#22: Murder at Loose Chippings: Death, Lies, and an International Manhunt

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before we begin. Do you have a theory about this
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might be featured in a future episode. I'm Harper Finley
and this is night Watch Files. On Wednesday morning, April third,

(00:28):
nineteen eighty five, Elizabeth Haysm became increasingly worried about her parents.
She had been unable to reach Derek and Nancy all week,
which was highly unusual given that they typically maintained contact
with their daughter every few days. Elizabeth was the focus
of their lives and such prolonged silence was completely out
of character. Elizabeth phoned Annie Massey and left a message

(00:52):
with Annie's maid, asking Annie to check on her parents. Meanwhile,
Nancy Haysm's bridge companions were facing their own concerns. Dereck
had a regular bridge game with Jane Riggs, Marilyn Baker,
and Constance Johanson, and he never missed these appointments, especially
when he was hosting at his own home. When Dereck

(01:12):
failed to appear for the scheduled game, The three women
tried knocking on the door and checking the garden, but
received no response. Growing increasingly worried, the three women went
to Mitchell's store and called Annie Massey themselves. When Annie
Massey arrived in front of the modest two story house
in Boonsboro, Virginia, she was met by the three women

(01:34):
who were already there and visibly distressed. Annie informed them
that Elizabeth had called her just before they did, also
requesting that she check on her parents. Annie also understood
the significance of Derrick's absence from his regular bridge game.
He and Nancy were known to be reliable people who
wouldn't miss commitments without reason. As Annie surveyed the property,

(01:58):
she noticed that both the Haysums van which they called
the Bronze Bell, and Derrek's BMW were parked in their
customary spots. The presence of both vehicles didn't immediately indicate
a problem, but combined with their absence from scheduled activities,
Annie recognized this had the earmarks of an emergency. Fortunately,

(02:18):
Annie had the means to investigate further. Nancy had given
her a dull brass key long ago, specifically for checking
on the house when they were away. Annie approached the
front door slowly, the anxiety evident on the faces of
the three women beside her, adding to her own growing fearfulness.
She inserted the key into the lock, and the tumblers

(02:39):
clicked noisily in the quiet afternoon air. Annie twisted the
handle and cautiously swung the door open just a crack.
She called out Hello, more loudly than she had intended,
then tried again, more softly, Nancy, Derek. The house remained silent.
Jane Riggs expressed what they were all feeling. Something's very wrong.

(03:01):
Her words carried the weight of a strong premonition that
something terrible had happened inside. Annie took a deep breath
and gave the door a gentle push, opening it another
eight inches. The wider opening immediately revealed what she had
hoped not to find. Dereck Haysam lay sprawled on the floor,
barely two strides away from the entrance. He was surrounded

(03:21):
by a huge, dark stain that Annie knew intuitively was
dried blood. Oh my god, Annie gasped. She turned to
Jane and exclaimed, it's Dereck. He's right there on the floor.
He's covered with blood. The scene before her made one
thing immediately clear. With that much blood surrounding Dereck's motionless form,
there was no way he could be alive. Annie quickly

(03:44):
closed the door, physically blocking Marilyn Baker, who had started
to push forward in an attempt to see or help.
Annie confirmed that she had not seen Nancy, and made
it clear she did not want to. The implications of
what they had discovered were already overwhelming enough. Taking control
of the situation, Annie firmly instructed the other women that

(04:06):
they could not go inside. This was now a crime scene,
and Derek had clearly been dead for a long time.
The most important thing now was to contact the police immediately.
Annie relocked the door and carefully put the key away.
She then drove the panic stricken women to Mitchell's store,
where they called doctor William Massey. Doctor Massey, understanding the

(04:29):
gravity of the situation, immediately contacted the Bedford County Sheriff's Office.

(05:09):
Deputy Joe Stanley arrived at the Haysom residence at precisely
four to fifteen pm. The front door opened onto a
scene that would be burned into his memory for years
to come. Derreck Haysum lay on his back, his head
pressed against the fireplaced jam, his body unnaturally still. It
was immediately apparent he had been dead for several days.

(05:30):
The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood.
The living room was a tableau of violence, a space
that had once been orderly now transformed into something unrecognizable.
Sergeant Jeffrey Brown, the Lynchburg Police Department's lab technician, was
soon on the scene. He would later describe what he
saw as a sea of gore. Nearly ninety percent of

(05:51):
the floors in the living room, dining room, and kitchen
were coated in blood. The splatters were everywhere, in fifty
two distinct locations, varying in size and intensity. Testing revealed
that most of the blood was de type A Nancy's blood.
Type A B was present in smaller amounts. Traces of
Type O and a single type B stain were also found.

(06:13):
Their origin unexplained. Derek's body bore the evidence of a
brutal and relentless assault. He had been slashed and stabbed
some three dozen times with a large, very sharp knife.
Two horizontal gashes marred the left side of his face.
One severed his ear completely. Another deep slash crossed his
right cheek. Most devastating was the massive wound that encircled

(06:36):
his neck, wide and deep, the kind of injury that
spoke of rage and precision. His hands bore six separate cuts,
including a deep gash across the left palm, indicating a
desperate attempt to grab the blade. One knuckle was abraided,
as though he had struck his attacker. One of the
stab wounds had penetrated his heart. Derek Haysum had been

(06:57):
subjected to an unimaginable level of violence. Nancy Haysen was
found in the kitchen, curled on the linoleum floor, at
the center of a large brown stain. The slash across
her throat was grotesque, so deep she was all but decapitated.
Two stab wounds marked her torso, one to the heart,
the other piercing the parrot neal cavity. Additional injuries included

(07:20):
a cut to her jaw, a superficial wound to her
left breast, and an incised wound on her left elbow,
likely sustained as she raised her arm in a defensive gesture.
In the dining room, three chairs had been pushed back
from the table. On it sat the remnants of a meal,
a dirty plate, a bowl, a wine glass, and a
neatly folded paper napkin now soaked in blood. Investigators concluded

(07:43):
that three people had sat there, Two were now dead.
The third, it seemed, had been the killer, someone the
hasms knew well enough to invite to their home. As
the investigators examined the house, further, faint, ghostly footprints became visible.
When treated with luminol. They glowed blue green in the
darkened rooms, tracing a path from the living room into

(08:04):
a bedroom and then to the bathroom. The conclusion was
inescapable the killer had taken a shower to remove the blood.
Other prints led from the door to the driveway, looping
around near by trees. A second set veered into the yard,
leaving swishing marks in the grass, as if some one
had vigorously wiped their bloody feet. Investigators theorized that the

(08:28):
killer had returned to the house, perhaps to ensure that
both victims were dead by slitting their throats. Toxicology reports
confirmed that both Derrick and Nancy had a blood alcohol
concentration of point two two percent, well above the legal
limit for driving. They had been very drunk when the
attack occurred. Leaving them vulnerable to the violence that would

(08:49):
consume them. The extreme nature of the killings convinced Sheriff C. H.
Wells that the perpetrator harbored a deep hatred for the couple.
Given the strength required and the extent of the mutilation,
he believed the killer was male. Sergeant Brown, acting on
a hunch, consulted two Richmond detectives experienced in cult related crimes.

(09:11):
They examined photographs of the scene and noted unusual details.
Both bodies had been positioned facing north. Around them, the
blood appeared deliberately outlined, as though someone had consciously painted it.
Near Nancy's body, a mouse trap had been placed on
the bloodied floor. It was sprung but empty, holding a
small piece of cheese. The detectives concluded it had been

(09:34):
positioned after the blood dried, and it was also pointed north.
The silverware on the dining room table had been aligned
in the same direction. Every candle in the house had
been burned. Between where Nancy and Dereck had sat. There
was a puddle of an unidentified black waxy substance. The
dining room chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Derreck's chin

(09:56):
bore a peculiar V shaped cut in the smeared blood
on the floor, the detectives claimed they could make out
what appeared to be a six inside a V, a
symbol they identified as representing the Antichrist. They told investigators
these details suggested a Satanic ritual. While they did not
definitively claim it was cult activity, they believed that if

(10:19):
it was, it had likely been carried out by someone
inexperienced or experimenting. They also acknowledged that the signs could
have been deliberately staged to mislead the police. The Richmond
detective's assessment muddied the investigatory waters as homicide squad members
debated the significance. Some dismissed the observations as overreach, others

(10:41):
were fascinated. Spending evenings pouring over books on Satanism, hoping
to find a connection. With no other leads, the satanism
hypothesis gained prominence. The brutality of the murders affected investigators deeply.
One twenty five year veteran officer began sleeping with a
pistol under his pillar. Another, Sergeant, Carol Baker, a swat

(11:03):
team member unaccustomed to fear admitted that returning home at
night made him uneasy, imagining the Haysum's bodies on his
own kitchen floor. Detectives Ricky Gardner and Chuck Reid, frustrated
and desperate, even consulted a psychic. They brought items of
the victim's clothing and sealed photographs of potential suspects. The

(11:23):
psychic claimed she saw a man in dark clothing standing
outside the windows, feeling the knife and sensing the pain inflicted,
but she provided no actionable information. A second visit was
equally unproductive. On Easter Sunday, April seventh, nineteen eighty five,
over one hundred mourners gathered at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church
in Lynchburg, Virginia. The church, frequented by the city's elite,

(11:48):
provided an unlikely venue for a memorial service that neither
of the deceased had ever attended. Derek and Nancy Haysm
were gone, their bodies already cremated as soon as the
Medical Examiner's office had released them. There would be no
traditional funeral. Instead, family members had arranged this solemn gathering
to remember two lives that had been brutally cut short

(12:10):
just days earlier, Reverend Alexander Robertson spoke briefly before yielding
the podium to Richard, Nancy's thirty one year old son
from Calgary. Richard, an architect who had considered Derek his stepfather,
delivered a moving eulogy that left barely a dry eye
in the room. He urged those present to focus not

(12:30):
on the horrific manner of Derek and Nancy's deaths, but
on the lives they had lived. His words called for strength,
for the capacity to continue loving and forgiving in the
face of unimaginable tragedy. Among the mourners sat the surviving children, Howard,
a thirty two year old surgeon from Houston, Varian, a
thirty six year old criminal defense lawyer from Nova Scotia,

(12:53):
and Julian, a thirty three year old engineer. Elizabeth Haysom
stood discreetly to one side, supported by her Universe Virginia
roommate Charlene's Song and her boyfriend, eighteen year old Jen's
Zuring at twenty years old. Elizabeth was Derek and Nancy's
only child of their current marriage. Quick break ads keep

(13:20):
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Thanks for sticking through that. Let's get back to it.
Shortly before one pm of the following day, Monday, April eighth,

(13:43):
a tan van known as the Bronze Bell, pulled up
to Boonsborough Elementary School. The school had been transformed into
a command post for the investigation into Derek and Nancy
Haysom's murders. Elizabeth Haysom sat in the passenger seat while
yent Zuring gripped the steering wheel. Elizabeth emerged from the
van alone, exchanging only a few words with Yents before

(14:05):
he drove away. She entered the makeshift headquarters and requested
to speak with investigator Ricky Gardner. Her British accent immediately
struck the Lynchburg Police officers present, pure elegant and disarming.
For many of them, such a voice existed only in movies.
The interview would be conducted by Gardner from Bedford County

(14:27):
and Debbie Kirkland, a veteran investigator from the Lynchburg Police Department.
This pairing represented the regional homicide Squad's commitment to maintaining
collaboration across jurisdictions. Elizabeth came prepared. She carried her lunch,
a thick sandwich carefully wrapped in saran wrap, which she
consumed with dainty but enthusiastic bites throughout the four hour session.

