Episode 69 - The Story of the Haysom Murders - Part 2

In this episode we describe the crime scene and Jens Soering and Elizabeth Haysom's run from the law.

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
A lot of really great journalism wasdone in the service of this story over
the years. I'm particularly grateful toa couple of amazing articles in The New
Yorker and for the documentary Killing forLove. Also, big shout out to
WFTF, one of our local NPRstations. Their continued coverage of this story
over the years was crucial in thedevelopment of the series. This is episode

(00:26):
two in a multi part series.If you've not listened to episode one yet,
go back and do that first.We'll be waiting. Thanks. Hello
friends, I'm your host, Jenny. Welcome to Mile, Virginia. Loose

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Chippings had a Lynchburg address, butwas technically located right over the line in
Bedford County. Investigators Chuck Read andRickey Gardner from the Bedford County Sheriff's Office,
where the officers assigned at the case. They were soon quickly joined by
especially assembled task force. Chuck Readhad led multiple murder investigation in his time
as an officer. The Haysom casewould be the first murder investigation for twenty

(01:36):
nine year old Detective Rickey Gardner.The scene at least Chippiings that morning of
April third, nineteen eighty five wasgruesome. The Haysons had been viciously stabbed,
and from the looks of it,by someone they knew. Because there's
no fourth entry and the home inthe dining room table was set looked like

(01:57):
at some point during the evening therehad been a dinner and company. They
Hastom's blood alcohol content was point totwo for the both of them, and
that's not a small amount at all. They'd could only been drinking for a
while before they were killed. AVaca bottle and shot glass were recovered from
the scene and fingerprinted. The scenewas bloody and several blood types were recovered,

(02:21):
including A and A B, whichmatched the murdered Derek and Nancy,
as well as types B and O. The B type blood was found on
a damp washcloth that sat on thetop of a load of clothing in the
washing machine. The O was foundin the master's suite. In the mid
nineteen eighties, there was no widespreaduse of DNA that would come a few

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years later, for now they onlyhad blood type. The scene suggested that
Derek Cason was attacked as he satat the dining room table. The blood
trail starts there and then moves intothe other room where he fell. The
bloody handprint on the way to hisfinal resting place suggests he Saggarts has made
his way into the next room.Both his juggular and crodded arteries were cut

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and he was stabbed at additional thirtysix times. There was no sign of
any murder weapon. The killer orkillers must have taken it with them,
and there were footprints left in theblood on the floor, and these footprints
would become crucial evidence later at thetrials. One was a tennis shoe print,

(03:27):
the other two were from sock feet. Nancy Kyson was on her side
in the kitchen like her husband.Her throat had been cut and she also
had stab wounds all over her body. Police knew that the murders had to
have taken place sometime over the courseof that weekend between March twenty ninth and
March thirty first. Elizabeth was notifiedof her parents murders on Wednesday, April

(03:51):
third, the same day that thebodies were discovered. That next Monday,
April eighth, she sat down withinvestigators Chuker eating Rickey Gardner. Gardner remembers
being struck by the young woman's accent. The asked her what she'd been doing
the weekend her parents had been killed. Elizabeth told detectives that she had a

(04:12):
boyfriend then he was German, thatthe two of them had run in a
car and taken a trip to DCthe weekend her parents were murdered. They
checked into a Marriott and they've goneto see some movies. On Saturday,
they walked around sight seeing, sawsome more movies, ordered room service,
and then on Sunday they drove backto Charlottesville. All in all, a
pretty typical trip for a couple ofUVA students. DC was just a couple

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of hours up the road. Afterall, she hadn't heard anything from her
parents until Annie Masse drove up toUVA to give her the news that her
parents were dead. Elizabeth Haysom wasan odd one. Her affector in her
interviews with the detectives, in additionto her sedate behavior at her parents' funerals,

(04:56):
were noticeable and made investigators think alittle harder than probably would have had
the young woman not been so instantlydifferent from typical twenty year old Virginia girls.
Following up on her alibi, theycould see that she and Yans had
indeed running a car and driven toDC that weekend, credit Carter seats and
movie stubs to prove it. There'ssomething a little fishy about the odometer on

