Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 24, 1995 TAG: 9505240079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Virginia Parole Board denied parole Tuesday to Elizabeth Haysom, who was convicted in Bedford County of plotting to murder her parents.
Because of the length of her sentence - 90 years - and the violent nature of the 1985 stabbings of Derek and Nancy Haysom, Elizabeth Haysom also was denied the possibility of parole for at least another three years, said Virginia Parole Board Chairman John Metzger.
It was the first shot at parole for Haysom, 31, who is incarcerated at the state prison for women in Goochland. Only 4 percent of inmates convicted of violent crimes are paroled on their first try.
Haysom has been incarcerated since her 1986 arrest in London. She pleaded guilty in August 1987 to being an accessory before the fact to the murders. She must be released under mandatory parole in June 2032.
She volunteers in the prison law library, where she is described as a model inmate. Her prison record is clean, Metzger said, except for a small infraction of prison telephone rules in 1987.
"I think three years is appropriate," said Haysom's half-brother, Richard Haysom, from his home Calgary, Alberta. "It might make a big difference. I hope so."
He believes his half-sister should be paroled eventually, but he also thinks she played a greater role in the murders than she admits.
Elizabeth Haysom's ex-lover, Jens Soering, was convicted of the murders.
Haysom claimed she was in Washington, D.C., while Soering killed her parents in their Bedford County home. Richard Haysom says Elizabeth probably was at the murder scene because her parents disliked Soering and wouldn't have let him in their house.
Soering testified at his trial that he falsely confessed to the murders to protect Haysom. He claims Haysom alone killed her parents, and says he will pursue an appeal. Imprisoned at Keene Mountain Correctional Center in Southwest Virginia, he becomes eligible for parole in 2003.
Bedford County Circuit Judge William Sweeney and another of Haysom's half-brothers, Howard Haysom, both wrote letters to the Parole Board opposing Elizabeth Haysom's early release. Nelson County mystery novelist Doug Hornig, who describes himself as a friend of Elizabeth Haysom's, wrote a letter to the board urging her parole. A cousin in New York also supported her release.
Both Haysom and Soering were University of Virginia honor students at the time of the killings.
by CNB