25 Questions for Jens Söring
Söring has invited guests at his upcoming dinner in Cologne to question him with "no restrictions". Here are some they might ask.
Dinner with an Ex-Con
Jens Söring is coming to Cologne, Germany, for a 3-day “residency” from March 2-5 at a restaurant called Consilium:
For €49.50, guests can enjoy champagne and pasta while spending “four hours” in Söring’s company. On his TikTok and YouTube Channels, Söring has announced: “Ich will mein Gesicht zurück!”. This translates literally to “I want my face back!”, which I assume refers to losing face.
He stresses repeatedly that he will answer any and all questions from the public at these events. This is clearly a response to me and to other Söring skeptics, who note that Söring has never appeared in a public forum in which he would face skeptical, probing questions from people who are well-informed about his case. Of course he answers questions on his social media channels all the time, but they’re meaningless softballs like “Do you feel remorse?” (Yes, for lying to police and destroying 2 families with those lies, but not for the murders because I didn’t do them) or “What’s the food like in prison?” (Terrible). When he spoke in a courtroom in Hannover in December 2022, Söring and the judge who invited him insulated Söring by announcing there would be no questions at all about his innocence story. He has apparently realized that makes him sound a bit defensive. So in Cologne, it will be a free-for-all!
This new Cologne event has gotten press attention, but it’s miles away from the fawning tone in which his previous speeches were covered. RTL headlined its coverage (g): “€49.50 Euro für an Evening with an Ex-con” (Knacki), with the main headline: “Dinner Date with a Double-Murderer: Jens Söring Will Speak in a Cologne Restaurant”. It’s interesting to see press coverage abandoning the qualification “convicted” double-murderer, which used to be de rigueur. There was never any reason for it, since Söring was lawfully convicted, lost all of his appeals, and has never furnished any serious reason to doubt his guilt. Nevertheless, some newspapers seemed afraid of potentially getting sued by Söring (as I was), so they refrained from referring to him as a murderer.
That’s no longer the case. The RTL, and refers to Söring simply as “the killer”, and notes in passing that €49.50 a lot of dough. The site t-online (g) skeptically headlined “Cologne Restaurant: Champagne Reception with a Double-Murderer?” They even contacted the restaurant’s owner to ask for comment. He responded that he had met Söring, found his story interesting, and thinks that people deserve a “second chance”, the typical platitude Söring’s allies wheel out to defend his continued media campaign. Of course, there are plenty of murderers living out their “second chance” anonymously in Germany right now as clerks, warehouse workers, or janitors, but nobody seems very interested in them.
I don’t plan to go myself, because I don’t have strong objections to Söring appearing in private forums. I consider these events to be in questionable taste, but not worth much of my time. I only haul out the heavy artillery when Söring is invited by influential taxpayer-funded venues such as courtrooms, law schools, or public television. Of course, he’s not going to face any hard questions here, either. It’s hard to imagine someone paying €49.50 to cross-examine the star of the evening. However, a few people have reached out to me and indicated they may well attend, and asked if I had any questions for Söring.
Turns out I do! In preparation for a few interviews and for a possible YouTube channel, I worked out a draft list of 25 real questions for Söring, based on the facts of the case. At first I was going to hold these in reserve, since we would be more likely to get revealing answers if he’s confronted with these questions without a chance to prepare. But then I thought back to some of the journalists and authors I’ve spoken to and provided some of these questions to. Almost all said that when they did confront Söring with genuine questions (whether from me or on their own), he became defensive, and his answers became vague, contradictory, and unconvincing. Simply put, these journalists didn’t believe him. So even when Söring has a chance to prepare, his answers to sharp questions are usually either confusing, defensive-sounding, oddly vague, or contradictory.
In other words, Söring cannot come up with good answers, even if he has time to prepare, because there simply are no good answers. So I see no reason not to share my list right now, so people attending the Cologne event can ask questions which probe the weaknesses in his innocence story. Of course Söring will likely start sketching out answers to them right now, perhaps even rehearsing the answers with his lawyers and PR consultants. But presumably he also prepared before speaking to the journalists I talked to, and he just couldn’t come up with anything convincing.
Note that this list is only a provisional draft; I am constantly tinkering with it and adding questions. But for what it’s worth, here’s the current list:
25 questions for Jens Söring
Things your lawyers allegedly said to you are an important part of your innocence story. For example, you claim that your lawyers told you that you could not retract your confessions while you were still in prison in England, and that you faced a “100%” chance of being executed if you were returned to the USA.
1. What were the names of these lawyers? Are you talking about Richard Neaton, Prof. Dr. Andreas Frieser, or other people?
2. Will you sign an attorney-client confidentiality waiver like this one so that these people can verify that they did, in fact, say these things to you?
At trial, you were represented by two privately-appointed lawyers who had significant resources to defend you with.
3. Why do you never mention that you were also represented by William A. Cleaveland at trial?
Your trial lawyers had sufficient resources to hire independent experts. They knew that the bloody sock print would be important evidence against you at trial. Any competent trial lawyer would hire an independent expert long before trial to examine the sock print, and you had two competent lawyers.
4. Did your lawyers hire an independent expert to evaluate whether the sock print was consistent with your foot? What was the result?
At you June 1990 trial, Richard Neaton told the court that the ticket stubs and room service receipt tabs were evidence of your innocence, and that he had been in possession of them since 1987. However, Neaton told the court that he had not told you he had this crucial evidence until shortly before trial in 1990, and you confirmed this statement.
5. Was Neaton lying when he said that to the court?
6. If that was true, did Neaton ever tell you why he never informed you, for three years, that he was in possession of evidence which could prove your alibi and thus your innocence? Once again, are you willing to sign a simple 1-page confidentiality waiver form so Neaton can defend himself against your accusations?
At your trial, the Lynchburg businessman Donald Harrington testified that he saw bruises on your hands and face at the wake for the Haysoms, and that he informed Bedford County law enforcement of this in 1985 about 10 days to 2 weeks after the wake. In your 1995 eBook “Mortal Thoughts”, however, you accuse Harrington of waiting until after your June 1986 London confessions to tell the police this information, implying that he came forward only to bolster the narrative the state had already agreed on.
7. Do you still right now maintain that Harrington committed perjury on the witness stand, as you accused him of doing?
8. If so, do you have any proof he committed this crime?
9. What would be Donald Harrington’s motive to commit perjury, a serious felony, at your trial?
On March 2, 1990, you testified under oath that English detective Kenneth Beever threatened to physically injure Elizabeth Haysom unless you dropped your demands for a lawyer and confessed. Beever denied this. Judge William Sweeney later issued a finding that you lied about this incident.
10. Do you still right now maintain that Kenneth Beever committed the crimes of extortion and perverting the course of justice in June 1986 during your confessions?
11. Do you still right now maintain that Kenneth Beever committed the crime of perjury in March 1990 during your trial when he denied threatening you?
You claimed from June 1990 to January 2020 that Elizabeth Haysom personally confessed murdering her parents to you, and that you even saw dried blood on her forearms during her confession. Now you say you don’t know who killed the Haysoms.
12. Why did you change your story?
13. If Elizabeth was personally involved in killing her parents, as you maintained until early 2020, why did she voluntarily give blood, fingerprint, and footprint samples to the police in 1985?
14. If Elizabeth killed her parents alone, as you long claimed, why was there significant amounts of Type O blood at the crime scene, which is not her blood type?
During your confessions, you told the officers to go look for videotapes from the Marriott hotel surveillance cameras, which would show you riding the elevator without pants on the early morning of March 31, 1985. It is obvious that you believed, at the time you made these statements, that these tapes existed and could be found.
15. If these videotapes of you in the elevator existed, as you thought they did, what would they have shown?
16. If you were riding the elevator without pants on March 31, 1985 for some other reason, what was it?
From June 1986 until late 1989, you were incarcerated in England while you challenged your extradition to Virginia. During this time, you claim that your lawyers told you no to recant or disavow your confessions in public. However, there was nothing preventing you from telling your family and friends that you were actually 100% innocent and had falsely confessed to protect Elizabeth.
17. At any time between June 1986 and March 1990, did you tell your family or other private visitors that you were actually innocent and had falsely confessed?
18. If so, do you have proof of this, for example in the form of letters or affidavits?
Sometime between March 1990 and June 1990, while you were in jail awaiting trial in Bedford County, you changed your defense strategy from “I was coerced into confessing by Beever’s threats” to “I confessed falsely to protect Elizabeth”. This story change is even documented in news articles from the local press.
19. When did you make this change and why?
You often complain that you were referred to as “The German Monster” in the American press.
20. Do you have any evidence this ever happened?
In your books, you claim that you falsely confessed to the murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom because you believed that your diplomatic connections would allow you to be tried in Germany, where you would receive a sentence from between 5 and 10 years in a youth jail. On page 79 of your 1995 book “Mortal Thoughts”, you stated that you arrived with Elizabeth in Stuttgart, Germany on 2 January 1986. Article 16 of the German Constitution forbids the German government from extraditing a German citizen to another country to face trial.
21. In Stuttgart, Germany, you could have gone to the local police and confessed to the murders with an absolute constitutional guarantee that you would never be extradited and would be tried in Germany. Why didn’t you do this?
At the very beginning of your recorded confession from 5 June 1986, you told the detectives that Elizabeth knew what you planned to do in Loose Chippings and helped you carry out the plan by constructing an alibi:
These allegations implicated Elizabeth in the crime of being an accessory before the fact to capital murder, a crime which carries a punishment of 20 years to life in prison.
22. If you were so eager to protect Elizabeth, why did you immediately implicate her in a crime with a potential punishment of life in prison?
When you were questioned about this subject at trial by attorney Jim Updike, you stated that both you and Elizabeth had agreed that you had to implicate her. The reason, you said, was that everyone knew that Elizabeth resented her parents, and would not believe a version of the story in which she had no role in her parents’ killing. You claimed that both you and Elizabeth saying she knew nothing about the murder plans would have been implausible.
23. Why would Elizabeth agree to this plan, knowing it could result in her going to jail for the rest of her life?
24. Is this still your story, or do you have a new explanation for why you accused Elizabeth of a crime punishable by a potential life sentence?
You testified at trial, and wrote in all of your books, that your plan was to be tried in Germany, get a light sentence as a youthful offender, and then be released back into society where you would resume your relationship with Elizabeth.
25. How would this plan work if Elizabeth were convicted of being an accessory to murder and serving a sentence of 20 years to life?