Til Death Do Us Part - Part 1

[00:00:04] At the intersection of true crime and real estate, you'll find Crime Estate. I'm Heather. And my name is Elena. As real estate agents and true crime junkies, we view crimes through a different lens.

[00:00:15] So walk through the door of some of the most notorious true crimes with us and discover how sometimes the scene of the crime has its own story to tell. Hey y'all, it's your favorite Texas real estate agents back with another episode of

[00:00:31] what is hopefully also your favorite true crime podcast. And I have quite the story for you today. This crime is full of all the things we love to chat about here on Crime Estate, Southern society, international intrigue and of course an incredible property. And the

[00:00:49] story has so many twists and turns that we've decided to break it down into two episodes for you guys. Wow. You just combined a Southern story with an international story, which are for sure two of your favorite things to cover. They really are. They really are. A little

[00:01:03] inside note for our listeners, if we haven't made it clear in previous episodes, Heather and I each take turns researching an episode and making talking points. And then our fabulous producer and commentator, Melanie does our fact checking and additional research,

[00:01:16] but we typically don't know what crime or property the other person is going to cover on each episode. So my intrigue right now is definitely legit because I have no idea which story Heather's gonna tell us about.

[00:01:27] And you know what? I don't want to keep you in suspense. So why don't we just jump into it? One quick point before you tell the story. Most of the research for this episode comes from two television shows, Soaring versus Handsome on Netflix, as well as Killing

[00:01:41] for Love, which is currently on Apple TV and the podcast Small Town Big Crime. So if you want a deeper dive into the story after today's episode, and I have a feeling you will, these are some great places to start. And of course we'll link

[00:01:55] to all of them in our show notes. Yeah, thanks Mel. That's exactly right. So as the Netflix title would suggest, today's story is about the Haysom family. In particular, the murder of Derek and Nancy Haysom in their home in Bedford County, Virginia,

[00:02:09] charmingly named Loose Chippings, which apparently is an English term for loose grab. Oh, I love that. And that cute. They say everything better than us. They do. Now the Haysom family had not always lived in this affluent

[00:02:22] part of Southwest Virginia. In fact, Derek and Nancy met in Johannesburg in South Africa in the late 1950s. Nancy was born in Phoenix to an American father who considered himself a globe-trotting adventurer and a European mother. After Nancy Benedict graduated from high school, the family was reunited

[00:02:43] in Johannesburg where she fell in love with an Englishman, Ian Hall, whom she later married. Now I should note here that Nancy's full name is Nancy Astor Benedict. And indeed, she was loosely related to Lady Astor,

[00:02:57] who was the first female in British Parliament. Oh, I love that. So cool. Isn't that so cool? Very cool. Yeah, actually, I think Nancy was her goddaughter. Oh, okay. Look at you with those fun facts. I love it.

[00:03:10] You all know we love strong women here at crime estate and Lady Astor was just that. She ran for her husband's seat in parliament in 1919 after he succeeded to his father's Viscountcy. Is that how you would say that, Mel? Viscountcy? Sure. Okay, let's go with Viscountcy.

[00:03:26] And then she maintained that seat in parliament until she retired in 1945. Now, like you said, Mel, I just have that they were real close relations, but apparently she was her goddaughter. And so she attended Nancy's first wedding to the Englishman.

[00:03:41] According to Nancy's brother, she took the dignity of her namesake Lady Astor very seriously. And he noted that pedigree was very important to Nancy. Is that like, is that like a dig? It sounds kind of

[00:03:54] like a dig, was that supposed to be a dig? It might be a little bit of a dig. Okay. I mean, that's what I'm picking up on. Yeah. Okay. But I think it sets the scene for things to come. Oh, okay.

[00:04:05] Okay. Now, Nancy and Ann went on to have two children together, but eventually divorced. And at that point, Nancy returned to South Africa where she met Derek Hasem. Derek was a South African-born steel executive, 19 years her senior. But despite their age

[00:04:21] difference, the two bonded over being divorced parents for whom pedigree, social standing, as well as familial values were very important. While Nancy modeled herself after Lady Astor, one of Derek's sons commented that his dad modeled himself after Winston Churchill. Okay. Quite the family you grew up in,

[00:04:38] can you imagine? That's what it's like here at our house every day. Lady Heather. Now Derek and Nancy were married in South Africa in 1960, combining their families in a very Brady Bunch fashion. The two had five children between them. And four years later,

[00:04:57] they welcomed a daughter together, Elizabeth Roxanne Hasem. I love that name. Do you? Yeah, I do. Roxanne. Okay. Well, you could always try for a girl. Oh, hell no. Although I didn't have a third. I was

[00:05:10] afraid I might have a girl. I have two boys and I kind of know what to do. You've got it right now. Yeah, you know. Yeah. I don't know Brooks keep showing your toes. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. All right. Well, in the years that followed Elizabeth's

[00:05:28] birth, the apartheid movement in South Africa left much of the country in political unrest. And Derek and Nancy moved their family to Canada, where Derek took the position of president of the Sydney Steel Corporation. This move afforded their daughter Elizabeth Canadian

[00:05:42] citizenship. Following in the steps of her older brothers and sisters, Elizabeth attended boarding school in Switzerland and England. That concept is totally foreign to me. The only thing I know about boarding school is from facts of life. That's definitely not Switzerland and England. So

[00:05:58] what do y'all understand the whole concept of boarding schools? I mean, I think it's something we don't see a lot in our social circles. We don't we don't run with the boarding school elite. And look, I adore my kid, but I can see

[00:06:14] the benefits of like shipping off an angsty teenager some days. Well, like starting at like 10 to, I don't know, 17. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Mel? Not my normal day to day. I mean, we know a lot of

[00:06:27] people in private schools, but you know, I think boarding school puts it up a whole level of notch where you're like sleeping and living. I guess it really prepares you well for college. I will say all of our boys are about to start high

[00:06:41] school, and it's becoming really obvious that like I only have four more years at home with him. I can't imagine shipping him off that early. Anyway, Elizabeth and her siblings all attended boarding school, which would have been very much in line with someone from

[00:06:54] both their social and geographical backgrounds like we've been talking about. However, Elizabeth rebelled against the structure and traditions of boarding school along with the exceedingly high expectations of her parents. And she turned to drinking, drugs, and in general mischief making. One story I read said that

[00:07:11] she actually began taking sips from her parents' liquor cabinet when she was only 10 years old. It was her way of self medicating against feelings of not being good enough, smart enough or talented enough for her parents. So sad. I know it really is. Yeah.

