Jens Soering’s nearly four-decade drive to prove he is not guilty of the 1985 bloody, knife slaying of Derek and Nancy Haysom has hit a major roadblock — opposition from the Virginia attorney general.
In legal arguments filed Wednesday, the attorney general, through senior assistant Jeremy J. Key, urged the Virginia Court of Appeals to reject Soering’s contention that new evidence proves he is not guilty and dismiss his petition for a writ of absolute innocence.
The attorney general’s position relies on legal technicalities, mainly that Soering’s petition does not meet the required burden to prove that the new evidence is, in fact, new. The attorney general also argues that the evidence in Soering’s petition fails to prove a requirement that, when considered with all the other evidence in the current record, “no rational trier of fact would have found proof of guilt … beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The attorney general’s response emphasizes that “the burden of proving the elements of an actual innocence claim rests with the petitioner.” In addition, it points out that the appeals court has previously noted that a “person seeking a writ of actual innocence faces a daunting task; the process begins not with a presumption that a petitioner is innocent, but rather that he or she is guilty.”
Soering’s main argument in his petition is that new evidence from DNA tests of blood samples taken at the murder scene shows no link to him but indicates the presence of two other men.
The response from prosecutors dismisses the DNA evidence as inconclusive, in part because of lack of proof about the chain of evidence in some of the comparisons and because some of the DNA profiles “may be attributable to either Derek or Nancy Haysom.”
The commonwealth’s response also contends that Soering’s petition “offers statistics that make his claims theoretically possible but do not provide a framework that allows this court to make any fair inferences therefrom.”
In addition, prosecutors contend that while the DNA tests eliminated Soering from the tested blood, “this does not mean that, scientifically, he was not present at the crime scene.”
Now, it’s up to the appeals court to decide whether to grant or dismiss Soering’s petition for a writ of absolute innocence, or it could schedule a hearing to evaluate the opposing arguments and evidence.
See our previous story on Soering’s request for a writ of innocence.
Haysom killings drew international attention
The gruesome Haysom murders and Soering’s numerous efforts to win parole, pardon or exoneration prompted widespread national and international news attention and television documentaries, including Netflix’s 2023 four-part series “Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom.”
The murders occurred on the evening of March 30, 1985, at the Haysoms’ Boonesboro retirement home in the Blue Ridge foothills of Bedford County. The bodies of Derek Haysom, 71, and his wife, Nancy, 53, were discovered by a friend several days later. They had been slashed to death during a struggle for their lives. They were stabbed multiple times, and their necks slit ear-to-ear.
Soering and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, the Haysoms’ daughter, soon became suspects. The two were honor students at the University of Virginia. Suspicion focused on them when they suddenly fled to Europe, where they ran out of money and were arrested April 30, 1986, in London on check fraud charges.
London police notified Bedford County authorities, who flew to London. After several days of questioning by Bedford and London authorities, Soering confessed that he had killed the Haysoms while Elizabeth helped create an alibi that she and Soering were vacationing in Washington, D.C.
Soering told Cardinal News that he only confessed because he wanted to protect Elizabeth, who had told him she killed her parents. He mistakenly thought then that because his father was a German diplomat, he would be sent back to Germany for trial. Because he was 18 at the time of the murders, he thought he would receive a far lower punishment than in Virginia, where Elizabeth might have faced a death sentence.
When Bedford County authorities agreed to remove the death sentence as a possibility for Soering if convicted, he was returned to Virginia for trial.
Elizabeth Haysom pleaded guilty to being an accessory before the fact in 1987 and was sentenced to 90 years in prison. She maintained that Soering committed the murders. Soering rescinded his confession and, at trial in 1990, pleaded not guilty, a position he has maintained ever since. He was sentenced to two life in prison terms.
Both were paroled in 2019 after 33 years in prison. Soering was deported to Germany and Elizabeth to Canada.
A struggle that will continue
Writs of actual innocence were created to give the wrongly convicted and incarcerated a chance to clear their name. However, the odds of a convicted person winning one are slim. For example, of 84 writs reviewed by the court of appeals in the past three years, just two had their convictions vacated. Most were thrown out as without legal merit.
In August, after the appeals court ordered the attorney general to file a response to Soering’s petition for a writ of actual innocence, Soering expressed hope. He said, “I am confident that the attorney general and the court will grant me the justice I have been denied for so long.”
In an email statement sent to Cardinal News on Thursday in response to the filing this week, Soering wrote, “Of course I am disappointed that the office of the attorney general chose not to support my petition.” He went on to say, “However I have seen the entirety of the files supplied by Bedford County, so I am confident that the commonwealth of Virginia in its pursuit of justice will come to the right conclusion — for which I’ve been waiting 40 years.”
Elliott Harding, Soering’s Charlottesville attorney, also expressed disappointment in the attorney general’s opposition. But he said, “We remain optimistic that both the victims and Mr. Soering will finally get the justice they deserve.”
Harding added, “Soering will be adamantly pursuing all avenues to advance this case to the court of appeals.” He said he remains hopeful the attorney general and the court of appeals “will come to the conclusion that the petition must be granted.”
In the meantime, Harding said, “We’re going to seek a remand to circuit court for an evidentiary hearing to consider and establish some very basic and obvious facts.” Among those was a bloody sock print introduced in Soering’s 1990 trial in Bedford County Circuit Court as appearing to match Soering’s foot. Harding wants to prove in circuit court that the sock print testimony, a key element in Soering’s conviction, is “junk science.”
Harding also said the attorney general’s response is simply wrong in claiming the DNA is inconclusive and not new.
If he cannot change the opposition to Soering’s petition, Harding said, he anticipates opposing the attorney general’s response and “hope the court of appeals will allow us to present our case in a hearing. … innocence has no statute of limitation.”
