Tag: Chip Harding

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‘Déjà vu’: Amanda Knox podcast focuses on Soering case

Amanda Knox sees disturbing similarities between her murder conviction and that of Jens Soering, which she explores in an eight-part podcast. Submitted photo

Like Jens Soering, Amanda Knox was a college student when she was convicted of murder. She spent four years in an Italian prison for the 2007 murder of her roommate in Perugia, and her case became a cause célèbre before she was acquitted in 2015.

Since her return to the United States, she’s become an activist for the wrongfully accused, and has a podcast with Sundance called “The Truth about True Crime.”

Knox sees similarities in her case and Soering’s that “cut to the bone,” she says in the first of the eight-part series that streamed May 29.

Soering was convicted of the brutal 1985 murders of Bedford couple Derek and Nancy Haysom, the parents of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom. Soering was 18 when he met the two-and-a-half years older Haysom at UVA, where they both were Echols scholars.

He was also a virgin, who said he was besotted with the alluring older woman. Soering said when Haysom told him she’d killed her parents, he offered to take the fall, believing that because his father was a German diplomat, he’d have immunity that would limit his imprisonment to 10 years.

The case was an international sensation, with Soering described as a “love slave” to Haysom’s “femme fatale,” says Knox. Her series “paints a much more human picture.”

She, too, was caricatured, called “Lady Macbeth” and a “master manipulator.” Says Knox, “When I hear these descriptions, alarm bells go off.”

She lists other “haunting and almost unbelievable echoes” to her own case: the brutality of the slayings, the police screw-ups, the young lovers as suspects, the media spectacle, the disputed alibi, and the questionable forensics.

“It all gave me déjà vu,” says Knox.

Jens Soering has been in prison for 33 years, and Knox is the latest high-profile person to voice support for him, joining writer John Grisham, actor Martin Sheen, Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, Innocence Project founder Jason Flom, and most recently, former Nelson Mandela attorney Irwin Cotler.

A German documentary on the case called Killing for Love was released in 2016. That same year, Soering’s attorney, Steve Rosenfield, filed a petition for pardon to the administration of then-governor Terry McAuliffe, but McAuliffe didn’t act on it.

Three years later, the case is “in the hands of the pardon investigators,” says Harding, who believes it could wrap up this summer.

Harding thinks Knox’s involvement will help Soering’s case. “Public awareness will help in any case where there could be a wrongful conviction,” he says.

Soering was convicted by a jury in 1990 and sentenced to two life sentences, in part because of the testimony of Haysom, who is serving a 45-year sentence as an accessory before the fact.

Information the jury was given then can be challenged by subsequent technology, says Harding. For example, DNA analysis was not available at that time, and the jury would not have known that recent findings identified the blood of two different people at the Haysom home—but not Soering’s.

And some of the evidence the jury was given, such as a bloody sock print the prosecution claimed belonged to Soering, falls under the category today of “junk science.” Says Harding, “That jury was given information known to be wrong at the time.”

Frustrating for many reexamining the case, including Harding and a handful of other police investigators, is “the lack of cooperation from Bedford County,” where Soering was convicted, Harding says.

Says Knox, “What I learned shocked me, angered me, and moved me in ways I wasn’t ready for.”

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‘Blot’ on justice: Nelson Mandela counsel believes Jens Soering’s innocence

International human rights attorney Irwin Cotler met with Jens Soering in prison, and says Soering’s case has “all the markers” of a wrongful conviction. Staff photo

The former UVA Echols Scholar convicted for the 1985 murders of his girlfriend’s parents has gotten another prominent supporter. Former Canadian minister of justice Irwin Cotler, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and who was an attorney for political prisoners Nelson Mandela and Natan Sharansky, was in town March 5 and says he thinks Jens Soering is wrongfully imprisoned.

Cotler says he was talking to Innocence Project founder Jason Flom and mentioned an upcoming visit to UVA law school. Flom told him about Soering, whom many believe is innocent of the horrific murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom in their Bedford home, particularly since new DNA analysis from blood at the crime scene indicates that other previously unidentified people were there, but not Soering.

Soering, a German citizen, has long claimed he confessed to the crime to protect then-girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom from execution. He says Haysom told him she’d killed her parents, and he  mistakenly believed he would have diplomatic immunity if he confessed to the crime.