[00:07:25] And I think you see that a lot with like the youngest child of those blended families, like all of the expectations of everything are put on them. And she was very much younger than the family. So if you think about it, she was at least about a

[00:07:38] decade, 10 to 12 years younger than her brothers from her mom. And I couldn't quite find the ages of her father's other three children. But considering the fact that her father is 19 years senior of her mom, I think it's realistic to guess that they were in a completely different age

[00:07:59] range. So yeah, I think you're right. Now, when the administration of Wickham Abbey, which by the way looks exactly like you think a boarding school named Wickham Abbey should look, check out our social for pics of that school, contacted Elizabeth's parents about several drug

[00:08:15] related infractions. They just chalked it up to typical adolescent behavior and continued making plans for Elizabeth to attend the University of Virginia after graduation. After being in Europe for high school, this would put Elizabeth only an hour away from them during college. I feel trouble brewing. You should.

[00:08:31] Okay. Yeah, you know, and I have to admit I was listening to the morbid podcast this morning on this story. And they went into some depths about her boarding school experience. And by all accounts, she was brilliant. She kind of was that what you imagine this culture old

[00:08:52] cultured European speaks multiple languages. She was very involved in theater. She played multiple instruments. But her parents really wanted her to be an engineer, which and were putting a lot of pressure on her to do kind of advanced STEM classes when she wanted to

[00:09:13] be more of a history major. And so there definitely seems to have been a lot of pressure put on on her. Yeah, I think you're right. And, you know, despite their plans for Elizabeth to come back to the States and attend UVA, which is a

[00:09:27] great school, she had other plans. She and a friend concocted a scheme to take their finals ahead of schedule. And then they took a train to attend a rock concert. Instead of returning to school after the show, the two continued to drink and party through Europe.

[00:09:43] Meanwhile, get this ladies, their parents had no idea where they were or what they were doing. Can you imagine? You were upset the other day when your oldest wasn't texting you back. Oh my gosh, I was so mad. Like 10 minutes after school was out.

[00:09:58] You were like, he has been out of school for 10 minutes. He can reply. I know you're looking at it. Reply to me. So for three months they had. Meanwhile, these kids are only like four years older. Just just putting into context here.

[00:10:11] Yes, so their parents had no idea where they were, what they were doing. And after a particularly dangerous encounter where the girls woke up not knowing where they were, what had happened and also discovering that they had no cash. The two walked into the

[00:10:27] British Consulate and requested a ticket to England. But by this point they had been missing y'all for three months. Dang, seriously? Yes. Oh my gosh. I mean as much as I think they were very, you know, educated, well traveled individuals. This wasn't like,

[00:10:46] you know, our kids just going off first time to Paris. What I did read was that there was definitely a lot of drugs involved. Some probably some sexual abuse going on. It was not a safe time for two young women in their situations and that they were encountering.

[00:11:06] Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Now after this escapade, Elizabeth ends up back in Virginia with her parents and she goes along with her plans for her to attend UVA the following year. And despite her misdeeds like we were talking about, she was a

[00:11:21] great student. She must have been brilliant because she was an Eccles Scholar at UVA and honor only given to the top 6% of incoming students. What year are we in? About now we're what 80? I think 84? Or 85. Yeah, we should probably know that. Early 80s. Yeah.

[00:11:39] Okay. So she sounds like what we know now kids who are exceptional and they're learning in academics and stuff they get super bored. She sounds like that. Like she's looking for something to test her mind or just bored and acting out and things like that.

[00:11:56] I think you're right. I think she probably was brilliant and was bored at school, but I think there were also a lot of societal family pressure put on her that she was also rebelling against. So you had the two sort of working together at the same time.

[00:12:10] I mean, she grew up in a very different environment than we did. And in some ways it sounds like a very cool and exciting environment, but I mean she was actually born in Rhodesia which became Zimbabwe then South Africa. Then she spent a lot of

[00:12:26] time in Canada. She was going back and forth to all these different countries then going to school in Switzerland. She probably did not have a strong sense of home and kind of community. Okay. Yeah. Now apparently the distinction though of the ECHO scholar going back to her

[00:12:45] being brilliant also came with separate housing for only those who received the award. And it was in those dorms that she met her boyfriend, Jens Soren. Jens describes himself and I love this as Sheldon Cooper. Have y'all watched The Big Bang Theory? We watch Young Sheldon.

[00:13:02] Oh, Young Sheldon is really good too. Yeah. I've seen pretty much every episode of Big Bang Theory and a lot of Young Sheldon. Okay. That's funny. So this must be a very recent quote. Yeah. Yes. He obviously was not describing himself as Sheldon Cooper

[00:13:20] back in the 80s. Side note though, that was our family show for a while and I highly recommend it if you have like a nerdy preteen. That was how we did all of our sex talks because they would bring up things in a very like just matter of

[00:13:35] fact scientific way. And so after the show is over, we'd be like, okay, so did you have any questions about that? Okay. So I'm not watching that with my youngest. Okay. It is not very like- It's not. Just as little things would be dropped, it was just a

[00:13:49] nice way to open a conversation. I can see that then. Yeah. I digress guys. I'm sorry. Okay. In addition to Jens being an Eccles scholar like Elizabeth, he was also a Jefferson scholar, which at the time was UVA's highest honor and provided him

[00:14:07] and only 15 students a year with a full academic scholarship. So you've got two really bright kids. Yeah. Jens was born in Bangkok to a Western German diplomat and went to high school in Atlanta where his dad worked at the consulate. The two Europeans hit it off almost

[00:14:25] immediately. Though Elizabeth's friends would later say that they didn't know what she saw in him, noting he was argumentative and arrogant and they thought it was odd that she was two and a half years older than him. Remember she was 20 and he was

[00:14:38] 18, which is one a very big difference at that age and stage of life. And she had spent that three months partying through Europe and then coming home sort of late. So she was starting college behind her peers. I can see how the two were attracted to each other.

