Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990 TAG: 9005310389
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
March 30: Jens Soering, according to the murder indictment later brought against him, drove to Boonsboro to kill his girlfriend's parents while his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, waited in Washington, D.C., establishing an alibi.
April 3: The slashed bodies of Nancy and Derek Haysom are found in their house.
Oct. 5: Soering agrees to give samples of his blood, fingerprints and footprints on Oct 16.
Oct. 12-13: As the case closes in on them, Soering and Haysom flee UVa for Europe.
1986:
May: Haysom and Soering are charged in London with bank fraud, and police find letters incriminating them in the Haysoms' deaths.
June 6-9: Haysom and Soering make statements to police implicating themselves in the killings. Back in Bedford, a grand jury indicts the pair on murder.
1987:
May 8: Haysom waives extradition and comes to Bedford County, charged with two counts of first-degree murder. In London, Soering fights extradition on charges of capital murder - which carries a possible death penalty - and two counts of first-degree murder.
Oct. 8: After pleading guilty to being an accessory before the fact in her parents' deaths, Haysom is sentenced to 90 years in prison.
1988:
June 30: Soering loses his final appeal to the British government.
Aug. 9: British officials sign extradition papers, but Soering's transfer is delayed by a last-minute appeal by the European Court of Human Rights.
1989:
July 7: The European Court of Human Rights rules that extradition of Soering to the United States would violate his human rights because of the possibility of a long, uncertain wait on death row.
Aug. 1: British officials agree to extradite Soering on the condition that a capital murder charge not be processed. Soering's attorneys pursue new appeals, seeking a trial in West Germany.
December: Soering decides not to pursue new appeals.
1990:
Jan. 12: Soering is flown to Roanoke and driven to Bedford County Jail.
Jan. 17: Defense attorneys and prosecutor James Updike square off in the first of numerous pretrial hearings.
Feb. 7: Circuit Court Judge William Sweeney rules that the trial will be moved to another county or tried by a jury from outside the county.
Feb. 20: A lab technician reports that a bloody sock print found at the Haysoms' house probably belonged to Soering.
March: In a four-day hearing, Soering alleges that incriminating statements he made in 1986 were coerced by British investigators. Sweeney has yet to rule on a defense motion to not allow the statements into Soering's trial.
May 1: Sweeney rules that a Nelson County jury will hear Soering's case in Bedford County.
May 16: In a bizarre turn of events, Soering's defense and prosecution team up against a Charlottesville attorney who, they say, is promising Elizabeth Haysom's testimony to the highest bidder. Attorney Steven D. Rosenfield is banished from the case, and Haysom promises to cooperate with the prosecution.
Friday: Soering's trial begins.
by CNB