He’s been in prison almost 33 years, and his case has been an international cause célèbre, with Germany calling for his repatriation and then-governor Tim Kaine agreeing to do so, only to have Bob McDonnell reverse the okay when he took office in 2010.

Cotler first became involved in wrongful convictions with the case of Steven Truscott, who was convicted of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl when he was 14. Cotler reviewed the evidence, and “I came to the conclusion there had been a miscarriage of justice,” he says.

After looking at the Soering case, “It struck me it had all the markers I’ve come to appreciate as the indicators of a wrongful conviction,” he says, listing false confession, inadequate attorney representation, and junk forensic science.

“It was a classic case of a wrongful conviction,” he says, and a “compelling case, which cried out for injustice that needed to be redressed, having gone on for 35 years.”

Cotler joins a prominent and growing array of Soering defenders, including bestselling author John Grisham and actor Martin Sheen, who wrote a letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch earlier this year calling for Soering’s release.

Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, who launched his own investigation of the case with a number of other cops, came to the conclusion Soering was innocent and wrote then-governor Terry McAuliffe that the evidence supports Soering’s innocence and that if tried today, he would not be convicted.

Cotler, who is an honorary member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, spent two hours with Soering at the Buckingham Correctional Center. “I was very much taken by his remarkable demeanor,” says Cotler of Soering, who has written 10 books while in prison, has been denied parole 14 times, and has never had an infraction during the more than three decades he’s been incarcerated.

“He doesn’t bear any rancor or desire for revenge,” says Cotler, who notes that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years before becoming president of South Africa, and taught that country “the importance of reconciliation.”

Soering has “a real feeling for what justice is all about,” says Cotler. “I hope his freedom will allow him to make the mark he has made in prison.”

A German documentary, Killing for Love, was released in 2016 and supports Soering’s innocence. And in an interview for the film, Elizabeth Haysom said her mother had sexually abused her for years, which experts like Harding say would be a motive for the murders.

Soering’s attorney Steve Rosenfield filed a petition for pardon in 2016 with the governor’s office, where’s it’s languished. A call to the secretary of the commonwealth, which handles pardons, was not returned, nor was a message to Governor Ralph Northam’s office.

Cotler is hopeful investigators for the governor and the parole board will resolve the matter and free Soering. The case, he says, “is a blot on the criminal justice system as a whole.”

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Republican sheriff backs Dem deputy

Chan Bryant has been tapped by Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding to succeed him as sheriff. Staff photo

Albemarle Chief Deputy Chan Bryant got an unusual endorsement when she announced her run for sheriff as a Democrat January 30. Her boss, Republican Sheriff Chip Harding, introduced her and said that in his nearly 50 years of service in the justice system, she was in the top 5 percent of law enforcement supervisors with whom he’s worked.

And while Bryant’s candidacy is historic—she’s the first female to run for sheriff since the office was founded in 1745—Harding, who is not seeking reelection, says that’s not why he’s supporting her.

“I am endorsing Chan because she has done an outstanding job in every position she has been in,” he says.

Bryant, 49, wanted to be in law enforcement since she was a teen in Greene County. After stints as a county reserve officer, an EMT, a Madison deputy and a Scottsville patrol officer, she started full-time in the Albemarle sheriff’s office in 2006. “I have worked my way up the chain of command,” and worked closely with the sheriff in every department, she says.

She’d like to bring back the DARE program in schools. While some question the effectiveness of the once-pervasive Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, Bryant says it could be about more than drugs, and address peer pressure, bullying, and good decision-making.

She also envisions a safety program for seniors, because the department gets phone calls from people from out of state asking that deputies check up on elderly relatives.

Bryant leads the office’s 100-member search and rescue team, and she is commander of the reserves.

Around 10 deputies were present for her announcement, and Harding said the office’s full-time staff voted her “deputy of the year” for her efforts in improving the agency. The Elks Club also named her central Virginia law enforcement officer of the year.

Sheriff Chip Harding says Chan Bryant is one of the top cops he’s ever worked with. staff photo

Bryant says nothing makes her happier than hearing her colleagues say, “I love my job.”

She praises Harding’s mentoring, and says he encouraged her to run.

