Jens Soering had everything going for him: he was the son of a German diplomat and had an intelligence well above average, which allowed him to obtain a gifted scholarship to study at the University of Virginia (United States). But in April 1986, when he was 20, he was arrested in London along with his partner, Elizabeth Haysom. They were living there under false identities and had issued bad checks. The crime of which they were accused in the United States, however, was worse: the murder of their in-laws, Derek and Nancy Haysom, perpetrated the previous year. And, whoever wants to know the case, now Netflix brings it back to the forefront of the media with Until Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs Haysom.
There are four episodes that the content platform released this Wednesday and which aim to explore the main questions of a case that revolutionized the media until 1990, when the case was closed. I had the ingredients. A crime between the passionate and the monstrous, crossed accusations, the shadow of the capital punishment of the State of Virginia that requested extradition and Soering's privileged situation as the son of diplomats that, of course, raised his profile in the media. communication. Of course, those who prefer to arrive virgin to the viewing should not continue reading, although not all the details of the judicial process are revealed here either.
Initially, Haysom and Soering were not suspected of murdering Derek and Nancy, whose bodies had been found in their home, stabbed and with their throats cut to the point of being almost decapitated. The couple who would later be arrested even organized the funeral as two family members affected by the tragedy. Later, however, the police realized that the daughter and her boyfriend's alibi did not hold up, when they discovered that the car they had rented to travel to Washington showed mileage that did not fit their version of the events.
The particularity of the case comes, in part, from the confession that Soering gave to the British authorities: he said he had murdered his in-laws to both the British, American and German authorities. His objective was to escape any conviction as he was the son of a German diplomat. But, when he discovered that he did not have diplomatic immunity, he changed his version of events as the trial began. Not only his freedom but even his life was at stake: the Virginia judges did not tremble when it was time to apply the capital punishment, so he, above all, fought to not be extradited.
But what happened on March 30 at the Haysom home? Which of the two instigated the murder of Jens Soering's in-laws? Who ended up telling the truth in court in their cross accusations? And why could two young people with a promising life ahead of them decide to suddenly change their destiny with such a bloody act?
