Listen
The four men wrongly accused in Austin’s yogurt shop murders were exonerated today in a Travis County courthouse. More than three decades on their records have been cleared. We’ll hear from family members who attended today’s hearing.
The University of Texas Board of Regents has approved a policy limiting from classrooms “controversial topics.” What the new policy says and the plan for putting it into effect.
And, music news with KUTX’s Maile Carballo.
Plus, Spurs basketball is back at the Moody Center tonight and it’s a much different version of the team that’s visited Austin the past few years. The reason for the change and the possibility of a championship this season coming up.
Austin Signal is made possible by listeners like you. You can support our work by making a donation at supportthispodcast.org
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] The four men wrongly accused in Austin’s yogurt shop murders were exonerated today in a Travis County courthouse. More than three decades on, their records have been cleared. We’re gonna hear from family members who attended today’s hearing. And the University of Texas Board of Regents has approved a policy limiting from classrooms, quote, controversial topics. What the new policy says and the plan for putting it into effect, that’s coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:33] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:38] Plus Spurs basketball is back at the Moody Center tonight and it’s a much different version of the team that’s visited Austin for the past few years. The reason for that change and championship possibilities this season, that’s coming up today on Austin Signal. We’ll be back right after this. Howdy out there, this is Austin Signal. We are coming to you from listener-powered public radio KUT News. It is Thursday, February 19th. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. We’re going to start today’s show with some late breaking news. The exoneration hearing for the men wrongly accused of the yogurt shop murders in Austin has just concluded. KUT’s government accountability reporter, Andrew Weber, was at the hearing. He’s at the courthouse now. Andrew, thanks for being with us. So can you tell us what was going on today at the courthouse?
Andrew Weber [00:01:37] Yeah, it was a hearing. This was back in December. Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza filed a motion to exonerate the four men previously accused in the yogurt shop killings. That was after Austin police discovered through new forensic evidence that they had nothing to do with the case. And it was ultimately they believe with beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a man named Robert Eugene Breshears.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:06] And uh… Who are some of the people who spoke to the at the hearing
Andrew Weber [00:02:09] Uh, it was, there was the lead detective on that case on, on APD’s part, Dan Jackson. He laid this out back in October when they announced that they had found this, this prime suspect, uh, who his, I should say he’s dead. He died by suicide in 1999. Uh, and some other folks were just family members of, of the men who were accused. Uh, you had, um, some, some really, really stirring testimony from, uh Maurice Pierce’s daughter, Marissa, who… You know, she basically said that the world now believes what her dad always said, that he was innocent. And that’s an important thing to point out because when his peers died, he was shot by an APD officer back in 2010 after he had a sort of mental health crisis and he attacked a cop with a knife. So that was obviously very, very stirring testimony.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:01] And you’ve been following this story for a while, Andrew, what else stood out to you at today’s hearing?
Andrew Weber [00:03:07] I think, you know, it sort of started off with a bit of a bang, I guess, for lack of better phrasing. You know, we had an assistant DA, Trudy Strasburger, come out and say, this is our obligation. This was a case that was mishandled by APD and by the Travis County District Attorney’s office that they, you now, falsely prosecuted and convicted these young men and, you you know, kind of rob them of a lot of their youth. You know it’s obviously had a huge impact on their lives.
Trudy Strausburger [00:03:37] But we can’t go back in time and change what happened to the four. What we can do is make sure the truth is known. And the truth, is that Forest Wellborn, Maurice Pierce, Michael Scott, and Robert Springsteen are innocent. They did not commit the murders, nor were they involved in any way.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:56] Okay we have been speaking with Andrew Weber he is KUT’s government accountability reporter again the exoneration hearing for the men falsely accused in the yogurt shop murders has concluded. We’ll have more reporting on this later today here on KUT News and over at KUT.org. Andrew thank you for your reporting. Yes sir, appreciate you Jerry. And it’s been a busy news morning here in Austin today, the University of Texas System Board of Regents approved an initiative that limits quote, controversial topics in the classroom. Here to talk more about that is KUT’s education reporter, Greta Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez. Greta, welcome back to Austin Signal.
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:04:37] Hi Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:38] So tell us a little bit more about this policy. I know it was announced this morning. What does it say?