“I don’t look at it as being the first female,” she says. “It’s about being the most capable.”

Lieutenant Mike Wagner with the Albemarle County Police Department says he’s also a candidate in the November 5 election, but is not certain whether he will run as a Republican.

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Overflow meeting: ICE calls continue

Michael Del Rosso, chairman of the Charlottesville Republican Committee, was the first person to speak to the jail board during the public comment session. He said, "illegal aliens...have no reason to be here, anyway." Photo by Eze Amos

After months of thousands of community members urging the authority board at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail to stop voluntarily reporting the release dates of undocumented immigrants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the board held a special meeting September 13 to take a revote on that policy.

At the local jail, and every jail in the state, staff is required by state law to tell ICE when an undocumented immigrant is taken into custody—but they also voluntarily call the federal immigration agents when that inmate is about to be released, and oftentimes, they’ll be there waiting for a newly released immigrant as he walks out the door.

At a July board meeting, jail Superintendent Martin Kumer said ICE picked up 25 undocumented immigrants from the ACRJ between July 2017 and June 2018, who were charged with crimes such as malicious wounding, domestic assault, abduction, drunk driving, driving without a license, public swearing or intoxication, failure to appear in court, and possessing drugs.

A vote didn’t happen at the September 13 meeting, but further discussion on the practice did, and Kumer introduced new information that could eventually lead to ending those ICE notifications.

VINE, a tool on the jail’s website, could be the game changer. Kumer said anyone—including ICE agents—can sign up to receive notifications on any inmate’s custody status or release date. The system updates every 15 minutes.

While the program currently has some kinks—as noted by Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci, who uses it often—Kumer said he’s already working to update the system, and would support encouraging ICE to track undocumented immigrants’ status through VINE instead of having staff call the federal immigration agents upon an inmate’s release.

But the absence of a vote didn’t sit well with community members who have long been calling for the jail board to end the process, and who prompted the special September meeting.

“They’re kicking the can down the road, obviously,” said Margot Morshuis-Coleman, a representative with the Charlottesville-Area Immigrant Resource & Advocacy Coalition, outside the jail. She noted that the “heart of the conflict is criminalizing immigration,” because ICE is currently notified of all undocumented immigrants’ release dates, not depending on the seriousness of their crimes.

“The jail should not do ICE’s work,” she said.

During a public comment session, only three of approximately 20 speakers held the same opinion. Most of them asked the jail to continue notifying ICE of the inmates’ release dates, which puzzled another CIRAC member, Priscilla Mendenhall.

“We question the fact that the majority of the public comment was by folks who were for maintaining notifications,” said Mendenhall, who was waiting in line outside the jail by 11:30am for the 12:30 meeting. Only about six of the people in line in front of her could have been in favor of continuing notifications, she reports, and when she signed up to speak, only about six or eight names were in front of hers.

Kumer said speaking time was given on a “first come, first serve” basis, and he allowed folks to enter the meeting room early because it was raining outside. He also noted that in all of the other related meetings, those against ICE notifications have dominated the public comment portion. More than 30 people signed up for public comment at the most recent meeting, and for those who didn’t get their turn, written comments were accepted and added to the meeting minutes.

Michael Del Rosso, chairman of the Charlottesville Republican Committee, was the first to speak.

“They are illegal aliens. They have no reason to be here anyway,” he said, and encouraged the jail board to continue its practice to help “get them off the streets.”

Many claimed notifying ICE of their release from jail makes the community safer, but opponents say it does quite the opposite.

In a September 12 letter to Charlottesville Sheriff James Brown—who abstained from voting on the matter in January—more than two dozen community groups and individuals encouraged him to vote to end the policy.

“While Tracci and ICE have repeatedly attempted to paint everyone who is taken into ICE custody from the ACRJ as rapists, murderers, and members of organized crime, the reality is that they are our neighbors, coworkers, classmates, parents—beloved members of the community you represent,” the letter said. “The portrayal of these inmates as violent criminals is untrue and a danger to the community in and of itself, as it stigmatizes, isolates, and persecutes an already marginalized population.”

Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, who encouraged the board to learn more about the VINE system before voting, was prepared to vote against ending the notifications.