(05:18):
the Chevette that they drove up there. Elizabeth and Jans had clocked about six
hundred and sixty miles on that Chevette, approximately four hundred miles more than it
would take to drive from Charlottesville toWashington, DC and back. However,
it was the exact amount of milesthat it would take to get from Charlottesville
to DC DC, down to LooseChippings and back, and then back to

(05:41):
Charlottesville from DC. Detective Gardner askedElizabeth Hassim about that discrepancy on April eighth,
that interview that had been set upat a local elementary school that was
serving as a sort of command centerfor the criminal investigation. This is crime
is being treated as more than asimple home invasion robbery. The brutality of
it had gotten around, and becauseit was the mid nineteen eighties, not

(06:04):
a few people were worried that Satanistshad done it as a sort of ritual
sacrifice. The community was just freakedout. This case needed to be solved.
Elizabeth told them that they'd gotten lostin their way to DC and they
had to drive around a really longtime before they found their way. The

(06:25):
dectives were doubtful they getting lost anaccount for an extra four hundred miles on
their rental car, but they didn'tjump just yet. They continued their interviews
their evidence gathering. That summer ofnineteen eighty five, just a couple of
months after the Heisms had been murdered, Yans and Elizabeth took a vacation to
Europe before they returned to attend summerschool classes at UVA. When their second

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year at UVA started, Elizabeth livedin a house with several other students.
Yans basically lived there too, ashe and Elizabeth's relationship intensified. Meanwhile,
back in Bedford, the pressure wason to solve the Hasten murders. The
community was worried there were murders onthe streets waiting for the opportunity to commit
another random crime. The Hastons werewalt liked and well connected people. They

(07:13):
socialized with judges and state politicians.When people like that are slaughtered in their
own homes, someone has to answerfor it. That fall On October sixth,
nineteen eighty five, Hands Soaring drovedown to Bedford to speak with the
detectives working on the Hason murders.The detectives asked him if he'd be willing
to give blood, fingerprint and footprintsamples. Well, Elizabeth had already given

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hers just the week before. Itsure would help them eliminate him as a
suspect. Hands was concerned about thisrequest. He was afraid that if it
got found out he was wrapped upin a murder investigation, it would mean
bad things for his father's job,which was of course a good consideration,
though probably not the only reason forstalling. He told Ricky Gardner that he'd

(07:58):
liked to take a week or soto us it with his family and his
dad's handlers at the German embassy,and Gardner told him, yeah, you'd
see him the next week. Elizabeth'shalf brother, Howard Hayson, they'd been
ringing the bell at the Bedford CountyDetectives for months, wondering why there hadn't
been any progress on his parents murdercase. Howard Hayson, the Feuston area

(08:20):
physician, was scheduled back in Virginiain October fifteenth, On the day of
his arrival, Investigator Ricky Gardner wasout working in the field when he got
a call from a furious Howard.He had just got into town and discovered
that his little sister, Elizabeth Hayson, had left, and so her boyfriend,
Jens Soaring. Gardner drove up toCharlottesville. When he got to Elizabeth's

(08:46):
apartment, her roommate handed him aletter. It was from YenS. It
read, Dear Officers, read andGardner. I assume that especially you,
mister Gardner, will be very excitedby now, which is why I hate
to disappoint you. Well, that'snot exactly true. I suggest that you
continue your investigation as before. Undoubtedlyyou will find whom you're looking for.

