The prosecutor emphasized 28 times in closing arguments during Jens Soering’s trial that his type O blood was present at the gruesome 1985 Bedford County murder scene of Derek and Nancy Haysom.
But a document never previously publicly released from Bedford County legal authorities show that on Feb. 27, 2017, Trudi Harris, a pardon investigator for the governor’s office, wrote that she believed the type O blood from the crime scene was actually type A blood, the same as Derek Haysom’s.
The documents were made available Wednesday to Cardinal News in an email from Soering approved by his Charlottesville attorney, Elliott Harding.
If it is correct and no type O blood was present, Soering’s conviction should be overturned, Harding said.
Harding obtained the new information from the Bedford County commonwealth’s attorney and the Bedford County sheriff’s office sometime after filing a writ of absolute innocence earlier this year with the Virginia Court of Appeals seeking to clear Soering’s name and record.
Soering was convicted of first-degree murder in 1990 and sentenced to two life prison terms. He was paroled 2019 after 33 years in prison and deported to his native Germany, where he lives today.
After Soering’s arrest in 1986, he confessed to the killings during several days of police questioning. At his trial, however, he pleaded not guilty, a stance he has maintained ever since, insisting that his girlfriend, the Haysoms’ daughter, murdered her parents and then told him she had done so.
He has said he confessed only to save Elizabeth Haysom from a possible death sentence. He thought he would receive a far lesser sentence because his father was a German diplomat and he would be tried in Germany. At trial he insisted that Elizabeth committed the murders. She pleaded guilty in 1987 of being an accessory before the fact and was sentenced to 90 years in prison. She testified against him at his trial. She was also paroled in 2019 and deported to Canada.
Harding said he gave all of the new evidence to the Virginia Attorney General’s Office weeks ago, thinking it might play a role in helping the appeals court respond. However, on Nov. 4, Attorney General Jay Jones filed a lengthy opposition to the writ of absolute innocence. This means the appeals court can either make a ruling on the basis of the written arguments or schedule a hearing.
Harding said he hopes the new evidence will prompt the appeals court to remand the case to the Bedford County Circuit Court to establish the new evidence as factual.
According to the new evidence, the confusion over the presence of type O blood is because of something called the “weak A” phenomenon. That happens because some older people produce so few A-antigens that their type A blood appears to be type O. Derek Hayson was 71.
Among the other new evidence not previously given to Soering’s defense attorney is:
- A May 12, 2017, email from pardon investigator Trudi Harris saying that according to a Bedford County sheriff’s investigator, the office still had two vials of blood in storage, one each for Derek and Nancy Haysom. That caused Harding to raise two questions: Why was that just now being released to the defense, and could they now be DNA tested?
- A contradiction in statements by one trial witness who initially told police she did not notice a bandage on one of Soering’s hands shortly after the murders and later testified in court that she did not remember if Soering had any cuts or bruises on his hand or face.
- Police reports that a witness on the day of the murders observed a car with a Nova Scotia license plate in the Boonsboro area, where the Haysoms were killed in their retirement home. Later DNA evidence indicated the possibility of someone else present at the murder scene.
- A May 8, 1987, interrogation transcript in which Elizabeth Haysom tells a Bedford sheriff’s investigator that the last time her mother had sex with her was March 23, 1985. That was one week before the Haysoms’ murders. That contradicts her testimony at both her trial and Soering’s in which she said she had not been sexually abused by her mother.
See our previous story on the Haysom killings and Soering’s legal quest to clear his name.
