The Jens Soering Netflix Series Has a Face!

Also, a teaser about my upcoming book, and a full-text case document.

Industry mags have published promotional material for the upcoming Netflix series about the Söring case. They’re framing it as “Söring v. Haysom”, when it’s really “Söring v. Söring”, but true-crime producers love conflict, so that’s how they went. If you ask me, they should have called it “Söring v. Hammel” (Joke).

Housekeeping: I’ve been quiet lately because I am finishing my book on the Söring case, prospectively entitled “Murderer or Martyr? Jens Söring, the Media, and the Truth”. I had a literary agent for the book, but that person dilly-dallied for well over a year and accomplished nothing. Big disappointment. So I am going to self-publish it, perhaps on Amazon, haven’t chosen yet.

I will be publishing two versions, one in English, one in German, timed to roughly coincide with upcoming documentaries. The book is in two parts. First, a thorough account of the facts in the trials of Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Söring. I will rely primarily on direct primary sources, forensic reports, and trial evidence and testimony. These are, as always, the most reliable sources of information. The second part of the book will tell the story of Söring’s decades-long effort to challenge his conviction and gain his release from prison.

The book will probably be about 110,000 words long, just about average. Focus: what’s important, and what’s colorful and what’s interesting. When it comes to facts, I’ll remain largely objective, as in the two pieces I just published about Adnan Syed. But I’m also an experienced criminal-defense attorney, so that will come in. Publishing the book in two languages provides something for everyone: German-language readers will get a crisp, colorful summary of why Söring was convicted in the first place. English-language readers will learn about the “astounding media career” of Jens Söring after he landed in Germany in 2019.

German-language readers will be shocked by what they read about Söring’s conviction, English-language readers equally flummoxed about how the German media rolled out the red carpet for a killer. Söring has gone dark on social-media since early July, one of his many long absences. I’ve never left you alone that long, but please don’t expect too many posts in the next few months. I’m saving energy for the book. As the French say, reculer pour mieux sauter — draw back to eventually jump farther.

In the meantime, I thought I would provide you with another full-text document from the case file. This is the statement submitted by the family of Jens Söring to the Bedford County, Virginia Circuit Court on the occasion of Söring’s sentencing on 4 September 1990:

It is very difficult for us to speak about such a tragedy as the killings of Mr. and Mrs. Haysom. On one hand, we believe that the person who committed such a violent crime should he punished. On the other hand, it is our son Jens who stands convicted of the crime. Please forgive us for feeling two very contradictory emotions at this time.

We find it very hard to believe that Jens could have committed such a violent crime. We feel this way not because he is our son, but because the killing of anything or anybody has always been so totally against his nature. Jens always tried to calm people down and get them to forsake violence. While he never ran away from a verbal argument on any subject, he always ran away from physical confrontations.

Until this time, we have avoided commenting upon the legal proceedings against Jens because we did not feel our opinions mattered for anything but media gossip.

Now, our son stands convicted of killing Mr. and Mrs. Haysom. He insists that he did not commit these horrible crimes.

We have tried very hard to look at the evidence and the proceedings against our Jens as objectively as possible. Admittedly, this is a very difficult thing to do. However, we have tried very hard to do this. We are not convinced that Jens killed Mr. and Mrs. Haysom.

We know that Jens loved Elizabeth Haysom very much. He would constantly recount to us the stories that Elizabeth told him about herself and her life. We thought that most of these stories were lies or exaggerations, but Jens believed them. We tried very hard to convince Jens not to see Elizabeth any further. He resisted all of our efforts because he was in love with Elizabeth and he was blind to her obvious storytelling.

However, despite our son’s deep love for Elizabeth, we do not believe that Jens killed Elizabeth's parents. We believe that it is more consistent with Jens’ character for him to have stepped in and taken the blame out of some foolish sense of love. We base our judgment on other similar actions which Jens has taken on behalf of friends at an earlier age. Unfortunately, in none of those earlier deeds did Jens risk imprisonment for another. Jens may have had a high IQ, but he was very foolish and naive in the practical aspects of life. Like most eighteen year old children, he believed that nothing bad could happen to him. He was very wrong about that.

We also have some questions about the trial. Please forgive us if we do not completely understand the American legal system, However, these questions have remained with us ever since the trial.

Why did Judge Sweeney not remove himself from Jens’ case after it became known that he has been a friend of Mrs. Haysom’s brother for about 40 years? In Germany, a judge in this situation would have voluntarily stepped aside so that no one could have questioned the motives for his decisions even if he knew that he actually could have been fair. We know that it would be very difficult for us to fairly judge the accused killer of the sister of such a friend of ours.

Why was It so wrong for Jens to refer to the local police as "yokels," but it was not wrong for Mr. Updike to state that the Germans can "go to hell" and imply that all Germans are Nazis? We agree that Jens’ comment was disrespectful to residents of this area, but he made the comment in a letter to his girlfriend, Mr. Updike made his remarks as a public official at a public news conference after Jens won his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. When World War II ended, we were 9 years old. We, our family and our friends were deeply offended by Mr. Updike's comments. Yet, we did not see him criticized for his disrespectful remarks the same way he criticized our son.

Why was Jens trial not moved to a location far away from Bedford? We have been told that the trial of a prominent local citizen of a nearby county was moved many miles away even though there was much less publicity about his case than Jens’ case. We have been told that this man was found not guilty by the jury from the far away location. Why was our son not given the same chance as the local resident?

We do not intend any disrespect by these questions. However, these questions have lingered in our minds for over two months.

We would like to thank Sheriff Wells and his staff for all of their assistance in enabling us to stay in contact with Jens. Specifically, we appreciate being allowed to speak with our son by telephone on his birthday. It meant a lot to us because it was the first time we have spoken to Jens on his birthday since 1985.

We hope the telephone company will be slow in processing our phone bill which Is sure to he quite high.

Also. we thank those people from the Bedford area who have taken the time to try to comfort us during this ordeal. Your words, whether in writing or in person, have helped us cope with the loss of our son. We deeply appreciate your kindness.

Our hearts have always gone out to the family and friends of Mr. and Mrs. Haysom, Although our anguish is great, their loss is permanent and, therefore, much greater than ours could ever be. Unfortunately, the circumstances of the past several year, have caused us not to state in public what we have felt all along. Our belief in our son's innocence should not be mistaken for our condonation of the act itself. It was wrong to kill Mr. and Mrs. Haysom; but we are not convinced that our son committed this wrong.

Finally, we have one request. We ask that Jens be allowed to serve all or part of his sentence in Germany, We do not ask this for Jens sake. We ask this for our sake. We are both of such an age that we may not live long enough to see Jens released from prison in Virginia. If he were sent to Germany, we could at least visit him with some frequency while he was in prison.

German prisons are not country clubs; they are harsh, too.

Travel costs would prohibit us from making many visits to see him here In Virginia. Please excuse our selfishness, but if you are a parent, we hope you will understand and grant our request.

Thank you for allowing our statement to be presented in court.