(14:51):
Even when Gardner set up his tape recorder, she maintained
her composure, appearing remarkably poised for someone whose parents had
been savagely murdered just days earlier. The investigators had a
primary objective establishing Elizabeth's whereabouts during the weekend of March
twenty ninth through thirty first, when Derrick and Nancy Haysom

(15:12):
had been killed. Elizabeth's account was precise. The last time
she had seen her parents, she claimed, was the week
end of March twenty third and twenty fourth, when she
had taken a bus from Charlottesville to help celebrate her
father's birthday. Her parents had driven her back to Charlottesville
on Sunday, March twenty fourth, and since then she had

(15:33):
spoken to them only once, on Thursday, March twenty eighth,
for a brief hello. She explained that she had pre
arranged to call them again on Sunday, March thirty first,
at approximately eight p m Such specific scheduling was necessary,
she said, because they often had difficulty reaching each other.
The call was meant to discuss her housing situation, as

(15:56):
her landlady preferred not to have undergraduates in the house
for the murder weekend itself. Elizabeth provided what seemed like
a straightforward alibi. She and Yents had rented a car
in Charlottesville and driven to Washington, d C. To spend
a couple of days during a quiet period at school.
They had returned on March thirty first. The trip, she explained,

(16:18):
was simply to spend time together, visiting art galleries, memorials,
and taking in some movies. But when Gardner pressed for
a motive who might have wanted Derek and Nancy Haysom dead,
Elizabeth's responses took an unexpected turn. Rather than providing straightforward answers,
Elizabeth offered what could only be described as a shopping

(16:38):
list of potential enemies her father had allegedly made during
his time in Canada. According to Elizabeth, Derreck had invented
a revolutionary submerged injection process that transformed steel making while
working for Sidney Steele. However, this breakthrough had come at
a cost Canadian unions, fearing widespread job losses, had turned

(17:00):
against him. Local politicians, whom Derek supposedly considered scum, had
also grown to despise him, partly due to his South
African background and accusations of discrimination. Elizabeth painted a picture
of a man under siege. She claimed her father had
been screwed big time over his invention, leading to strikes

(17:21):
and personal abuse that extended to his family. The hostility
had been so intense she alleged that she had been
threatened at school and even had her front teeth knocked
out due to her father's anti union stance. The pressure
had eventually forced Derek to resign from Sydney Steele. He
had then taken a lucrative position as chairman and president

(17:41):
of Metropolitan Area Growth Investments Limited, known as m A
g I, a venture capital organization, but even there scandal
had followed. A controversy involving a mortgage for a cruise
ship had led to Derek's resignation from m AGI as well.
Elizabeth emphasized as the tremendous ill will her father faced

(18:02):
and his rage over these events. The stress, she suggested,
had become so overwhelming that Derek had literally walked out
of their magnificent family home after selling it. Gardner listened
carefully to this elaborate narrative, but a nagging question remained.
While there may have been many reasons for people to
harbor anger toward derreck hasum, was any of it compelling

(18:25):
enough to motivate someone to travel from Nova Scotia to
Virginia to commit a double murder. The uncertainty surrounding motive
reflected the broader frustration felt by investigators in the community alike.
Three days after the memorial service, the Lynchburg News in
Daily Advance published an editorial titled what Possible Motive for

(18:47):
such brutal Slayings? The piece captured the widespread bewilderment over
the unsolved murders, questioning both the unusual brutality for the
area and the complete absence of an apparent motive. On
Friday day, April twelfth, Elizabeth wrote a brief note about
the murders. The letter revealed considerable hostility and anger, not

(19:07):
just about the killings themselves, but about being questioned by police.
She attributed her parents butchering to America's savagery and brutality.
More tellingly, She complained that US law enforcement officials had
harassed her as a principal suspect simply because her parents
did not give her a car. By mid April, Sheriff

(19:28):
Wells recognized that the investigation would be protracted and assigned
it to a specific team. Ricky Gardner and Chuck Reid.
Gardner began reviewing Elizabeth's April eighth interview notes, paying particular
attention to her statement about renting a car for the
Washington trip. What Gardner discovered would change the entire trajectory

(19:48):
of the case. The nineteen eighty five Chavett that Elizabeth
and Yents had rented showed six hundred and sixty nine
more miles on its odometer when returned on March thirty
first than when it had been checked out on March
twenty ninth. A simple round trip to Washington, d C.
Would account for approximately two hundred thirty miles. The discrepancy

(20:09):
was significant and suspicious. Gardner began calculating a trip to
Lynchburg and back would cover around six hundred forty miles.
Add some driving around Washington, d C, and the total
could easily reach six hundred sixty nine miles. The numbers
aligned too perfectly to ignore. He needed to speak with
Elizabeth again. On Tuesday, April sixteenth, at ten forty p m.

(20:33):
Gardner met Elizabeth at the Uva Police Department. The atmosphere
had changed dramatically since their first encounter. Elizabeth had complained
about Gardner to her brother Howard, who had contacted lawyer
John Lowe and requested that no further questioning of the
Haysom family occur without legal representation present. Sheriff Wells had
refused this demand, stating that Elizabeth herself would need to

(20:57):
decline the interview. She had not done so so, but
her willingness to speak now carried a different tone. Gardner
abandoned his previous friendly approach, accompanied this time by Sergeant
Carrol Baker of the Lynchburg Police Department. The questions came
sharper and more direct. When confronted with the six hundred
sixty nine miles on the rental car, Elizabeth's composure finally cracked.

(21:21):
She became visibly nervous, offering explanations that seemed to shift
with each question. They had detoured. She claimed they had
gotten lost in Warrenton, they had driven a lot around Washington,
and neighboring areas. She contradicted herself repeatedly, first saying they
had rented a car several times and might have gone
to Lexington, then insisting they had gone straight to Washington

(21:46):
and only gotten lost on the way. When Gardner inquired
whether her parents had liked Yents, Elizabeth evaded the question,
claiming they had given her money for the Washington trip
and had shared supper together. She denied that her parents
had objected to her relationship with Yents, a statement that
those who knew the family recognized as an outright lie. Then,

(22:09):
as the interview stretched past midnight, Elizabeth launched into what
Gardener would later describe as an improbable and horrific tale.
She claimed that her mother, Nancy, had a first husband
who was bisexual, who had beaten her mother, and who
was a cannibal that had eaten their three month old baby,
putting the child in intensive care. She suggested this mysterious

(22:32):
ex husband might be the real killer. Gardner recognized the
story for what it was, an attempt to send investigators
on a wild goose chase. As the interview concluded well
after midnight, Gardner asked how difficult it would be to
get in touch with Yents, Elizabeth stammered that she didn't
know his schedule. Throughout the spring and summer of nineteen

(22:53):
eighty five, the investigation continued along multiple paths. Early suspicions
had fallen on Margaret Louise Simmasan Deryck's son, Julian Haysom's
ex fiancee, due to her psychological problems and the broken
engagement when Julian married someone else. However, forensic reports eventually
eliminated her as a suspect. By June nineteen eighty five,

(23:14):
the regional homicide squad began withdrawing personnel due to lack
of progress, leaving only Red and Gardener to pursue the case.
During this period, Elizabeth and Yents traveled to Europe for
what they described as a holiday. Yence's father had insisted
he spend time in Germany. They visited Berlin, where Elizabeth
telephoned Colonel Harrington, who invited them to dinner. Harrington, a

(23:38):
friend of Elizabeth's, would later note their care free attitude.
They seemed indecently happy despite the recent murders. Annie Massey,
a family friend, was similarly troubled by Elizabeth's apparent lack
of grief and her insistence on bringing both Yent's and
Charlene's song with her to Boonsboro immediately after learning of
the murders. Meanwhile, Gardner and Reid remained convinced that Elizabeth

(24:03):
was lying about the rental car mileage. The excess four
hundred miles could almost exactly account for a round trip
to Boonsboro, the scene of her parents murders. On July second,
a state crime lab report identified Elizabeth's finger prints on
a vodka bottle found at loose chippings the Haysum family home.

(24:23):
Gardener found this unremarkable, as Elizabeth would naturally have left
prints throughout her family's residence. An August twenty ninth report
stated that Julian Haysum could not be eliminated as a
suspect based on foot impressions found at the scene. However,
Julian was known to have been in Canada at the
time of the murders, highlighting the limitations of forensic analysis

(24:45):
without proper context. By September twelfth, additional unidentified finger prints
were traced to one of the first officers on the scene,
and attempts to lift prints from evidence using laser technology
proved unsuccessful. Reed and Gardner had systematically eliminated other suspects,
Margaret Louise Simmons, Julian Haysom, and various cult related theories

(25:08):
that had circulated in the community. Their focus had narrowed
to Elizabeth and Yents. It was time they decided to
put some pressure on them. In late September, they tracked
down Yents and arranged to interview him during the first
week of October. Gardener and Reed employed a classic good cop,
bad cop routine. During their interview with Yents in Bedford,

(25:30):
they pressed him to provide a date when he would
submit to finger printing, footprint analysis, and a blood sample
that could be compared with alien blood found at the
crime scene. Yentz stalled, claiming he had exams to worry about,
but eventually agreed to make himself available around mid October
the fifteenth or sixteenth. A couple of days later, Howard

(25:52):
Haysum called Elizabeth with what he described as potentially good
news Gardener and Reed, he said, might soon make an
arrest in the case. The effect on Yents was immediate,
and telling he panicked. By the next morning, he had
made arrangements to fly to Europe. On Saturday, before the
scheduled October sixteenth appointment, Yence systematically wiped his fingerprints from

(26:16):
his apartment and his red Siroco. The car was later
found abandoned at National Airport in Washington. Reid would later
note the irony one detective had theorized early in the
investigation that the killer drove a red car. Twenty four
hours later on Sunday, Elizabeth followed YenS into flight. On Wednesday,
October sixteenth, the very day Gardener and Reed had planned

(26:39):
to collect Yens's forensic samples, Howard called with startling news
Elizabeth and YenS had run away, probably back to Europe.
Howard accompanied the detectives to Charlottesville, where they searched the
house Elizabeth had shared with Charlene's Song. There they found
two letters that would prove to be the final pieces
of evidence they would before the case took an international turn.