“It bothers me greatly that the current ICE practice is to place detainers on almost everyone coming into our jail that is here illegally,” Harding wrote in a September 2 letter to the board.

He noted that ICE only takes a percentage of undocumented immigrants into custody after they leave the jail, and after review, some are released back into the community.

“Reportedly/understandably, the time this practice requires has a detrimental impact on the family,” he wrote, but he cites his oath of office, and said he feels compelled to comply with ICE, which has been charged by Congress to enforce 400 federal statutes.

Tracci shares Harding’s opinion of compliance, and in a letter that Tracci addressed to the Albemarle Board of Supervisors September 12, he said the ACRJ becoming the first Virginia jail to discontinue ICE notifications for inmates subject to federal detainers would have “safety and legal consequences,” partially because they’d all be released back into Albemarle where the jail is located, rather than the jurisdictions where they committed their offenses. The ACRJ houses inmates who were charged in Albemarle and Nelson counties, and Charlottesville.

But the man who holds Tracci’s job in the city, Joe Platania, wrote an August 10 letter of stark contrast.

The jail board’s position of voluntarily reporting and the media coverage surrounding it has left many community members “legitimately feeling angry, scared, and isolated,” according to the city’s commonwealth’s attorney.

“In some cases, primary caretakers or breadwinners are removed and are no longer able to care for their children, who are oftentimes citizens,” wrote Platania. “I am also concerned about witnesses and victims looking at voluntary notification as a reason to be uncooperative with local law enforcement and not report crimes or participate with prosecutions because they fear the deportation of charged individuals.”

He noted the “significant concern” of two of the immigrants deported between July 2017 and June 2018—one charged with DUI and the other with assault and battery—whom a judge had released on bond prior to their trials.

“They are currently considered fugitives from justice,” Platania said. “One problem presented by this scenario is that individuals who may not be guilty of the crime they have been charged with have no ability to assert their innocence and stand trial.”

And, he added, if they were tried and convicted before their deportation, they would have been held accountable for their actions, and Platania’s office could use those convictions as evidence in the event of a second offense. Each prosecutor is also able to reach out to ICE and request assistance in cases where they believe removal is the best option, he said.

When undocumented immigrants are charged with a crime and held without bond, Platania said his office determines whether they present a flight risk, are a danger to themselves, or a danger to the community. If prosecutors can’t establish any of those factors, they recommend release back into the community with terms and conditions, and if they do establish one or more of those factors, they ask that the immigrants be held until their trial.

Platania also said he “concurs wholeheartedly” with a July 1 letter from the jail board—signed by Kumer and board chair Diantha McKeel—in which they said undocumented immigrants don’t pose an inherent danger based solely on their citizenship status.

“If the board agrees with the letter it wrote, it may be useful to have ICE articulate with specificity how the voluntary notification policy furthers legitimate local public safety needs,” Platania said. And after examining available data on city cases, “I am unable to see the positive impact the current policy has on family stability or public safety.”

Echoing the local activists’ position, he said, “If community safety is one of our guiding principles, and it must be, it seems unwise to have a policy that perhaps unintentionally (albeit foreseeably) undermines it.”

At the meeting, City Councilor and jail board member Wes Bellamy suggested that if the ICE notifications must continue, the board should be open to compromise. He suggested leniency for undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes such as public intoxication, loitering, or civil matters related to paying child support.

The board will meet again in November to further discuss their policy and hear an update on any VINE system upgrades that have been initiated.

“The decisions that we make, they have consequences on people’s lives,” Bellamy said. “This is something we have to get right.”

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‘Bittersweet’ bills: Governor signs legislation that could save the next girl

John and Sue Graham were in Charlottesville for Governor Ralph Northam’s signing of legislation that could have saved their daughter’s life. Eze Amos

The parents of two young women who were murdered here were among those in the dignitary-filled room June 21 at Charlottesville’s Central Library, where Governor Ralph Northam signed legislation expanding the collection of DNA for misdemeanor crimes that, had it previously been in effect, could have saved UVA student Hannah Graham and Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.

Many there remembered the frantic search for Graham in 2014 as the school year began, and despite hundreds of searchers, it was five weeks before her body was found. Morgan Harrington disappeared in October 2009, while here for a Metallica concert. Her body was found three months later in the same part of Albemarle County as Graham’s, an area known to their killer, Jesse Matthew.

