Two months after Robert Eugene Brashers was identified as the suspect in the infamous 1991 yogurt shop murders in Austin, Texas, he has now been linked to another unsolved murder that took place in Kentucky back in 1998. On Wednesday, January 7, police in Lexington, Kentucky, named Brashers as the person responsible for the death of 43-year-old Linda Rutledge. Rutledge was fatally shot inside a business before the building was set on fire. Authorities noted that the crime was similar to what happened seven years earlier in Austin, when four teenage girls were killed inside of a yogurt shop. In November 2025, more than three decades after a 13-year-old, a 15-year-old and two 17-year-olds were killed inside the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt Shop on December 6, 1991, investigators identified Brashers as the killer. After the young girls were brutally killed, the building was set on fire. Austin Police Identify Yogurt Shop Murders Suspect 1 Month After HBO Series Law enforcement sources said they identified Brashers as the suspect in the 1991 case through genetic genealogy technology applied to a DNA profile, according to KVUE. Kentucky investigators explained in a Facebook post that they received a tip from Austin police in July 2025, which prompted them to review the evidence from Rutledge's case. "That call from Austin, where our shell casings matched, you know, that was some information that we could do something with and could run on," Lexington Police Department investigative clerk Ann Witte said. "It opened up a whole new avenue of investigation for this case, and neither one of us ever dreamed that it would be resolved the way that it was." Robert Brashers Missouri State Highway Patrol The similarities between the crimes weren't the only thing to tip investigators off that Brashers was involved in Rutledge's death. Amid the recent investigation, authorities found that a .380 caliber shell casing recovered from Rutledge's crime scene was an exact match to shell casings found after the yogurt shop murders. Witte added that Rutledge's family struggled to understand who could have killed their loved one. "Linda's mother told us that she hoped that it was no one that knew her," Witte continued. "Because how could someone that knew her and loved her do that to her?" 'Torso' Killer Confesses to Murder of 18-Year-Old in New Jersey: Police Police have said that Brashers was a serial killer and he has been linked to at least eight victims across the United States, according to KXAN. He died by suicide in January 1999, so he never served time for any of the crimes he committed. After Brashers was linked to Rutledge's death, Lexington police thanked the numerous law enforcement agencies and members of the public who helped them find answers to the previously unsolved case. Investigators added that Brashers would have been arrested and charged with Rutledge's murder if he was still alive today. Additionally, police extended their condolences to Rutledge's family and said they hoped the resolution of the case would help them heal following her tragic death. "While her case may be solved, it does not bring Linda back, but we hope that by knowing who killed her, her loved ones can begin to heal," a news release from the Lexington Police Department said, per Spectrum News.