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:04:43] Right, so this new policy states that faculty must, and I’m going to read here the policy because faculty must not attempt to coerce, indoctrinate, harass or belittle students, especially in addressing controversial subjects. It also says that different ideas are welcome, but faculty must exclude quote unquote unrelated controversial or contested matters from syllabi and follow the contents of the syllabus for each course. And it says that if a course must address these topics, then instructors must have a balanced approach. I must say, we don’t know what controversial topics or contested matters entail. The policy passed without any questions from the board this morning, but Chairman Kevin L. Tiff asked the chancellor and vice chancellor of the system to continue working with institutions to ensure the compliance of this new policy, but also to make sure that federal and state directives related to gender identity are being compiled with. So we, I think that gives us an idea.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:41] Okay, we had you on Austin Signal last week talking about several UT departments collapsing into a new department, and that was a move that had been expected for a few months. This change that was, or this policy, not this change, this policy that was approved this morning, was this something that was expected?
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:05:58] I think we can’t say it wasn’t, because we’ve seen other university systems making similar decisions. In November, the Texas A&M system placed limitations on how professors can teach race and gender. Then in December, we also saw it in Texas Tech University system, they prohibited advocacy and prejudice from faculty when it comes to teaching race and gender, and so once this wasn’t the agenda. I think advocates and faculty saw this coming.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:26] There was public comments before the Board of Regents decided to vote today. What did you hear in those comments?
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:06:32] Yeah, so they raise concerns, faculty, students, they raise concerns about how this policy will affect other areas, not only gender and race related courses, someone brought up how it will affect her teachings in art history, someone else talked about physics, economy, even evolution was brought up at some point. So you can imagine but it this policy really extends further than the UT system academic freedom advocates in Texas and in the country. Are worried that this policy is incredibly vague, that we don’t know what controversial topics means. So let’s hear Jonathan Freeman, who is Managing Director of US Free Expression Programs at PEN America.
Kevin Eltyv [00:07:11] UT institutions must continue to take steps to build appropriate breadth and balance in the faculty body, in the curriculum, so that students have access to a variety.
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:07:22] So right now we are listening, that was the audio of Kevin Eltyv who is reading another part of the guidelines that was worrisome to advocates because he is saying that universities must ensure that there’s appropriate breadth and balance in the faculty body. And this is worrisom because for advocates this is worrison because they don’t know what this means and Friedman said that this could be used to justify faculty terminations or new faculty hires. And other advocates told me that this specific line, they worried that it will mean that universities will only hire faculty who have certain political views.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:00] Okay, well, as I said, this news came down this morning and you have been reporting, talking to lots of people. We don’t know exactly what controversial topics means yet, as you said. What do we know about when this policy might be implemented? I mean, since the policy has been approved, is it in effect immediately right now?
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:08:17] That is something else that it’s unclear. We did hear LTIF say that universities would, um, or that the, the chancellor and vice chancellor had to make sure that universities were putting in place, um, these, these guidelines, but we don’t know exactly when or how we reached out to the UT system to get more details, to know about how it will be enforced. But really all the institutions in the UT system are left kind of like to implement them. However, they, they read the guidelines. Yeah, they see it.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:47] Okay, well we have been speaking with KUT’s education reporter, Greta Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez. Her latest story is at KUT.org right now. We’re going to have a link to that article in today’s podcast, Show Notes. Greta, thank you for your reporting.
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:09:00] Thank you.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:05] In the weeks since the latest Epstein files have been released, it came to light that a University of Texas classics professor asked Jeffrey Epstein’s charitable foundation for money back in 2015. The funds were going to be used to help pay for a conference on campus rate policy. It was a story that first was reported in the Daily Texan, that’s UT’s college newspaper. Investigative reporter for the Daily Texas, Justin Doud, broke the story. He’s talking with us now. Justin, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So tell us a little bit first, how did you find out about this story?