Northam’s daughter was at UVA at the same time as Graham. “These tragedies are very difficult,” he said. “We can only imagine.”

But, said the governor, “We can make changes.”

The legislation was spearheaded by Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, who’s long been a proponent of DNA databanks, and who originally prodded the state to fund its database in the ’90s. While everyone convicted of a felony goes into the database, Harding has pushed for collection of DNA for misdemeanor convictions, and says that 70 percent of first-time violent felons had a previous misdemeanor conviction.

“Three years ago, [Morgan’s mother] Gil Harrington worked with me and we got nine misdemeanors added, including exposing yourself, which is what Jesse Matthews Sr. did,” says Harding. Familial DNA would have linked to his son, who was convicted of a brutal 2005 attack in Fairfax, “and Morgan Harrington would never have been killed.”

In 2017, the Grahams joined Harding to urge the Virginia Crime Commission to study misdemeanors linked to violent felonies, and it identified seven more. “Of those, we only got funding for two—trespassing and domestic assault,” says Harding. Jesse Matthew was convicted of trespassing in 2010, and had his DNA been collected, “it would have prevented Hannah Graham’s death,” says the sheriff.

Brian Moran, Virginia secretary of public safety, noted, “DNA can convict the guilty, and maybe even more importantly, it can exonerate the innocent.”

The governor also signed a bill that requires fingerprints for those arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Delegate David Toscano, Governor Ralph Northam, Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran and Delegate Rob Bell were here for the signing of legislation to collect DNA for trespassing and assault. Eze Amos

Northam called the bipartisan legislation an example of the Virginia way: “The Virginia way is working together.” House Democratic Leader David Toscano carried the bills, which got support from Republican Delegate Rob Bell, who was present and who chairs the Courts of Justice committee. Republican state Senator Mark Obenshain carried a similar version in the Senate.

John and Sue Graham came to Richmond “again and again,” said Toscano.

After the signing, Sue Graham said, “What happened to Hannah won’t happen to another young woman in the same way.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Harrington, who founded Help Save the Next Girl. “So many points along the way, this legislation would have stopped Jesse Matthew. It’s too late for Morgan.”

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Pressure to pardon: New experts weigh in on Soering case

New experts are in Jens Soering's corner. He's pictured here in 2003. Photo: Clement Mayes

 

A nationally recognized DNA expert says his conclusions provide further evidence that convicted murderer and former UVA student Jens Soering, who was charged with the 1985 murders of his girlfriend’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom, could be innocent—and that two killers who were involved are still at large.

Forensic scientist Thomas McClintock, who is a Liberty University professor and founder of DNA Diagnostics Inc., reviewed DNA test results done in September 2009. Such testing was not available in 1990, when Soering went to trial.

McClintock focused primarily on three blood-spattered samples—a piece of formica kitchen countertop, the front door and its threshold—from the Bedford County residence where Soering is accused of repeatedly stabbing the Haysoms and slitting their throats.

“Does Jens Soerings’ DNA profile match any of those?” McClintock said to a room full of local and national reporters at City Space on the Downtown Mall September 27. “They absolutely do not.”

In a report dated September 21, he stated that the blood came from at least one male contributor doesn’t match Soering or Derek Haysom’s genetic makeup.

Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, a longtime advocate of Soering’s innocence who asked Governor Terry McAuliffe to pardon him more than a year ago, called the press conference to announce new details that support his claim.

McClintock insists his is an unbiased, scientific review. “I don’t have a dog in this race,” he says. “I’m just looking at the data.”

Richard Hudson, a retired detective sergeant who investigated major crimes for the Charlottesville Police Department for more than 25 years, has also joined the cause.

In a September 12 letter to Governor McAuliffe, he writes, “I am a conservative Republican and I don’t generally think releasing criminals from the penitentiary is a good idea. I am persuaded, however, that Mr. Soering could not be convicted today on the evidence, science and analysis that has now been developed.”

He’s spent more than 250 hours reviewing the case, and echoes that there is no genetic evidence that connects Soering to the bloody scene at the Haysom home called Loose Chippings.

