Chapter 8: Flight and Fraud - Martyr or Murderer: Jens Soering, the Media, and the Truth

After the fateful 6 October interview and the abortive plot against Ricky Gardner, Jens decided to flee the United States forever. He emptied his bank accounts and carefully wiped all the fingerprints from his apartment and car. Here is his explanation for doing so from his 1995 book Mortal Thoughts:

When they asked me to provide my fingerprints I stalled them with a lame excuse about calling my father and the German Embassy. My fingerprints could be used to trace me on the run, after all! Even if I assumed a different identity I might be arrested years from now for some minor offence like drunk driving. The police would feed my fingerprints into a computer and discover that I was not John Doe but Jens Soering, America’s Most Wanted! I became so worried about being traced that I even wiped all my fingerprints from my apartment before fleeing.

There is another explanation for Söring’s removal of his fingerprints, provided by Elizabeth and by Jens himself from 1986 to 1990: He believed he might have left fingerprints at the crime scene (the detectives of course did not tell him they had found none).

After removing his fingerprints from his apartment, he drove his red Volkswagen Scirocco to Washington National Airport, leaving it in a back lot. Never at a loss for words, Jens left a letter addressed to “Dear Officers Reid and Gardner”, which contained the following passage:

I assume that especially you, Mr. Gardner, will be very excited by now, which is why I hate to disappoint you (well, that’s not exactly true…) … I suggest that you continue your investigation as before... As for me, I am afraid you must remain, as Officer Reid put it, only “99% sure” of my innocence [Reid had quoted this figure to Söring during the 6 October 1985 interrogation to reassure him]. From what Liz has told me of what you discovered at Loose Chippings, I can only say that I am incapable of such a thing. I do not have many friends, but I think they will substantiate this—and my long-standing dissatisfaction with my life here.

Söring also left a letter for his parents, which Terry Wright later excerpted in his 2019 report on the case:

There is a chance that certain officer Reid + Gardner will interpret my leaving as being connected to the death of Liz’ parents. It’s for their benefit that this letter is in English—they have a voyeuristic tendency to read other people’s personal mail anyway, and I hope that if I give them a copy of this letter, they will at least leave you the original. Then again, they may not bother you. If they do, you must know what to make of it, you knew me much better than they did. I can only tell you that if they do speak to you, I can almost certainly guarantee you that I did not do what they may think I did.

Elizabeth also wrote letters to her relatives. Söring had flown via People’s Express to Newark, where he called Elizabeth. According to Elizabeth’s 1987 trial testimony, Söring issued a veiled threat similar to the one he had made in April: If she did not accompany him, he would turn himself in and implicate her, ruining both their lives. He would use her incriminating letters to corroborate his accusations. However, she also admitted her own role: “I don’t want to exaggerate the importance of [these veiled threats]. I left of my own free will, I chose to leave and I did have a choice. And you know, when it came down to it I made the wrong one.”

Elizabeth left a day later than Jens, using the same flight from Newark to Brussels. In his 1995 book Mortal Thoughts, Söring provides readers with a fairly thorough account of their worldwide travels in late 1985 and early 1986. He begins, however, by noting: “Being apart from the love of my life for forty-eight hours left me extraordinarily tense and more than a little frightened.” One is reminded of his description of being parted from Elizabeth over Christmas 1984 as “mental torture”. Of course Söring now had another reason for anxiety: With Söring gone, Elizabeth might decide to turn herself in and admit the murder plot. In the end, she did not. The pair met under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. As Jens put it in Mortal Thoughts: “Liz and I had safely escaped the Bedford police, but we now faced the rest of our lives alone, short on funds and on the run.”

Their first plan was to lay low as aid workers in Africa. They first visited the Zimbabwean Embassy, since Elizabeth had been born in that country back when it was called Rhodesia. They were there were no positions available. They got a similar response from the Botswanan Embassy. They then relocated to Luxembourg. There, they explored taking a flight to Thailand, the country of Jens’ birth, but the flight was too expensive. They then decided to rent a car and simply drive as far east as possible. They rented a Fiat Regatta using the credit card of Johann Söring, Jens Söring’s father. They proceeded eastward into Yugoslavia, stopping in Belgrade among “unbelievably hideous concrete high rises”. They reached the Bulgarian border, but were informed they would need transit visas. They turned back, and then were in a serious auto accident. Or, as Söring puts it with characteristic spin: “Liz very nearly killed us both”. The accusatory tone is puzzling, since Söring’s own account of the accident stresses that it was caused by an oncoming vehicle “shear[ing] into our lane to overtake another car without so much as a warning honk of his horn”.

