My Convicted Double-Murderer Pen Pal

Thoughts on New Theory in Soering - Haysom Murders in the Aftermath of Netflix Series

On November 1 of this year, Netflix dropped its true-crime docuseries, “Til Murder Do Us Part,” a new look at the 1985 murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom, for which Jens Soering and Elizabeth Haysom received long prison sentences. Within a day or so of that, there were also two productions in Germany analyzing the unprecedented heroic reception Soering received when he was released from prison in 2019, and his subsequent media blitz there.

I’ve been following this case since I was a student at UVA, one year ahead of Jens and Elizabeth; and working for the student newspaper The Cavalier Daily. And in 2011, after following the Amanda Knox false confession case, I read that Soering was now saying he had falsely confessed to the Haysom murders in order to protect Elizabeth from a potential death penalty.

What a fascinating twist, I thought. He didn’t do it? He gave up a prestigious UVA Jefferson scholarship and a promising future to take the fall for someone else? And he was stuck in prison possibly for the rest of his life? How on earth could anyone live through that?

I decided to write him in prison, get more details if possible, and see if this might make a good article I could pitch to my then-editor at The Washington Post.

Jens wrote me right back, and was a dutiful, witty, caring correspondent, for over a year. Caring…or so I thought. I asked him a lot of questions and he shared details of his life in prison, his past, the case, and what new information could be dug up about it. I shared details of my life — mundane things like taking my kids to get haircuts, my Christmas, and the books I was reading (he got a big kick out of the fact I had recently read Fifty Shades of Grey). He wrote that my letters and phone calls gave him a glimpse of what his life may have been like had the awful event not happened.

The Netflix docuseries was very well done, in my opinion. They managed to dig up many of the key players, both in the case and in the fight for freedom for Jens and Elizabeth respectively. At the end, they briefly posit a theory of the case…the “two-killer” theory as it were…that both Elizabeth and Jens murdered Liz’s parents together.

I will say why I think that theory has some merit, based on my interactions with Soering. But let me say at the outset that I do not know for certain who committed the crime.

However, of the four main theories…he did it alone, she did it alone, she did it alone with some unknown accomplices, or they did it together, I can now in hindsight see how the two-killer theory explains several things that just seemed baffling before. I’m going to discuss them below based on some things from the letters and my knowledge of the case in general.

“I did it myself — I got off on it.”

Elizabeth said this during an interrogation in England, where, after they went on the lam, the two were arrested for scamming a department store. I asked Jens about this statement in one of the first letters I wrote to him, and he replied with a question, followed by a litany of points of what evidence actually incriminated her more than him.

“Was Elizabeth really only ‘being facetious’ when she said ‘I did it myself — I got off on it’ — well, that might be plausible...if not for her fingerprints on the vodka bottle…” and he went on to mention the length of the sneaker prints, and the small amount of type B blood (Liz’s type, the only B blood type person of the four) on the damp rag in the washing machine next to her mother’s body.

I thought it odd he phrased this as a question. If it had gone down like that, I would see this not being worded as a question, but something like, “Of course she did it! Her fingerprints are on the bottle!”…etc. etc.

But what if he was there too? He could maybe only get so indignant. I thought this also by simply the manner in which he declared at his 1990 Virginia trial, “I’m innocent,” with little vocal emphasis. It didn’t have a tone of anger. Jens had plenty of anger that he expressed occasionally when we were corresponding. Why wouldn’t it have come out then, when he was making his final statement before his sentencing?

You know the old adage, there’s a seed of truth in every joke? Hm...makes me wonder if that was a slip on Liz’s part, and not just a joke. Also, forensic evidence like a fingerprint or a bit of blood could be explained away for Elizabeth by the fact that she visited the house often…it was her home away from college, after all. Her parents’ home. She probably knew that.

Above: the bloody floor of the Haysoms’ home after the murders in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Sleeping Next to a Killer?

In the Netflix series, one of the interviewees marvels how Elizabeth could be fine and dandy cleaning her own parents’ blood out of the rental car if she had just learned her lover had offed them. That was Liz’s version; she cleaned the car. But also, if Jens is telling the truth and he wasn’t there, he’s fine sleeping next to a killer? When he said he was averse to violence of any kind? And / or, if Liz is telling the truth, she’s OK with sleeping with her parents’ killer? That she only just learned was her parents’ killer?