(27:04):
Charlene's Song handed Howard an undated note from Elizabeth. The
message was brief but telling she was leaving with YenS
for an unspecified destination, and urged her family not to
attempt to find her. Gardner received a two page handwritten
letter from YenS. The tone was sarcastic throughout, with YenS
advising the investigators not to make a mess while searching

(27:26):
through his belongings. He claimed he was incapable of committing
such murders due to his pacifism, and suggested he was
leaving because of general unhappiness at the University of Virginia.
He also expressed regret that Elizabeth had provided her fingerprints
and blood sample to investigators. As Howard examined the house,

(27:47):
he noticed that some of Nancy's jewelry appeared to be missing.
His reaction to this discovery revealed the complicated emotions the
case had stirred within the surviving family. If Elizabeth and
YenS were were ultimately proven to be involved in the murders,
he stated he hoped they would be arrested and tried.
He would not advocate for leniency, even for his sister.

(28:11):
This sentiment spoke to the broader tragedy that had befallen
the Haysom family. Derek had trusted Elizabeth completely, even as
he harbored suspicions about her boyfriend. Before his death, Derek
had told Howard to take care of Elizabeth if anything
ever happened to him. Describing her as a very loving
and responsible child. Quick break ads keep the show running,

(28:56):
but if you want to skip them, the ad free
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in the show notes and we're back. Thanks for sticking
through that. Let's get back to it. Elizabeth Roxanne Haysm

(29:18):
was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia now Zimbabwe in nineteen sixty four.
She entered the world as the only child born to
Derek and Nancy Haysm together, though she would grow up
surrounded by the complexities of a blended family. Derek, an
engineer who had built his career managing projects across three continents,
was forty six years old when he married Nancy, who

(29:40):
was twenty seven. The age difference between her parents was significant,
but perhaps more defining for Elizabeth was the fact that
she was a full decade younger than her half siblings.
This age gap effectively meant that Elizabeth was raised as
an only child, despite the presence of five other children
from her parents' previous marriages. Deryck had brought three children

(30:02):
to the union, Verian, Julian, and Fiona. Nancy contributed two
sons from her first marriage to Ian Hall Howard Henry
and Richard Platt. Nancy herself came from distinguished Virginia lineage.
Born Nancy Astor Benedict, she was a blood relative and
god daughter of the renowned Lady Astor. Her maternal grandmother,

(30:23):
Halley Hutter Gibbs, was Lady Astor's first cousin. The connection
was significant enough that Lady Astor had attended Nancy's first
wedding ceremony, despite her parents disapproval of the match. From
her earliest years, Elizabeth displayed an intense craving for affection.
She would frequently pen sentimental notes to her parents, slipping

(30:44):
them under their bedroom door as physical manifestations of her
need for attention and validation. Derreck and Nancy, for their part,
seemed to meet these emotional demands during Elizabeth's early childhood.
In nineteen sixty five, when Elizabeth was barely a toddler,
the family relocated to Luxembourg after Derek left Rhodesia behind.

(31:04):
It was during these early European years that an incident
occurred that would leave both physical and psychological scars on
the young girl. Before Elizabeth reached her tenth birthday, she
suffered what she would later describe as a horrible wound
on her cheek from a dog bite. The incident was
serious enough to trigger a child welfare investigation. According to

(31:27):
Elizabeth's later recollections, a social worker even recommended her removal
from her parent's custody. Whether this traumatic event directly influenced
the decision to send Elizabeth away to boarding school, or
whether it simply coincided with her parents educational plans, remains unclear.
Elizabeth herself would later connect these two events, though she

(31:50):
also acknowledged that being sent away might have been something
she herself had desired. Elizabeth's education would take place far
from her family, across some of Europe's most prestigious institutions.
She began at Saint George's in Switzerland before moving to Riddlesworth,
an elite elementary school in Britain that had also been

(32:10):
attended by Princess Diana. Her final destination would be Weakham Abbey,
one of the most highly regarded girls schools in the
United Kingdom. It was during her time at Saint George's
that Elizabeth experienced what she would later describe as a
sexual assault. She claimed to have been raped at age
ten by two or more French youths on the school grounds.

(32:32):
The details of this alleged incident would shift depending on
who she told. To her brother, Howard, and apparently to
her parents, she described a different scenario involving genital exposure
by a single man. More damaging than the incident itself,
according to Elizabeth, was her parent's reaction. She felt they
treated her horribly afterwards, with her mother allegedly blaming her

(32:55):
for what had occurred, even going so far as to
call her a little whore. Her father's response, she claimed,
was to pretend the incident had never happened at all.
This experience contributed to her being moved from Saint George's
to Riddlesworth. Her two years at Riddlesworth passed without notable incident,
as did her initial years at Weakham Abbey. Elizabeth proved

(33:18):
to be an exceptional student, extremely bright, uncommonly articulate, amazingly energetic,
and frightfully ambitious. She excelled academically, specializing in English history
and languages including Latin, German, French, and Greek. Her academic
achievements were impressive, distinction level in English, Latin, Greek and

(33:38):
French translation, combined with a's in history and applied mathematics.
Beyond academics, Elizabeth demonstrated leadership qualities that earned her the
position of head of house in her junior year, making
her responsible for overseeing more than three dozen girls in
her dormitory. She was also a prolific creative force, authoring

(33:59):
plays and poet and her musical talents on piano and
cello earned her awards from the Royal Academy of Music.
Yet beneath these achievements, a profound disconnection was taking root.
Elizabeth's relationship with her parents became increasingly strained as she
progressed through her boarding school years. She saw Derek and
Nancy primarily during holidays, brief interludes that seemed to emphasize,

(34:22):
rather than bridge, the growing distance between them. During these visits,
Elizabeth felt her mother smothered her with affection, perhaps Nancy's
attempt to compensate for the extended separations, but an approach
that only seemed to drive her daughter further away. The
breaking point came when Nancy and Dereck made a unilateral
decision that would fundamentally alter Elizabeth's academic trajectory. Without consulting

(34:48):
their daughter, they arranged for her to take high level
science and mathematics classes, clearly intending for her to follow
in Derek's footsteps and become an engineer. For Elizabeth, who
had been passionately focused on history and humanities, this redirection
was devastating. She would later describe it as a blow
to her self esteem and a hateful blow, among many

(35:11):
others inflicted by her parents. The force shift contradicted everything
she had envisioned for her academic future and represented, in
her mind, a complete dismissal of her own desires and ambitions.
The consequences were immediate and severe. Elizabeth's grades plummeted as
she struggled with subjects that held no interest for her.

(35:33):
The academic failure forced her to repeat her entire senior
year while all her friends graduated and moved on to university.
This humiliation fostered what she would later describe as a
reservoir of ill will toward her parents, resentment that would
only deepen with time. During this period, Elizabeth's personal appearance
began to reflect her internal rebellion. She gained weight and

(35:56):
adopted what observers described as a punkish, dykish look, cutting
her hair short in a style that set her apart
from her more conventional classmates, more concerning her drug abuse,
became a parent. Elizabeth later claimed that her substance use
had begun with raiding her parents liquor cabinet during visits
to Nova Scotia, but it had evolved during her time

(36:18):
at boarding school, chemicals she discovered were easier to obtain
and conceal than alcohol in the school environment. It was
during this tumultuous period that Elizabeth formed what would become
a defining relationship of her final school years. She developed
a close, furtive alliance with another student who, like herself,
felt disconnected from family expectations and conventional school life. Melinda

(36:44):
Duncan was in many ways Elizabeth's kindred spirit. She too
was an eccentric student who harboured deep unhappiness about her
family situation. Melinda was a lesbian, and during their travels together,
her relationship with Elizabeth evolved into a romantic one. Elizabeth's
own sexual history was, by her own admission, murky. She

(37:05):
acknowledged a sexual experience with another girl when she was
twelve or thirteen, though she dismissed its significance. Both young
women found themselves united by their shared desire for what
Elizabeth would later characterize as freedom and adventure. They longed
to escape the constraints of their family's expectations and the

(37:25):
rigid academic environment that seemed determined to shape them into
versions of themselves. They didn't recognize Melinda's situation paralleled Elizabeth's
in its academic disappointment. Her application to Oxford University had
been rejected, leaving her facing what she considered the unacceptable
prospect of attending a second rate school in Edinburgh. The

(37:47):
final crisis came virtually on the eve of Elizabeth's completion
at Weakham Abbey. Her drug use, which she had managed
to conceal for an extended period, was finally discovered by
school officials. The timing could not have been worse. She
was on the verge of sitting her final examinations, the
results of which would determine her university placement. School officials

(38:10):
informed Elizabeth that she would have to leave under a
very dark cloud. This effectively destroyed any hope she might
have harbored of gaining admission to Cambridge University, an aspiration
that had survived even her forced academic redirection toward the sciences.
Elizabeth's version of these events painted the discovery as a

(38:30):
deliberate set up. She claimed that school officials had framed
her in the drug incident, leading to police ransacking her
room and keeping her isolated and incommunicado. The experience, she said,
caused her to flip out whether the discovery was the
result of a set up or simply the inevitable consequence
of her increasingly reckless behavior. The result was the same.