“The scientific evidence now demonstrates that two unknown men left their blood at the crime scene,” he wrote. “A shot glass was found on a table near where Derek Haysom’s body was found with an unidentified fingerprint; neither Elizabeth Haysom’s prints nor Mr. Soering’s prints matched.”

Harding’s theory is that the couple’s daughter, Elizabeth, whose uncommon type B blood was found at the scene and who has claimed her mother sexually abused her, had the motive for the savage slayings and used either an emotional or a drug connection to entice the unknown accomplices.

“This case is truly overwhelming,” Hudson told the room of reporters, and the sheriff, who has clocked more than 400 hours on the case, agreed it would be impossible to boil down years of research into an hour-long press conference.

Representatives from ABC’s 20/20 were present, and Harding says they’re working on a documentary, expected to air in November, that he hopes will encompass all of the evidence that supports his evidence-based theory that Soering is innocent.

Harding said the film, along with a supplemental letter he sent to the governor September 13, could pressure McAuliffe to pardon Soering before he leaves office in January.

“As of today, the Bedford County authorities refuse to make any attempt to identify and locate the two men who left their DNA at the crime scene,” Harding wrote. “That leaves two likely killers free to roam Virginia and possibly commit other offenses. …Derek and Nancy Haysom and their families have never received justice, because two killers have escaped prosecution for 32 years. If a pardon for Mr. Soering becomes the first step toward arresting and convicting the two murderers, you will finally give the victims and their loved ones what they deserve.”

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Soering supporter: Sheriff Chip Harding says evidence points to his innocence

Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding wrote the governor that he believes Jens Soering is innocent and that two unknown killers involved in the case are walking around free today. Photo by Sarah Jane Winter

Former UVA student Jens Soering has insisted for decades he’s innocent of the notorious double homicide for which he’s been imprisoned for 31 years. He was an international sensation even before then-Governor Tim Kaine agreed to ship Soering back to his native Germany, a decision rescinded by his successor Bob McDonnell immediately upon taking office in 2010.

That didn’t slow the drumbeat that Soering, 50, was wrongfully convicted of the 1985 murders of his girlfriend’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom. Now, along with the German Bundestag and Chancellor Angela Merkel calling for his release, Soering has another heavy hitter proclaiming his innocence.

No one would call Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding soft on crime. He’s spent a career going after the bad guys, most of it with the Charlottesville Police Department, relentlessly investigating crimes and lobbying the General Assembly to fund Virginia’s moribund DNA databank back in the late 1990s and turn it into a national model.

So when Soering’s pro bono attorney, Steve Rosenfield, asked Harding to take a look at the investigation and trial, Harding says he knew little of the case, thought Soering was probably guilty and that “McDonnell did the right thing” in nixing the reparation.

Two hundred hours of investigating hefty case files later, in a 19-page letter to Governor Terry McAuliffe, Harding says, “In my opinion, Jens Soering would not be convicted if the case were tried today, and the evidence appears to support a case for his innocence.”   

Even more disturbing: Recent DNA results from the crime scene indicate “not only was Soering not a contributor of blood found at the crime scene, but two men left blood at the scene.”

Harding’s theory is that the dead couple’s daughter, Elizabeth, whose uncommon type B blood was found at the scene and who has claimed her mother sexually abused her, had the motive for the savage slayings and used either an emotional or a drug connection to entice the unknown accomplices.

“I totally understand why the jury found him guilty,” Harding says. But multiple factors convinced him that the jury had been misled and that Soering had an inadequate defense, including a lead attorney who “was mentally ill and later disbarred,” he writes the governor.

“If I had to pick one thing,” he says, “it was the DNA.”

The DNA databank was established in 1989, the year before Soering’s trial. “There was a lot of blood available at that crime scene,” says Harding. “Why it wasn’t tested, I don’t know.”

He also mentions the bloody sock print found at the scene, about which a so-called expert was allowed to testify that it was likely Soering’s. “That was totally outrageous,” says Harding. Qualified experts have since said the print excludes Soering from the scene, but one juror said in a 1995 affidavit that the sock print testimony swayed him to convict.

Echols scholars Soering and Haysom met his first year at UVA in 1984 when he was 18 and a virgin, he’s said. He was smitten with the 20-year-old Haysom. The weekend of the murders, the two went to Washington in a rental car. Soering initially confessed that he was the killer to protect Haysom because he mistakenly believed he would have some sort of diplomatic immunity.