[00:14:53] Both had a European upbringing that was uncommon during the mid 80s in central Virginia. Yeah. I mean, you probably didn't have a ton of Europeans in central Virginia in the mid 80s for sure. And the way I'm picturing them is that she was probably beautiful and he was.

[00:15:09] I don't know, not maybe on the same level. That's a classic 1980s class is going on. OK, yeah, I would describe him as a young Sheldon Cooper. I mean, he was very respect. Yeah, a very dorky looking. Is that even a word people

[00:15:24] use anymore? Did I just age myself? It's OK. OK, but he. Like we're the experts on what kids are saying now. Totally we are. Yeah, he was pretty dorky and apparently she was actually sort of like into the grunge movement. And so she was a little more

[00:15:41] like apparently when she was going through Europe, she had like purple spiked hair. Oh yeah, she had a mohawk. I did hear that one, you know, not grunge. It would be punk. Punk. Thank you so much. I wouldn't describe her as classically beautiful in the

[00:15:57] way she decided to present herself. Gotcha. But I think also the way she presented herself was a rebellion against those societal expectations. She's pretty. I mean, if you look at pictures of her today, she's a nice looking woman. Absolutely. Now back to Elizabeth's parents

[00:16:14] for a minute. When her dad retired three years before all of this mess that we're talking about, her parents moved to Lynchburg in Bedford County, Virginia, a small but affluent area. At the time, Nancy was 53, but Derek was 72. Now, Nancy had apparently gone to high school somewhere in

[00:16:34] her moving around stages in Virginia. Yeah, when I read she actually has family that goes back five generations in Virginia. So this is more what you and I would consider the landed gentry of southern Virginia. So she actually had when her dad was going around

[00:16:53] doing all this mining, her mom took her and her siblings back to the historical family area to live and go to high school for some of that period at times. So she it was like kind of when you're rootless, you kind of seize on to whatever you

[00:17:09] might have some roots to. And so I think that Virginia was her roots even when she lived all around the world. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, she convinced Derek that that would be the ideal place for them to retire, though the two stills kept a summer

[00:17:24] home in Nova Scotia, which I also think we should research, Mel. I'm so curious about this Nova Scotia house. I'm one good in Nova Scotia. So, yeah, you know, research. Yes. Right it off. Yes. Yes. Tax returns. According to the New Yorker ladies, the house

[00:17:41] on Holcomb Rock Road, which they had bought for retirement, was modest, but it had a tennis court, a swimming pool and a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. So modest. Exactly. It's so modest. I mean, maybe by New Yorker standards. Like we said earlier, Nancy dubbed the place

[00:17:58] loose chippings after that British phrase for scattered gravel on the road. I love that. She had apparently a pattern of naming their houses and their cars, giving them names. So it's so many of our stories that we have. Apparently they either start

[00:18:17] off with a name or they get a name. That is an interesting comparison or parallel. Yeah. Heather, later on, after we're off recording, I think we need to put some ideas out for the house, you know, get, you know, the house that we're recording

[00:18:33] this, you know, I think we need. No, if crimes occur, houses that are named, yes, we do not need to name a house. Because then we would always refer to it as that. We'll name it after the crime occurs. OK. Heather's house. Alright, Delana. Well, loose chippings

[00:18:50] going back to that house was a red brick and white cladboard cottage. It was one story with black shutters, three bedrooms, built in 1958, and it's set on 10 heavily treed acres. When the house most recently sold in 2011, the listing description read private setting with beautiful mountain views.

[00:19:11] Home is 135 feet wide. Random. Is that normal? I've never put that in a listing description. Maybe if it was a manufactured home. But yeah, I don't feel like that's OK. Especially for a 2011 listing. Designed by J. Everett Fobber, additions designed by Ebo Fobber. All rooms offer views

[00:19:32] of the mountains. Stonewall lines the backyard, four large fireplaces, floors are oak, greenstone and soap stone. Kitchen cabinets are wormy chestnut. Also not something we see a lot here. Wormy chestnut. I don't know what that means. Office study could be a third bedroom. Beautiful detailed millwork throughout.

[00:19:50] Dressing room walking closet is 11 by 10. Detached garage garden shed. Detached two car garage adjoining workshop. This is a special place. No other home like it. Sorry, I'm going back to the wormy chestnut. Do you think it was a typo? It should have been warm or wormy.

[00:20:07] I don't know. Are you Googling to see if that's a thing? No, I think it's all time. Listings, the descriptions, there's grammatical errors or weird. You can tell it's a typo. Yeah, I don't know because chestnut is not a wood that we have

[00:20:25] a lot in our homes here. So I don't know if wormy. It was like specific to chestnut. Yeah, if it's like a style of chestnut or if it was a typo, I think it's one of the two. Well, no, there is a wormy chestnut. Lumber is a

[00:20:38] refers to American chestnut trees that were killed by the chestnut blight of the early 1900s, which was subsequently damaged by insects leaving holes and discoloration in the standing trees. And these trees were subsequently harvested and converted into lumber. So they're infested wood that.

[00:21:02] I think it had been infested at one time, right? At one time, and I think it must be fashionable. People often ask, is wormy chestnut valuable and it's both rare and valuable. Oh, OK. All right. OK. Well, we learned a little something today

[00:21:19] and I hope you listeners did too. I don't like that. And wormy spelled W-O-R-M-Y if you're trying to picture that. One of the things that I noted when you were describing it and there was the stone walls lining the backyard. And I don't know if you're

[00:21:35] going to if you were going to bring it up, but apparently Nancy had a tradition in all the different houses that she lived in that she would create stone walls in the backyards and she would go gather different stones from their different property lines.

[00:21:51] And she liked to leave every house with that as kind of a feature in the backyard. Oh, you pulled that out of your hat. I didn't know that. I love it. I love it. I will note though that this listing description does not say anything

[00:22:04] about the crime that occurred. Oh, OK. Other than there's no other home like it, which I guess could, you know, yeah. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Yeah, it's like. Well, I actually know a little bit, yeah, about Lynchburg, Virginia. Remember, I lived in Virginia for seven years

[00:22:22] in the DC area, but we would drive back and forth long road trip from, you know, we didn't have much money. And we had a big dogs from Virginia to Texas. And so several times we actually stopped off in the Lynchburg area and stayed.

[00:22:39] Honestly, it is really beautiful. You know, where the Blue Ridge Mountains very heavily treed. I could see it being an ideal place to retire because it's a town of around 70,000 people. But it is rural without being too rural. If that kind of makes sense.

[00:22:59] Yeah, it's like two hours from Richmond. It's an hour from Charlottesville, which is where UVA is located. It's maybe three, three and a half hours from D.C. So you could get to airports. And man, there are pretty cosmopolitan families, so I got to imagine them

[00:23:17] and all their children are probably scattered throughout the world. So they probably still wanted to be able to be accessible, but at the same time feel kind of remote on a large piece of land. It does sound like an idyllic place to retire, but unfortunately,

[00:23:33] it's also the scene of a vicious crime. On April 3rd, 1985, three of Nancy's friends arrived at Loose Chippings for a game of bridge. In their retirement, Derek and Nancy were the kings and queens of the social scene in Lynchburg. They loved having drinks

[00:23:48] and dinner at the country club, playing bridge with friends and in general, just being out and about in town. The friends were surprised when Nancy didn't answer the door. She was expecting them, of course, and all signs indicated that she was home. Both cars were in the driveway

[00:24:02] and the lights in the house were on. However, when no one answered the door, Nancy's friends called Annie Massey, a close friend who had a key to her home. Annie arrived and opened the front door. According to an article in The New Yorker when she entered the house,

[00:24:18] she found the Haysom sprawled on the ground, caked in gore. Derek Haysom was on his side near a doorway, an arm stretched out before him. Nancy Haysom was in the kitchen, traced in crimson swirls as if someone had wiped the blood around her like Windex on glass.

[00:24:36] Both bodies were ragged with stab wounds and their necks had been cut nearly from ear to ear. Oh my gosh. Yeah, this was a crime, Alana, that shocked not only the locals, but also local law enforcement and would put the town of Lynchburg on the international map

[00:24:51] for years to come. Unfortunately, the investigators just didn't have a lot to go on at first. They determined that the Haysoms had been dead for two or three days. Their throats had been slashed and each had been stabbed several times. In fact, Derek was stabbed 36 times.

[00:25:08] Nancy was found in the kitchen in her nightgown and robe, which in itself was a clue to investigators. They didn't think a lady as particular about social graces as Nancy would entertain anyone she didn't know in her robe. That's clever. Yeah, I agree. But otherwise,

[00:25:24] the crime scene itself provided few clues. There was a bloody sock print, merit cigarette butts and blood, which may or may not have been from the perpetrator. It was actually hard to tell, given the amount of blood at the scene. One interview I read or was listening to,

[00:25:39] I don't remember at the time, it was from someone who responded to the scene of the crime and they said that 90% of the surface of the floor was covered in blood when they found the bodies. So I don't know at that point how you really determine,

[00:25:53] you know, is it from the victim or is it from, you know, because if you're stabbing someone 36 times, there's a good chance you cut yourself too, wouldn't you think? And yeah, yeah. I mean, and if you think about it, OK, Nancy was in her 40s.

[00:26:10] I mean, she because remember, she was much younger than her husband. And her husband was, you know, in his early 70s. But from what I gathered and saw some pictures, he's a big guy. So, you know, even, you know, you would have thought there was be some fight,

[00:26:25] you know, kind of fight back there. And I did see that there was it looked like they had just eaten dinner. There was like some stuff on the table that implied that they had just had dinner. Yeah. And I believe they said the table was set for three.

[00:26:38] Yeah, I think I read that there was like three chairs pulled out. So on top of not having a lot of information to go on, they also really couldn't determine a motive. There was no evidence of robbery. There were no signs of forced entry.

[00:26:54] And so they got to work talking to the people closest to the family and inquiring if they knew of anyone that might have a motive to kill Nancy and Derek Hasem. According to an article in The New Yorker, a suspect profile from the FBI had identified the murderer

[00:27:09] as a female who knew the family. So for a time, suspicion fell on the daughter of a local judge whose engagement to Hasem's older son, Julian. So it would have been one of Derek's sons had just been called off. And a few weeks before the murder,

[00:27:29] she had actually brought knives to a friend and asked him to take them because evil spirits were pursuing her. Wow. Yeah. Wait, hold on. Say that again. It's a felon, the daughter of a local judge who was engaged to Hasem's older son. So Derek, remember had

[00:27:47] yeah, Elizabeth's brother. So remember, Derek had three kids from a previous marriage. So this daughter of the local judge was engaged to one of his sons from that previous relationship. OK, OK. But they had broken off the engagement. And she brought the sorry, the daughter brought the knives.

[00:28:04] The daughter of the local judge, the one that was engaged. The ex fiance. Got it. Good. Yeah, let's call her that. So eventually investigators decided that she's mentally ill, but not a killer. And so they they took her off the suspect list.

[00:28:20] It is kind of weird to me. And we'll have to go back and look like why did they suspect profile identified as a female? I mean, because these were like 30 some odd stab wounds just on the dad, obviously very violent. It doesn't sound like like the general profile

[00:28:38] that we hear of a female killer to be killing someone so violently with a knife. I don't know. It just seems odd to me that they would lynch on a female. Yeah, and you know, I didn't put this in my notes, but later in the investigation,

[00:28:52] there's a lot of controversy about whether or not this profile was actually done. It may be disappeared. They like tried to find it again with FBI sources. So it's possible that there is some shadowy doubt around this. And I mean, if you also think about it,

[00:29:11] that even though this was a fairly affluent community, this was fairly world. So this was like kind of like a rural township a couple miles outside of Lynchburg. You know, I don't think they got a lot of crimes, anything like this.

[00:29:26] So this was not the big city cops. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Interestingly enough, though. So while they were interviewing the ex fiancee, as we're calling her, she told them that at one point, Elizabeth Haysom had approached I'm the devil. You're the sacrificial lamb. Dang. Yeah, that's weird.