(38:52):
Elizabeth faced academic ruin and family disgrace. Driven by anger, frustrata,
and what they both characterized as a desperate longing for freedom,
Elizabeth and Melinda made a decision that would define the
next chapter of their lives. They chose to abandon both
family and academia entirely. The timing was symbolic. On July first,

(39:17):
nineteen eighty three, the very day they completed their last examinations,
Elizabeth and Melinda slipped away from the Weakham Abbey campus
and began what would become their flight to the continent.
Their escape was carefully planned to create confusion about their
true destination. They constructed what appeared to be a straightforward,
itinerary attendance at a rock concert in Milton Keynes, followed

(39:40):
by a ferry to Holland and a train journey to
West Berlin, using one way tickets that suggested a planned return,
the reality was different. Instead of following this ostensible route,
they traveled to Dover, took a ferry across the Channel
to France, and made their way to Paris. Elizabeth had
taken precau to obscure their trail. Despite possessing a valid

(40:03):
Canadian passport, she had obtained a new British visitor's passport
the night before their departure. This additional document would potentially
make it more difficult for her parents to track their
movements across Europe. For four months July through October, Elizabeth
and Melinda moved almost constantly across Europe, often hitchhiking from
city to city. Their journey took them through Bonn, Trier, Luxembourg, Rhymes, Dijon,

(40:29):
San Remo, and Genoa, among other destinations. What Elizabeth would
later romanticize as an adventure was in reality a descent
into desperation and danger. Both young women were heavily into
drugs during this period, a habit that only compounded their
precarious situation. When they could find work, they took menial
jobs to survive, they spent time picking grapes for Moet

(40:51):
Chan Daun and another vintner near A in northern France,
though they were forced to leave the latter position when
the vintner made sexual advance toward Elizabeth. When legitimate work
was unavailable, their survival methods became increasingly desperate. They resorted
to selling their blood for money and possibly their bodies.

(41:12):
The physical toll of their lifestyle became evident when Melinda
was hospitalized for three days in Italy due to anemia.
During her recovery, they stayed at a Hari Krishna compound.
Their relationship during this period evolved beyond friendship. They became lovers,
sharing a bed and referring to each other affectionately as
Melli and Bunny. Yet even this intimate bond couldn't shield

(41:36):
them from the escalating dangers they would encounter. In Nice,
they were mugged by a knife wielding man, but this
attack would pale in comparison to what awaited them in Berlin.
By October thirteenth, Elizabeth and Melinda had hitchhiked to Berlin,
their money nearly exhausted. Germany's rigid work rules prevented them
from finding employment, leaving them increasingly desperate. They had no coats,

(42:00):
and their emaciated state reflected months of poor nutrition and
drug abuse. They ended up in a flophouse, vulnerable and
far from any help. In Berlin, they initially fell in
with what were described as American odd balls, but their
situation took a dramatically more sinister turn when they encountered
a gang of irishmen claiming to be Ira terrorists. These

(42:23):
men took Elizabeth and Melinda into their quarters, where they
subjected the young women to four days of systematic abuse.
The irishmen heavily drugged Elizabeth and Melinda with various chemicals,
including hallucinogens, keeping them half knocked out while passing them
among themselves for their sexual pleasure. For four days, the
two young women existed in a drugged haze while being

(42:45):
repeatedly sexually assaulted by their captors. On October twenty fifth,
Elizabeth and Melinda managed to slip away from their abusers.
By this point, their appearance reflected the trauma they had endured.
They looked disreputable. Elizabeth had a gash on her head
and most of her hair had been shaved into a
pink mohawk. Both had lost considerable weight, their skin had

(43:08):
taken on a gray, sickly pallor, their clothes were in rags,
and their underwear had been stolen or destroyed. In their
desperate state, they made their way to the British Consulate
seeking help to return home. While Elizabeth and Melinda had
been living their nightmare across Europe, Deryck and Nancy Haysom
had been desperately trying to locate their missing daughter. Conventional

(43:30):
methods had yielded little success, leaving Nancy particularly distressed and
experiencing what she described as strong premonitions of tragedy. Faced
with the failure of traditional search methods, Derrick and Nancy
turned to unconventional ones. Nancy's friend Annie Massey connected them
with Colonel Stuart Harrington, an Army intelligence officer stationed in Munich.

(43:54):
Nancy provided Harrington with a detailed description of Elizabeth, including
color photographs. When Elizabeth appeared at the British consulate in Berlin,
the official immediately recognized her from Harrington's description. However, the
recognition came with a warning, you're going to find what
is left of her. Colonel Harrington was shocked by Elizabeth's condition.

(44:16):
When he first encountered her, she stared blankly into space,
chain smoked continuously, and her hands shook uncontrollably. Concerned about
spooking the young women and causing them to flee back
into what he termed the Berlin semi underground, Harrington approached
them gently. He assured them that Nancy was worried and
only wanted their safety. Harrington and his wife took Elizabeth

(44:40):
and Melinda home with them to recuperate. During this period,
Harrington observed that Elizabeth had serious problems, both physical and psychological.
She was hemorrhaging from the vagina, later diagnosed as a
heavy menstrual period, though she worried about pregnancy and was
laus infested. Harrington troubled by what he observed as the

(45:01):
loyalty and sexual bonds that had developed between Elizabeth and Melinda.
He initially hoped to separate them, but quickly realized it
was impossible. At that point, he concluded that Melinda was
the aggressor in their relationship, and noted that she possessed
a stack of lesbian pornography. Quick break ads keep the

(45:24):
show running, but if you want to skip them. The
ad free versions on Patreon for just three bucks a month.
Links in the show notes and we're back. Thanks for
sticking through that. Let's get back to it. Eight days
after arriving at the Harrington's home, Elizabeth and Melinda were

(45:46):
put on a plane to London, where they were met
by Elizabeth's half brother, Julian. Derek then flew over from
Canada to collect his daughter. The reunion between Melinda and
her father was described as less than joyous. After a
meal together, Melinda's father departed without her, leaving her to
stay with Elizabeth and Derrick. Elizabeth persuaded Melinda to return

(46:08):
home to her parents, with the understanding that she could
come to Virginia if things didn't work out with her family.
Derec paid for Melinda's train ticket, and she was met
by a relative who arranged for her enrollment in a
local college. This separation effectively ended Elizabeth and Melinda's relationship.
Elizabeth would write to Melinda only once after returning to Virginia. Later,

(46:33):
when speaking to investigators, Elizabeth would claim that her parents
had been delighted and completely understanding about her European adventure.
She even suggested they thought she had got that out
of her system. This characterization was entirely false. Elizabeth also
attempted to minimize the duration of their absence, claiming they

(46:54):
had been away for about five months or something. In reality,
they had been found on October twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three,
meaning they had been gone for less than four months.
Elizabeth would eventually return to Virginia to attend the University
of Virginia, as her parents had long desired. Derek and
Nancy had moved to Boonsborough, Virginia in nineteen eighty two,

(47:16):
partly to facilitate Elizabeth's attendance at UVA. Their home, which
Nancy had named Loose Chippings after a dwelling in an
obscure British novel, was located in central Virginia's Blue Ridge
Mountain Country. The name was particularly fitting, as in the novel,
the house served as a way station for eccentrics, a
description Nancy found especially applicable to their own situation. The modest,

(47:41):
two story house was situated about a mile and a
half outside the Lynchburg city limits, just over the Bedford
County line on Holcombe Rock Road. Lynchburg was where Nancy
herself had grown up, making their residence a return to
familiar territory for her, if not for Elizabeth. During the
summer of nineteen eighty four, while Derrick was away in

(48:02):
Nova Scotia on business, Elizabeth and Nancy spent considerable time together.
According to Elizabeth's later statements, it was during this period
that Nancy took nude photographs of her daughter. The circumstances
surrounding these photographs, as Elizabeth described them, revealed the deeply
troubled nature of her relationship with her mother. Elizabeth claimed

(48:24):
that toward the end of the summer, after they had
traveled to Rochester, New York, for Elizabeth to attend a
writer's seminar, Nancy became upset at the prospect of her
daughter leaving for the University of Virginia. Nancy was reportedly
searching for a way to keep her daughter from breaking
loose again. During what Elizabeth characterized as a very vicious argument,

(48:46):
Nancy allegedly told Elizabeth that she wanted to impress upon
me how absolutely filthy and disgusting I was. According to Elizabeth,
her mother demanded that she prove her filthy and disgusting
nature by allowing the photographs to be taken. During some
of the poses, Elizabeth claimed Nancy made her kneel. This
incident was part of what Elizabeth described as a pattern

(49:10):
of inappropriate behavior by her mother. She consistently claimed that
Nancy had a history of sleeping in the same bed
with her, often unclothed, ever since I was a little girl.
Elizabeth stated that the last time this occurred was on
March twenty third, nineteen eighty five, the saturday before Derek
and Nancy were murdered. While Elizabeth described Nancy as very

(49:32):
affectionate and aggressively affectionate, she portrayed these encounters as non
sexual in nature. Elizabeth expressed deep resentment and anger toward
her parents, particularly her mother, whom she described as often
hysterical and prone to taunting, especially when drinking. Nancy would
reportedly deride Elizabeth for running off to Europe with Melinda

(49:54):
or for perceived character faults. Elizabeth also claimed that her
mother hated men, and that both her parents told her
the only reason they stayed together was because of her Doctor. C.
Robert Showalter, a psychiatrist who would later examine Elizabeth, noted
that her mother was perceived as seductively attentive, yet critically rejecting.

(50:16):
He observed that Elizabeth felt compelled to placate and appease her,
agreeing even at one point to pose nude for her
upon request, suggesting a compulsive dynamic in their relationship. In
August nineteen eighty four, Elizabeth Haysom and Yents Zurring were
introduced at a dormitory barbecue at Watson Hall, a brick,

(50:38):
four story co ed dormitory on the western edge of
the University of Virginia campus. The event was a social
gathering sponsored by school officials at the beginning of the
academic year, designed to help students become acquainted. Watson Hall
housed first year Echoles scholars in arts and sciences and
Rodman's scholars in engineering, with women residing on all odd

(51:00):
floors and men on even floors. Despite the intense attachment
that would later develop between them, there was no instant
magic when they first met. No sparks flew when their
eyes locked across the barbecue. Elizabeth's initial impression of Yents
was that he was a little wimp, or more precisely,
an aggressive little wimp. Before meeting Elizabeth, Yents generally kept

(51:23):
to himself both at UVA and at his previous school.
Love it. He was remembered by peers for his arrogance,
his belligerence in expressing opinions, and his cynical approach to
college life, traits that did not endear him to others.
Around Thanksgiving, Elizabeth's attitude toward Yentz began to shift. He
had started initiating conversations with her, particularly sharing his low

(51:47):
regard for French women, which Elizabeth found amusing. She found
herself drawn to his foreignness and European aura, finding these
qualities irresistible. More than that, she was compelled by what
she described as his weirdness, something he wore like a badge.
Delighting in being different, Elizabeth, as she put it, sopped

(52:08):
it up. Elizabeth herself was considered weird by American students,
having cultivated thought patterns from growing up in England, she
rejoiced in her unconventionality. She decorated her dorm room eccentrically
and played David Bowie music at high volume. Her beautiful
British accent further set her apart, making her seem exotic

(52:28):
and granting her a certain respect as a woman of experience.
They clung together as kindred spirits, seeing themselves as allies
amidst what they viewed as shallow Americans. For Yence, who
had been largely socially isolated, Elizabeth represented his first flesh
and blood relationship. She was good looking and smart, suave

