The brutal rape and murder of four teenagers in a frozen yogurt business in Austin, Texas, is the subject of Margaret Browns HBO documents “The Yoghurt Shop Murde”.
The Slayings by Amy Ayers, the sisters Jennifer Harbison and Sarah Harbison and Eliza Thomas Mystified Police persecuted the families of the victim and finally, according to Brown, “part of the fabric of Austin”.
“It's something you can't really get away in Austin,” said Brown.
Although Brown (“offspring”) knew about the crime, the idea for four -part documents from Emma Stone and her husband Dave McCary, who used to live in Austin. The couple brought the documents for the production of A24.
Brown spent over three years to interview the victims' investigation teams and the parents and siblings of the victims. The director and their produced team also tracked down pictures of four young boys, who served time for the crime. In addition, Brown, correspondent of 48 hours, interviewed Erin Moriarty, who reported the case, and documentary filmmaker Claire Huie, who tried to make a film about the murders. Huies abandoned film material, which is presented in “The Yogurt Shop Murders”, included interviews with the family members of the victim, detective and Robert Springsteen, one of the men who, after the crime, falsely stood in the widespread murders.
diversity spoke to Brown about “The Yoghurt Shop Murders” before the series was published on August 3 on HBO.
The murders occurred over 30 years ago, but the pain that the victim's family members still bear was shown in the interviews they led with them. Were these interviews difficult to do and were they even concerned about taking advantage of them?
A thousand percent yes. I was afraid. I didn't really know what I got involved in order to be honest. I thought, “Oh, I've already made films about Deep Trauma.” I mean, many of my films are terrible things that happen to people, but I was not really prepared for the unresolved rape and murder of teenage girls, and the effects that continued to have (sacrificial) families. I was not aware of the emotional weight of sitting in the rooms (the family members) for hours. Then I thought that if it is difficult for me, imagine what you're going through. It was like a loop in my head.
Did you have something to hesitate to create a four -part series about an unsolved crime?
No. I knew that I lived in Austin and had a lot of friends who are reporters who were completely obsessed with this case and his phrases and turns that would work.
Claire Huies interview with Robert Springsteen in 2009 is very revealing. Do you think you could have made this series without Huies film material?
This film material was a gift. It would have been another film without him. Claire is an incredible filmmaker, but the film she tried to stop her to be a filmmaker. It consumed her and she had to stop. Now she is a meditation teacher.
Have you tried to interview Robert Springsteen?
Oh yes, but he declined.
Was it difficult to find the entire archive material you used in the entire series?
When the project came to me, I asked what the (archive) film material they had, and so they sent me all the film material. It was like a David Lynch film as a documentary. It was like “Twin Peaks”. There was a kind of uncanny. I could hear the soundtrack in my head and I had this whole idea how I would do the series. Then I met the families and it was like: “Oh. I can't do it that way. I can still use some of it, but it can't be so stylized.” It would have been a bad service to make it excessively stylized.
They used some crime scene photos, but not any that showed the victims. Why?
These photos are so bad. My editorial team said: “You can never see them.” They were all so traumatized by the photos. I saw some of them, but not all because (the editorial team) said: “You will follow you for the rest of your life.” A24 paid for some of the (the film team) therapy because it is really difficult for the system when they absorb it and it is really difficult not to record it. It was difficult to live in this darkness for so long.
Would you say that life in this darkness was the most challenging part of the production of the series?
It was just very difficult for us to make it because it was just so dark, but we thought that the right way to make the series was to look at it. Because every darkness has in his life and everyone is dealing with trauma. This case is a fairly extreme case of people who deal with trauma, but I felt that there was something instructive. Every family dealt with the trauma in very different ways, and I found it fascinating.