The accident totaled the Fiat Regatta. Police from the nearby town of Pirot appeared and took the matter in hand. Söring received stitches at a local hospital and the pair were ordered to wait a few days. They were given a Yugoslav minder, or “translator-spy”, as Söring put it: “[H]e seemed almost a caricature of himself: a black-beretted veteran of World War II Balkan campaigns, he was one-eyed, red-nosed, dark, squat and permanently drunk.” At a quick trial, Elizabeth was sentenced to a fine of 50,000 Dinars—or $7.50. The pair then got on a train back to Belgrade, whence they proceeded to Vienna and then Salzburg. They intentionally made numerous cash withdrawals from Johann Söring’s VISA card, hoping “this trail of VISA bills from Vienna westward to Salzburg would lead the pursuing police forces to search for us in Germany or points west.” Instead, they returned to Vienna and boarded a Polish LOT airlines flight to Thailand.

Söring seems to have enjoyed Bangkok, where the couple stayed in a cheap hostel and made “hot, sweaty love while enormous blood- crazed mosquitoes hurled themselves against the window screens”. Söring explored whether he could be naturalized as a Thai citizen based on the fact he had been born in the country, but found this was impossible. Söring continues: “Since we could not make money honestly in Thailand Liz and I turned our minds to crime. Looking for inspiration we wrote dozens of letters to small companies advertising in the back of the ‘International Herald Tribune,’ ‘Soldier of Fortune’ and ‘Venture Capital.’” This proved fruitless, so Söring visited libraries, reading up on the banking system in the hopes of perfecting a bank-fraud scheme. The pair also hired a forger to create numerous fake Canadian IDs, including drivers’ licenses, passports, and certificates of citizenship.

Jens and Elizabeth then began their criminal career, traveling to Chiang Mai, cashing traveler’s checks there, then returning to Bangkok to claim the checks had been stolen. However, the couple soon decided they “had no future in Thailand”. They pooled all their resources and booked a long bus trip to Singapore, where plane tickets were cheap. They flew to Zurick, landing on 1 January 1986, and “as always we covered our tracks by moving on to another country immediately”—in this case Germany, where the pair stayed in Stuttgart. They then holed up in Freiburg in the Black Forest for a few days, but their money was again running out and they needed to move on, “since our next frauds were designed specifically for English banks”.

In England, they attempted to secure “check guarantee cards” from a local bank, but were told they would need to show four to six weeks of regular banking. After a brief trip to the continent to try to gun up more cash from traveler’s-check fraud, they returned to England, creating fake charity badges and collecting donations in Canterbury. Eventually they obtained their check guarantee card, whose “sole function was to guarantee the check’s recipient that the bank would honor the check, whether or not the account holder had the funds to cover it.” Using fake IDs for Canadian students “Tim and Julia Holte”, they began their check-fraud scheme. They relied on the English bank practice of not investigating frauds under £10,000: “[N]o connection would be made,” Söring wrote in 1995, between the Holtes and the murder investigation in Virginia.”

The couple eventually settled on a fairly simple check-fraud scheme: One of them would buy expensive clothes at Marks & Spencers with a check, then the other would return the clothes at another Marks & Spencer’s, exploiting the chain’s generous no-questions-asked refunds policy for purchases under £50. Söring eventually dreamed up an even more ambitious scheme involving gold coins, which might earn them enough to “afford full plastic surgery and genuine passports from some South American country, so we could live legitimately again”. But before they could do so, they needed more “working capital”. They decided to shift identities, now claiming to be “Christopher P. and T. Lucy Noe”. To avoid links with their old identity, they adopted disguises, including hair dye, wigs, and mustaches.

As a precaution, Jens and Elizabeth never shopped in the same store at the same time. Instead, one would wait outside until the other had bought the needed items. Yet this caution reduced the scheme’s efficiency. Elizabeth proposed shopping in the same store, but simply going to different cashiers. On April 30, 1986, the scheme showed its flaws: Both Jens and Elizabeth ended up in the same cashier line without realizing it. The cashier noticed that a husband and wife with the same last name and a joint account—Christopher P. Noe with his wife T. Lucy Noe—had been shopping separately and pretending not to know each other.

The pair had also caught the eye of a store detective in a Richmond, England Marks & Spencer named Mrs. Selfton Weldon. As recounted in Ken Englade’s 1990 book Beyond Reason, Weldon noticed that the pair had entered together already carrying Marks & Spencer’s bags. They then separated and did not acknowledge each other. She watched as they first obtained cash refunds for previous purchases, then bought new items with their checks and check-cashing cards. She decided to follow them outside, and soon saw them become a couple again.