(09:11):
As for me, I am afraidyou must remain, as Officer Reid put
it, only sure of my innocence. From what Lizza's told me, of
what you discovered at least Chippings,I can only say that I am incapable
of such a thing. I donot have many friends, but I think
they will substantiate this and my longstanding distatisfaction with my life here. After

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reading that letter, Ricky Gardner decidedthat Yen Soaring was this prime suspect in
the murders of Derek and Nancy Hayson. Elizabeth had taken off to travel Europe
on her own before, back whenshe was in high school, so her
family wasn't that concerned that she'd doneso. Once more. Better an investigator,

(09:54):
Chuck Reid had at this point leftthe Bedford County Sheriff's Office for a
job elsewhere, so Rickey Gardner thelead detective on the case. And I
do think that, regardless of whereyou fall on the blame spectrum for this
crime, the Rickey Gardner being sofresh as a big deal, especially when
you take into account Rickey Gardner's personality. He is one confident dude, and

(10:16):
watching interviews with him now thirty plusyears later is fascinating. He was that
dog with a bone, and hedidn't stop hunting until he gaw what he
was looking for, and he decidedso very early on in this case the
end Soaring was who he was lookingfor. Ends and Elizabeth took off to
Europe with their own itineraries, eventuallymaking their way to a meeting at the

(10:39):
Ark the Turn within Paris, whichI mean, of course they did.
I'm actually surprised they didn't meet atthe Eiffel Tower. Their love letters suggested
that they were more Eiffel Tower thanArc the Trump. When Elizabeth showed up,
she dyed her hair a fiery red, and the two were no doubt
thrilled to be on the run together. It was just another thing to check
off on their tortured lovers being gocard. Their plan was to make their

(11:05):
way from Paris to Thailand, whereYenS had been born. There they would
marry and each get Thai passports.They could also presumably get the fake papers
necessary to start their new lives onthe run. The couple runt in a
car in Luxembourg, but only madeit as far as the Bulgarian border before
they were told they'd need visas totravel further. The process of turning their

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car around at that border station,the car coming the other way swerved into
their lane, causing it to crash. YenS was noted unconscious, but the
pair was other eyes unharmed. Theywent to traffic court and decided to bail
on driving from France to Thailand.Instead, they brought plane tickets and flew
the rest of the way. Andsome things I've read YenS loved Thailand and

(11:50):
Elizabeth hated it, and other thingsI've read it was the other way around.
Whichever one you believe is kind oflike stories of Elizabeth's drug habit.
There are people who will strongly attestthat Elizabeth had a terrible drug problem,
including heroine. Others say that sheexaggerated that like she exaggerated everything else,
that it was something she lied aboutto explain her erratic behavior, to make

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her seem more dangerous than she actuallywas. Regardless though, Thailand was hot
and bustling and seedy, something thatprobably thrilled the relatively sheltered YenS as much
as it provided useful for as Elizabeth, if she was indeed as much the
junkie as she sometimes portrayed herself tobe. And Bangkok YenS bought books on

(12:35):
British banking, then he set aboutdiligently studying them. The pair each got
multiple sets of false documents based onElizabeth's Canadian passport, changing up their hair
and glasses between each pictures say they'dlooked like they were taking at different times.
Their work in Thailand complete, theyboarded a bus for a one thousand
mile journey to Singapore, or theycaught a flight to Moscow. Take a

(13:00):
minute to think about that, thougha thousand mile bus trip from Bangkok to
Thailand back in the eighties. Iwonder what that was like the Moscow they
rang in the New Year nineteen eightysix before finally making their way back to
Canterbury in England, where they settledas the Canadian couple. Tim and Julia
Holt, just a couple of regularstudents the University at Kent, Ends had

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developed an elaborate check fraud scheme thatinvolved their multiple fake identities and a banking
quirk of the period known as acheck guarantee card. It was a brilliant
little scheme based on the idea thatif one had a check guarantee card,
then retailers want to honor any checkup to fifteen pounds because the bank was
backing it. So back before computers, checks would have to physically wind their

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way through the system, so acheck written on a Monday wouldn't clear until
Friday. That's a long time fora bad check to be out in the
world. People known the Wiser Endsand Elizabeth ran a con based on a
single leather jacket that cost forty ninepounds fifty. One of them would buy
the jacket and a Marks and Spencerusing a bad check, then the other

(14:07):
would return the jacket and another Marksand Spencer and get cash for their return.
Because the check was under fifty pounds, Marks and Spencer didn't make a
peep. They were getting their moneyon the transaction from the bank that backed
the card, and the bank Alloidsof London. They didn't investigate fraud if
it was under a ten thousand poundcheck. In the first month of their

