In 1985, Elizabeth Haysom‘s boyfriend, Jens Soering, confessed to killing Haysom’s parents. He later recanted, claiming instead that Hanson had been the murderer. After serving time as an accessory before the fact, here’s where Haysom is now.
In the mid-1980s, Haysom, from Canada, and Jens Soering, from Germany, were students at the University of Virginia, when Haysom’s parents were found stabbed, and reportedly nearly decapitated in their Virginia home. As the Netflix true crime series, Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom explains, after Derek and Nancy Haysom were found gruesomely killed, Elizabeth and Soering disappeared, and were later arrested in England.
At first, Soering admitted he did it, but he later said he confessed to the crime as cover for his girlfriend, and because he believed he would have diplomatic immunity, based on his father’s status as a diplomat. In 1990, however, Soering received a double-murder conviction, and was given two life sentences for the crime. Around that time, a jury also ruled Elizabeth was an accessory before the fact — to which she pleaded guilty — and she received a 90-year sentence, according to The Washington Post.
Haysom was allegedly sexually abused
Per The Washington Post, the Jens Soering and Elizabeth Haysom case garnered media attention when it happened, and was the subject of at least one German documentary prior to Netflix addressing the story. In that German documentary, it was suggested that Haysom had been sexually abused by her mother and that instead of Soering, she enlisted the help of other men to kill them. Supporting that version of events, blood samples found at the scene reportedly did not belong to Soering.
In his revised confession, Soering maintained that while he helped plan the crime, he did not commit the act, and was elsewhere when it took place. Based mostly on technicalities, including a change in Virginia law regarding Haysom and Soering’s ages at the time of their conviction, both were paroled in 2019. Soering returned to Germany, and Haysom went home to Canada. Neither Haysom nor Soering were pardoned.
Haysom is barred from the United States
As a condition of her parole, Elizabeth Haysom can never return to the U.S., and does not appear in the Netflix show, Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom, as Soering does. Nor does Haysom speak publicly about the case. Details are otherwise scarce regarding what Haysom’s life is like, now that she has been freed from prison.
At the time of her parole in 2019, however, Phyllis Workman, Haysom’s cousin with whom Haysom stayed in touch while behind bars, said that Haysom had learned to read Braille while serving her sentence, and that once on the outside, “She’ll be great for society.”
Workman added, “She will be a free bird, and that’s wonderful … She has earned it. She’s been a model prisoner, and so has Jens. So it’s just time. The Lord’s working. The Lord is good.”
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.