after police first questioned him. It went on for years. "Alcohol. A lot of alcohol," he told the magazine.

Then the case broke open. On September 26, 2025, Austin police said DNA tied the murders to Robert Eugene Brashers. Texas Monthly said Brashers had hurt women and young girls in five other states. He died in 1999.

On February 19, 2026, Judge Dayna Blazey declared all four men innocent. Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza told the men he was sorry.

"To Forrest Welborn, on behalf of the office of the Travis County District Attorney: I am sorry for what you have been through. You are innocent and were wrongfully accused," Garza said, according to his office.

Welborn did not speak in court. His lawyer, Steve Goodson, read his words.

"The APD detectives made my best friend implicate me in this heinous crime, and I lost the one friend that I had," the statement said.

In May, the city of Austin agreed to pay $35 million to the three living men and to Pierce's family. Texas Monthly found that Welborn would get a little less than $5 million.

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement with those who were wrongly accused and wrongly convicted in this case and hope that this settlement brings a sense of closure to everyone affected by this horrific event," City Manager T.C. Broadnax said.

Not everyone has let go. Texas Monthly quoted Paul Johnson, one of the old lead detectives. In a documentary, he would not let go of the old theory.

"Just because he was [there], I don't think that shows that our guys or other guys were not," Johnson said.

The DA's office disagrees. "The evidence is clear: Robert Eugene Brashers committed the Yogurt Shop Murders," Garza said.

Today Welborn owns the Manchaca Springs Saloon, just south of Austin. He bought it in early 2025. In August, his mom and his bar regulars threw him a big party for his 50th birthday.

He has one more wish.

"I would like for some of those detectives to go do some prison time," he told the magazine. "That'd be nice."