(52:49):
and sophisticated, and worldly, capable of eloquent discussions on literature, film,
and bisexuality. They began dating seriously in November. By the
Christmas holidays, they had decided to be in love. Yence
underwent a noticeable personality change after they started dating regularly.
His cynicism and arrogance seemed to evaporate. He became more tolerant, jolly,

(53:12):
and talkative, especially with Elizabeth, whom he aimed to impress
with his wit and knowledge. They shared a passion for
writing and literature. Elizabeth was working on a novel, while Yents,
initially a psychology major, shifted his focus to film and screenwriting.
They also developed a peculiar shared interest in designing a supercar,

(53:33):
a hybrid between a portion a Ferrari, despite neither having
any prior interest in automotive engineering. Academically, their performances diverged significantly.
Elizabeth's grades at UVA were less than mediocre, consisting of
c's with one f Yence, by contrast, was on the
Dean's list. During the Christmas holidays of nineteen eighty four,

(53:54):
geographic separation intensified their relationship rather than cooling it. Elizabeth's
spent the holidays at her parents' home in Boonsborough, Virginia,
before departing on a ski trip to Yugoslavia. Yence remained
with his family in Detroit, where his father had been reassigned.
Despite the physical distance, they maintained constant contact through extensive

(54:15):
journals and letters. Elizabeth began a nine page journal, half
diary half letter for Yents, with entries spanning December twenty
to twenty fourth, nineteen eighty four, which she mailed on
December twenty eighth. Yence responded with a thirty nine page,
mostly typewritten letter indicating the care he took to please her.
These journal, entries and letters became vehicles for increasingly disturbing discussions.

(54:40):
Words like death and murder crept into their conversations. Initially,
these discussions remained hypothetical, described as an intellectual game similar
to their supercar designing sessions. However, the conversations gradually became
more serious and more specific, evolving from abstract ideas about
how to murder one into a bitter examination of the

(55:02):
alleged abuse Elizabeth claimed to suffer from her parents and
their supposed attempts to separate the young lovers. Elizabeth took
the initiative in these discussions, discovering what she would later
describe as Yens's exceptional affinity for violence. In her December
twenty first, nineteen eighty four, entry, Elizabeth explicitly stated her

(55:23):
hope that her mother's drinking would give her the courage
to kill her father. She made references to wishing her
parents would die and hinted that murder might be necessary
in subsequent entries. By early March nineteen eighty five, their
discussions had shifted to specifically talking about Derreck and Nancy Haysm.
Elizabeth strategically built Yence's ego, telling him he was intelligent, witty,

(55:47):
and urbane. She appealed to what she characterized as his
German machismo by emphasizing her dependence on him as an
escape from her parents. By emphasizing her dependence on him
as an escape from hers her parents, who she claimed
were treating her more cruelly than ever, she encouraged YenS
to share her anger toward her parents, suggesting that their

(56:09):
lives would be immeasurably better without them interfering. Her March eighth,
nineteen eighty five letter from Colorado was a complete fabrication
designed to manipulate YenS into supporting her plan. In this letter,
she presented a fictional scenario involving inheriting a house from
Lady Astor contingent on her parent's approval. She used this

(56:31):
fabricated situation to imply that the only path to their
happiness and her inheritance free from parental control lay over
her parents dead bodies. She offered to pay for his
brother's education and travel to Europe with him, but only
if she forfeited her inheritance, thereby forcing the decision onto Yents.
Yens's letters during this period were largely egocentric, reflecting themes

(56:55):
of self doubt and sexual awakening. While he made veiled
references to the possibility of killing Elizabeth's parents, he didn't
appear to take the discussions as seriously as Elizabeth initially did.
He responded to Elizabeth's prompts about burglaries and voodoo, suggesting
something worse than theft or that voodoo was possible. During

(57:17):
one exchange, Yence experienced an outburst where he declared, I
could blow their bloody heads off. Possibly prompted by Elizabeth's
parents sending her on a ski trip with her half
brother instead of allowing her to remain with him at
the university, Yence confided in Elizabeth about his impotence and
discussed his bizarre sexual fantasies. He also expressed strong resentment

(57:40):
toward his own father, describing him as a hot tempered
martinet who had driven his mother to alcoholism, and hatred
for his maternal grandmother for withholding wealth from his mother.
Elizabeth consistently expressed deep resentment and anger toward her parents
throughout their correspondence. She conveyed made bitterness over being sent

(58:01):
to boarding school and her parents' decision to force her
into science and mathematics, which had caused her to repeat
an entire academic year. She explicitly told Yents, I wish
they were dead when discussing her parents. Quick break ads

(58:22):
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Thanks for sticking through that, Let's get back to it.
On Friday May thirtieth, nineteen eighty six, investigator Ricky Gardner

(58:45):
sat at his desk in Bedford County, Virginia, plodding through
a pile of paperwork and trying to concentrate. The Haysom
murder case had gone cold since Elizabeth and Yentz fled
the country the previous October. When the phone rang, the
department operator informed Gardner that some guy on here with
a funny accent wanted to speak to him. Gardner, initially

(59:07):
unenthusiastic and thinking it might be a prank call from
his former partner, Chuck Read, mumbled, come on, Chuck, I'm busy.
The caller persisted patiently, asking are you the mister Gardner
who's looking for a Yentz zurring and an Elizabeth Haysum.
Gardner asked, sharply, who is this? The voice calmly identified
himself as Detective Constable Right in Richmond, England, adding I

(59:31):
have two questions for you. Wright then pose the critical questions.
Are Elizabeth Haysum's parents dead? Gardner replied, they sure are?
Wright continued, were they murdered? It was at this point
that Wright declared, this isn't a game. I'm a detective
in England and I think we have your murderers incarcerated.

(59:52):
When Wright explained the basis for his belief their letters
to each other, the ones we found in their flat,
Gardner stammered, letters. What letters? His heart began to pound
with excitement. Prior to Wright's call, us authorities, including Sheriff Wells,
had been aware that YenS and Elizabeth were arrested in
London for shoplifting fraud, but they had no evidence to

(01:00:14):
directly tie them to the Haysom murders. The chain of
events leading to Wright's discovery began when YenS and Elizabeth
were caught committing check fraud at a Marks and Spencer's
store in Richmond, England. They were using aliases and had
large amounts of cash and newly purchased merchandise. When Detective
Sergeant Kenneth Beaver and Detective Constable Terry Wright investigated, they

(01:00:38):
found numerous Green Marks and Spencer shopping bags, multiple bank
books under different names, and various fake identification cards in
their flat. Crucially, they also discovered a stack of letters
signed Elizabeth and Yents, along with a student's exercise book
filled with diary style entries. Through reading these documents, Wright

(01:00:59):
began to uncover references that pointed to the Haysom murders
in Virginia. The journal mentioned Yentz seeing officers read and
Gardner in Bedford, and noted his methodical wiping of fingerprints
from his room and car. Some entries also hinted at
the IRA, which was taken very seriously by British police.

(01:01:19):
Wright specifically found Elizabeth's Colorado letter, where she discussed how
they could be rich if only her parents were dead,
and her claim that her parents could not entirely disinherit her.
The British detectives, especially write, meticulously pieced together the incriminating
information from the found documents, which prompted Wright to contact
the American authorities. Immediately after Wright's call, Gardner frantically contacted

(01:01:45):
Commonwealth Attorney Jim Updike, shouting, they've got Elizabeth and yents.
They've tied him to the murders. They want us to
come over. Updike, initially surprised, quickly recognized the gravity of
the news. The two decided to travel to England as
soon as possible to examine the letters and formulate a plan,
a significant challenge arose immediately. Neither Gardner nor Updike had passports.

(01:02:10):
They moved with urgency and secrecy to obtain them. Wanting
to surprise YenS and Elizabeth upon their arrival in London,
they left for Washington, d C. On Sunday, June first,
to be at the passport office first thing Monday morning.
On Friday, March twenty ninth, nineteen eighty five, Elizabeth Haysm

(01:02:32):
and Yents Zurring rented a nineteen eighty five Chavette in
Charlottesville and drove to Washington, d C. Elizabeth would later
claim they planned to spend the weekend together visiting art galleries, memorials,
and watching movies. After seeing two movies, she returned to
their hotel room at eleven thirty pm. When Yents had
not returned, she decided to take a taxi to a

(01:02:53):
Georgetown cinema playing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. As she
was about to abandon her search for the theater, Yence
drove up, traveling against traffic. When she opened the car door,
she saw that Yence had a sheet draped across his waist,
which was covered in blood. She screamed, asking if he
was all right, but he yelled shut up three times.

(01:03:16):
They drove in silence to the hotel garage, where YenS,
remaining out of the light, ordered her to retrieve a
parking ticket. He then pulled into a dark parking slot.
It was then that Yence told her I killed your parents.
She saw blood everywhere. Yence ordered Elizabeth to go to
their room and fetch a change of clothes, though she

(01:03:36):
offered him her raincoat to cover himself. Instead, Yence went
into the shower, instructing her to clean up the car.
She complied, returning upstairs to find him asleep. Later, Yence
provided Elizabeth with details of what had occurred at Loose Chippings.
He told her that her father put up a hell
of a struggle and had exclaimed, my god, what do

(01:03:58):
you think you're doing. He claimed he killed her mother,
first slitting her throat. After approximately forty minutes of conversation
in the dining room, after which Nancy staggered into the kitchen.
He continued fighting with Derrick, saying her father just wouldn't
lie down and die and possessed enormous strength. Yence mentioned

(01:04:19):
suffering cuts on his left hand on both his thumb
and little finger during the struggle. He told Elizabeth he
had lost his glasses during the fight, making everything appear hazy.
Elizabeth added that Yence told her he had initially left
the scene then returned to the house because he felt
compelled to do so, possibly to ensure that Derrick and

(01:04:40):
Nancy were actually dead. Yence expressed particular distress about having
run over and apparently killed a dog on his return
journey from Boonsborough. He ordered Elizabeth to meticulously clean the car,
focusing on the seat petals, steering wheel, radio, dashboard, rear
view mirror, and the front area where he had struck

(01:05:02):
the dog. He was emphatic about removing any traces of
the animal's remains. Elizabeth claimed she spent the night awake,
returning to the garage before dawn to double check her
cleaning of the car. She denied feeling any relief about
her parents deaths, stating that her first thought had been
for Yens's survival, followed immediately by the need to save

(01:05:23):
our skins. They gathered his bloody clothing and disposed of
most of it down the garbage chute in their dormitory
at uv A. Elizabeth never saw the knife again, as
Yence told her he had thrown it away upon his

