Across Virginia
Jens Soering (AP photo)
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — U.S. immigration officials have taken into custody a German diplomat’s son who was paroled after serving more than 30 years in prison for slaying his former girlfriend’s parents in Virginia. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement received Jens Soering from state custody Tuesday. ICE spokeswoman Carissa Cutrell declined to say when he might be sent back to Germany. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said previously that Soering as well as former girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom will be deported.
Haysom was serving a 90-year sentence after pleading guilty to being an accessory to murder. She’s originally from Canada.
Haysom and Soering were granted parole Monday. Soering was serving a life sentence.
Soering initially confessed to the 1985 killings but later recanted, saying he was covering for Haysom.
MGN
If you are hitting the highways any time this long holiday weekend, you will find average national gas prices at their highest Thanksgiving levels in five years — but not all that much higher than last year at this time. Virginia continues to have among the lowest average prices in the country, and much lower than states to our north like Pennsylvania and New York. WFIR’s Evan Jones has more:
A Virginia Tech researcher and archivist says the Old Dominion may have reason to lay claim as home to America’s first Thanksgiving — not Massachusetts — but there is evidence to support either point of view. Kira Dietz says there are both the religious and feast aspects which varied by time and colony, but there are records documenting early Thanksgiving observances in Virginia before the Pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock. She spoke with WFIR’s Evan Jones:
Jens Soering (AP photo)
Convicted killers Jens Soering and Elizabeth Haysom were granted parole today. Both were convicted for the 1985 slayings of Haysom’s parents in their Bedford County home in a case that received international attention at the time — and to some extent, still does. Soering was the son of a German diplomat; the murders were gruesome by almost any definition, with both victims stabbed multiple times and their throats slashed. Haysom pleaded guilty as an accessory to the killings and testified in Soering’s trial.
Both were convicted before parole was abolished in Virginia, and both have made multiple earlier requests to be released; today was the first time those requests were granted.
Soering will be released to immigration officials for deportation to Germany; Haysom will return to her home country of Canada.
Soering has maintained for decades that he was innocent despite signing a confession early in the investigation. TheVirginia State Parole Board, which looks into such requests, turned that down, but a spokesperson tells the Times-Dispatch that parole and deportation are appropriate given “their youth at the time of the offenses, their institutional adjustment and the length of their incarceration.”
Soering was 18 years old at the time of the murders, and Haysom was 20.
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FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — Virginia granted parole on Monday to a German diplomat’s son who was serving a life sentence for the 1985 killings of his girlfriend’s parents.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s office said the state parole board granted Jens Soering parole for the murders of Nancy and Derek Haysom. The board had rejected his 14 previous parole requests.
Soering’s lawyer, Steven Rosenfield, said he had not received notice of the parole board’s decision and declined further comment. In previous parole applications, Rosenfield said his client had been a model prisoner and planned to live in Germany if paroled.
Soering initially confessed to the killings but later recanted, saying he was covering for girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom. She also was granted parole Monday.
German officials have sought Soering’s release. Multiple governors, including Northam, rejected his bids for pardons or clemency.
Northam’s office says both Soering and Haysom will be deported and unable to return to the U.S.
Northam “respects the Parole Board’s expertise and appreciates their work on this and all other cases,” the governor’s office said in a statement.
Virginia abolished parole in 1995, but those who were convicted before then are still eligible to seek parole.
In his pardon applications, Soering and his lawyers said DNA evidence unavailable at the time of his conviction pointed to his innocence. The DNA analyses showed that some of the Type O blood found at the scene did not belong to Soering. Nor could it have belonged to Elizabeth Haysom, who has Type B blood.
In 2010, as he was leaving office, then-Gov. Tim Kaine submitted a plan to the Justice department that would have allowed Soering to serve the remainder of his sentence in Germany. Under the plan, Soering would have been eligible for release in Germany after two years there.
But Kaine’s successor, Bob McDonnell, revoked the request.
The parole board most recently denied Soering’s parole request in January. At the time, it cited the seriousness of his crime and said “Release at this time would diminish seriousness of crime,” according to board documents.
Photo: Allegan County, MI Sheriff
ALLEGAN, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan man has been arrested in the 1980 homicide of a young Virginia woman whose husband was deployed as a U.S. Navy pilot at the time of her death.
Authorities say 70-year-old Dennis Bowman was arrested Friday in Allegan County, Michigan, where he lives, 175 miles (281 kilometers) west of Detroit.
Kathleen Doyle was 25 years old when she was killed in her Norfolk, Virginia, home in 1980. Investigators say forensic evidence led to Bowman’s arrest, although no other details were released.
Norfolk police Chief Larry Boone says, “No victim is ever forgotten.”
It’s not known if Bowman has a lawyer who could comment on the case. The next step is extradition to Virginia.
Police say Bowman’s 14-year-old adoptive daughter disappeared in Michigan in 1989. She hasn’t been found.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Officials in Virginia say the state is seeing an alarming uptick in the number of motorcycle deaths where the rider wasn’t a wearing a helmet. The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles said in a press release Tuesday that seven motorcyclists who weren’t wearing helmets died this year. The department said the number is the highest it’s been in a decade. The state says that helmets are about 29 percent effective in preventing motorcyclist deaths and about 67 percent effective in preventing brain injuries. Put another way, the state says a rider without a helmet is 40 percent more likely to suffer a fatal head injury. The state also said that motorcycle-related deaths are slightly higher this year. As of November 15, 87 people have died compared to 83 last year.
Photo: UVa
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The University of Virginia is reinstating the 21-gun salute for next year’s Veterans Day ceremonies.The Daily Progress reports that the university is reversing its decision to drop the salute. University President Jim Ryan announced the change on Saturday. In a Facebook post, Ryan wrote, “Sometimes you make mistakes.”The salute has been part of ROTC ceremonies for at least a decade. It normally occurs at the end of cadets’ 24-hour vigil on Veterans Day,University officials had said the decision to nix the salute was made to avoid disrupting classes. Ryan also cited concerns about national gun violence and firing weapons on campus.Larry Sabato, director of the university’s Center for Politics, tweeted that he was glad Ryan reversed course.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Authorities say more than a dozen people have been hospitalized in Virginia after a commercial bus hit an overturned tractor trailer on Interstate 64.Citing Virginia State Police, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports 19 people were brought to hospitals after the Sunday morning crash on Afton Mountain at the Augusta and Nelson County line.Police say the tractor trailer was heading east when the driver lost control and overturned across the road. A bus with 20 passengers couldn’t avoid the tractor trailer and hit it, splitting the truck in half.Police said 19 people, including two drivers, were hospitalized with injuries ranging from minor to serious. No fatalities have been reported
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The cold temperatures that moved in yesterday may lead some bears to decide it is time to begin hibernation. Whenever they do so, those with tracking collars are helping state game officials learn more about exactly where and how the denning takes place. More from WFIR’s Evan Jones: