Robert Eugene Brashers (March 13, 1958 – January 13, 1999) was an American serial killer and rapist. In 2018, he was identified by CeCe Moore, chief genetic genealogist at Parabon, via genetic genealogy website GEDmatch as the murderer of Genevieve Zitricki in Greenville, South Carolina in 1990, the rapist of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee in 1997, and the killer of mother and daughter Sherri and Megan Scherer in Portageville, Missouri in 1998.

The 1998 Murders of Megan and Sherri Scherer Will Be Featured on ‘Genetic Detective’

On March 28, 1998, Tony and son Steven Scherer discovered the our bodies of Sherri and Megan Scherer of their Missouri residence. Just some hours later, in Dyersburg, Tenn., a person driving a van pulled a gun on a mom and her kids, demanding to be taken inside their residence. When the mom refused, the assailant shot her within the arm, and he or she sustained non-critical accidents.

Authorities quickly suspected that this man was answerable for killing Megan and Sherri Scherer, given the same nature of the assaults.

After a ballistics check, the weapon used to shoot the Dyersburg mom was confirmed to be a match for the weapon used within the murders of Megan and Sherri Scherer.

In the course of the Scherer investigation, specialists had been capable of develop a partial profile for the killer. However, a number of key DNA markers had been lacking to offer a substantive lead for authorities.

In 2006, the murders had been reopened due to additional advances in DNA expertise. Although the killer’s identification nonetheless remained a thriller, his DNA had been entered into CODIS, a nationwide database. It quickly obtained successful with the DNA discovered after the homicide of South Carolina resident Genevieve Zitricki in 1990.

Greater than a decade later, in 2017, the killer’s DNA additionally linked to the then-unsolved 1997 rape of a 14-year-old Memphis resident.

The case lastly was solved after investigators employed Parabon NanoLabs, the place CeCe Moore is the top of geneaology.

Feb. 18, 1992 – Brashers was arrested in Cobb County, Georgia, for possession of a stolen pistol and possession of a stolen vehicle. Police said he also had a scanner, police jacket, burglary tools and a fake Tennessee license when he was arrested. Brashers was sentenced on the possession charges and released in Feb. 1997.

March 11, 1997 – Brashers entered a home near Memphis, Tennessee, and sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl who was staying at the home with friends, police said.

March 28, 1998 – Brashers shot and killed Sherri Scherer and her 12-year-old daughter, Megan, in their home in Portageville, Missouri. Police said Megan was also sexually assaulted.

Later that same day, police say Brashers attempted to force his way into a home in Dyersburg, Tennessee. A mother, 25, was home with a small child. She fought with Brashers and was shot. She survived the shooting and was able to provide a description of Brashers and the projectile pulled from her body was later linked to the Scherer homicides.

April 12, 1998 – Brashers was arrested while breaking in the home of a single woman for whom he had previously done handy work. Police said Brashers had cut the phone lines to the home and was armed. He also had a video camera and other tools with him. Brashers was taken into custody but later released.

Jan. 13, 1999 – Officers located a vehicle with a stolen tag in a parking lot of a Super 8 motel in Kennett, Missouri. Officers were directed to a room where Brashers was located. Brashers was found hiding under a bed and armed with a gun. After four hours of negotiations, Brashers let the other occupants of the room go before shooting himself. He died six days later.

Greenville News (Oct/05/2018)

Police: DNA links 3 deaths to killer who died in 1999
By JIM SALTER Associated Press 8 hrs ago

ST. LOUIS • An Arkansas man who killed himself during a 1999 police standoff at a Missouri motel was a killer and rapist who strangled a South Carolina woman in 1990 and gunned down a Missouri mother and daughter eight years later, authorities said Friday.

Advancements in DNA testing enabled investigators to link the three killings and the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, to Robert Brashers, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said. Brashers, a Paragould, Arkansas, man who had a long criminal record, killed himself during a four-hour standoff at a motel in Kennett, a city about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Paragould in an area of southeastern Missouri that's wedged between Arkansas and Tennessee.

"Make no mistake about this gentleman: He is a serial rapist and a serial killer, but no more," New Madrid County, Missouri, Sheriff Terry Stevens said at a news conference.

Brashers killed Genevieve Zitricki of Greenville, South Carolina, in 1990. She was beaten and strangled in her bathtub, authorities said. The year after he raped the Tennessee girl, Brashers killed Sherri Scherer and her 12-year-old daughter, Megan, in their home near Portageville, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) southeast of St. Louis. He also sexually assaulted Megan, police said.

The standoff in which Brashers killed himself began when Kennett police sought to question him in a stolen license plate investigation. He was not a suspect in the killings or the rape case at the time.

Police gathered DNA evidence over the years that linked the crimes, but it wasn't until earlier this year that a private company helped make the connection to Brashers. Investigators hired Parabon NanoLabs, whose technology combines DNA testing and genetic genealogy analysis. The company's testing indicated that the DNA was from Brashers.

Because he was dead, investigators obtained DNA samples from Brashers' relatives. That DNA evidence led authorities to exhume Brashers' body last week to take DNA from his corpse that was matched to DNA found at the crime scenes.

Stevens said that even 20 years later, he never considered the Scherer killings a cold case — his officers were constantly investigating and re-investigating leads "because it was too important to this family and the community of Portageville."

Anthony Scherer returned from farm work on March 28, 1998, and found the bodies of his 38-year-old wife and his daughter on the living room floor. They had been shot.

Less than three hours after the killings, a man stopped at a home in Dyersburg, Tennessee, asked the woman who lived there for directions and then tried to force his way inside. He shot her in the arm during a struggle, but she survived.

Ballistics testing showed that the same gun was used in both crimes. But DNA at both crime scenes lacked the markers necessary to place the information in a national database known as CODIS, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

DNA technology improved and in 2006, the crime scene DNA was entered into the CODIS system, producing a match to the April 6, 1990, killing of Zitricki, who was 28 when she was strangled. Her body was found April 6, 1990, in her South Carolina apartment after failing to report to work.

In May 2017, another DNA match was discovered, linking the same suspect to the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis on March 11, 1997. Police said the attacker knocked on the door of a home, pulled out a gun and pushed his way inside.

The patrol said Brashers had a long criminal history that included a 1986 conviction for attempted second-degree murder, along with burglary, impersonating an officer and unlawful possession of a weapon. He also was arrested in Paragould in 1998 for trying to break into a woman's home.

St. Louis Post Dispatch (Oct/05/2018)

Robert Eugene Brashers. Paragould Daily Press. 1999-01-15. Robert Eugene Brashers, 40, of Paragould died Wednesday, Jan. 13, 1999, in Dunklin Co., Mo. A graveside service will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Shiloh Cemetery with Robert Jack officiating. Visitation will be from 6 to 9 this evening at Heath Funeral Home in Paragould.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jun 3 2020, 11:50:00 UTC