"Chuck Reid" Accidentally Undermines Jens Söring's Narrative

The "'Chuck Reid' Report" raises Troubling Questions™ it was supposed to resolve. Can you solve the puzzle on your own?

Introduction

Chuck Reid was an investigator for the Bedford County Sheriff’s Department in 1985, and was formally the “lead investigator” (as Team Söring now invariably refers to him) in the Söring case before Ricky Gardner took over. As late as 2011, Chuck Reid was still convinced of Söring’s guilt, but he changed his mind in the later 2010s. He was a leading interview guest in the 2016 pro-Söring documentary “Killing for Love”.

Chuck Reid has now allegedly written the “Chuck Reid Report” (CRR), intended to counter the Terry Wright report. The CRR is for sale on the website of Daniela Hillers, the Hamburg small-press publisher who has promised us a book on the Söring case for almost 6 months, but has yet to deliver. The CRR, however, arrived 5 months ago, and of course I have it.

The CRR mainly rehashes old arguments, but does contain a revealing nugget of information which says a lot about the crucial time period between June 1986 and June 1990, during which Jens Söring, for all anyone knows, admitted to anyone who asked that he murdered the Haysoms alone because he hated them.

Let’s play a little puzzle. I will explain the background and context, and will mention this small fact somewhere. See if you can guess which one it is!

Background: The Infamous Movie Tickets

The occasion for this post is that a true-crime journalist (the guy behind the excellent Down Rabbit podcast) recently asked me about the theater tickets in the Söring case. I gave him a deep-ish dive in response, but there’s more to it than that. Here’s the background:

In the November 2023 Netflix documentary “Till Murder Do Us Part”, the directors theorized that both Jens Söring and Elizabeth Haysom were present in Loose Chippings on the evening of March 30th, 1985, when the Haysoms were stabbed to death.

But if so, how did Söring acquire the movie tickets which he now claims prove he stayed in Washington during the afternoon and evening of the 30th? At his 1990 trial, he claims he bought tickets to and watched evening showings of the movies Witness, Stranger than Paradise, and (at midnight) The Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPC). This proved that he stayed in Washington, D.C. on the night of the murders.

Here is a photo of the tickets from the CRR:

As you can see, these movie tickets from 1985 were old school. Only one of them is printed, and that with a dot-matrix printer. That was presumably the ticket for Stranger than Paradise, shown at 10:15 pm. In the lower-right hand corner there is a note about the RHPC in Jens Söring’s handwriting. This is very important.

The Netflix directors suggested the tickets had been bought in advance, before about 4:00 p.m. on March 30th, 1985. According to their theory, after buying these tickets, Jens and Elizabeth drove to Loose Chippings, killed the Haysoms, and then drove back to D.C.

Söring was infuriated by the Netflix documentary, since it argued he was present at the crime scene and took part in the murders, perhaps even committing them by himself. He has released YouTube videos and other interviews in which he critiques the documentary, claiming it “suppressed evidence” proving his innocence.

Yet even before its broadcast, Söring realized that the Netflix documentary wasn’t going his way. Team Söring 2.0 began organizing a counter-offensive. One element of that counter-offensive was the CRR. Yet Reid’s usefulness as a source is limited. He was not present at Söring’s confessions, nor did he testify at Söring’s trial. As late as 2011, Chuck Reid showed no signs of doubting Söring’s guilt. That changed shortly thereafter, and Reid was not only a star in Killing for Love, he also became one Söring’s most loyal supporters

We are now given to understand that Chuck Reid was so dedicated to Söring’s story that he decided to write a 170-page report to be released in November 2023 as a “corrective” to the Netflix documentary. The report available in German and English. You can buy the report in English here. For some unfathomable reason, Reid chose to employ a prose style identical to Söring’s own, including Söring’s own trademark sarcastic comments (“Are the people spreading this nonsense trying to make a name for themselves by pretending they ‘solved’ the case?”).

On Page 9 of the report, Reid addresses the infamous movie tickets. Netflix, as we’ve seen claimed the tickets could have been bought in advance. However, Reid cites a letter from Söring’s lawyer Richard Neaton to Jens Söring dated September 25, 1991. We’re not told how Chuck Reid got access to this attorney-client correspondence. We are shown only a 4-line snippet of this letter (I’ve seen the whole thing).