He quickly recanted and said it was Haysom who disappeared for hours and drove to Bedford, but Haysom, who pleaded guilty to being an accessory before the fact, still maintains Soering was the one who single-handedly butchered her parents.

Harding notes that her court-appointed doctors said at her sentencing “Haysom had a personality disorder and lied regularly.”

Last year Rosenfield, who is the attorney for now-exonerated Robert Davis, filed an absolute pardon with McAuliffe. A German documentary, The Promise, details the case and concludes Soering is innocent.

To have Harding, who has a national reputation in law enforcement, agree, only bolsters Soering’s case, says civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel. “What a coup.”

Harding, who investigated the wrongful conviction of Michael Hash that led to Hash’s release, joins the list of those who believe Soering is innocent, a position not shared by many in Bedford, including the case’s lead investigator, Major Ricky Gardner, who did not return a call, nor current Commonwealth’s Attorney Wes Nance.

Nance says the DNA evidence is not new, and he takes issue with concluding it proves two unknown males were in the Haysom house. “I do take some issue with [Harding’s] self-reported investigation,” such as talking to former lead investigator Chuck Reid, but not Gardner, citing a “movie with an obvious bias position,” and failing “to account for Ms. Haysom continuing to accept responsibility for her role in her parents’ death and continuing to confirm Mr. Soering’s role in those brutal killings,” he writes in an email.

“When you make a false confession in Virginia, it’s hard to get it changed,” says Harding, even when Soering had multiple details from the crime scene wrong. He mentions the Norfolk Four, who were convicted of a 1997 rape and murder and just received pardons. “It was just unbelievable how much evidence there was these guys didn’t do it,” says the sheriff.

“DNA is the truth,” avows Harding. “It proves the innocent, it convicts the guilty. It’s not that I’m hard on crime. I’m just trying to get it right.”

Correction: Elizabeth Haysom’s blood type—B—was found at the scene but it has not been tested to determine whether it’s actually her blood.

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In brief: Patricia Kluge’s new gig, municipal scofflaws and more

Photo John Robinson

McAuliffe’s pen

In his last year in office, Governor Terry McAuliffe was unable to deliver on a campaign promise to expand Medicaid to 400,000 uninsured citizens, which is supported by 69 percent of Virginians, according to a recent University of Maryland poll. The General Assembly’s Republican majority prevented that, but it was not able to thwart another McAuliffe vow: that he would veto any “socially divisive” legislation.

McAuliffe signed 40 of his record 111 vetoes this session, and maintained a perfect tally of having zero overridden by the General Assembly, which needs two-thirds votes in each house to do so. Republicans have a sizable 66-34 majority in the House of Delegates, and 21-19 in the Senate.

Vetoed were:

  • Rob Bell’s Tebow bill to allow homeschoolers to play public school sports
  • Steve Landes’ Beloved bill requiring schools to notify parents of sexually explicit instructional material
  • Creation of charter schools without local school board approvals
  • Religious freedom bill, which LGBT advocates say legalizes discrimination
  • Legislation prohibiting sanctuary cities
  • Switchblade concealed carry and possession by minors
  • Criminal and Virginia Lottery background checks for applicants of public assistance
  • DMV photos added to electronic poll books
  • Concealed carry without permits for protective order seekers and military personnel under 21 years old
  • Planned Parenthood defunding
  • Coal tax credit

Ragged Mountain’s current prohibition against pets is pretty widely ignored, and some owners see the natural area as a place to leave their dogs’ feces. Staff photoSee you in court

Albemarle County declines Charlottesville’s offer of arbitration after City Council votes 3-2 to defy county law and allow bike trails at Ragged Mountain Natural Area.

Chip Harding
Sheriff Chip Harding File photo

Crime studies

The Virginia State Crime Commission will study the impact of collecting DNA for additional Class 1 misdemeanors, a move long advocated by Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, as well as the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana, which was favored by nearly eight out of 10 Virginia respondents in a 2016 VCU poll.

