Chapter 10: The London Confessions Part II - Martyr or Murderer: Jens Soering, the Media, and the Truth

The next day, Sunday, June 8, 1986, Jens Söring asked to speak to Ricky Gardner alone. At 4:45 p.m., Söring again signed a written waiver of his rights. Söring refused to let his conversation be recorded, but allowed Ricky Gardner to take notes. Immediately after the interview, Gardner dictated everything he could remember into a recording device. During the first part of this interview, Söring gave the detailed confession to the crime which has already been quoted in Chapter 4, above: He went to the Haysoms house, confronted them about his relationship with Elizabeth, “freaked out”, killed the Haysoms, cleaned up the crime scene, and returned to Washington, D.C. After a bathroom break shortly before 7:oo p.m., Gardner asked Söring if he could call in Wright and Beever to witness what he had just said, and Söring agreed. Söring filled out a second written Miranda form at 7:18 p.m., then told his story again while Wright took notes.

Wright later recalled that the atmosphere in the room was tense and electric, as Söring calmly demonstrated, with Gardner sitting in a chair before him, how Söring had come up behind Derek Haysom and slit his throat. During his 1990 testimony, Gardner noted that Söring “liked to talk about the dog, hitting the dog, and that the dog apparently wasn’t killed”. In a 2023 podcast, Gardner recalled Söring asking:

“By the way, did you find a dog laying in the road, or on the side of the road’? And I went: “What?”… I remember being taken aback and I’m going: ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Jens. So you just brutally murdered two people, and you’re asking me about a dog?’ And he looked at me and said: ‘That dog never did anything to me’.

Gardner then asked Söring how Söring had known how to find the trash containers where he had dumped things he had touched and the bloody clothes. Söring drew him a “quite accurate” diagram of the roads around Loose Chippings. Gardner then asked Söring to show Gardner and the two British detectives how he had slit Derek Haysom’s throat. Söring complied, standing behind Gardner:

He said he came back and he had Mr. Haysom like this, and he cut Mr. Haysom’s throat like this, the left side of his neck, He said that he looked down and he saw blood going down into Mr. Haysom’s lap and also on his hand and he said he froze. He said at this time Mrs. Haysom was sitting right here, she got up and came at Jens.

Söring then showed Gardner and the British detectives the scar from a cut to two fingers on his left hand which Söring said he had suffered during the fight.

Before 8 June 1986, there might have been enough to indict Söring for capital murder. After the full confession of 8 June, there was more than enough evidence to do so. These confessions broke the case and ensured Söring’s conviction. Söring had seemed to almost enjoy his previous conversations with police as a game of cat-and-mouse. Now that he had confessed all, Wright recalled, he seemed depressed because he now realized exactly how much trouble he was in. Söring’s confessions were the result of several factors, including his unwise decision to ignore his lawyer’s advice and his hubris in imagining he could outfox experienced detectives.

Most of all, though, they were the result of careful, thorough police work and a sound strategy: Ricky Gardner came across as folksy, approachable, and sincere. Kenneth Beever’s role was the “bad cop”, brusquely ending Söring’s frequent digressions, nailing down admissions he had already made, and trying to elicit further ones. Wright also asks key questions, but also hovers in the background, fetching relevant evidence (such as the torn-up note) and pursuing other lines of inquiry. At no point did any officer threaten or intimidate Söring, nor did they make any false statements or promises. Beever in fact consistently reminded Söring that his extradition to the United States was well-nigh inevitable, and that he might well face execution there.

After a thorough hearing in March 1990, Bedford County Circuit Court judge ruled that all of Söring’s statements from June 5-8 had been lawfully obtained and could be used in evidence against him. They remain the centerpiece of the case against him.

