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in. They usually mentioned such supposedly secret information. The detective suspected a leak from within the police department. Others believed the information came from one of the EMS technicians on the scene that night.
    However it leaked, there was no doubt it was out there. It would be a challenge for Huckabay and Jones to keep the holdback information under control.

CHAPTER 8
    Monday, December 9, 1991
Travis County 299th District Court
Austin, Texas
     
    One of the efforts undertaken to keep information from leaking out was highly unusual in the history of Austin. Travis County assistant district attorney (ADA) Robert Smith asked Judge Jon Wisser to seal the autopsy reports of the four girls. ADA Buddy Meyer claimed the request was made because the release of certain information about the murders could “jeopardize the investigation. It’s not necessary in every case, but in this case it is.”
    Travis County ME Robert Bayardo, who did not perform the autopsies because he was out of town on vacation, was surprised. It was the first such request in the fourteen years he headed up the medical examiner’s office.
    Judge Wisser agreed to Smith’s request and signed a motion to seal the reports. “The district attorney came over and asked me to do it because the details were essential to their investigation.” He justified the order by stating that, “Whenever you arrest someone and they decide to give a confession, you have to have stuff that no one other than the one confessing knows about.”
    Meyer later declared that the autopsies would remain sealed until someone was arrested for the murders.

CHAPTER 9
    December 9, 1991
Lanier High School and Burnet Middle School
Austin, Texas
     
    A stunned silence hung over Lanier High School. Three of the school’s brightest stars had been taken away. Jennifer, Sarah, and Eliza were dearly loved by their classmates. They were already sorely missed. Most everyone on campus walked around in a daze. Class was the last thing on the kids’ minds. The teachers’ too.
    “A death from sickness or an accident, we could understand,” Vice Principal Georgia Johnson told the Austin American-Statesman , “but this we can’t understand. Nobody has an answer as to why.”
    Student council president Shauna Kunkel expressed similar sentiments. “Everybody’s still pretty much in shock. There’s a lot of denial. Nobody wants to think this happened.” She finished by saying, “Everybody is hurting.”
    To help alleviate some of the hurt, Lanier High School brought in a dozen counselors for the students. As one walked the halls that day, one could see groups of girls huddled together sharing tears. Some of the boys were crying too.
    In addition to the tears, rage coursed through the school’s veins. It had been over two days since the girls were murdered and the killer or killers had not been caught.
    “There is anger that there is a person or people out there,” wrote Amy Hettenhausen, editor of the Lanier High School newspaper, the Runeskrift , “who may never get caught. May never have to pay.”
    Other students grieved in a different way. About sixty students headed over to the yogurt shop during their lunch hour. A pallor of disbelief existed that was even stronger than what was felt at school.
    Betty Phillips, an Austin Independent School District coordinator of Student Intervention Services, summed it up best: “Their feelings are what you would expect. There is just shock, horror, and indignation.”
    Counselors were available at Burnet Middle School to help students deal with the death of one of its most popular students, Amy Ayers. Principal James Wilson proudly stated that “we were able to isolate and identify those kids, and nurture them, and counsel them. To be there and listen.”
    Some mourners turned to a higher power for an explanation.

CHAPTER 10
    Tuesday, December 10, 1991
St. Louis Catholic Church
Austin, Texas
     
    Jennifer Harbison attended St.