Robert Eugene Brashers

Robert Eugene Brashers (March 13, 1958 – January 19, 1999) was an American serial killer, mass murderer and serial rapist who committed at least eight murders in Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas between 1990 and 1998. During his lifetime, Brashers was not identified as a suspect in any of his murders and remained in relative obscurity. He died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1999 to avoid arrest for an unrelated crime after a standoff with police.

Decades after his death, due to advances in investigative genetic genealogy, Brashers was tied to a series of extremely violent crimes. Investigators linked him to several unsolved rapes and murders committed against women and young girls. Police in Austin, Texas, identified Brashers as the perpetrator in the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders, in which four teenaged girls were murdered.

Personal life

Robert Eugene Brashers was born on March 13, 1958, in Newport News, Virginia, the younger of two children born to Doulis and Nancy Brashers. When he was young, Brashers' family moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he spent his childhood and youth. Reportedly, Brashers committed no offenses as a teenager and did not engage in any substance abuse. After graduating high school, he enlisted in the United States Army; he served in the United States Navy for several years.

In the early 1980s, Brashers resigned from the Army and moved to Louisiana, settling in New Orleans, but by the mid-1980s he moved again to Fort Myers, Florida. He has a daughter born in 1991.