Justin Doud [00:09:38] Yeah, so when the latest drop of the Epstein Library and the Epsteine files came out from the Department of Justice, we kind of had a hunch based off of what other campus newspapers were reporting that there might be some sort of UT tie. So I ended up going through every mention of the University of Texas in the library. So about halfway through the University Of Texas mentions, I stumbled across the letter that ended up being kind of the catalyst for the story, and it kind of sparked the idea. So. It let me down a rabbit hole, but it started off with kind of a wild goose chase. Yeah. What does that letter say? Basically, the letter is a request from a former University of Texas professor. He worked in the classics department for 33 years, and he is requesting from the Jeffrey Epstein Charitable Foundation 10 to 20 thousand dollars to fund a conference on campus that would have discussed campus rape policies. And that was in 2015. So right around the time that the Department of Education. Was implementing a whole new host of Title IX policies and guidance for Title IX changes that universities, specifically public universities like UT, would adopt likely. And so basically he kind of disagreed with the policies that were being implemented and with the impact that they could have on students, specifically male students that might be expelled or face disciplinary action for things that they had done. So he wanted to host this conference on campus, basically discussing the pros and cons of these policies, inviting people from all over the country. And in order to do so, he needed a substantial amount of funding. So he was basically asking the foundation to kind of help him build that.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:17] This professor’s name is Thomas Hubbard. Does he still work for the University of Texas?
Justin Doud [00:11:21] He does not. He was tenured in the early 90s and then left in 2021 after he settled with the university for $700,000. So that settlement came after he sued three students of his at a variety of levels, undergraduate, PhD students that he said libeled him. So those students had formed protests or made social media comments, basically in opposition to the things that he was saying in his classes. One of those classes was called the mythology of rape. And it was a pretty controversial class that he taught at the university. So once they made those comments, he said that they were libeling him. He took them all to court and they ended up settling out of court in 2021. One of the stipulations of that settlement was that he retire immediately. So within 21 days of the settlement being approved, he left.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:09] Okay, you say that he requested this money. Did that money ever actually come through for the conference?
Justin Doud [00:12:15] No, he said that he didn’t hear back from the Epstein Foundation, that he didn’t end up getting any of the funding that he requested, but the conference did still happen. So the conference was funded actually by the university directly, according to Hubbard. The university declined to provide those financial records, so we couldn’t, you know, kind of verify that. But according to hubbard himself, the university funded $10,000 from the College of from a centennial professorship that he received right around the time that the conference was being held in 2016, and a number of private donors that he declined to disclose.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:51] What else did you hear from UT during your reporting of this story?
Justin Doud [00:12:53] They didn’t decide to comment. They declined to issue a statement. We gave them multiple days. We asked them a few times as we kind of ended up going further down the rabbit hole and discovered new information. But ultimately they decided not to comment and it was the same for other outlets that picked up the story after we broke it. So the Austin American Statesman, cron.com, and Houston, all of them reported and reached out individually and none of them recorded a comment from the university.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:20] Okay, we have been speaking with Justin Doud. He is an investigative reporter at The Daily Texan. He first broke the story there. He is a junior in journalism and government here at UT Austin. We’re gonna have a link to his reporting at kut.org slash Signal and in the podcast, Show Notes. Justin, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. And thank you for spending part of your Thursday here with Austin Signal. We have more coming up after the break, including some music and some basketball. Stay with us. This is Austin Signal, thank you for tuning in. We’re gonna talk a little music on this Thursday afternoon and here to help us do that is our friend Miley Carbayo from our sister station KUTX. Miley, it’s great to see you as always.
Maile Carballo [00:14:10] Great to see you, thanks for having me, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:12] We are glad to chat with you because we wanted to know, we haven’t chatted with you since the Super Bowl, so we wanted you to know what was happening over at KUTX. One thing we haven’t talked about is February’s Artist of the Month. Who is that for February?
Maile Carballo [00:14:26] Absolutely, it’s the Animeros. They are kind of a smaller group coming out of the Superfonico’s Colombian-style mix of genres, cumbia group, who is also excellent in their own way. But yeah, the Animeroes are super cool. We actually had them out at our ACL tent this year. You can find a video of that at kutx.org. And really cool thing about them is they’re championed by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. So keep your ears out for what they have coming up.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:54] That’s a good stamp of approval to receive, Peter Babb from KU-TX told me that he caught the Animaeros at Seaboys because they’re doing a residency on Thursdays, I believe is what he said. So that should be happening tonight. He said it’s a great show. He said they start at 10 o’clock, so if you can make it, you can and I think I can make. I’m not that old yet to fall asleep before 10 o clock. So okay, the Animeros, check them out. In fact, I saw a really cool reel on the KUTX Instagram that you can check out the arrows there. Uh, so we are almost done with February, still a little bit left in February, but next month is shaping up to be a big one for lots of different reasons. But that also includes the, the return of rock the park.