(01:05:47):
return to Virginia, even before Updight could fully recover from
jet lag, he requested that a special grand jury be
convened within the week. On Friday the thirteenth, the five
member grand jury listened to Rickie Gardner for an Soon after,
they handed up indictments charging YenS Zurring and Elizabeth Haysom
with first degree murder for the deaths of Derrick and

(01:06:08):
Nancy Haysom. Yence was additionally charged with capital murder, allowing
Updyke to seek the death penalty. On Friday June sixth,
nineteen eighty six, when Yence was brought in for questioning
by British investigators, he initially approached the interview arrogantly and egotistically,
concerned with gaining information rather than giving it. He directly asked,

(01:06:30):
what's going to happen to me? When Detective Beaver asked why,
Yen's matter of factly responded because I murdered two people.
You know that, don't you. After this admission, he appeared
to relax, treating the interview like a game or an
intellectual exercise. Before Sunday, June eighth. Yence had provided detectives

(01:06:51):
with practically everything they wanted to know about what had
happened at the Haysom house on March thirtieth, nineteen eighty five,
admitting to the killings at length and in detail. His
transcripts were ordered sealed for various legal reasons. During these admissions,
Yence also revealed physical evidence of the struggle, lifting his

(01:07:11):
left hand to show two thin scars and stating I
got those at loose chippings. Referring to the Hasom residence,
He attributed his actions to being in love with the girl,
stating we talked about killing her parents. I didn't want
to do it, but I drove to their house to
kill them and I got caught. Despite his detailed confession

(01:07:32):
to the murders, Yence remained evasive about Elizabeth's direct involvement.
When asked if she knew why he was going to
see her parents, he was silent for a long time
before slowly stating, I would have to say that we
discussed it obviously, but I don't think that either of
us was truly clear about what was going to happen
at all. He added, I don't know how Elizabeth felt

(01:07:54):
about me driving down there, or what she thought my
motives were. I don't know what she thought. On Sunday,
June eighth, nineteen eighty six, Elizabeth Haysm, after spending the
afternoon and evening contemplating what Yents might have told the detectives,
became convinced she had been betrayed because she had remained
silent while Yents was jabbering his head off. At nine

(01:08:17):
fifty five p m. She pressed the call button in
her cell and requested to see Detective Beaver. She pointedly
asked him, has he admitted the murders to you? While
Beaver did not directly confirm, he stated I'm perfectly happy
with the way the investigation is going, which Elizabeth noted
with a worried look. Just fifteen minutes later, she summoned

(01:08:39):
Beaver again, stating I want to get this off my
chest once and for all. She requested that Gardner not
be present, so Beaver summoned Detective Constable Right as a witness.
At eleven fifteen p m. On June eighth, nineteen eighty six,
Elizabeth began giving what would become known as Version one
of the story of her parents. In her initial statement,

(01:09:02):
Elizabeth described their trip to Washington, d C. Where they
purchased a butterfly knife for Yenz's brother, though she never
explicitly said it was for the murders, she claimed YenS
later confessed to her in the car, stating I killed
your parents. After she noticed a sheet draped across his
waist covered in blood. She said she was terrified and

(01:09:23):
didn't know if she believed him at the time. She
admitted Yence had cuts on his left hand. She claimed
Yence ordered her to clean the blood from the rental car,
which she did. When pressed about her reasons for staying
with YenS despite his confession, she offered several justifications. Guilt
feeling responsible for what happened, loyalty to YenS because she

(01:09:45):
loved him very dearly and needed him so much, her
desire to prevent Yens's execution, and fear that police would
blame her. She admitted Yence had threatened to surrender or
commit suicide if she left him, especially upon realizing she
actually loved her parents. She also stated that Yence had
wiped his fingerprints from their apartment, but she denied doing

(01:10:07):
so herself, claiming she had already submitted her prince to police. However,
as the interview progressed, Beaver challenged her inconsistencies, particularly concerning
her prior writings. He confronted her with excerpts from her
letters where she spoke of doing voodoo on her parents,
willing them to death, taking up black magic, wishing they

(01:10:28):
would lie down and die, and getting rid of them.
When asked to reconcile this with her claim of always
loving her parents, she initially gave no reply. Beaver then
became more confrontational, suggesting her actions in Washington were to
create an alibi. After being pressed relentlessly, Elizabeth eventually shifted
her narrative. She stated, all right, I let him into it.

(01:10:52):
I did everything. When Beaver questioned if she knew he
was going to do it, she again said I did
it myself. So she later claimed this was facetious. She
eventually admitted that she and Yence had been plotting the
confrontation for about a month, and that Yence went to
her parents house with the knife with the possibility of

(01:11:12):
killing them, and she knew that. At one point, she
directly stated, we did it together, and in some ways
I'm more guilty than he is. He loved me beyond reason.
I love him beyond reason too, She concluded by stating,
I suppose I used that love because of my own
weakness of character. Many times I have tried to wriggle

(01:11:33):
out of that responsibility and the guilt of putting him
in this position. I can't do that any longer. It
was my will that made him kill my parents. He
wouldn't have done it, I am sure if he hadn't
loved me so much and I him. She clarified this
by saying, although I wasn't physically present, I suppose I
was spiritually there. The real turning point in Elizabeth's feelings

(01:11:57):
for YenS and her stance in the case, occurred in
November nineteen eighty six, when she saw for the first
time the crime scene photographs of her parents' bodies. These photographs,
taken by investigators at loose chippings, showed in unrelenting detail
how viciously her parents had been murdered. Elizabeth viewed them
while giving a deposition, as they were attached to another

(01:12:19):
document she was shown. Her reaction to seeing these images
was one of profound shock. She described living with these photographs,
stating they were in my cell. They were on my person.
They were with me wherever I went, and they were
in my mind's eye the whole time as well. This
experience led her to believe that absolutely nothing, nothing, could

(01:12:41):
justify what he had done, what I had done. She
felt that everything else just became irrelevant. The details of
who did what to whom he had butchered my parents.
It was there sitting in front of me. It wasn't
just words. It was there, and I was, in some way,
shape or form part of them. I was responsible for it.

(01:13:02):
This visceral encounter with the brutality of the murders fundamentally
changed her perspective and her loyalty to Yents. She realized
that no matter what I felt, specifically for YenS, there
was no way I could continue to have a relationship
with him or to pander to his whims or needs.
It was at this moment that she decided to plead
guilty to her role in the murders. Furthermore, she also

(01:13:25):
resolved to try to see that Yenz shouldered his share
of the blame as well. She explicitly stated her willingness
to co operate with the prosecution in building a case
against YenS, confirming that she would testify if called upon.
This shift in her position was also fueled by her
growing belief that Yence had manipulated her throughout their relationship. Initially,

(01:13:49):
she had believed she was the manipulator, a role she
had assumed in her discussions with investigators. However, seeing the
crime scene photos and later reading Yenz's letters, particularly one
he wrote to a friend named Neil Woodhall in May
nineteen eighty six, confirmed to her that YenS was deliberately
manipulating me to believe those things, and that she had

(01:14:10):
no control over him whatsoever. She realized she had been
used and that YenS knew exactly precisely what he was doing.

(01:14:30):
Quick break ads keep the show running, but if you
want to skip them, the ad free versions on Patreon
for just three bucks a month, links in the show
notes and we're back. Thanks for sticking through that. Let's
get back to it. On December eleventh, nineteen eighty six,

(01:14:55):
Elizabeth wrote a letter approximately one and a half pages long,
to Yens's. In this letter, she informed him of her
crucial decision. She had decided not to fight extradition and
planned to return to Virginia to plead guilty to the charges.
Against her. Beyond merely accepting the murder charges, Elizabeth also
mentioned other wrongs she felt guilty of, particularly something that

(01:15:18):
might not have occurred to Yents, how she had ruined
his life. She suggested that because he was saintly he
probably hadn't considered this, but she hoped he wouldn't think
too badly of her when he eventually did. YenS, however,
did realize her impact on his life and was already
starting to think not very kindly toward her. On December seventeenth,

(01:15:41):
nineteen eighty six, Elizabeth Haysom and YenS Zurring appeared in
Kingston Crown Court in England to be sentenced on bank
fraud charges. Both Elizabeth and Yence received one year sentences,
with credit given for the time they had already served.
Immediately following the sentencing, detectives from Scotland Yard produced warrants

(01:16:01):
for their arrest for the murders of Derrick and Nancy
Haysm issued by Virginia authorities. During this court appearance, Elizabeth
later claimed that a woman she had never seen before
attempted to attack her in the dock, an incident she
believed Yence had orchestrated to frighten her. However, a story

(01:16:21):
in the next day's London Times did not mention this
attempted attack, leading to speculation that it might have been
another one of Elizabeth's excursions into fantasy. Yence's letter to Elizabeth,
dated December eighteenth, nineteen eighty six, just a day after
their sentencing, urged her to stop and think about her
actions and quit acting stupid, indicating his view that the

(01:16:44):
situation was still completely under control. The contentious encounters between
Yence and Elizabeth marked the death knell for their relationship.
When they appeared together in court again in February nineteen
eighty seven, their animosity became public. Yence growled at Elizabeth,
telling her, You're going to be damned sorry. His words

(01:17:06):
or demeanor must have been perceived as threatening by court officials,
because in their subsequent court appearances, Yence was handcuffed to
a policeman and kept well away from her. This particular
court date in February nineteen eighty seven was the last
time Elizabeth Haysm saw Yen's zurring in person. On April fourteenth,

(01:17:26):
nineteen eighty seven, the day before her twenty third birthday,
Elizabeth Haysm appeared in court for her extradition hearing in England.
During this hearing, the judge issued an order for her
return to the United States. Elizabeth had previously made up
her mind regarding this outcome, and therefore she did not
contest the decision to be extradited. This stance contrasted sharply

(01:17:50):
with Yence Zuring's vigorous fight against his own extradition to Virginia,
where he faced a potential death penalty, seeking instead to
be sent to Germany or to remain in the United Kingdom.
Elizabeth was confident that she would be able to convince
the judge in the US to give her a sweetheart sentence,
and believed she would walk on the charges in Virginia,

(01:18:12):
even telling fellow inmates at Holloway Prison about her confidence
in returning to the US. She also kept a low
profile at Holloway and did not share her concerns about
the murders with investigators, believing they have nothing on me.

(01:18:35):
On the evening of May eighth, nineteen eighty seven, a
commercial flight touched down at Washington Dulles International Airport. Among
the passengers was Elizabeth Haysom, Flanked by law enforcement officers,
She had just completed a grueling journey from London's Holloway Prison,
where she had spent months awaiting extradition back to Virginia.