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check cashing scheme, the couple nettedthe equivalent of nine thousand dollars in US
money at the time. But thismoney they opened another bank account at another
bank, and this one with nowaiting period, and they got more bank
guarantee cards and more checks. Theyrun in a flat changed their names to
one of the other Canadian identities they'dgotten while they were in Thailand, Christopher
plat No and Tara lucy No.Their scheme had been a success, specifically

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because Jens had insticted on strict measuresto avoid they're getting caught out, the
number one rule being the two ofthem could never go to the same Marks
and Spencer together. Since they'd startedthis scam, in late February of nineteen
eighty six. They'd had such successthat they started to get lazy. Specifically,
Elizabeth got lazy one day at theend of April in nineteen eighty six,

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she suggested they go in at thesame time. A savvy Marks and
Spencer worker noticed them and remembered themfrom before. She called the police.
Elizabeth Haysim and YenS Soaring were arrestedon April thirtieth, nineteen eighty six,
in London for check fraud. OnThursday May twenty ninth, nineteen eighty six,

(15:37):
Rocky Gardner got a call from London. Was he looking for a couple
of people on the run for amurder back in Virginia? Why, yes,
he sure was. After YenS andElizabeth were picked up on the check
fraud charges, there was something abouthim that just seemed to ring foss.
Their apartment was searched and in itBritish detectives found the couple's real identification.

(15:58):
In addition, into stacks of theirlove letters, which just why did they
still have those? There's so muchdamning stuff in those letters because they have
been so dumb to keep those withall of their things, you know,
I guess a lot of that justgoes to the fact of their age,
the fact that they were so dumband just thought they were in the middle
of this giant love story. Theyjust needed to keep the letters. It'd

(16:22):
be their undoing that they did.Investigator Rickey Gardner and prosecutor James Updyke got
on a plane four days later andflew to London interview Ends and Elizabeth.
The Ends would later say that heasked for a lawyer repeatedly and it was
denied to the notes from the interviewdon't back that up. He signed solicitor

(16:42):
waiver forms, but according to him, he only did that because one of
the investigators, the British cop namedKenneth Beaver, threatened Elizabeth. According to
Kenneth Beaver, though that never happened. At one point during his questioning,
British investigators asked, sorrying, ifyou can imagine a person and ever confessing
to a crime they didn't commit.Quote, I can't see that for sure

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right now, soaring reply, ButI can see I can see it happening.
Yes, I think it's a possibility. I think it happens in real
life. On Sunday night, aftera week of questioning Sorring changed his tune.
He asked to speak to Ricky Gardner, the Bedford County Detective, without
a tape recorder. This time,he told a story that was very different

(17:26):
from what he'd said before. Accordingto end Soaring, he and Elizabeth talking

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for a while about the problem ofher parents. They didn't like YenS,
and Elizabeth felt they were too activein her life. She got a touch
with what she wanted when they gotto DC that Friday night, they decided
that the next day YenS would driveback down at the Haysome House in Bedford
to talk to them try to convincehim that he was worthy of Elizabeth's attention.
Yen said Elizabeth a bought tickets toa few different movies just in case

(18:23):
they would need an alibi. Shestayed in DC. YenS drove back down
to Bedford alone and the rent atChevett. He said that when he got
to Lose Chippings, Derek answered thedoor and let him in. Andy sat
with Derek and Nancy at the tableand joined them for a couple of drinks.
He said that Derek was obstinate anddidn't want YenS to see Elizabeth anymore.