Maile Carballo [00:15:34] Absolutely. Yeah, Rock the Park will be back for its 10th year. Our Jackie Fuller at KUTX has informed me of that today. And we are so excited. It’s it’s if you’re not familiar with Rock the Park, it’s a series of free, very family friendly and very awesome concerts that we put on at Mueller Lake Park, curated by our very own live music producer, Deidre Gott and Bill Childs of our Sunday evening show, Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child. And yeah, once again, it’s just fun for the whole family. Bring your dog, bring your grandma. There’s accessible seating for folks and it’s a great way to chill with the whole family, see some local Austin music. A lot of the time, Bill Childs brings in family friendly kind of artists like Banana Man.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:23] The Nanner Man.
Maile Carballo [00:16:25] And that will be Friday, March 27th. So it will be starting out with Bananerman and following with Doryo, who is a really great three-piece indie kind of soft, fun band that we champion here at KUTX. And a fun fact about them too, Rachel Rasco, who was in the band, was the ex-music editor of Austin Chronicle. So it’s just a very Austin vibe overall and a great way to start your weekend.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:53] Okay, so that’s starting later in March. And so between now and then, there’s this little festival happening called South by Southwest. Just a little one. What does KUTX have planned for that?
Maile Carballo [00:17:04] We have a lot going on. So this year we are continuing our residency at Schultz Garden, doing our morning broadcasts there live. You can come in person, pay $10. It goes to the Central Texas Food Bank. You can also listen live on air on KUTX. The Austin Signal will be there as well. Shout out, shout out. Out. We will also be partnering with Rivian this year, so stay tuned for an announcement on dates for that. That is coming up. And South by South Breaks is also coming back this year.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:35] Very cool. We will have more information about all those goings on in the show notes for today’s podcast and at KUT.org slash signal. We’ve been speaking with Miley Carvallo from our sister station KUTX. Miley, thank you.
Maile Carballo [00:17:48] Thank you, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:54] The San Antonio Spurs are back at the Moody Center tonight and Saturday for a pair of games here in Austin. Here to talk more about the team is Tom Petrini, publisher for Spurs on SI, that’s Sports Illustrated Spurs website, and he’s one of the hosts of the Silver and Black Coffee Hour podcast. That’s an Austin-based show about the San Antonio spurs. Tom, thanks for being here.
Tom Petrini [00:18:14] Thank you so much for having me to talk about my sp-
Jerry Quijano [00:18:17] interest spurs in Austin this is a bit of a special interest of mine but I’m gonna try to be reserved let you do your thing so start first by telling me and the listener out there is this the best spurs team that’s come to play here in Austin without a doubt
Tom Petrini [00:18:30] Um, last year would have been great, but this is the exact point in the season where we learned that Victor Wembenyama would miss the rest of it with a blood clot, uh, which was obviously very, uh. You know, out of the blue and kind of scary. And thankfully not only is he healthy, just in an off the court way, but he is, uh in his
Jerry Quijano [00:18:52] Prime that we’ve seen. Yeah, he’s having a great year. This is his third year in the league He’s having an awesome season, but he just had a pretty good weekend out in Los Angeles, no?
