Jennifer and her friend Eliza Thomas, both 17, were closing the shop while Jennifer’s 15-year-old sister Sarah Harbison and 13-year-old Amy Ayers waited for a ride. Firefighters found all four victims inside; the blaze destroyed much of the scene and left few investigative leads.

Investigators pursued several local young men over the years. Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott were convicted in the early 2000s but later released in 2009 after DNA testing—including a male profile from Amy Ayers—did not match them; charges against Maurice Pierce were dismissed in 2003 and Forrest Welborn was never indicted. In 2010 Pierce was fatally shot during an encounter with police; his family said he had long maintained his innocence.

In 2025 authorities linked the killings to Robert Eugene Brashers through DNA and ballistic evidence; Brashers died by suicide in 1999. Officials described the incident as a robbery that escalated into a quadruple homicide, followed by arson.