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He told Jens that if he didn'tbreak up with Elizabeth, you would
make sure that YenS was expelled fromUVA. At this point, YenS got
up and said he was leaving.According to his confession, he stated that
Derek Cason pushed Jens into the wall, where he hid his head. Ends
then grabbed a knife from the diningroom table the group had just been sitting
at, and sliced open a veinin Derek's neck. Nancy then took up

(19:07):
a knife of her own, yellingat the men to stop fighting, Ens
reached across the table and sliced herneck too. He grabbed her and used
her as a shield against Derec Hayson'scontinued attack. He got hit in the
head again, Nimes lashing up blindlyin all directions. At some point the
Haysons stopped fighting and lay on thefloor dead, he had said. He

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frantically gathered up we assumed to beincriminating items. Table wearers, closed the
knife he grabbed from the table,took them down the road at their room
in a dumpster. He then returnedin his socks and swirled the blood around
Nancy Hayson to get rid of footprints, and he wiped down the crime scene
to get rid of any fingerprints.His hand had been cut and he washed
it and wrapped it in a towel. Then he rabbed himself in a sheet,

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got back in the Wrenich of Vet, and drove back to DC,
bloodied and battered. After Soaring confessedto Garden, he left the room and
brought in Prosecutor Updyke and British investigatorKenneth Beaver, Soren recounted once again the
story he'd just told Gardner. Whendetectives told Elizabeth what Soren had told them,

(20:11):
she told them her side of thestory, that yes, Ens had
gone to Lose Chippings to talk toher appearance, but they had prepared alibis
for him just in case things didn'tgo well. She recalled that when he
returned that Saturday night to their DChotel, he was covered in blood and
wrapped in a sheet. She wasstunted what he had done, but understood
it to be because he loved herand was trying to set her free to

(20:33):
be with him. The two decidedto keep quiet to protect each other.
Psychological evaluations were given to both theEnds and Elizabeth. She was diagnosed with
borderline personality disorder, unstable identity,and impulse control. The Enz was diagnosed
with falia DO, a shared disillusionaldisorder. Not long after YenS confessed his

(20:57):
role in the murders, Elizabeth decidedto come clean once and for all.
She wrote YenS what amounted to aDear John letter, telling him of her
intention to return to Virginia and pleadguilty to her role in the murders.
Before the fact, she told himthat it was all over between them.
It was at this point that Yensoringrealized he had been had. As soon

(21:22):
as he received Elizabeth's break up letter, yen Sooring recanned his confession to the
murders of her parents. He didso for a couple of reason. First,
to surely because he realized that everythinghe'd done for Elizabeth had been for
nothing. She had abandoned him.She would soon return to Virginia and tell
a Jerry how he had killed herparents. Theirs was not the tortured love

(21:44):
story that he had been so convincedof. Second, though, and far
more important, was that YenS gota crash course in international relations. When
yen Sooring confessed to the murder ofDerek and Nancy Haysen. He was one
hundred percent under the impression that hewas a foreign national because his father was
a diplomat, that he would notbe tried in America, that he would

(22:06):
be sent back to Germany and triedwhere sentences for young offenders are always much
more lenient, because what was waitingfor them back in America, back in
Virginia was anything but lenient. InVirginia, the electric chair was waiting,
And according to the ensor, inthat electric chair is why he confessed to
everything. Because now that Elizabeth hadleft him to the wolves, End said

(22:27):
an entirely different story. His newstory was that he had nothing to do
with the murders of Derek and NancyHaysen, that he had lied to protect
the woman he loved. He hadlied to keep her out of the electric
chair. End said that he wasactually the one who had waited in that
hotel room in DC, who hadordered two meals for room service and bought

(22:48):
two tickets to movies that only hewent to. He was the one who
set up the alibi, not Elizabeth, because he was not the person who
murdered the Haysons. According to him, Eizabeth was the one who drove down
to loose Champions and in a rage, murdered her parents and returned to the
hotel in DC, where she toldstunt YenS what she had done, and
then that he'd covered for the womanhe loved to keep her from being sent

(23:11):
to death row now, though,because of her actions, because the first
to flip always gets the best deal, it wouldn't be Elizabeth on trophor capital
murder in Virginia. No, She'dmade sure that wouldn't happen. Instead,
it would be Ens, and forthe next three years, he and his

(23:32):
legal team would do everything in theirpower to save his life. For a
list of sources or additional information,please visit www dot Vile Virginia dot com
or visit our Facebook page. Thanksso much for listening, and we'll see

(23:53):
you next time. Six semper Trannis. Y'all,