Tom Petrini [00:19:01] Absolutely, I was there, it was my first All-Star weekend, and between the attendance level on Friday and Saturday that I’m sure you might’ve seen online, the empty seats, the stars don’t do the dunk contest, are these guys gonna compete, was the big question. And I heard a lot of people who have been to many more All-star games than me talking about, is this just cooked? Like, should we just scrap this whole weekend? And the main questions were, is Wemby already the face of the league? And is his call to make this a competitive game going to be heard? And the answer to both questions was a resounding yes, in a way that became sort of the story of the weekend that even among stars, he’s, you know, I remember seeing Anthony Edwards, one of the most confident people on the planet Earth. He could not stop giving Victor Weminyam a credit for he’s gonna be the face of the league. He’s the reason this game was so successful. And that’s the guy who wound up winning MVP of the game. So I think that this was sort of a very earnest coming out party for him as the main star of the NBA right now.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:18] Yeah, and there’s a section of that that’s like his off-the-court escapades, right? Like this summer he was training with monks and all these different things. But specifically on the court, what is he putting into action this season that’s kind of changing the Spurs’ fortunes? I mean, he’s…
Tom Petrini [00:20:35] He’s seven foot five and plays like a guard, you know, it’s something that that nobody’s ever seen. And you know it’s he’s incredibly talented. He’s huge. The most impressive thing about him remains the way he carries himself and his curiosity and his attention to detail and he’s always got a book in his hand and he is just a very mature kid, especially for somebody who’s been sort of anointed from a very young age as the next phase of this thing. But to sort of give you an idea of how much he is breaking through with even non-sports people. My mom and sister are coming to visit this weekend and they are non- sports people. Their favorite sport is birding, right? And in birding there’s something called like a lifer. You see it once, you write it down in your book and you can tell people that you’ve seen that one in real life. And, you know, I kind of joked, do you want to come to the Spurs game with me? And they were like, yes, we want to see this guy. Yeah. So the star power that is coming to Austin this week is really special. And the team is great. They’re second in the Western Conference right now.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:43] Well, tell us a little bit about, you know, the team comes to Austin for these games. The Austin Spurs are the G League affiliate for the San Antonio Spurs that play up in Cedar Park. What is, what have these visits to Austin done for the Spurs? What are they learning with these visits?
Tom Petrini [00:21:59] On a basketball level, they’ve used Austin as a proving ground as a training place for their coaches, for their players. Kelden Johnson cut his teeth here seven years ago as a rookie. Mitch Johnson got his first three years as a coach here. And as the team gets better, we’re gonna see more of their draft picks come through and play. We’re also seeing now on the business side of things that the Spurs are taking a similar approach to what lessons can we learn in Austin and how do we apply that to beyond central Texas, because Austin isn’t the only city that the Spurs have on their list as this should be a Spurs city, right? They played a game in Mexico City. That’s right. They believe that San Antonio is the center of their home base, which reaches up to Austin and beyond and down to Mexico and Latin America. This year, they’re not going physically the team to France, which they did last year. Um, but they are sending sort of their, their staff, their marketing people, their event planning out over there to sort of replicate the events that we’re seeing here in San Antonio, because it’s not just the games they take very seriously, um, you know, the activations and engaging with the fans, especially the ones who, who might not be able to make it out. And this morning I was just down. They have, uh, they’re calling it Casa disperse. It’s, uh right on Congress. You could see the, the Capitol. From the front door and they had a live podcast recording in there, the No Dunks guys who I love. And it’s Thursday morning in a city with no NBA team and the place was packed. And so we’re seeing the fruits of their labor here in Austin. This is the fourth year that they’re doing this. And when they started, they did not have Victor Wembenyama. That’s right, yeah. Greg Popovich was talking about Zach Collins as the starting center next year. And so their plans to engage this market and really capitalize, pre-date their good fortune in the NBA lottery. And it’s just sort of all coming together for them. So it’s cool to see here in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:24:13] We have about a minute left before we get out of here. What are you most excited to see with the rest of the season playing out? Everybody keeps
Tom Petrini [00:24:21] saying this team is too young to actually win the title. There’s this idea that you have to get beat up in one year and then adjust and then go back out there. And I think for most people and groups, that is true. I think that it’s long past time that we stopped treating Victor Wemunyama and any team that he’s at the head of as normal. Because it’s not. And that’s what makes it so captivating. Obviously Spurs basketball is about the team, right? And he’s very much about the theme, but it’s impossible to deny the effect that he has for this team both on the court in terms of winning games and off it in terms of winning new fans and sponsors, especially in a city like Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:25:10] All right, well, Victor Wimbenyama and the Spurs will be back at the Moody Center tonight and Saturday. We have been speaking with Tom Petrini. He is the publisher for Spurs on SI, that’s Sports Illustrated Spurs website. And he is one of the hosts of the Silver and Black Coffee Hour podcast. That’s an Austin-based show about the San Antonio Spurs. Give them a listen. Tom, thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Jerry. And thank you out there for tuning in to Austin Signal and making us part of your Thursday. We have more from today’s show and all of our shows at kut.org slash signal. And we’re having a link to all of today’s reporting in today’s podcast show notes. I’m your host, Jerry Keconnell. We’ll be back with you same time tomorrow. Have a great day.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
