ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 11, 1996 TAG: 9612110053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: VIRGINIA EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
Prosecution and defense lawyers in Jens Soering's double-murder appeal sparred in closing arguments Tuesday over whether or not two drifters could be linked to a knife that Soering has suggested was the true murder weapon.
A ruling on the appeal is not expected any time soon. Bedford County Circuit Judge William Sweeney said he would submit his written decision after final evidence and legal briefs are submitted.
Former Bedford County deputy George Anderson submitted a folding Buck knife last month to court officials that he thought may have come from two drifters he stopped and questioned in Bedford less than a week after the stabbing murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom. The drifters were later arrested and convicted of robbing and stabbing to death a Roanoke vagrant a couple days after Anderson stopped them.
Soering is serving two life sentences at Keen Mountain Correctional Center for the 1985 murder of the Haysoms, who were the parents of his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom. Soering, a former University of Virginia honor student and son of a German diplomat, claims that Elizabeth Haysom committed the murders, probably with accomplices.
He is seeking a new trial based on his claim that the prosecution withheld evidence from his defense about the knife and Anderson's encounter with the two drifters.
During closing arguments, Deputy Attorney General John McLees said, "There is no competent way in the world to connect these two men with this knife It is sheer speculation that this knife had anything to do with [the drifters], much less the Haysom murders."
Soering's attorney, Gail Marshall, disagreed vigorously, noting that Anderson testified that he could not recall any other person being in his squad car between the time he questioned the drifters and when he found the knife.
But, McLees said, Anderson also testified he found the knife nearly two weeks after he questioned the men, and that neither man had produced the Buck knife when they emptied their pockets for the deputy. Also, Anderson could not remember the last time he had checked under the seat before he found the Buck knife.
Marshall reminded the court of a state medical examiner's testimony that the Buck knife was "fully consistent" with the type of knife that made the wounds on the Haysoms, and that the steak knife submitted at his trial as a murder weapon was too thin to have made the same wounds. But McLees noted that the Buck knife is an extremely common model, and no trace of blood was found on it in recent tests by state forensic scientists.
McLees said an implication by Soering's attorney that Elizabeth Haysom could have been in league with the men was preposterous.
"She certainly didn't meet them at UVa. She certainly didn't meet them at the local country club," McLees said. "If she had used either of these people as stooges in this crime, she presumably would have had to pay them, yet days later, they're penniless, living under bridges and in rescue missions, rolling homeless people for money. They obviously were not Elizabeth Haysom's hit men."
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB