BEDFORD COUNTY, Va. – A brutal Bedford County murder that captivated the world’s attention for decades is now a Netflix documentary series.
The new Netflix series, Till Murder Do Us Part Soering vs. Haysom, sheds new light on the 1985 murders of Nancy and Derek Haysom in their Bedford County home.
The couple’s daughter, Elizabeth Haysom, and her then-boyfriend, Jens Soering, were convicted of the crime.
Featured in the series are Rachel Ryan and Courteney Stuart, the Charlottesville-based investigative journalists behind the podcast Small Town Big Crime, which focused on new evidence released in 2017 that revealed two unidentified men left blood at the scene.
Soering and Haysom were granted parole after spending more than 30 years behind bars. The podcast’s first episode dropped on December 17, 2019, on the same day Soering was deported to Germany.
“Suddenly, you know, the six or seven episodes over a couple of months turned into 18 episodes over three years,” said Stuart.
It was during the pair’s investigation that they crossed paths with the streaming giant.
“Here we are four years later and we just never dreamed that this podcast was going to take off the way that it did and end up being featured on a Netflix series,” said Ryan.
The show explores the twists and turns of the case, including Soering and Haysom’s relationship, their international escape, a years-long political battle to extradite Soering back to the U.S. and the trial. After initially confessing to the murders, Soering then maintained his innocence claiming he took the fall for Elizabeth. While Elizabeth said Jens committed the murders and she wasn’t there.
“It’s a crazy case,” said Ryan.
“The only two people who really know the truth about it are Jens Soering and Elizabeth Haysom and they are telling different stories,” said Stuart.
“Yeah, to this day,” added Ryan.
“I think, now, the picture is more clear than it’s ever been and I think people can really start to understand the case and what happened in a pretty clear light and feel satisfied about the conclusions made,” said Ryan.
The series is streaming now on Netflix. As for Ryan and Stuart, the two are investigating other cases for their podcast.