(01:18:57):
The charges she faced were as serious as they were shocking,
accessory to the brutal murders of her own parents, Derrick
and Nancy haysm Sheriff Wells was waiting at Roanoke Airport
to collect Elizabeth for the final leg of her journey
to Bedford County. By the time they arrived, it was
well past ten pm on this Friday night. Despite having

(01:19:18):
traveled for over nineteen hours. Elizabeth appeared mentally sharp and
running on pure adrenaline. Her first request surprised everyone present.
She wanted to speak immediately with Investigator Gardener. Gardner hadn't
spoken to Elizabeth in nearly a year. When the call
came to return to the station, he found a young
woman who was physically disheveled but mentally focused. During her

(01:19:42):
months in British custody, Elizabeth had been reflecting on her
previous statements. She had also obtained copies of psychiatric reports
concerning her former boyfriend and co accused yence Zurring. These
documents had, in her words, made her seethe. She was
determined to to ensure that Yen's would share the blame
for what had happened at Loose Chippings on that March

(01:20:04):
night in nineteen eighty five. What followed was Elizabeth's third
version of events surrounding the murders. She maintained her earlier
claims that she and YenS had planned the killings for
a month and traveled to Washington to establish an alibi. However,
she now introduced a significant new element to her story.

(01:20:26):
Elizabeth admitted that she had not gone to the movies
that afternoon, as previously claimed. Instead, she revealed she had
gone to a bar searching for drugs, specifically heroin. According
to Elizabeth, she had successfully obtained the heroine, but it
was too deluded to provide the high she desperately craved.
Her focus that day, she claimed, was entirely on getting

(01:20:48):
her next fix. This selfish obsession, she said, made her
indifferent to Yen's intentions. She wanted him out of the
way so she could concentrate on scoring drugs. While she
accepted responsibility for her irresponsibility and manipulation of YenS, she
emphasized that he had acted of his own free will

(01:21:08):
and had a choice not to commit the murders. Elizabeth
provided disturbing new details about Yence's state of mind upon
returning to their hotel after the killings. She described him
as distraught not about her parents deaths, but about running
over and killing a dog on his drive back from Boonsborough.
According to Elizabeth, Yence showed more concern for this animal

(01:21:31):
than for Deryck and Nancy Haysm. He had instructed her
to meticulously clean their rental car, paying particular attention to
the pedals, steering wheel, and front bumper to remove any
trace of the dog. Elizabeth claimed she lay awake all night,
unable to sleep, and re checked her cleaning work before
dawn to avoid Yence's wrath. Perhaps most chilling was Elizabeth's

(01:21:53):
revelation about what she called Yens's hit list. This list
allegedly included her half brother, Howard, Yence's own grandmother and parents, and, shockingly,
investigator Ricky Gardner himself. Elizabeth explained that Yence believed Gardner
knew in some sort of way what he had done,
and therefore posed a threat. Yence had apparently plotted to

(01:22:16):
kill Gardner at his home with Elizabeth, providing his alibi
back in Charlottesville. She claimed she had distracted him from
this plan by fabricating a story about having a brain
tumor requiring experimental laser treatment. But Elizabeth's most explosive allegation
concerned her relationship with her mother, Nancy. She claimed that

(01:22:36):
Nancy had sexually abused her, stating that her mother had
slept with me ever since I was a little girl.
The last incident, according to Elizabeth, occurred on the Saturday
before the murders, Derrick's birthday, March twenty third, nineteen eighty five.
She described Nancy coming to her room after drinking, disrobing,
and getting into bed with her. When later pressed by

(01:22:59):
prosecutors about these allegations, Elizabeth's statements remained deliberately ambiguous. Elizabeth
also addressed the nude photographs that had been found in
Nancy's bureau during the investigation. She confirmed these had been
taken by her mother in the summer of nineteen eighty four,
claiming Nancy used them to make her feel absolutely filthy

(01:23:19):
and disgusting. During arguments as dawn broke on May ninth,
Gardner concluded this lengthy interview Elizabeth's new version of events
would prove crucial in the legal proceedings to come. Three
months later, on August twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven, Elizabeth
appeared before Judge William Sweeney in Bedford County Circuit Court.

(01:23:42):
Her court appointed attorneys, Hugh Jones and Drew Davis, had
met with her regularly since late May. Despite their urgings
to explore other defense strategies, Elizabeth remained resolute in her
decision to plead guilty. Her lawyers had convinced her to
plead guilty to two counts of accessory before the fact
rather than first degree murder. Though both carried identical sentences,

(01:24:05):
this distinction was strategic. It implied that Elizabeth was not
physically present at Loose Chippings during the murders, countering persistent
rumors that she had been there. Judge Sweeney and most
courtroom observers were surprised by Elizabeth's guilty plea. Commonwealth Attorney
Jim Updike, however, was less shocked. He accepted the plea,

(01:24:27):
noting that it carried the same punishment as first degree
murder and that her presence or absence at the scene
was irrelevant to him. Updike made it clear there had
been no plea bargaining. The sentencing hearing began on Tuesday,
October sixth, nineteen eighty seven, thirty months and four days
after the murders. Elizabeth had chosen her appearance carefully, wearing

(01:24:49):
a plain, long sleeved beige dress that observers compared to
a monk's robe. Her hair was combed straight back, she
wore no make up, and her demeanor was marked more
submissive than during her interrogations under oath, Elizabeth presented what
would be her most refined version of events. She now
claimed her incriminating letters to YenS were metaphorical, and that

(01:25:12):
he had misinterpreted her desire to get her parents out
of her life as a literal death wish. She portrayed
herself as a victim of Yens's manipulation, rather than the
manipulator she had previously claimed to be. Crucially, Elizabeth now
denied purchasing the butterfly knife or planning the murder weapon
with YenS. She claimed this story had been fabricated at

(01:25:35):
Yens's instruction after the murders to make her more a
part of the crime. According to this new account, Yence
had initially told her he used a stake knife from
the Haysom kitchen, but later showed her a picture of
a butterfly knife in a Soldier of Fortune magazine while
they were in London, instructing her to say that was
the type she had purchased. If questioned, Elizabeth testified that

(01:25:58):
the turning point in her life feelings toward Yents came
in November nineteen eighty six, when she saw crime scene
photographs of her parents' bodies for the first time during
a deposition. The brutal images shocked her into the realization
that absolutely nothing could justify what he had done what
I had done. This moment, she claimed, ended her loyalty

(01:26:22):
to Yents and prompted her decision to plead guilty and
cooperate with prosecutors. Quick break ads keep the show running,
but if you want to skip them, the ad free
versions on Patreon for just three bucks a month. Links
in the show notes and we're back. Thanks for sticking

(01:26:46):
through that. Let's get back to it. On October eighth,
nineteen eighty seven, Judge Sweeney delivered Elizabeth's sentence. He acknowledged
her as a sensitive, poised, gifted in intelligent articulate person
with an IQ that likely exceeded his own. However, he
also recognized what he termed her perverse attributes, describing her

(01:27:09):
as a liar, cheat, manipulator, and drug abuser. Sweeney sentenced
Elizabeth to two consecutive forty five year prison terms, totaling
ninety years. Under Virginia law, she would be eligible for
parole in nineteen ninety nine. Elizabeth remained emotionless as the
sentence was pronounced, offering her wrists for handcuffs and walking

(01:27:30):
from the courtroom without tears. Within hours of pronouncing sentence,
Judge Sweeney began having second thoughts, concerned he had been
too lenient. He feared Elizabeth could be released in as
little as twelve years with good behavior. On October fifteenth,
just one week after sentencing, he wrote to the State
Parole Board, urging them not to grant Elizabeth's early release

(01:27:53):
due to the seriousness of the charges and the heinous
nature of the crimes. While Elizabeth began serving her sent
at Gutchland Prison, Yence, Zurring continued fighting his extradition from Britain.
His legal battle would prove to be groundbreaking in international law.
On June thirtieth, nineteen eighty eight, the House of Lords

(01:28:14):
rejected Yens's appeal. Eight days later, his lawyers filed a
motion with the European Commission of Human Rights claiming his
extradition would violate the Council of Europe Treaty. Their argument
wasn't based on opposition to the death penalty itself, but
on what they termed the death row phenomenon, the prolonged
waiting period of six years or more for execution, which

(01:28:37):
they argued constituted inhuman and degrading treatment. On August third,
nineteen eighty eight, Yence was ordered extradited to Bedford County. However,
as he was being removed from his cell at Brixton
Prison and was literally on the verge of being put
on an airplane bound for the United States, he suffered
a complete mental collapse. This dramatic incident led to his

(01:29:01):
extradition being postponed while the Human Rights Commission considered his claim.
Yence was transferred to a prison hospital where psychiatrist doctor D.
Sunk examined him. The doctor reported that Yence was convinced
he would be convicted and sentenced to death if returned
to Virginia. He feared the long wait on death row,

(01:29:21):
being an outcast due to his nationality and social class,
and facing attacks from other prisoners. These fears had driven
YenS to beg the psychiatrist to supply him covertly with
means whereby he would be able to kill himself if
extradition became imminent. Prison officials kept him in the hospital's
suicide watch unit until November nineteen eighty eight. The European

(01:29:45):
Court of Human Rights ultimately ruled nineteen to nothing in
Yens's favour on July seventh, nineteen eighty nine. The court
found that extradition to the United States would expose him
to a real risk of treatment going beyond the threshold
set by the CAS invention. They cited the very long
period of time spent on death row in such extreme conditions,

(01:30:06):
and Yence's age and mental state at the time of
the offense. This decision placed Commonwealth Attorney Jim Updyke in
an impossible position. He initially refused to drop the capital
murder charge, viewing the court's decision as international blackmail. He
publicly stated, if it occurs that this case becomes Germany
versus Zuring, then as far as I am concerned Germany

(01:30:29):
can go to hell. However, on August first, nineteen eighty nine,
UK Home's Secretary Douglas Hurd, announced that Britain would only
extradite Zuring on condition that he not faced the death penalty.
Faced with this ultimatum and pressure from federal authorities, Updyke
ultimately surrendered to expediency and agreed to abandon his plan

(01:30:50):
to seek Yence's execution. With this hurdle cleared, Yence quietly
agreed not to contest his return any longer just before
Christmas nineteen eighty nine. In January nineteen ninety, almost four
and a half years after fleeing the United States, Yen's
Zurring was flown back to Bedford, Virginia. Physically, he had
changed little except for being considerably heavier. Arriving in a

(01:31:13):
green sweater, blue jeans, and athletic shoes. With his characteristic
dark framed glasses, he appeared much younger than his twenty
three years. One observer remarked he looked like he's sixteen.
On January seventeenth, just four days after his return, Yence
appeared before Judge Sweeney for a hearing on trial technicalities.