In the letter, Neaton informs his imprisoned client Jens Söring that Neaton spoke with the theater manager in charge of the theater in which the movie Stranger than Paradise was being shown at 10:15 p.m. on March 30, 1985. Neaton tells Söring that the tickets were sold in sequential numbered order. The numbers on Söring’s tickets show that “it is highly likely according to the movie theater representative that your tickets were purchased shortly before the 8:00 pm show or as one of the first tickets sold for the 10:15 show”. The snippet continues “The theater cannot tell” — but stops there. I can tell you the theater manager added some more caveats.

The Argument

As Söring has claimed in at least 4 videos or interviews since the Netflix doc was released, this proves Netflix got it wrong! These tickets — well, at least the one ticket for Stranger than Paradise — could not have been bought in advance for these shows, because those tickets would have earlier numbers on them. Ergo, someone must have actually stayed in Washington, D.C. Söring testified at trial that he had stayed in D.C. and has maintained this ever since.

As we see in Till Murder Do Us Part, Richard Neaton explicitly promised the jury that the movie theater ticket stubs proved he was not at Loose Chippings and was thus innocent of murder. The movie tickets were introduced during Söring’s testimony as a surprise; before then, it appears that nobody outside the Söring defense team knew they existed. Prosecutor Jim Updike claimed nobody had ever told him about them before Jens Söring’s trial began in 1990. Outside the presence of the jury, Updike asked Richard Neaton when and how he had gotten this surprise evidence.

Neaton told Updike and the judge that he had obtained possession of the ticket stubs sometime in late 1986 or early 1987 at the latest (it’s not clear when), had them for at least three years before Söring’s trial. Söring’s father Johann (name changed) testified that he had given the tickets to a lawyer named William Hogshire on 8 June 1986. (Hogshire was the first lawyer Johann had retained to try to handle his son’s legal situation; Neaton was hired later).

The Puzzle

And now for the puzzle. One of the pieces of information in the above I presented above is important and casts doubt on Söring’s story. What is it? Go back over the post and think about the timeline of this case. Does anything jump out at you? Answer below the “keep reading” line.

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The Solution

It’s the date of Neaton’s letter to Jens Söring about the movie tickets: September 25, 1991. Why did Neaton wait until after Söring’s trial to see if he could learn more about when the tickets were bought? That was more than 6 years after the crime. Amazingly, the manager was able to remember something about how tickets were allocated six years ago, but even the language of Neaton’s letter reveals the information was inconclusive.

Neaton received the tickets by early 1987 at the latest. Yet Söring testified in June 1990 that he had been unaware the tickets had been found until 1989. This accounts for the most amusing part of this whole horrible story. As Neaton was trying to explain to the judge where the tickets came from, Söring piped up from the defense table to say he didn’t know about them, which caused Neaton to turn to him and snap “Shut up.” Updike noted drily that he couldn’t say something like that to Söring, but Neaton should feel free.

Söring’s outburst caused Jim Updike to turn to Richard Neaton, asking him whether it was actually true that Neaton had the tickets for years yet never told his client about them (June 18, 1990, p. 191):

Updike: “You were his attorney, didn’t you tell him?”

Neaton: “No.”

Updike: “You didn’t tell your own client?”

The judge now steps in. Judge Sweeney was no fool, and he could see that Neaton was caught in a painful dilemma: He was obliged to be truthful to the court, but was also obliged not to reveal information damaging to his client. Judge Sweeney stopped this line of questioning out of mercy toward Neaton. Yet the damage was already done: Neaton had been forced to claim that although he possessed movie tickets which he himself argued to the jury proved Söring’s innocence, he had kept this information from Söring for years. For some reason.

Which raises our key question. If Söring’s defense team believed the tickets were so important, why did they not try to find out more about them as soon as they got hold of the tickets? Neaton or Cleaveland (assuming he was on the defense team by then) could have driven to Washington, D.C. and interviewed the theater personnel in late 1986, or hired an investigator to do so.

Only 18 months or so after the night in question, most of the workers would likely still be in their jobs. Perhaps they might have remembered a guy buying two tickets even though he was alone. Or a nervous-looking young woman with a punkish hairstyle doing the same thing. The theater managers may have detailed records about the night in question. Heck, the theaters may even have had surveillance cameras.

So why in the ever-lovin’ heck did Söring’s defense team wait six years to look into the tickets?

SAGU v. UTAH

To answer this question, we have to drop out of the Söring Alternate Gaslighting Universe (SAGU) and come back to the Universe of Things that Actually Happened (UTAH). In the SAGU, it’s really important when these movie tickets were bought.

In the UTAH, it isn’t.