As noted above, Elizabeth said nothing of substance to the detectives until June 8, 1986. She spent that day and evening wondering what Söring might be telling detectives. Eventually, just before 10:00 p.m., she requested to speak to Beever. She asked Beever if she could meet Söring, he said that was out of the question. She then asked whether Söring had confessed. Beever replied he could not answer that question, but that the investigators were extremely happy with their progress so far. This comment had the intended effect—about fifteen minutes later, Elizabeth asked to speak to Beever.

The process of getting the truth from Elizabeth proved as difficult as getting it from Söring, but for different reasons. Söring had assured detectives he would not lie to them, but would refuse to discuss certain matters until he had spoken to a lawyer. Elizabeth, by contrast, proved evasive. In her initial story to Beever, she denied intentionally creating an alibi or knowing that Söring was driving to Loose Chippings. She told Beever Söring had left to hang out with some buddies for basketball. When he returned, blood-soaked, she was stunned. Asked why she would accompany the killer of her parents on his flight abroad, she chalked it up to a combination of shame for her role in unintentionally spurring Söring to kill her parents, her continuing love for Söring, and fear she might be implicated if he were brought to justice.

Beever drilled her on the inconsistencies of this story, especially her claim that she did not know Söring planned to confront her parents. Beever recounted the conversation during Elizabeth’s 1987 trial:

Q: [You knew] that he was going for a confrontation with your parents.

A: I did not know that.

Q: And your parents were probably going to die as a result of that confrontation, you knew that, Elizabeth.

A: I did not.

Q: After writing all those letters to him.

A: Look, I have enough guilt about egging him on so to speak with those wretched letters.

Q: You egged him on all right, not only with the letters, you egged him on in private, didn’t you Elizabeth? You knew it was going to happen and you were creating the alibi while he was committing the crime; that’s true, isn’t it? Tell me the truth Elizabeth. Are you going to answer me? Well are you going to answer me? You’ve written letters to him willing your parents to death, you’ve led the poor boy to it most probably, or are you both as guilty as each other?

A: All right, I led him into it, I did everything.

Q: You knew he was going to do it, didn’t you? Did you?

A: I did it myself.

Q: Don’t be silly.

A: I got off on it.

Q: You did what? What does that mean?

A: I was being facetious.

Söring’s supporters have seized on the last part of this exchange as a “confession” by Elizabeth that she indeed killed the Haysoms. In context, it is simply a “facetious” remark prompted by Beever’s aggressive questioning. To “get off” is American slang for being sexually aroused; here, Elizabeth is referring to the then-notorious American murderer Karla Faye Tucker, who confessed to being sexually aroused during a murder she had committed in 1983.

Elizabeth later promises Beever: “I’ll tell you the truth”.

Q: Tell me now then, in your own words, come on, Elizabeth. Come on, you told me you were going to tell me the truth. Tell me why you created the alibi in the first place.

A: Because he was going to confront my parents.

Q: Yes, for what? What was he going to confront your parents about?

A: Their attitude towards me.

Q: Yes?

A: And Jens.

Q: Yes, it’s got a ring of truth to it now. I’ve already spoken to Jens; carry on.

A: He went down there with the knife with the possibility of killing them.

Q: And you knew that, didn’t you, didn’t you?

A: Yes, I did.

Elizabeth then confesses that she deeply resented her parents’ controlling, domineering style of parenting and that her father was “violently jealous of really anyone I associated with”. Jens and Elizabeth had discussed killing her parents in a “grotesque” way since December of 1984, but began taking the plan seriously only in March of that year. Beever asks Elizabeth what she stood to inherit. She replies that under her will, she would only receive enough financial support to finish her studies, and that only through executors.

Returning to the murders, Elizabeth says the pair had no real plan to avoid detection except for the alibi, which Elizabeth mockingly refers to as “great”. The interview ends shortly after this exchange. In the early morning hours of 9 June 1986, Elizabeth asked to meet with the detectives again. She wanted to read them a short statement:

I requested further statement to be given because I felt that I had betrayed my love for Jens, my loyalty to him and that I had done him a disservice. I don’t know if the charges against me, what it will be, but as I said in one of my letters, we did it together and in some ways I’m more guilty than he is, because I mean he loved me beyond reason; I loved him beyond reason, too.

