SYDNEY: Elvis fans shook up Sydney’s Central station on Thursday with hundreds rocking to his famous tunes ahead of a special train trip to outback Australia to celebrate the late entertainer’s birthday.
Decked out in their glittering best, the fans were heading to Parkes — a small town some 300 km west of Sydney — on the “Elvis Express” and “Blue Suede Express” trains to take part in a five-day festival.
“He’s such an icon and he hasn’t lost any of that magic that he used to have,” said avid Elvis Presley fan Julie Mellae — who wore an orange wig, tiara and fishnet stockings for the special occasion.
“In fact, I think he’s developed more, so this festival is like the biggest thing that happens in January. Everyone wants to be on the Elvis train and it’s booked out years in advance.”
Elvis impersonators belted out the legendary singer’s biggest hits on a makeshift stage before the seven-hour train pilgrimage, swivelling their hips and blowing kisses to adorning admirers amid loud cheers.
The annual extravaganza, in its 26th year, is billed as the southern hemisphere’s biggest tribute to the rock ‘n’ roll legend — who died in 1977 — and attracts thousands of die-hard fans.
Last year’s event drew 25,000 people to Parkes, more than double the town’s population, and generated millions of dollars for the local economy.
The town transforms into a vibrant tribute to The King, who would have been 83 this year, with a street parade and non-stop entertainment to keep visitors jiving.
“It’s just everybody’s in a good mood, everybody’s happy, nobody’s cranky,” said David Ward-Smith, who was wearing a specially made “Elvis Festival” T-shirt with his friends on board the “Elvis Express.”
“Up and down the streets (in Parkes), it’s Elvis singers. Every 50 meters, it’s somebody else trying hard. Everybody’s just in party mode, it’s a great little atmosphere. It’s like the Olympics every year,” he said.
Parkes, a mining town with a population of more than 11,000, is famous for its radio telescope which played a pivotal role in bringing Neil Armstrong’s 1969 moon landing to the world.
But the Elvis Festival, first held in 1993 to coincide with the singer’s birthday on Jan. 8, 1935, has since placed the town on the tourist map and also earned it the moniker of “Elvis Capital of Australia.”
Elvis Presley festival grips fans in Australia
Elvis Presley festival grips fans in Australia
Judge declares 4 men wrongly accused of 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders innocent
- The declaration was aimed at closing a dark chapter for the men and their families
- Investigators chased thousands of leads and several false confessions before the four men were arrested in late 1999
TEXAS, USA: A Texas judge on Thursday declared four men who were wrongfully accused of the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders innocent, formally clearing their names in a courtroom for the first time since the killings of four teenage girls that haunted the city for decades.
“You are innocent,” state District Judge Dayna Blazey said during a hearing in a packed Austin courtroom.
The declaration was aimed at closing a dark chapter for the men and their families, and for a city that was shaken by the brutality of the crime and investigators’ inability to solve it for decades. Blazey called her order “an obligation to the rule of law and the obligation to the dignity of the individual.”
Cold case detectives announced last year that they had connected the killings to a suspect who died in a 1999 standoff with police in Missouri.
Two of the original four suspects, Michael Scott and Forrest Welborn, were in the packed courtroom with family members to hear prosecutors tell the judge that they are innocent. Robert Springsteen, who was initially convicted and spent several years on death row, did not attend. Maurice Pierce died in 2010.
“Over 25 years ago, the state prosecuted four innocent men ... (for) one of the worst crimes Austin has ever seen,” Travis County First Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger said at the opening of the hearing. “We could not have been more wrong.”
A declaration of “actual innocence” would also be a key step for the men and their families to seek financial compensation for years they spent in jail or in prison.
“All four lived under the specter of the yogurt shop murders. These four never had the chance to live normal lives,” Strassburger said.
The murders shocked Austin and confounded investigators for years
Amy Ayers, 13; Eliza Thomas, 17; and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, ages 17 and 15, were bound, gagged and shot in the head at the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt” store where two of them worked. The building was set on fire.
Investigators chased thousands of leads and several false confessions before the four men were arrested in late 1999.
Springsteen and Scott were convicted based largely on confessions they insisted were coerced by police. Both convictions were overturned in the mid-2000s.
Welborn was charged but never tried after two grand juries refused to indict him. Pierce spent three years in jail before the charges were dismissed and he was released.
Prosecutors wanted to try Springsteen and Scott again, but a judge ordered the charges dismissed in 2009 when new DNA tests that were unavailable in 1991 had revealed another male suspect.
“Let us not forgot that Robert Springsteen could be dead right now, executed at the hands of the state of Texas,” Springsteen attorney Amber Farrelly said at the hearing.
Connection to a new suspect revealed
The case effectively went cold until 2025. It got new public attention when an HBO documentary series explored the unsolved crime.
Investigators announced in September that new evidence and reviews of old evidence pointed to Robert Eugene Brashers as the killer.
Since 2018, authorities had used advanced DNA evidence to link Brashers to the strangulation death of a South Carolina woman in 1990, the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee and the shooting of a mother and daughter in Missouri in 1998.
The link to the Austin case came when a DNA sample taken from under Ayers’ fingernail came back as a match to Brashers from the 1990 murder in South Carolina.
Austin investigators also found that Brashers had been arrested at a border checkpoint near El Paso two days after the yogurt shop killings. In his stolen car was a pistol that matched the same caliber used to kill one of the girls in Austin.
Police also noted similarities in the yogurt shop case to Brashers’ other crimes: The victims were tied up with their own clothing, sexually assaulted and some crime scenes were set on fire.
Brashers died in 1999 when he shot himself during an hourslong standoff with police at a motel in Kennett, Missouri.