[00:29:45] What do you mean? I don't know. OK. But, you know, Elizabeth was sort of their next stop on the interview list. A lot of morbid stuff and weird. Like Elizabeth had an art of language that was odd and also very kind of suspect in some

[00:30:04] of the writings I read of hers. Yeah. So when when investigators interviewed Elizabeth, she suggested that it could have been someone with ties and connections to the steel industry her father had worked in for so many years or with ties to the apartheid movement in South Africa.

[00:30:21] And I don't know a lot about that, Mel. But I'm looking at Mel because she's our history expert over here. Well, there I mean, it's suspect, but there was actually a little bit of fire there because when they were in Rhodesia, which was right next to South Africa,

[00:30:37] and he was kind of in charge of a big steel company there, the government was really trying to keep the whites in power. And he was promoting some people, blacks to different positions. And at one point in time, the government there actually put him on house arrest

[00:30:58] because he was not abiding by their apartheid rules. And so they snuck out of the country. So, I mean, I don't blame it at all here, but there is some interesting kind of background that it's easy to go down some rabbit holes in there. Yeah.

[00:31:18] So when investigators inquired as to where Elizabeth was when the crime occurred, they discovered that she had been out of town with her boyfriend for the weekend. She and Jens had rented a car and driven to nearby D.C. for a weekend getaway.

[00:31:30] There, the two saw several movies and ordered room service and really just hung out, according to Elizabeth. When they tried to reach Jens to confirm Elizabeth's account and timeline, they really found him hard to reach. And I mean, again, this is like pre-cell phones

[00:31:45] and all sorts of stuff. So they would go to his dorm and he wasn't there and they just had a hard time connecting with him. In an oversight that would later play into the prosecution of the crime, investigators did not contact the hotel

[00:31:58] to confirm that they were there that weekend or ask any other questions about their stay. And look, that's a pretty big oversight, but they made up for it with a very clever inquiry into the rental car the two said they used for the weekend.

[00:32:12] When investigators checked the records for the car, they were surprised to find that it had been driven 669 miles that weekend, far more than what would be expected for about the 200 mile round trip to D.C. and back. That was clever. Very clever, right?

[00:32:28] And so when they questioned Elizabeth about the discrepancy, she said, oh, you know, Jens just got lost, but they were pretty suspicious of this and I was watching the Netflix special and the cop is like, you can't get lost. You get on route 29 out of UVA

[00:32:42] and it takes you straight into D.C. And sure enough, I Googled it. Like it is a, you get on, you get off. Like there aren't winding rounds that you're taking. Yeah, I mean, UVA is in Charlottesville, which is a smaller compared to Dallas town,

[00:32:54] but it's still a major town and major arteries in Virginia. Yeah, so I mean, it would have been really hard to get lost to the tune of about 400 miles that way. So with some quick math, they actually theorized that the two had gone from UVA to D.C.,

[00:33:11] then to the house at Loose Chippings, back to D.C., and then finally back to UVA. That trip would account almost perfectly for the mileage that the two put on the car. Elizabeth eventually changed her story a bit and told investigators that on the trip to D.C.,

[00:33:27] she and Jens started talking about how her parents weren't providing her with enough money, how the parents didn't want the two of them to date. She claims that Jens became so enraged that he left her in D.C. and drove to Loose Chippings to confront her parents.

[00:33:42] So at this point, the detectives are adamant that they have to talk to Jens. I mean, they haven't talked to him to corroborate any of this. They have so many questions. But before they were able to question him, Elizabeth and Jens flee the country to the United Kingdom.

[00:33:58] Wow, so at first I was like, oh, she totally threw him under the bus, and then, but then they left together. So maybe it was like a contentious thing. No, they left together that by all accounts, they were madly in love. Yeah, there's a lot suspicious right there.

[00:34:16] And I think this wasn't right right afterwards. Was it a couple of months? You know, Mel, I honestly don't remember off the top of my head, but I think you're right. I mean, I think it took some time. Her parents had already been buried.

[00:34:31] She was presumably back at school. Yeah, because she had stayed with some of her siblings for a while, like during the funeral works. So this wasn't like right away. They were getting, you know, there was a lot of investigation that was undergoing here.

[00:34:46] So after about six months on the run. Six months. Six months. Just underlying the fact that this is a long time. Twice the amount of time she went on the run last time. She likes to go on the run. She does have a pattern.

[00:35:00] A Harrods department store officer became suspicious of a couple purchasing goods in her store. She thought they were writing bad checks. Remember when that was still a thing? Yeah. Right? I was just thinking about that. You know, I was at the grocery store recently

[00:35:14] and you know, I saw somebody writing a check and I was like what? They still take checks? Not most places. But apparently this one grocery store did. Well, so this officer calls the police in London and by like some amazing stroke of luck,

[00:35:32] she speaks to someone in the London police that knows this officer at the Harrods department store and he's like, oh yeah, she's a really good officer. If she says something's going on, something's probably going on. Like just by reputation. He was like, yep, I trust you.

[00:35:46] Arrest them, bring them in. Now, I'm not sure exactly what was said when the police interviewed Elizabeth and Yens, but whatever it was caused them to search the apartment where the two had been living. And just a fun fact, the apartment they were living on

[00:36:00] was on Baker Street. You know, like Sherlock Holmes. I love it. Sorry, just that made me smile. Mel with the fun facts. And so when they went into search, they found wigs, they found false IDs and then they found their real passports.

[00:36:17] That would have been suspicious enough obviously, but they also found this series of correspondence between the two lovers that had been written on the Christmas break of the previous year. These letters indicated that Elizabeth wished her parents were dead, saying she found them to be overbearing

[00:36:33] and the two discussed getting rid of her parents soon. One letter from Elizabeth to Yens read, my mother went to her hair appointment three days late. My father and I cut down cedars for Christmas presents. Would it be possible to hypnotize my parents? Do voodoo on them?

[00:36:48] Will them to death? It seems my concentration on their death is causing them problems. My father nearly drove over a cliff at lunch. He nearly got squashed by a tree when he got home and he keeps falling over. And my mother drunk fell into the fire.

[00:37:04] I think I shall seriously take up black magic, dot, dot, dot. We can either wait till we graduate and then leave them behind or we can get rid of them soon. My mother said today that if some accident befell them she knew I would become a worthless adventurer,

[00:37:19] more maternal acumen. Good griefy, that's nice. Also, side note, if you have letters where you're threatening to kill people maybe don't cart them around Europe with you. True. Yeah, I had not heard or read this one but I had heard some quote unquote love letters

[00:37:40] between the two of them where even the love letters were morbid about life and death. And yeah, she had a way with words. She really did. So at this point London detectives called law enforcement back in Virginia and they have three questions. First, did they know Elizabeth Hasem?

[00:37:59] Second, were her parents dead? And if so, third, were they murdered? Those letters were so incriminating and these people are obviously on the run with their fake ID and wigs. So major break in the case at this point and 14 months after the murder

[00:38:16] Virginia police were finally able to interview Jens and Elizabeth in London. So yeah, Mel, if they were on the run six months and then it probably took a little time for them to get to London. This was some time after the murder occurred.

[00:38:29] Yeah, and I think they were on the run and they probably had to get permissions to come over and interview. Yeah, very interesting. They're all over the world. Yeah. A very global case. I told you it's Southern society and international intrigue. I know, I'm excited.

[00:38:48] So, now's the question? They weren't writing bad checks. They just, the officer just had a- No, I think they were writing bad checks. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, they had no money to survive in Europe. Yeah, okay. So they, I think what they did is they got

[00:39:00] these fake IDs and then probably had like fake checks of some sort. Because that was gonna be my next question. Like, did she cash in on any insurance policies or where did she, like her inheritance? That's a great question. Not that I read or heard.

[00:39:14] Did you read any of that? I have not read that. I mean, it seems like they must've gotten some capital to be able to travel, but- I would bet though that however it was set up, thinking about who her parents were,

[00:39:27] that one of her siblings was like in a- The trustee. The trustee over her, yeah. Here's where it gets very interesting though, if it hasn't been interesting up until this point. So when they are speaking, when the Virginia police are speaking with Jens and Elizabeth in London,

[00:39:46] Jens confessed, I fell in love with a girl. We talked about killing her parents. I got caught. Okay, there you go. Yeah. Sounds pretty straightforward. Sounds pretty straightforward. And yet there's so much more to this story. So in May of 1987,

[00:40:04] Elizabeth is finally extradited back to the United States almost two years after the crime occurred. Jens wasn't extradited until five years after the crime occurred, once prosecutors took the death penalty off the table for him. And remember, they're in Europe.

[00:40:22] They don't really love the United States death penalty. So. All right. And he's a German citizen too. Yeah. Good point. Like a high up German official, right? Like his father was a diplomat. Okay. Right. So I'm gonna stop here for a second

[00:40:37] and ask you ladies if you have thoughts on who actually killed Derek and Nancy Haysom in their home. Alana? Well, I feel like, one of the things that the investigators had about her being in her bathrobe. And then you guys said that there were three place settings

[00:40:55] at the table. So I feel like they're expecting their daughter, but that seems so gruesome. But then she seems like a gruesome person. I don't know. I mean, it's one of them. I'm gonna go with her. I think she did that. And I think he's taken the fall.

[00:41:11] What about you Mel? Well, I know a little bit about the story. So I know enough to know that this morning I thought one thing and then a couple hours later I thought another thing. Where it seems such a violent death that it's personal,

[00:41:30] but then you can make an argument that it would be her because she had some issues, unresolved issues with her mom. But then you can make an argument that maybe her Yen is mad that they don't like him. And I'm kind of like, why wouldn't they like him?

[00:41:46] Because I mean, he obviously is brilliant, scholarly, German, you know, it seems like the type of family that, I don't know, without knowing him, that you would think they would want her to date better than like some of the drug dealers in Paris that she was with beforehand.

[00:42:04] I don't, I know enough to know that nothing is exactly as it seems here. Okay, yeah, that's fair. I don't feel like, I feel like maybe she was telling him that they didn't like him. Cause I think that's a valid point that he seems like a great person

[00:42:22] for their daughter to want to be with. Maybe she was lying to. They're freshmen in college, why do you like over rotate? I mean, even if you don't really like someone, you're like a freshman in college. And they hadn't been dating that long.

[00:42:35] Like, I mean, this happened in what, March did we say? Yeah, March 30th. So at most it would have been nine months after, not even that, after school started in August. They should take advantage of this guy and maybe was telling him that

[00:42:50] to get them all worked up, to want to do that. Maybe because I did read that he had not dated before, which isn't abnormal, he's 18 years old, but first love. Yeah, all right, well, let me tell you what Elizabeth says happened.

[00:43:10] So she is tried for the crime first since she's already been extradited back to the States. Her trial was actually the first televised trial in Virginia. Interesting. Yeah, we've covered a couple of those like first televised trials in certain areas. And here's the story she tells.

[00:43:27] She says the two of them went to D.C. like they originally told the police. And while there, Yen's got very upset about how her parents were treating her. She had told them she had to sell her jewelry just to have enough money to like get by.

[00:43:41] And he blamed her parents for not providing her with enough money to survive. And that conversation sort of opened the flood gates and they just started discussing like everything about her parents that upset them. I mean, the three of us have had these conversations,

[00:43:55] right, where one thing leads to another and leads to another. And by the time you're done, you've just worked yourself up. So in particular though, he got angry because Elizabeth's parents did not want the two of them to continue dating. And this was corroborated by Nancy's brother

[00:44:13] after the fact he said that she was very upset with him dating. He said Yen's did not have the proper name, the proper heritage or the proper profession in mind to Nancy's way of thinking. Dang. Yeah, I mean, like we said,

[00:44:29] he was brilliant at UVA on a full ride and the son of a diplomat, like what more did they want? But according to the brother, they really wanted Elizabeth to marry like a doctor or a lawyer. Okay. So like- That seems a little bit-

[00:44:45] It's like apples to apples. Like they're both, they sound like great. Doctor or just, I mean- He's a freshman, you know? He's got time too. Well and also this is like a family that has traveled the world and to be paired with a diplomat son

[00:44:58] who also is well traveled, you would think that would be a really interesting connection. Yeah, it seems like over rotating. I mean, I think he's like the only guy that I think here especially, you know, he seemed to like. I don't know.

[00:45:14] It just, you know, be nice to our boys, you know, like don't- That's boy moms. Please give them a chance. Yes. All right, well apparently, Yen's decided that he wanted to make his case to her parents as to why they should continue dating.

[00:45:34] So according to Elizabeth's account of the crime, Yen decides that he should pay them a visit at Loose Chippings. Yen's initially tells investigators that he did drive from DC to Lynchburg and when he arrived at Loose Chippings, he just knocked on the door and told her parents like,

[00:45:50] hey, I'm passing through on the way back from visiting a friend. So they invited him in, the three of them had a drink and then something happened while they were sitting at the dinner table and Yen's became very angry. In a recording of his interrogation, Yen says, quote,

[00:46:08] I didn't understand why there was resistance to me from them, period. He says he stood up, walked behind Derek Hasem and slashed his throat. The cut was so deep that he cut through the larynx and investigators think that his intent was to silence him, slashing his throat

[00:46:27] so that he could never tell him, quote, no about dating his daughter again. He then walked into the kitchen and killed Nancy Hasem in the same fashion, got back in his car and drove the three plus hours to DC. In a chilling similarity,

[00:46:43] one of those letters that the police found in their London flat that we were talking about earlier talked about potentially killing her parents and he said, Yen said to Elizabeth, I've got the dinner scene planned out, end quote. And indeed Derek Hasem was killed at the dinner table

[00:47:00] where three chairs were pulled out. But back to the timeline of that weekend, according to Elizabeth, when Yen's arrived back in DC, he picks Elizabeth up from a late showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And she says when she gets in the car,

[00:47:15] he is wrapped in a bloody sheet and tells her that he has killed her parents. The two drive back to the hotel where Yen showers and then he instructs Elizabeth to clean the blood from the car, which she did.

[00:47:28] So prosecutors made the case that while she may not have committed the crimes herself, she persuaded Yen's to kill for her, referring to her as Lady Macbeth throughout the trial. And Elena, I think you alluded to that earlier when you were like,

[00:47:42] I think she's just sort of working him up about some of this stuff. That's exactly what prosecutors thought. That she had worked him up and encouraged him to do those. But why did Elizabeth want her parents dead? I'm gonna put a little trigger warning right here.

[00:47:59] It came out in trial that Elizabeth claims she was molested by her mother, which if true would be motive for her murder. When asked about this relationship during the trial, she said, it's not relevant. I don't want to discuss, it's private. Adding credibility to this theory,

[00:48:19] investigators found nude photos of Elizabeth in her parents' house. And Yen confirmed to investigators that Elizabeth had shown him these photos and said that her dad knew about the molestation and just turned his head at the abuse. That's heavy. I have lots of questions. Okay, go.

[00:48:37] Oh, well one of them is, she knew her mom had nude photos and then she was showing her boyfriend the nude photos and why don't you take the nude photos and destroy the nude photos and how old was she? Yeah, there are so many questions.

[00:48:51] And look, we want to be victims advocates here for sure. But knowing what I know and in retrospect about Elizabeth, there's a lot of deception in her life that makes me question her statement. And I think one, Nancy's not here to give her account of the events.

[00:49:15] And two, she was in boarding school for a very long time. And I can see as a mom, if I discovered nude photos of my child, keeping them to ask about later or present as a question. I think there's a lot of gray here

[00:49:34] is what I'm gonna say. I read that there were nude photos of her from the side in her early teens and that you could make the case that they were supposed to be artsy. I remember her mother in her later years was an artist.

[00:49:53] I don't, I'm not saying that's what they were, but that is what... They weren't necessarily sexual in nature pictures, but they were of an adolescent female. Okay. So Elizabeth though goes on, Alana, Mel to admit her role in the double murder of her parents during the trial.

[00:50:16] When asked, why did your parents die? She replied, my parents died because Yens and I were obsessed with each other and he was jealous of anything else other in my life. Again, she has a beautiful turn of phrase and a way of writing things or saying things

[00:50:32] as the case may be. So when I was researching this case, I came across a podcast by Amanda Knox. You remember like the American teenager who was charged with murdering her friend in Italy. And she covers this case and points out some of the striking similarities

[00:50:45] between her case and this one. In both instances, a woman is accused of being this like femme fatale capable of convincing her boyfriend to murder for her. It's a fascinating podcast called The Truth About True Crime. And of course we'll link to it in our show notes.

[00:51:01] And so when Elizabeth's trial wraps up, she is found guilty of two counts of being an accessory after the fact with two 45 year sentences for a total of 90 years in prison. But investigators still haven't been able to prosecute the killer in this crime.

[00:51:18] Five years after he was arrested in London, they finally extradited Yen's back to the states to stand trial for the murder of Derek and Nancy Haysom. And remember, Yen's did confess to killing her parents when the two were caught for writing bad checks

[00:51:32] in London like we said, he said, quote, I fell in love with a girl. We talked about killing her parents. I got caught. But when he goes on the stand, he says he is innocent of killing Derek and Nancy Haysom and tells a very different story

[00:51:49] of how the evening of March 30th, 1985 actually went. I'm picturing that he was still in Germany watching the trial. And so he knew everything that was happening. He was in England. Oh, England, England. I mean, he probably was very much aware of it

[00:52:05] if not watching it, reading about it. Yeah, for sure. So Yen says like Elizabeth, to begin with, the two go to DC. That is not in dispute. And then when they get there, Elizabeth tells him that she has a drug problem

[00:52:21] and there is a drug debt that she needs to repay. Now given her history with drugs and alcohol, this would not have been totally shocking to Yen's. So she goes on to tell him that the person she owes money to

[00:52:34] has asked her to pick up a package in DC and bring it back to UVA in order to repay this debt. So Yen's being the good boyfriend and offers to go with her for safety, but she's like, no, no, no, that would be suspicious.