She followed them into the Underground, where she happened upon a police officer she knew who was off duty. He hopped on to a subway car, flashed his ID, and asked if they wouldn’t mind accompanying him and answering a few questions. The “Noes” agreed, and the three disembarked at Kew Gardens station. They were taken to Richmond police station, which would be the scene of the next phase of the drama: Questioning by Detective Sergeant Kenneth Beever and Detective Constable Terry Wright of the London Metropolitan Police, better known as Scotland Yard.

This trip to the police station brought the globetrotting of Jens and Elizabeth to an end. In his books about his case (both in English and German), Söring portrays these seven months on the run as a whirlwind adventure during which the two wallowed in the sights and smells of the down-and-out life, met fascinating and shady characters, escaped capture in the nick of time, scraped up money by defrauding faceless corporations, and explored alternate identities, even moaning each other’s fake names during sex in case someone was listening through paper-thin walls. Elizabeth’s account at Söring’s 1990 trial was more laconic:

We did a series of very odd things. We rented a car, we drove across Europe, I wrecked the car on the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, we had some trouble with that, went back to Austria. We flew from Austria to Bangkok, Thailand. We spent some time, quite a long time in Thailand. We then took a bus from Bangkok through Malaysia down to Singapore, flew from Singapore back to Europe, back to Zurich, back to Switzerland, and then from there, took trains finally to England, and then we were in England, in and out of England a couple of times and then we were arrested for fraud.

As we will see, Elizabeth’s experience of this was much more grim. The change she had seen in Söring’s character after the murders deepened and intensified, and she perceived disturbing and frightening sides to Söring’s character which eventually played a part in her confessing to her role in the crime.

In 1985, Detective Sergeant Kenneth Beever was then forty-two, and his main task was drug interdiction. Jens and Elizabeth initially claimed they were Canadians studying in Bath, England on holiday in London to do some shopping. However, Beever noticed anomalies: They were staying in a small apartment in Central London (near Sherlock Holmes’ legendary Baker Street), which begged the question of why, being on vacation, they would travel to a nondescript suburb to shop. Further, all the checks in their checkbook had been written to Marks & Spencer.

Beever conferred with his junior associate Terry Wright, who agreed something wasn’t quite right about the pair. According to Beyond Reason, Beever pressured “Lucy Noe” to allow a search of their London apartment. She refused. He pressed further, promising them that his main concern was that they might be drug smugglers, and if they found nothing suspicious, the matter would likely be solved right then. Beever suggested that the police could get a “magistrate” to authorize a search anyway, so there was little point in refusing. After a “pregnant pause” (in Englade’s words), Jens agreed. His consent was enough to permit the search.

Before the search of their apartment, Jens and Elizabeth may still have been able to escape the clutches of the British justice system. The police had their suspicions, but the mere fact that the couple had behaved strangely and seemed to really like shopping at Marks and Spencer’s (whose generous returns policy was well-known in the UK) may not have been enough to arrest them. Their fate was sealed after their apartment was searched. Police counted thirty-two Marks & Spencer’s bags on the floor of Jens and Elizabeth’s flat, each containing just under £50 worth of clothing. Further, each bag contained a notice of when the purchase had been made, and what Jens or Elizabeth had been wearing when they bought the clothes. The detectives also found bank books from various English banks and false identity documents matching the names on the accounts. Beever, seeing wigs and other disguises, ripped off Söring’s fake mustache. The detectives found an authentic West German passport under the name Jens Söring.

Police called a van to haul off the evidence. Beyond Reason then recounts the crucial find:

While waiting for the vehicle to arrive, Wright opened the bedroom closet. Resting on the floor, under a rack of new clothes that included several smart dresses and three blue blazers, were four large suitcases. Curious, he opened one and saw it was filled with papers. Now, why would they carry a whole suitcase full of papers with them? he asked himself.

Back at the station, Beever called the bank Jens and Elizabeth had used for their most recent purchases. The bank manager told him the account was overdrawn. This provided enough evidence to hold Söring and Elizabeth for check fraud. According to Terry Wright, British law at the time allowed the premises of parties under arrest to be searched as a matter of course, so their apartment would likely have been searched anyway. In any event, both Jens and Elizabeth could now be held while police investigated further.

