#590 Jason Flom with Jens Soering

Jason Flom (0:04)

This is Jason Flom with an update on Jens Söering's case. In 1990, Jens and his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, were convicted of murdering her parents in their Bedford County, Virginia home. After 33 years, four months, and seven days in prison, Jens was finally paroled and deported back to Germany in 2019

On February 17th of this year, Jens' legal team filed a new actual innocence petition citing DNA analysis that they say excludes him and identifies two unknown male profiles. The petition also includes information from the victim's granddaughter, Sheena Haysom, and has raised questions about other family members and inconsistencies in the case.

Jens Söering (0:53)

The DNA tests are reliable, it's not Jens Söering, it is most likely two other people, one with blood group O, one with blood group AB, and now comes Sheena Haysom, and does the familial DNA, and that shows that her male relatives cannot be excluded.

So the jury hears Jens Söering is excluded, but Sheena's male relatives cannot be excluded. That doesn't mean they did it. The question is only, the legal question is, if a jury were to hear all of this, would that not lead to a reasonable doubt?

Jason Flom (1:37)

On August 6th, the court ordered the Attorney General to respond.

What that response could mean for Jens' four-decade-long fight to clear his name? Well, that remains to be seen, but we remain hopeful.

Jens Söering (1:52)

I'm looking forward to the process as it unfolds in the coming months, and I'm hopeful that my case get the consideration it deserves after, actually now, 40 years since my arrest and 41 years since the crime. I think this is now actually my best chance yet of getting justice, and I'm really excited about that. I'm thankful to Sheena Haysom, who's had a lot of courage to go public with this, and I'm thankful to Elliott Harding, my new attorney, and all the other people who've supported me for ages.

I'm grateful to all of these people for helping me.

Jason Flom (2:48)

Thank you.

Amanda Knox (2:48)

This is the Department of Corrections, Buckingham Correctional.

To accept this call, press To refuse this call, this call is from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording. Thank you for using TTL.

Jason Flom (3:05)

Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. It's me, I'm your host. And today, we have an episode that is going to rock your world.

We have three guests today. I'm going to save the best for last. But we have John Grisham in the studio with us. John, welcome.

John Grisham (3:23)

Delighted to be here.

Jason Flom (3:24)

And Sheriff Chip Harding of Albemarle County.

Chip Harding (3:27)

Yes, sir, good to be here.

Jason Flom (3:28)

Virginia. And on the phone is Jens Söering, one of the most remarkable people I know, and one of the most extraordinary cases of injustice that we've ever covered on this show. So Jens, as I always say, I'm happier here, but I'm sorry you're here.

Jens Söering (3:46)

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this, Jason, and thanks to Chip and John as well.

Jason Flom (3:52)

So this is a case that takes us back to the 80s, believe it or not, a case that has all the makings of a John Grisham novel, actually, because this goes back to Jens, when you were first an exchange student from Germany, a brilliant young scholar from everything I'm told, this is a Jefferson scholar, a freshman at the University of Virginia. Jens, do you want to take us back there and tell us how this started?

Jens Söering (4:23)

Sure. This was in 1984, in the fall, I arrived at the University of Virginia as a freshman, they called me first year students there, and I met a young woman there, who was two and a half years older than I was, Elizabeth Haysom, and we were both in the same dormitory. She had entered the university late because she had had an adventurous youth. She had gone to an English boarding school and run away with her girlfriend to Europe, things like that. And so she came to UVA quite a bit older than the rest of us in that dormitory. And I was not an American citizen. My father was a German diplomat. That's why I was living in the United States. And her family came from South Africa and from Canada.

So we were drawn to each other as being foreigners, you know, not Americans. And in the course of that fall semester in 1984, we fell in love.

And it was quite a surprise to everybody else in the dormitory because she was very experienced and very mature. And I was, I guess, a nerd, an uber nerd and virgin to boot. So she was my very first girlfriend.