[00:52:46] You should just stay here, but can you be my alibi just in case something happens with this drug pickup? Why don't you go to the movies, buy two tickets, like we're both attending the movies and just stay here and pretend like I'm with you.

[00:53:06] So Elizabeth leaves to go do this drug pickup and Yen goes to the movies. And then he comes back to the hotel, orders room service and goes to see another movie. Then goes back to the hotel when Elizabeth eventually arrives, like shortly thereafter,

[00:53:21] he returns from like the latest movie. So now remember, I mentioned at the very beginning of the episode that the police didn't contact the hotel to confirm who was there when, and most importantly, like they didn't check to see who ordered room service.

[00:53:36] Don't you wish they had interviewed like whoever delivered that room service tray because they don't just leave it in the hallway. Like you knock on the door and somebody rolls it into your room. It was a boy, it was a girl. Exactly, that would have made life

[00:53:49] so much easier for everybody. But back to Yen's account of that evening, he says that Elizabeth walks into the hotel room and just flat out tells him that she has killed her parents, that the drugs made her do it.

[00:54:03] He said she did look like she was in shock, she was obviously scared and she just kept asking him to help her. And the only thing he could think to do to actually help her was to accept the blame for the crime.

[00:54:18] I get that, I mean, I would not do that but I get his position being 18, she's older, sounds like to me, sounds like he's being manipulated and he wants to desperately help her. That's the only thing he can do is to take the blame. Yeah, yeah.

[00:54:34] I mean, that's very reasoned of you. I was like, wait, what? You did what? Son, do not take the blame for anybody's crime. Yes, exactly. But here was his reasoning and you're almost spot on, Elena. First, though, he thought he had diplomatic immunity,

[00:54:54] remember, because he's the son of a German diplomat and he assumed that like the worst that could happen to him was they would extradite him to Germany where he would be tried as a juvenile because in Germany, you have to be 21 to be tried as an adult.

[00:55:09] Oh man. And he was 18 at the time the crime occurred and just like assuming worst case scenario, the lengthiest sentence he could receive as a juvenile was 10 years. So in love and like enamored with Elizabeth, he thought 10 years of my life

[00:55:27] is worth saving her from the death penalty in the United States. In his trial, investigators repeatedly pointed to the type O blood that was found at the crime scene reminding jurors that Jens had type O blood. That was as specific as they could get with science

[00:55:43] back in 1990 prior to all like DNA testing capabilities. I actually Googled because I'm like, DNA, it's been around for a while. They like just were like forming the first human genome experiment in 1990, which yeah. They've gone a long way. Yeah. I was just thinking that.

[00:56:02] So furthering though the case against Jens, they said that the bloody sock print found at the crime scene was a match to Jens' foot and toe pattern. And they showed overlapping images of the sock print and Jens' footprint to the jury. At the end of the day,

[00:56:17] Jens was convicted of the murder of Derek and Nancy Haysom and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Okay. So I'm gonna pause here now knowing what you know. What do you think? Mel, you can't answer since you already know too much.

[00:56:34] But Alana, do you think Elizabeth is a murderer or was she in a relationship with a blooded killer or did the two conspire to commit the crime together? I think and I still, and I thought at the beginning that she did it. I'm gonna stick with that,

[00:56:49] that she did this. Okay. I'm still hung up on the, I thought she was so smart. Those investigators, the bathrobe thing. You're right. That was smart. That was really smart. I think it was her. I think they were expecting her and you would walk around your bathrobe.

[00:57:05] I mean, I would walk around my bathroom in front of anybody, but I'm not as dignified. You're not so genteel. No, I'm not. So she would only probably do that with her daughter. Yeah. Okay. All right. Mel, I know I said you couldn't answer, but maybe you should.

[00:57:25] I don't know. I'm still confused about this one because my gut reaction is that potentially that Jens' statement was correct and Elizabeth was responsible for the parents death. One of the things I found that was interesting was one of these local Lynchburg police officers

[00:57:46] who had investigated the vehicle that they were able to go with the rental car and obviously it had been a while afterwards, but still they weren't able to find any blood in the vehicle. And that's one of those things that

[00:57:56] I think even back then they had the luminol test. And so we're talking about two brutal murders, the dad, 36, 37 stabbings, and then she and Elizabeth mentioned that there was blood all over him. You would think there would be, I don't know, some blood in the car.

[00:58:17] And there was a lot of evidence that she had been in the house. For example, they found her blood type also on a cloth in the house and obviously fingerprints. But once again, it was her parents house. So how do you say, well this was from yesterday

[00:58:34] versus from a week or two ago, but they did not find any of Jens' fingerprints in the house, which to me is as brutal as it was, obviously they were having to drive back and forth three and a half hours plus. It seemed really strange that

[00:58:53] for as much blood was found, if he was the assailant they didn't find any fingerprints. I don't know. It just seems highly brutal and very personal to me. I agree. And I think, I think like you said Mel, like even though the dad was older,

[00:59:13] he was a pretty like fit with it guy. I think there would have been signs of a struggle which makes me think it was Elizabeth because I can see a daughter going up behind her dad without any, the dad's not worried about that.

[00:59:28] If a man comes up behind you, that's like some sort of automatic reflex. And Elena, I'm with you. I go back to Nancy Haysom being found in her nightgown. Like I just don't think she would have invited Jens in wearing that.

[00:59:42] And I know that seems like a superficial way to make a decision, but like we said, like from all accounts, she was so particular about how she presented herself and her family. Like I just can't see her entertaining a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a girlfriend

[00:59:56] or a girlfriend of her daughters, who she didn't even like by the way in her room. Like I think she would want her armor on. Like she would wanna present in a, I'm the authority figure. Exactly, yeah. Now with two people in jail for the murders,

[01:00:11] you would think that this would be the end of the story but there is so much more. So you guys make sure you catch the second half next week. Yes, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you'll be notified when new episodes drop.

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[01:00:52] Yes, it helps us tremendously. And we have some really great episodes coming up that y'all don't wanna miss, but make sure you turn into next week for part two, the second half of the Derek and Nancy Hesa Murders and the Prosecution of Yen Soreng and Elizabeth Hesa. Bye.

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