ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
More than six years after he was convicted of the most infamous double murder in Bedford County history, Jens Soering will return to Bedford in December.
At a court hearing Tuesday, Bedford County Circuit Judge William Sweeney set Dec. 9 as the date for the evidentiary hearing in Soering's latest quest for appeal and ruled that Soering will be allowed to attend.
Soering hopes to cast doubt on his guilt by comparing evidence in his case to that from another murder committed around the same time by a pair of drifters in Roanoke.
A German citizen and former University of Virginia honor student, Soering is serving a double life sentence at Keen Mountain Correctional Center for the 1985 stabbings of Derek and Nancy Haysom, the parents of Soering's then-lover, Elizabeth Haysom.
Soering's trial in 1990 created a media sensation in Southwest Virginia. Though he confessed to the murders in 1986, he recanted at his trial, saying he had lied in order to protect Elizabeth Haysom from the electric chair.
At Tuesday's hearing, Sweeney denied for a second time a formal request to step down from the case in favor of another judge. Soering's lawyer, Gail Marshall of Rapidan, questioned Sweeney's impartiality because Sweeney had known the victims and had made a comment about Soering's role in the murders in a magazine interview shortly before he heard Soering's trial.
Sweeney, who also refused to recuse himself in 1990, said, "My feeling is a judge should not recuse himself simply because he is asked to recuse himself. I was then of the opinion and I am now of the opinion that I can render a fair and impartial trial."
Sweeney's refusal to step down in 1990 was one of several points that Marshall unsuccessfully brought before the Virginia Supreme Court earlier this year when she sought an appeal for Soering on the grounds that he had received an unfair trial.
The only point for appeal that the Supreme Court has allowed Soering to argue is the question of whether the Bedford County commonwealth's attorney's office withheld evidence from the defense that could have changed the jury's guilty verdict.
Marshall claims that the prosecution didn't turn over information that Bedford sheriff's deputies investigating the Haysom murders had questioned Roanoke police about a 1985 stabbing murder for which two drifters were later convicted and are now serving time in a Virginia prison.
"If these two gentlemen have type O blood, or footprints that fit the one presented at trial, obviously this would have been very helpful to the defense," Marshall said. In addition to Soering's confession, the main pieces of evidence that jury members said convicted him were drops of type O blood - Soering's type - found at the scene, and a bloody sockprint that a state forensic investigator said matched Soering's foot.
Marshall said she also hopes to obtain fingerprints of the men to compare to unidentified fingerprints found at the scene of the Haysom murders, as well as any knives that were found on the drifters. No definitive murder weapon was ever found in the Haysom murders.
Assistant Roanoke City Attorney William Parsons told the court Tuesday that the Roanoke Police Department has no records of any conversations or correspondence between Roanoke police and Bedford investigators concerning the Haysom murders and the drifters.
At the hearing in December, Sweeney will have to decide whether there is enough evidence of wrongdoing by the prosecution to support a new trial for Soering. If not, Soering's next option likely would be to seek an appeal in the federal court system.
Soering and Elizabeth Haysom fled across Europe for almost a year before they were captured in England, where they had been living under false names and writing bad checks. Convicted of conspiracy to murder, Elizabeth Haysom is serving a 90-year sentence at Goochland Correctional Center for Women.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Marshall.by CNB