Neither of their stories about returning to the hotel in DC makes any sense, in my opinion. Liz said he showed up in the car in a bloody sheet. Really? He was in a bloody sheet, like some kind of horror toga party, but luminol found no traces of blood in the car later? And, he would have left the Haysom home in just a sheet? A bloody sheet at that. Gee, that wouldn’t raise suspicion. When there was evidence someone had showered at the Haysoms home? He couldn’t have grabbed one of Derek’s shirts to ditch later?

And what — she just waited on the street for him to roll up in a car? In a bloody sheet? In an era of no cell phones? When she arguably didn’t know how long he’d take to get back?

As for his story, he said she came into the hotel room and said she’d killed her parents…he had to help her…the drugs made her do it… well, there’s enough in their “diary letters” discussing offing her ‘rents that makes this seem disingenuous.

“Our little nasty”

This was how Jens and Liz referred to the crime at one point. Notice the word “our.”

And the Netflix series points out that in an interrogation, Jens himself uses the plural …our trip to Lynchburg…not “my”…he catches himself and quickly tries to explain this away.

Sheer Logistics of the Crime

It always seemed strange to me that one single person could physically kill two other adults...and…with so few wounds or scratches! Or even none, depending on whom you believe. (A witness, a Mr. Harrington, had claimed to see Jens with a bandaged wound at the Haysoms’ funeral). How would that happen?

Hm…well, what if Liz was distracting her mom upstairs while Jens took care of Derek? And then they both did in Nancy? Jens had said at one point that Mrs. Haysom was upstairs when he arrived; Derek answered the door. The Netflix series also points out that Nancy Haysom had mentioned she was expecting a visit from both Elizabeth and Jens that weekend.

This is not to say that’s how it happened. But for me it explains why Jens waited a while to start claiming a false confession, and Liz never wrote or talked about the crime except for a few rare, notable occasions, such as right before Jens was about to be released by Governor Tim Kaine.

The room service receipts from the DC hotel and movie tickets? Well, there is a theory they bought the tickets ahead and ordered room service at 4 pm, giving them both time to get to Lynchburg and back (Jens disputes this timeframe in one of his videos).

I don’t know who did it. In fact, one of my thoughts has been that at this point, some of the key players in the case have passed away. Two of the men Jens suspected of being accomplices have died, Nancy Haysom’s friend Annie Massie passed away, Judge Sweeney is gone as of 2017.

And you know what? I actually believe, as many others do, that no matter what happened, Jens and Elizabeth did their time. They have paid enough for this horrible deed which, however it went down, happened when they were very young.

And though I now say I don’t know who did it, the fact that I give reasons for the two-killer theory does not mean I don’t wish them well. Rereading Jens’s letters is sad. He displayed a lot of humor, humanity and kindness to me. I guess part of me wonders if it was real.

Liz served her time admirably and has by all accounts gone on to live her life as an upstanding citizen.

Why did my correspondence with Jens end? He cut me off abruptly over a dispute over his trial transcripts. I had picked them up from his detective as a favor. Two of his supporters came to get them, but I only got a couple days’ notice from Jens that this was happening, and I had told him I wanted to make copies of them for my research. I gave the women all the other boxes when they came by, and those totally filled their rental car. I then had the transcript boxes them shipped to Germany, on my dime, two or three weeks later or so, but it was too late for his liking. Our last phone conversation was strained…I had broken his trust by this, which initially surprised me, because it only meant his supporter in Germany was getting the boxes a couple weeks late (I wanted to make copies for my research) and I guess he flipped a switch and decided that was it. Realizing he had trust issues, I could understand it. It didn’t seem fair to me, but I could understand.

In re-reading his letters, I came across a passage that was ironic in hindsight: People will stay with him for a while, he wrote, but…when they see he really is not going to be released, “they drop me.”

However, now he is a free man in Germany, and it seems he has plenty of friends. What I can’t understand is his apparent need to keep discussing the case. Is he really innocent? Or does he just believe he is? Is he not really innocent, but feels since she was there too, he has grounds for saying he is? Is he so furious that the woman who he sees as ruining most of his adult life still has not gotten the blame that he has?

I really don’t know. But I have never seen a case like this, where a person convicted of a crime, where there are some doubts…but no certainty...is welcomed as a cause celebre in another country.

For myself, I will admit I accepted the narrative of his innocence at that time. Once I photocopied the transcripts from his detective, I saw much was missing. It wasn’t until Andrew Hammel’s articles and the Wright Report that I felt I had the whole picture.

What do I wish? That he and Liz can lead happy lives going forward. I just don’t know if the other people on Earth will ever know what really happened.