Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom

A couple was murdered and mutilated.

That was hatred, hatred. Just anger.

The victims were Derek Haysom and his wife, Nancy.

The couple's daughter

is suspected of murder.

As is her boyfriend, a German diplomat's son.

His name is Jens Soering.

The two of them were a horrible puzzle

that fit together just right.

My parents died

because Jens and I were obsessed with each other.

These were two lovers who had turned on each other.

One day they said it was Elizabeth.

She said, "I've killed my parents."

The next day they said it was Jens.

He said that he'd killed my parents.

You lied, didn't you?

And then they switched back again.

I felt I didn't have any choice.

Jens acted of his own free will. He had a choice.

Is Elizabeth Haysom a beautiful and intelligent murderer

or the victim of an obsessive relationship with a cold-blooded killer?

Do you know of any reason

why this court should not now pronounce judgment in your case?

I'm innocent.

This has so many twists and turns.

Oh, my goodness!

And so they've both lied, but who's lying now and why?

A couple convicted in the murders of a Bedford County couple

back in 1985 are being set free.

...in the name of federal police, welcome to Germany.

This is the best day of my life.

Soering still insists that he has nothing to do

with the case for which he has spent 33 years in jail.

This case has captivated people

for the past 35 years.

In the end all of this saga,

there's only two people that know the real truth.

And that's Elizabeth and Jens.

I thought I was doing the right thing,

and did something very wrong.

This is family land. I mean, I was born across the street,

lived in the same place all my life.

Parents live up the road about three quarters of a mile,

so it's just a wonderful place to live.

You know, our town in the '80s,

I grew up where you left your keys in your car.

You left your house unlocked.

You helped your neighbor. You watched other people's property.

We were a little town in the middle of nowhere,

and when this murder happened, it was...

It was unfathomable.

From the heart of Virginia,

this is News Center 13 at 6:00 with Jeff Taylor.

I was the, uh, managing editor and the anchor of the newscast

at Channel 13 here in Lynchburg.

We were in our newsroom.

It was, uh, April, I believe, April 3rd.

We heard a call go out for a body

out on Holcomb Rock Road,

and they gave the address, and I immediately knew

that was the Haysom's address. I said, "We need to get a crew out there."

I had my radio on,

and I called my chief deputy, "Ronnie, what have you got?"

He said, "Just need you to go to Holcomb Rock Road."

"Something big has happened."

It wasn't long before there were

just lots and lots of people on this narrow, windy road.

Authorities entered the home of W.R. Derek and Nancy Haysom,

following a complaint from a friend

that hadn't been able to contact the couple.

My whole job there that first night was crime scene security. I...

went through the house, and it was as brutal

as anything I've ever seen.

Police found a grisly scene inside the house.

The couple's throats had been slashed, and they had been stabbed numerous times.

The murders took place at least two days before the bodies were found on Wednesday.

I went in the house as they were taking the bodies out,

saw everything. It was awful.

The fact that I knew these people,

I knew who they were, I'd spent time with them socially.

I went back to the station, and I said,

"I cannot do the eleven o' clock newscast."

"I just can't."

The victims were Derek W.R. Haysom and his wife, Nancy.

Haysom was a South African native who later gained Canadian citizenship.

He was the president of the Sydney Steel Corporation.

The Haysoms were socialites.

They were very well known

in their part of Bedford County and in Lynchburg.

They liked to go to the country club for drinks and dinner.

They liked to play bridge.

Basically, I was just their neighbor. I helped them out. We were very social.

Derek was very, you know, quiet, but you asked him a question,

you were going to get an answer, whether you liked it or not.

He was very straightforward and very proper.

He had been in South Africa and turned this steel plant around,

and had been a tough taskmaster,

so he'd made a lot of friends.

But he'd made a lot of enemies too in different places.

They lived in the East County.

This is where affluent people have moved, so they can get a little space.

My sister's home was called Loose Chippings.

I don't know why you have to name a home,

but... but that's... that's kind of the way she was.

My sister's maiden name was Nancy Astor Benedict.

Lady Astor is, in fact, a relative of ours through my mother's side of the family.

Lady Astor was the first female member

of parliament in England.

She was born in Virginia. She spent some time here in Lynchburg.

Her father was a tobacco baron.

My sister really felt

the pedigree was very important, and she wanted to be the...

leader of Lynchburg Society, I think, and...

Mommy was a feisty woman

and Pop, uh, sort of modeled himself after Churchill.

So, if you can imagine a Churchill and a Lady Astor flashing,

loving each other and raising a family together,

it... it was a wonderful family.

My sister had two children with her first husband.

Derek had been married before as well and had the three kids.

It was a good relationship.

Derek and Nancy only had one child together,

Elizabeth Roxanne Haysom.

Elizabeth was ten years younger than her half-siblings.

She dressed in all black.

And she had earrings, short hair. It was very spiky.

She was just kind of punky and bubbly.

She lit up a room when she walked in it, and you knew she was there.

So, she was a lot like her mom in that respect.

I think Elizabeth really loved her mother.

I would see them walking hand-in-hand,

you know, like schoolgirls, down the street.

I'd see her spending time with her father on the front porch, talking.

So, that night, I really felt like, "This is awful."

She was 20 years old and lost both of her parents

and in such a way.

For the Bedford County Sheriff's Department,

their work has just begun.

They'll be working all through the night, trying to piece evidence together.

I'm Chuck Reid. Uh...

I've been in law enforcement for 30 years.

I originally started out in 1980

with the Bedford County Sheriff's Office.

I'd worked several homicides prior to that,

but that was probably the worst.

There it is, y'all.

You know, I was, like, in my thirties,

and Ricky was in his twenties, I guess. It's been many years ago.

I was probably the fourth or fifth officer on the scene.

My first assignment was to canvas the neighbors,

asking them if they knew the Haysom's, and if they'd seen anything that day.

It was probably six o'clock that evening

when I was allowed to go inside the residence,

um, walked in the front door.

It was just... It... I'd never seen anything like that before.

I can still see and visualize everything, just almost perfectly.

You don't forget things like that.

You step in, and it's like a slaughterhouse.

A scene like that, you can smell it and you can taste it...

...when there's that much blood.

You were just kind of overcome with emotion.

I was thinking it was a group or a gang of people

who came in here and did this.

Mr. Haysom was stabbed 36 times, and his throat was cut from ear to ear.

Severed every major structure in his neck.

They were almost decapitated.

The thing that made the biggest impression to me

was at how she died.

Her throat was cut from behind.

She had a gold necklace on. It was probably about as big as my pinky,

and it was down in her windpipe.

The blood in the kitchen floors was so thick and so deep

that it had actually pooled up away from the floor.

These people were not simply killed.

There was a lot of hatred here.

We took over a thousand pictures of this scene.

Went to Richmond to get them developed.

They have a unit down there that investigates satanic... killings.

They started picking out stuff in the pictures.

Mr. Haysom had a V cut in his chin.

Markings in the floor beside of Mr. Haysom,

like a 666, the way the body was rubbed

and smeared around the contour of the body.

And according to them, that was another aspect of satanic.

From then on, Bedford County was not the same.

Voodoo, black magic,

you know, fear of the unknown when somebody dies,

that... that gets your juices flowing.

Everybody was looking at everybody.

There were all kinds of stupid things that came up,

and, uh, it was... ridiculous, but...

that's what happens.

We were so shocked about the whole thing.

We just didn't know what to think.

We held onto all of our information.

It was not a good time to be wearing a uniform.

There was a lot of pressure.

Investigators really don't know all that much more

than they did when the bodies were discovered.