CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – The University of Richmond’s Institute for Actual Innocence presented experts in DNA and serology as well as in police interrogations to further their case to exonerate former UVa student Jens Soering. He’s serving life in prison for the 1985 Bedford County murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom — the parents of his girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom. Gail Starling Marshall — the former state Deputy Attorney General largely responsible for the exoneration of Earl Washington Jr. — said at the press conference at City Space Soering’s case and Washington’s have many similarities. Just as Soering, Washington had falsely confessed. She says 25% of wrongful convictions involve false confessions.
Dr. Andrew Griffiths is a leading international expert in police techniques and interrogations who spoke from London via Skype. He says his five-month long analysis of Soering’s confession found it to be “unreliable”. He said one of the issues making this confession different than many is it was volunteered, and not coerced. Griffiths says for whatever reason, maybe to cover at the time for his girlfriend, his confession was volunteered… and therefore he wanted to be accurate.
However, Griffiths said there are notable errors in his confession that show he could not have been at the crime scene. For instance, Griffiths says Soering told Bedford County investigator Randy Gardner Mrs. Haysom was wearing jeans. While it could be difficult to remember what someone is wearing, he wasn’t even close. Nancy Haysom, Griffiths said, wore a neck-to-ankle long floral house coat with a very large design on the front. He says Gardner failed to be curious about that discrepancy which Griffiths calls a major error.
In addition, Soering’s confession says when an argument at the dinner table turned from argument to physical, he claims to have walked behind Mr. Haysom, picked up a steak knife from the place setting, and slit Mr. Haysom’s throat. Griffiths says photos of the crime scene show there was no place setting there. Also, there was no amount of blood “where he said he inflicted a horrendous wound on Mr. Haysom”. Again, Griffiths says Gardner failed to be curious about that discrepancy.
Haysom also got it wrong about the place and manner the bodies were lying dead in the home. Again, Griffiths said a discrepancy someone who badly wanted to get the information right got wrong.
George Washington University DNA and serology expert Moses Schanfield says there is no evidence from blood at the scene — the same blood used to convict Soering — that he was there. Schanfield says in 1989, the prosecutor and investigators had no ability to determine blood identity other than blood type. Type “O” blood was indeed at the scene, and that helped convict Soering. However, testing has showed it is not his because we know more about breaking down the composition. In addition, there is also type “AB” blood, which investigators claim was mixed blood. However, Schanfield renders as “absolutely ridiculous” the concept that type “A” blood mixing with type “B” blood makes type “AB”. He says the real science doesn’t work that way.
So, he concludes not only is there no evidence of Soering being at the crime scene, the evidence is there were two men who we don’t not know who they are that were.