I loved him beyond reason, and I suppose I used that love, and because of my own weakness of character I many times have tried to wriggle out of that responsibility and that guilt of putting him in this position. I can’t do that any longer. I can’t bear leaving my last statement as it stands.

I believe Mr. Beaver [sic] referred to Jens as that poor boy. I suppose that’s accurate, for it was my will that made him kill my parents and he wouldn’t have done it, I’m sure, if he hadn’t loved me so much and I he.

As 9 June 1986 dawned, Gardner, Beever, Wright, and Updike (who did not question Söring but merely provided legal advice) knew that unless some major revelation emerged, they had solved their case with two independent, mutually reinforcing confessions. Söring and Haysom were duly indicted for murder by a grand jury in Bedford County, Virginia, on 13 June 1986. On 11 August, the United States formally requested their extradition to the U.S. to stand trial pursuant to the 1972 extradition treaty between the U.S. and the U.K.

Jens’ family soon realized the grave danger their son was in. The German Embassy in London had also become aware of the case. Soering’s family, likely with some help from the German government, hired a team of lawyers to assist their son in defending himself against extradition to Virginia. One of those lawyers was Richard A. Neaton, a well-regarded lawyer from Detroit, Michigan, who had been recommended to Johann Söring (then stationed at the Detroit consulate) by a friend. Söring also hired English lawyers. Söring’s legal team devised a two-pronged strategy.

First, they would do everything in their power have Söring tried in the UK or, preferably, Germany. This was a long shot: Crimes are almost always prosecuted where they are committed. Trial in another country is only allowed in exceptional cases, such as when the jurisdiction in which the crime is committed is embroiled in war or otherwise incapable of giving the defendant a fair trial. That cannot be said of Virginia. Nevertheless, Söring’s lawyers had an ace in the hole: the death penalty. Prosecutor Jim Updike had announced that he intended to seek the death penalty against Söring. Both Germany and the UK had long abolished capital punishment by this time (Germany in 1949, the UK in 1969), and both countries were hesitant to extradite suspects to countries in which they might face execution.

No matter where he was tried, Söring would need some sort of defense. Given the confessions by him and Elizabeth, the movie ticket/room service alibi seemed to be a non-starter. Söring would have to admit his guilt, then claim a defense called “diminished responsibility” or “diminished capacity”. Section 2 of the UK Homicide Act 1957 provided that a person “shall not be convicted of murder if he was suffering from such abnormality of mind…as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts”. Assuming the defendant could prove this, he would be convicted only of manslaughter, not murder.

Section 21 of the German Penal Code has a similar provision which reduces a penalty if “the offender’s capacity to appreciate the unlawfulness of the act or to act in accordance with any such appreciation is substantially diminished at the time of the commission of the offence”. German law offered another path toward a lighter sentence: Courts had the option to declare offenders aged 18 to 21 juveniles under certain circumstances. If a German court chose to invoke this provision—by no means a foregone conclusion —Söring would be sentenced under the much more lenient provisions of German young-offender law. In the very best case, Söring could receive a sentence of only ten years in a special facility, with the possibility of early release.

In a letter to Elizabeth written just weeks after his June 1986 confessions, Söring joked that the two “possibilities” open to the pair were either “Annie”—presumably, the police finding evidence Annie Massie had indeed somehow participated in the murders—or “those possibilities connected with white coats and soft walls”. Söring would need experts for this latter “possibility”, and his defense team hired two of the best: Dr. Henrietta Bullard and Dr. John Hamilton, both experienced forensic psychiatrists. In the last half of 1986, both doctors met Söring multiple times and wrote reports on his mental state, Hamilton’s dated 11 December and Bullard’s 15 December 1986. Hamilton’s report, which is available online, was discussed in Chapter 3. Bullard’s report was summarized by the European Court of Human Rights in 1989:

“There existed between Miss Haysom and Soering a ‘folie à deux’, in which the most disturbed partner was Miss Haysom. ...