(01:31:34):
It was formally agreed that he would face only first
degree murder charges, with a maximum penalty of life in prison.
The trial was set for late spring. Yence's murder trial
began on June first, nineteen ninety, in the same court
room where Elizabeth's sentencing had occurred. The primary shock came
during opening statements, when Yence's chief lawyer, Richard Neaton, claimed

(01:31:58):
his client could not have killed the Haysums because he
was not even in Virginia at the time of the murders. Instead,
Neaton asserted Yenz was in Washington, d c. Creating an
alibi for Elizabeth. This was a shrewd legal strategy designed
to counter Elizabeth's consistent accusation that YenS had committed the
murders out of love for her. The prosecution's case was

(01:32:20):
notably thin on physical evidence directly placing YenS at the scene.
No murder weapon was found, and no witnesses could place
him at loose chippings. The trial essentially became a test
of credibility between Elizabeth and Yents. Elizabeth took the stand
on June thirteenth, nineteen ninety. Her demeanor was strikingly different

(01:32:41):
from her composed appearance at pre trial hearings, she appeared
pale and nervous, her hands shaking and her voice weak.
Prosecutor Updyke, whose role was now reversed, treated her gently
as she was now his key witness. Elizabeth's testimony presented
yet another version of events, this time fully admitting her

(01:33:02):
complicity in planning the murders. She explicitly stated that she
had wanted them dead and had worked hard to manipulate
YenS to kill them. She described planning a confrontation with
her parents, with her staying in Washington to provide an alibi,
while YenS drove to Boonsborough. When Yence said, then if
I don't like it, I'll kill them, Elizabeth testified, she replied,

(01:33:25):
without hesitation, that's fine. She described practicing forging Yens's signature,
ordering room service to create evidence of his presence, and
purchasing movie tickets while creating a public disturbance to insure
they would be remembered. This increased admission of culpability was
attributed to her fixed sentence. With nothing left to lose,

(01:33:46):
she could now focus entirely on insuring Yens's conviction. During
his testimony, Yence denied committing the murders and presented a
radically different version of events. He claimed Elizabeth od m
money to a drug dealer and needed to collect a
package in Washington. According to Yents, he had created an
alibi for her, and when she returned late that night,

(01:34:09):
she was wearing different clothes and had a brown substance
implied to be blood smeared on her arms. Most dramatically,
YenS claimed that Elizabeth told him forthrightly that she had
been to Boonsborough and that she had killed her parents.
He alleged they then devised a plan for him to
take the blame, believing that as the son of a diplomat,

(01:34:31):
he might be deported to Germany and tried as a juvenile,
facing a maximum sentence of only ten years. This, he claimed,
would save Elizabeth from a potential death sentence. The case
went to the jury shortly before three pm on June
twenty first, nineteen ninety. After rejecting an offer to take
the evening off, The jury returned at six forty p m.

(01:34:52):
Looking somber and determined. They found YenS guilty on two
counts of first degree murder and recommended two life sentences.
When Judge Sweeney asked if there was any reason judgment
should not be passed immediately, Yence defiantly snapped yes, because
I'm innocent. He was led from the courtroom in handcuffs,

(01:35:13):
his earlier arrogance replaced by what observers described as a
look of total defeat. A juror later revealed they had
agreed almost immediately that YenS was guilty, but spent nearly
four hours deciding between first and second degree murder. If
sentenced to consecutive life terms, YenS would not be eligible
for parole for at least twenty years. The case that

(01:35:35):
had begun with two young lovers fleeing across the Atlantic
had finally reached its conclusion in the same Virginia court
room where it all started. Both Elizabeth Haysom and Yen's
Zurring would spend decades behind bars for their roles in
the brutal murders of Derrick and Nancy Haysom on that
March night in nineteen eighty five. Quick break ads keep

(01:36:05):
the show running, but if you want to skip them,
the ad free versions on Patreon for just three bucks
Thanks for sticking through that. Let's get back to it.

(01:36:25):
Elizabeth Haysm was serving her sentence at the Fluvanna Correctional
Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. She first became eligible
for parole in nineteen ninety five and submitted a request
every three years thereafter. Under Virginia law, her sentence was
subject to mandatory parole, meaning she would have been automatically
released in twenty thirty two, forty five years after her conviction.

(01:36:50):
For decades, the case had been marked by shifting narratives
and contested evidence. During a rare twenty sixteen interview, Haysm
broke her usual silence with the media. She claimed that
Yence Zuring had killed her parents in a rage after
discovering that her mother had sexually abused her. Zuring, however,

(01:37:10):
maintained a different version of events. He contended that Hasim
had killed her parents herself over the abuse, though Haysum
had originally denied that any such abuse had occurred. In
the same twenty sixteen interview, Hasim expressed that she was
profoundly ashamed of her role in the murders and criticized
Zuring for continuing to maintain his innocence. Meanwhile, Yence Zuring

(01:37:33):
had been fighting his own legal battles. He became eligible
for parole in two thousand three, but his requests were
repeatedly denied. By early twenty seventeen, his twelfth parole request
had been rejected. A petition for an absolute pardon had
been filed on August twenty second, twenty sixteen. Since the
original trial, several troubling issues had emerged regarding the case.

(01:37:57):
Richard Neaton, Zuring's defense attorney, was later disciplined and eventually
disbarred for reasons unrelated to Zuring's case. Neaton also admitted
to having had a drug problem while representing Zuring. Additionally,
the presiding judge, William M. Sweeney had a personal connection
to the case. He knew Nancy Haysom's brother, Elizabeth's uncle,

(01:38:18):
and had previously presided over Elizabeth's court proceedings. The evidence
that had convicted Zuring was also coming under intense scrutiny.
A blood smeared sock print had been the prosecution's main
piece of evidence against him. Robert Hallett, the prosecution's expert witness,
who was not actually an expert on footprints, claimed he

(01:38:39):
could match it perfectly to Zuring. Years later, an FBI
agent would dismiss the witness's methods as a magic trick.
More significantly, Ed Salzbach, an FBI profiler who had reportedly
been asked to consult on the case, had reached a
different conclusion entirely according to some familiar with the case,

(01:38:59):
Sulzbach de dist determined that the crime had been committed
by a female who knew the Haysums, and he identified
Elizabeth as the likely killer. Detective Ricky Gardner, who worked
on the case, denied that a profile had been created
by Sulzbach, and no report was entered into evidence. At
Zuring's trial, Sulzbach had reportedly matched the sock print to

(01:39:19):
a female in his analysis. In two thousand and nine,
a breakthrough in forensic technology allowed investigators to test DNA
evidence from the crime scene that had been previously too
advanced to analyze. Forty two pieces of DNA evidence were examined.
Of these, thirty one were either too small or too
degraded to yield results. However, the eleven samples that were

(01:39:43):
successfully tested excluded both Zuring and Elizabeth Haysum from the
crime scene. This DNA evidence began to shift opinions among
law enforcement. Chuck Read, one of the original investigators of
the haysm murders, had harbored long standing doubts about the
out of the case. His participation in the twenty sixteen

(01:40:03):
documentary The Promise led him to take these doubts more seriously.
On May thir twenty seventeen, Albemarle County Sheriff J. E.
Chip Harding released a nineteen page report following a month's
long investigation he had conducted into the case. His conclusion
was unequivocal Yen Zuring was innocent. Harding formally asked Governor

(01:40:23):
Macauliffe to pardon him. The momentum for Zuring's release continued
to build. On September twenty seventh, twenty seventeen, Sheriff Harding
held a press conference alongside investigator Richard L. Hudson Junior,
advocating for Zuring's release. They presented expert testimony from three
forensic scientists who agreed that Zuring's DNA did not match

(01:40:45):
the blood found at the crime scene. International attention focused
on Zuring's thirteenth parole hearing. On October tenth, twenty seventeen.
Germany's ambassador Peter Whittigg and former President Christian Wolfe attended,
along with Zurrening's council Stephen Rosenfield. Following the hearing, Ambassador
Whitgig told the assembled media, we are deeply convinced of

(01:41:07):
the innocence of YenS Zuring. Two weeks later, on October
twenty seventh, twenty seventeen, another press conference was held by
Gail Starling Marshall. Former Deputy Attorney General of Virginia. Stephen Rosenfield,
announced that the University of Richmond's School of Law's Institute
for Actual Innocence was supporting Zuring's pardon petition based on

(01:41:29):
the DNA evidence that excluded him from the crime scene.
After more than three decades behind bars, change finally came
on November twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam
accepted the Virginia Parole Board's recommendation to release both Haysom
and Zuring. Neither received a gubernatorial pardon, but both were

(01:41:50):
released into the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
for deportation to their respective home countries of Canada and Germany.
He remained permanently ineligible to re enter the United States
Elizabeth Haysm was deported to Canada in January twenty twenty.
After serving more than thirty years in prison, Yence Zuring

(01:42:12):
returned to Germany on December seventeenth, twenty nineteen, landing in Frankfort.
Since his return to Germany, Zuring has rebuilt his life
as an author and speaker. He has published eight books
and works as a consultant. His case has made him
something of a media figure in Germany, where he has
appeared on numerous well known talk shows, presenting himself as

(01:42:32):
a victim of American justice system failures. In Autumn twenty
twenty three, he appeared in an exclusive Netflix special. However,
his media presence has not been without controversy. German journalist
Felix Jung criticized the uncritical platform given to Zuring, writing
that German talk shows enable the convicted double murderer Yence

(01:42:55):
Zuring to present himself uncritically as a victim of US justice.
Jung argued that instead of critically questioning criminals, the media
was enabling a cult of personality that can be marketed
in pop culture. During his incarceration at Buckingham Correctional Center
in Dilwyn, Virginia, Zuring had undergone a spiritual transformation, converting

(01:43:17):
from Buddhism to Roman Catholicism. He became a prolific writer
while imprisoned, publishing several books and articles. His nineteen ninety
five autobiography Mortal Thoughts was described as the autobiography of
a young man imprisoned for a double murder he did
not commit. In two thousand seven, his book The Convict
Christ was awarded first Prize by the Catholic Press Association

(01:43:41):
of North America in the category of Social Concerns. In Germany,
legal restrictions prevent Zurring from publicly accusing his ex girlfriend,
Elizabeth Haysm of the crime, adding even more complexity to
a case that had already challenged the American justice system's
handling of international defendants and the reliability of forensic evidence

(01:44:02):
from the nineteen eighties.

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