Killing for Love (Das Versprechen)

How are you?

I brought my other glasses as well.

Which glasses do you prefer?

These or these?

It's up to you. It's your film.

I suggest filming as much as possible this time.

You never know whether this will be allowed again.

Last year they tried to stop all interviews.

I have destroyed my life,

I have destroyed the life of my parents.

I have brought so much sorrow to so many people...

Because I thought it was about love.

But this love didn't exist.

Retrospectively, I know that I never really knew this woman.

All the stories that she told me were untrue

or for the most part untrue.

So I don't know who the real Elizabeth was.

On August 25, 1984, I met Elizabeth Haysom.

At that point, I was 18 years old, had just turned 18.

And for the first time in my life, I was away from home.

I went to the University of Virginia.

There was a gathering and I knew Elizabeth Haysom's roommate.

When you're 18, that's a big age difference.

And so she was very worldly and damn sexy.

She was a foreigner, just like me.

She had a Canadian passport but grew up in England and Europe.

Elizabeth was very admired in the dorm,

because of her wild past.

She'd run away from home, had really experienced a lot,

talked a lot about it,

very charismatic and very good-looking.

Lots of guys were in love with her.

Also some girls, because she identified openly as lesbian.

In the next months we got to know each other,

and she told me a lot about her past.

A lot of stories about successes in her life.

She claimed to have been awarded a scholarship herself

at an English university, kind of as a reaction

to finding out about my scholarship.

That's how it was.

I played the guitar.

Okay, then she played saxophone and piano and cello.

She claimed that she was a writer

and only some special selected friends of hers, such as me,

we were allowed to type her chapters.

That was almost an honor, right?

Not only for me, but also for everyone

who had fallen in love with her,

but couldn't have her, because I got her.

I had three months with her, before she then,

on a weekend at the end of March,

killed her parents.

Somehow l still had a bit of hope,

that she would somehow tell the truth.

But she didn't.

She never did.

In May of '85,

Elizabeth's siblings got together to clean up the house,

to sell it.

That's when Elizabeth was seen

by her mother's best friend, Annie Massie.

She saw her taking off her shoe and comparing her foot

with the bloody sock prints at the crime scene

and Annie Massie reported that to the police.

After this conversation with the police,

which was taped, with Chuck Reid and Ricky Gardner,

it became very clear

they'd found out that we had something to do with it.

Elizabeth told me you wanted to talk to me.

Yes.

Have you and Derek ever had an argument?

No.

You and Derek never had an argument?

I have never been at Loose Chippings

while her parents were there.

Okay. You two went to Washington, D.C., that weekend?

- Yeah. - You seem to ring a bell.

We need your fingerprints, we need your blood.

We're not suspecting you.

We're trying to eliminate you.

You know if you did it or not.

So, suddenly, I was an internationally sought fugitive

and needed money somehow.

That's typical of Elizabeth, she wanted, naturally,

to deal drugs and... in Thailand!

That's crazy.

I was able to talk her out of it.

Elizabeth had a Canadian passport

and a Canadian driver's license.

So we had them forged.

We could type in any name we wanted, put a photo on it,

we also had stamps made.

We flew to England and passed a lot of bad checks.

This was just easier than dealing with the problem

that my girlfriend was a murderer

and that my life was completely screwed.

What, in the following months, became very difficult

was that we couldn't mention it

and we basically shut ourselves off

from others to protect ourselves.

We only interacted with each other,

simply because this secret was, essentially, hanging over us.

And there was always a danger of someone finding out about it

and after that night, we never spoke about it again.

So that was...

We didn't even name it.

We had a term for it, yes?

We couldn't split up.

We always had to be together.

So we were traveling around together,

cashing checks everywhere, right?

But we had to be careful that we didn't go to the same cashier.

This system didn’t work anymore.

We went to the same cashier.

Within two or three minutes, two people came through.

First me, Christopher Platt Noe, bought something

and two minutes later, Tara Lucy Noe.

And the cashier said, something's wrong.

They should have been together.

He alerted the store security guard.

She followed us to the subway, and arrested us on the subway

under the name Christopher Platt Noe.

And she was arrested under the name Tara Lucy Noe.

That was the first time in my life I was in handcuffs.

That's when they found the letters.

For some inexplicable reasons, we had kept our love letters.

In these, we talked about things that sounded suspicious,

as if something had happened in Virginia,

perhaps another crime.

Tell me the truth, Elizabeth. You knew that morning

that he was going for a confrontation

with your parents. I did not know that.

And your parents were probably going to die

as a result of that confrontation?

You knew he was going to do it, didn't you? Did you?

I did it myself.

Don't be silly.

I got off on it.

Tell me the truth and look me in the face.

You knew it was going to happen and you were creating the alibi

whilst he was committing the crime.

Then I just told Ricky Gardner that it was me.

I thought I was a hero.

I thought I was a great guy and I was saving her life.

All I could see was Elizabeth,

a beautiful young woman whom I deeply loved,

who was in danger of being executed.

What can I do to save her?

This interview is being taken

with Jens Söring on June the 6th, 1986,

at the Richmond Police Station, in England.

- It... Could I... um... - No, go ahead.

We did, on that weekend, discuss...

murder, yes.

You left Elizabeth in Washington

and what was your destination?

- Derek and Nancy Haysom. - Okay.

- Did you knock on the door? - Yes.

- Did he invite you in? - Yes.

Jens, can you remember what Nancy Haysom was wearing?

I think Ms. Haysom was wearing jeans.

Mr. and Mrs. Haysom probably died

from stab wounds that night.

Could you agree with that?

I'm sorry... I need to...

As you well know, we have spoken with Elizabeth.

She said to us that you murdered her parents.

Did you stab Derek Haysom?

Did you cut him with a knife?

Is this a difficult question?

Yes, very.

We know that you obviously fear the death sentence.

You said that to me, didn't you?

Wanna stop here?

Yeah, could we?

Okay, I'm gonna turn the tape off.

Turn it off.

That was 26 years ago...

When I started to understand

that it was all a terrible mistake

and everything was based on lies.

She then made a deal

with the prosecutor, Jim Updike,

that he would support her first parole request.

If she then also testifies against me, he'll help her.

Back then this was a very good deal for her,

because otherwise she'd be fried on the electric chair.