At the time of the offence, it is my opinion that Jens Soering was suffering from [such] an abnormality of mind due to inherent causes as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts. The psychiatric syndrome referred to as ‘folie à deux’ is a well-recognised state of mind where one partner is suggestible to the extent that he or she believes in the psychotic delusions of the other. The degree of disturbance of Miss Haysom borders on the psychotic and, over the course of many months, she was able to persuade Soering that he might have to kill her parents for she and him to survive as a couple. ... Miss Haysom had a stupefying and mesmeric effect on Soering which led to an abnormal psychological state in which he became unable to think rationally or question the absurdities in Miss Haysom’s view of her life and the influence of her parents. ...

In conclusion, it is my opinion that, at the time of the offences, Soering was suffering from an abnormality of mind which, in this country, would constitute a defence of ‘not guilty to murder but guilty of manslaughter’.

Hamilton reached similar conclusions. Hamilton’s report contains a detailed description not only of Söring’s mental state and his relationship with Elizabeth, but also of the crime itself:

This conversation took place at a dinner table and when Soering got up from his chair Mr Haysom pushed him saying "Sit down young man". Soering said he was not stable on his feet and his shoulders and then the back of his head hit the wall. The next thing he knows is that he attacked Mr Hayson from the rear stabbing and cutting the left side of his neck. He says he froze at the sight of blood but the victim said nothing and slumped on the chair. He apparently was not dead at this point as he was later shouting and screaming.

Soering says he next remembers Mrs Haysom coming at him with her arm outstretched holding a knife and he wrestled to take the knife off her. At this point Mr Haysom was hitting him over the head with his hand and knocked his glasses off (Soering is very shortsighted in both eyes). He was shouting "Are you crazy" and the three were slippering [sic] about in the blood from Mr Haysom’s wounds.

At some point in the proceedings Soering cut his hand. He remembers next getting behind Mrs Haysom and cutting her neck in a similar way to her husband. She then walked off towards the kitchen where he says she was lying on the floor. Soering says he does not have a clear memory for all these proceedings partly because he had lost his glasses, partly because of the alcohol he had been drinking and partly because he was extremely scared.

Subsequently he went outside, took his bloodstained clothes off and put them in a “dumpster” [the American term for a large square trash container]. He realised he would have to return to the house and says that when he went in he was still afraid but does recall seeing Mr Haysom lying on the floor and his wife at right angles to him. He did not look to see whether either was dead. He was wearing white socks having removed his shoes. He bandaged his hand and wiped up some shoe footprints. He denies seeing anything unusual such as voodoo symbols.

Neither Bullard’s nor Hamilton’s report suggests any doubt that Söring, acting alone, murdered Derek and Nancy Haysom.

Söring’s final official confession of 1986 occurred on 30 December. To have any chance of being tried in Germany, Söring needed to provide the German authorities with enough proof to indict him. Söring therefore needed to furnish German authorities with convincing proof of his guilt. To this purpose, Bernd König, the chief public prosecutor of Bonn, Germany (then the capital of West Germany), traveled to Essex Prison, where Söring was then being held. He was joined by Dr. Andreas Frieser, a well-regarded Bonn lawyer who is still active. Söring was allowed to privately confer with Frieser for twenty minutes before the formal interview.

The interview was conducted and recorded in German. An English-language transcript was later prepared for Söring’s trial. In this interview, Söring’s answers were tailored to fit German law, which grants defendants reduced penalties for alcohol intoxication. Söring stresses that he had a very low tolerance for alcohol and did not drink regularly. He tells König that he once attacked his friends after he drank half a bottle of Kahlua mixed with half a bottle of vodka: “That was the only time that I myself have attacked somebody physically, and that was under the influence of the alcohol that was therefore something very decisive.”

Conversation then turns to Jens’ relationship with Elizabeth:

I took her for my goddess as I expressed it to the psychiatrist [Dr. Hamilton]. There was no doubt whatsoever for me, what would happen if it came to a conflict, then it was always done as she wanted it because her affection, her love was unbelievably important and important above everything.

Söring then describes the evening of 30 March 1985. Söring says he bought “2 or 3 cans of beer” to drink on the way to bolster his courage. He also claimed he drank the stiff drinks he was offered by the Haysoms. He then recounts the intensifying argument and his sudden decision to slash Derek Haysom’s throat. The German prosecutor asks about the weapon, but Söring maintains his silence on that point:

PP: From where had you the knife?

A: This is a question which I also have not answered to the American Officer. I also want it here to remain unanswered.

PP: I know for what reason you want it. You think of a premeditated crime. That is what it amounts to!

A: Yes.

Söring describes cleaning up after the crime and noticing his own hand wound. Again he seems deeply concerned about whether he might have injured a dog:

Shortly after I had left the drive-way to the house, I hit a little dog which ran across the road. I don’t know whether it is understandable, on the way to the rubbish container, I had tremendous fear and shock that I had injured the dog with the car. That is perhaps odd but anyway I arrived and noticed that I was bleeding profusely. As said, there were no cuts but a small lump cut out and that is why I was bleeding so much and I thought it was absolutely essential to drive back to find something to bandage the hand.

The prosecutor presses Söring on whether he had a plan to kill the Haysoms. Söring admits that he and Elizabeth had discussed this:

I believe it is quite right that I hated the parents more and more, because I loved Elisabeth so incredibly. She was my everything. I can only very poorly describe what feeling I had for her. I would say that in the last month before this happened, there were talks, not very detailed, which arose from the feeling of hate.

However, he says these conversations were not serious, and that, as a pacifist, he was always strongly opposed to violence and could thus hardly believe what he had spontaneously done to the Haysoms: “[I]f I wanted to kill somebody or intended to kill, I then would have done it in any case with a shot gun.” The killings were caused by “collective rage … which resulted from the situation which was already months if not years old. That all erupted now.”

Again, Söring emphasizes the amount of alcohol he claims to have drunk: “I was surely strongly intoxicated.” There seems little doubt that Söring was instructed to emphasize the role of alcohol, given its relevance as a mitigating factor under German criminal law. Söring then sums up all of the circumstances and motivations which led to the Haysom murders:

The way I see it, to say it cruelly, for many years certain problems have built-up inside me, which perhaps other people around their 18th have, teenagers, etc. All these problems appeared to come to a solution when I met Elisabeth, and I believed that the relationship with Elisabeth prepared me for this matter and certain tendencies within me which led to this act increased and that the matter on this evening ended as it ended, since I drank alcohol for the first time after a long period and for me relatively much and that because of the alcohol all these things erupted and the entire anger and all these problems were discharged.

This concluded the interview. The Bonn Public Prosecutor’s Office in fact opened a file on the Haysom murders, but since Söring would not be extradited to Germany, no prosecution was ever initiated.

Söring’s last confession was to Mathias Schroeder, a fellow young German male who was in jail on allegations of fraud at the same time as Söring. As the only two Germans, the pair soon became acquainted, although they could not be described as friends. Schroeder says he asked Söring whether he had killed the Haysoms, and Söring said “Of course I wasted them!” (“Ob ich die Eltern meiner Freundin abgemurkst habe, na klar doch!”). After returning to Germany, Schroeder would go on to accumulate a long criminal record for homicide and fraud. These sorts of jailhouse confessions should be regarded with skepticism, and that would be warranted here as well, except for one thing: Speaking to retired German detective Siegfried Stang, Söring admitted confessing to Schroeder. He says he so only to foster a tough image in English prison, but if one chooses to credit Schroeder’s 2018 submission to the Virginia Parole Board opposing Söring’s parole bid, Söring’s statements to Schroeder contained many details of the crime which an outsider would have known.