Whatever Happened To Killers Jens Söering And Elizabeth Haysom?

Jens Söering and Elizabeth Haysom were both convicted of killing Haysom's parents after the bodies of Derek and Nancy Haysom were found stabbed, their throats slit nearly to the point of decapitation in their Virginia home on April 3, 1985.

Söering and Elizabeth met when the were students the University of Virginia. They became deeply involved and infatuated in the three months prior to the killings. Case records on Find Law say that Elizabeth's parents were against the relationship, which "infuriated" Söering, and caused Elizabeth to feel angry, resentful and hateful toward her parents.

The prosecution said the couple rented a car to go to D.C. from Virginia, but that was a cover. The state claimed that Söering left Elizabeth in D.C. to provide an alibi while he went to the Haysoms' home to kill them. After the bodies were found, the couple fled to London, where they lived for six months until they were charged with fraud in that country, and Scotland Yard got involved, according to ABC News. 

A Scotland Yard detective, Terry Wright, had a hunch. He told "20/20" (via ABC News): "There [were] letters that were talking about things like doing voodoo on her parents and, 'I wish they would lie down and die ... I kept telling everybody that I thought I'd already decided I thought they'd done a murder," Wright said. Wright contacted police in Virginia to say he'd arrested the couple and asked if her parents had been murdered.

It took years and involved extradition, as Jens Söering is German and Elizabeth Haysom is Canadian, but in 1990 Söering was sentenced to two life sentences in prison for the murders. Elizabeth pleaded guilty to being an accessory before the fact of the murders and was sentenced to 90 years in prison. 

In the beginning Söering told London police he killed the Haysoms, but then pleaded not guilty, saying it was Elizabeth who took the rental car from D.C to Virginia and came back to tell him, "I have killed my parents," according to Find Law. Söering said he lied to protect the woman he loved. He still claims he is innocent of the murders, per the Associated Press. 

At the time of the killings Söering was 18 and Haysom was 20. After more than 30 years, both were released early from prison, in November 2019. Söering was 53 and Haysom 55. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the chair of the Virginia Parole Board, Adrianne L. Bennett, said, "the parole board has determined that releasing Jens Söering and Elizabeth Haysom to their ICE deportation detainers is appropriate because of their youth at the time of the offenses, their institutional adjustment and the length of their incarceration."

Haysom was deported to Canada in January 2020, per U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and Söering was deported to Germany, according to the Associated Press. Both are prohibited from returning to the United States.