Around midnight a police patrolman reported a fire in the shop, and responders discovered the bodies of the girls inside. The victims had been shot in the head, some had been raped. A .22 and a .380 pistol were used to commit the murders, and the perpetrator(s) probably exited out a through a backdoor that was found unlocked. The organised method of operation, ability to control the victims, and destruction of evidence by arson indicated an adult experienced in crime rather than teenagers, according to one of the original detectives on the case. Austin Police Department has DNA from an unknown male as a result of one of the rapes. A Y-chromosome match for the perpetrator DNA has been found in a research database of the Federal Bureau of Investigation but it has declined to reveal the identity of the man in accordance with the law of anonymity for donors, and because thousands of men could bear this fragment of DNA, which is unable to identify individuals.