That is because in the UTAH, this is what actually happened:

• Elizabeth Haysom bought all 5 tickets (2x Witness, 2x Stranger than Paradise, 1x Rocky Horror Picture Show) as part of Söring and Haysom’s pre-arranged plan to create an alibi. She probably bought them shortly before the movies were shown. She may or may not have watched all or part of the movies, her account is inconsistent here.

• Shortly after the crime, Söring and Haysom created their “alibi timeline” and Söring himself stapled the ticket stubs to a piece of paper and wrote on that piece of paper, identifying the ticket to Rocky Horror. The idea was to have a pre-arranged alibi for the police, backed up by “documentary evidence,” i.e. the hotel room service receipt stubs, cancelled check, and movie tickets. To their immense surprise and relief, the cops accepted Elizabeth’s story in April 1985 and didn’t demand any proof of what she told them.

• When they were arrested in 1986, both Söring and Haysom confessed to what happened: Haysom built a flimsy alibi in Washington, D.C. while Söring killed the Haysoms. During their 1986 confessions, Söring and Haysom both dismissed the room-service/movie-ticket alibi as nonsense.

• When Richard Neaton became Söring’s lawyer, Söring told Neaton the truth: “I killed the Haysoms alone, the alibi was nonsense.” Of course this is merely a reasonable inference from the known facts — it would be very interesting to hear what Neaton says on this issue, but Söring will never let him do so. By the time he spoke to Söring in 1986 or 1987, Neaton had likely already obtained the tickets stapled to a sheet of paper you see above. But Neaton didn’t care. There was no reason to look into the matter further because his own client said he had not bought the tickets.

• It would have been pointless and dangerous to investigate the alibi. Pointless because Söring had already told his own lawyer it was nonsense. Dangerous because Neaton or Cleaveland might have discovered surveillance tapes showing Elizabeth buying two tickets and entering and leaving the theater alone. Granted, the defense wouldn’t have had to reveal this to the prosecution, but still…it’s always better to let sleeping dogs lie. As any defense lawyer will tell you, the first thing a witness does after the defense lawyer interviews them is call up the detectives or prosecutor. And Ricky Gardner would have been very interested in seeing a surveillance video of Elizabeth Haysom buying two tickets to a movie she watched alone.

• Then the timeline evolves as follows (There is no independent evidence that Jens Söring ever told anyone he confessed to protect Elizabeth before June 1990, so I assume he stuck to his confessions):
  1987: Elizabeth is convicted and out of danger of capital punishment, Söring has no more reason to protect her. Söring’s story: “I killed the Haysoms alone. The tickets are meaningless.”
  1989: Söring wins before the ECHR, meaning he is out of danger of execution. Söring’s story: “I killed the Haysoms alone. The tickets are meaningless.”
  March 1990: Söring claims Kenneth Beever extorted his 1986 confessions by threatening Elizabeth. Söring’s story: “I killed the Haysoms alone. The tickets are meaningless.”
  June 1990: The confessions are introduced against him at trial. Söring now abandons the story he’s been telling for years. Söring’s story: “I confessed falsely to protect Elizabeth and I, not Elizabeth, bought the movie tickets.”

Before trial, Neaton and Cleaveland desperately rummaged through their file on the case, and found the yellowing piece of paper with the movie tickets stapled to it. “Thank God I kept that thing!” Neaton exclaims. He produces the tickets as “surprise evidence” during the defense case and waves it in front of the jury, claiming it’s rock-solid proof of their client’s innocence.

After losing the trial, the defense team now prepared to file appeals. The evidence they had presented at trial obviously hadn’t been enough, so they looked for new facts which they might be able to put before a court at some point. It’s also reasonable to assume Söring was peppering them with complaints, comments, questions, and suggestions, since that’s how he rolls in general. So Neaton finally decided to see what more he could find out about the movie tickets…in September 1991.

Using the tickets at trial was a calculated risk, since having this evidence pop up out of nowhere during Söring’s trial raised quite a lot of questions. First of all, Johann Söring claimed he found the tickets loose in an envelope in Söring’s dorm room in December 1985, long after Söring had left the country. So how and when did they get stapled to a piece of paper with Söring’s handwriting on it? Also, Neaton admitted he had this evidence — which he was now claiming in 1990 proved his client’s innocence — for years. Why did he not make this crucial fact public? What did his own client tell him about the tickets?

These questions all have answers, but alas, we will never know them. But the fact that Neaton waited so long to look into the tickets shows us the most reasonable interpretation of the chain of events…and it doesn’t help Söring at all.