Jens was offended by his treatment at the hands of law enforcement:

I was not the lover of Liz but a mouth, which was ordered to talk about the frauds by two interrogating police officers. I was not a highly intelligent and accomplished scholarship winner but a stomach, into which the cell block sergeant had to throw some cold food before the shift changed. The machine had consumed me and made me its own.

Jens was, of course, held separately from Elizabeth. In Mortal Thoughts he writes: “Like a heroin or cocaine addict in cold turkey withdrawal I was suddenly and permanently deprived of the only thing that made my life worthwhile or even possible: Elizabeth.” His cellmates recounted boastful tales of the crimes they had committed or were contemplating, while Söring “revealed to those youngsters the ineffable glory of loving and being loved by the most wonderful woman in the world… now, when I missed Elizabeth so much, talking about her was one way to relieve the yearning.”

Terry Wright, meanwhile, started going through the massive trove of documents seized from Jens and Elizabeth’s apartment. One of the first documents he stumbled on was a notebook containing a sort of joint travel diary which contained entries from both Jens and Elizabeth. They had apparently resolved to document their Bonnie-and-Clyde like flight from the law for posterity. The diary began with a series of entries which Elizabeth inserted later, to document what happened directly before the flight from the USA. Wright recited and summarized the entries at Söring’s 1990 trial:

October 5th, Saturday: Jens goes to see Officers Reid and Gardner in Bedford. They insist on tests. Must find them by the 9th of October.

October 7th, Monday: Elizabeth discovers she has a brain tumor, Jens gets Karl to send him his travel passport. Jens phones NL Bank about closing the account.

October the 8th: Tuesday, E has her tumor out, experimental laser tech.

October the 9th: Wednesday. Jens phones R & G that he will do the tests following Wednesday because of mid-terms.

October the 10th: Thursday, Jens phones NL Bank about closing account, account overdrawn incorrectly, denies access, calls father who calls, C’ville that evening.

October the 11th: Friday, both accounts closed, Jens’ credit card overcharged $500, father’s card, $1,600. E closes at $1,000. Jens closes at $700. Jens gets call from Richard to go to D.C. for WE. We go shopping, get only one bag, pack Jens with Christine plus David at Martha’s Cafe, with Christine to movie, “Shooting Party”.

October the 12th: Saturday. Write letters (Jens). Lizzie throws fit with Chris + David over shopping. Jens wipes finger-prints from room. Passport photos done. Leaves C’ville at 1.00pm (late) for D.C. in Scirocco. Parks at National Airport, satellite parking lot B—wipes car. Barely catches People Express to Newark. Departs N. @ 7.00pm. Preppy Negro girl and Buddhist technician as passengers. E begins packing and writes letter. Jens calls (from Newark) to invite me ‘to join Richard and himself in D.C.’ E. cooks dinner with Chris + David, @ 10.00 Howard phones. He is arriving in C’ville (perhaps) tomorrow but will definitely be visiting Wed. 16. ‘The case is about to be solved……’ [perhaps finger prints on coffee mug used by Jens in Bedford interview gave him away.] E + C. + D go midnight shopping. Walk to corner > Barracks Road Shopping Centre to buy hair dye for E. Walk to Faulkner to pick up stuff > 803. Cook cookies while hair is colouring. @ 2.00am Rover phones. IRA feel their situation in London has been put in jeopardy by E. Angry and uncooperative. E spends rest of night cleaning and wiping total apartment…

The 12 October entry about “Bedford” and a “coffee mug” mystified Terry Wright at first, but the references to “fingerprints” were suspicious. We can piece together the 12 October entry using information which emerged later. The entry starts out by describing Söring’s steps before leaving the United States: wiping down his car and apartment and just barely catching the “People’s Express” flight from Washington, D.C., to Newark. Then Elizabeth begins her own packing and letter-writing. At 10:00 p.m., Howard Haysom, Elizabeth’s half-brother, telephones her and announces he may visit her tomorrow, but will certainly be there on the 16th.

Elizabeth (in whose handwriting this entry is recorded) then quotes Howard, saying “The case is about to be solved.” She then adds, in brackets, “[perhaps finger prints on coffee mug used by Jens in Bedford interview gave him away.]” This notation by Elizabeth would later play a devastating role in Söring’s 1990 trial. The “travel diary”, as it’s now called, contained entries written in both Jens’ and Elizabeth’s hand; it was thus inconceivable that Söring did not know what Elizabeth had written, and Söring has admitted he did see this passage and understood its significance. Wright also found many of the letters exchanged by Jens and Elizabeth, wrapped up and labeled “Jens” and “Elizabeth”.