Mandatory tax disclosure

Although Representative Tom Garrett said at his March 31 town hall he didn’t care that President Donald Trump did not release his income tax returns, last week Garrett filed a bill that would require future presidents-elect to do so.

‘Patricia Kluge’s Third Act is Sparkly’

The New York Times reports the former winemaker, who sold her business to buddy Donald Trump in 2011, has rebounded from bankruptcy and is now designing jewelry pieces that sell for between $30,000 and $45,000.

“Everybody who knows Donald knows his shenanigans.”

—Patricia Kluge to the Times on Albemarle House litigation with President Trump

JenSorensen_CourtesyArtist
Courtesy Jen Sorensen

No funny business

Freelance cartoonist Jen Sorensen, whose work has appeared in C-VILLE each week since 2002, is a 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist “for a thoughtful and powerful selection of work appearing in a variety of U.S. publications and often challenging the viewer to look beyond the obvious.”

 

 

Inappropriate hugger in court

Brien Gray-Anderson, 21, who was charged with assaulting women on the Rivanna Trail last spring, pleaded guilty April 10 to one felony count of abduction and two misdemeanor sexual battery charges. Two women were the victims of unsolicited hugs and bottom touching, and a third was pulled to the ground but fought Gray-Anderson off. He’ll be sentenced August 1.

$9 million facelift

A $9 million project that had UVA’s Northridge Internal Medicine building on Ivy Road blanketed in scaffolding for nearly two years is winding down. Its updated look includes a new entrance and lobby, larger elevators, a new staircase and a more traditional architectural look similar to the Transitional Care Hospital next door.

Northridge
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They’re here: Search and rescue drone registered in the county

Retired Charlottesville fire chief Charles Werner, a longtime drone hobbyist, became interested in using them for search and rescue purposes after seeing them used to look for missing person Hannah Graham in 2014. Photo: Eze Amos

Flying drones is no longer just for hobbyists in Albemarle. Earlier this month, the county was gifted a DJI Phantom 3—its first unmanned aircraft system for search and rescue purposes.

David King, who donated the drone, is a founder of King Family Vineyards, a longtime pilot and attorney, and a current search and rescue team member and reserve deputy with the Albemarle Sheriff’s Office. He and a team of those working to incorporate this new technology locally have practiced flying and run missing person simulations on his farm in Crozet.

Though drone users don’t need the county’s permission to use their aircrafts, for the Sheriff’s Office to routinely use unmanned aerial systems, they must be owned by the county and registered with the Federal Aviation Administration. King’s gift made that possible, says Board of Supervisors Chair Liz Palmer.

King was at a 2015 legal conference in Wise, Virginia, in which drones were discussed, and “it became clear to me that it was an emerging technology that would be very useful to the people who do the [searching],” he says. He immediately became interested in pursuing them. “The only purpose of this is to give the troops on the ground—the real heroes—a useful tool,” he says. “It’s not a silver wbullet, it’s only to help them do their job.”

Charles Werner, an unmanned aircraft systems adviser for the state and former city fire chief, also has been a major player in introducing this technology in our area. As a hobbyist, he has owned a drone for years, but he became interested in its ability to aid in search and rescue missions when Hannah Graham went missing in 2014. Though she was not located by an aircraft, he said it potentially reduced search time by thousands of hours.

“It revealed the value that could be benefited from searching hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of land,” he says. After retiring, he joined the search and rescue team.

But he acknowledges there are concerns with the technology.

“We’re trying to be very diligent in the issue of privacy,” Werner says. “Because of the concerns of being spied on, that’s something we, at all costs, are trying to steer away from.”

He says the drones will not be used for law enforcement or surveillance, but he does intend to use them to provide situational awareness in the instance of a natural disaster or major flood when it would be too dangerous to put a human in a boat. “It immediately gives you the ability to see the lay of the land,” Werner adds.

Around 80 percent of missing people are found within two miles of where they were lost, according to Werner. From the air, a drone can cover that distance quickly, even searching mountains or rough terrain that humans can’t access.

Says Werner, “If you have a situation where you have a lost child near a body of water, it becomes paramount.” In simulations his team did at King Family Vineyards, Werner says the lost children they were searching for were often found within two minutes.

“I think during our experimentation, we validated that it’s going to have a huge impact on how much we’re able to see and the areas we’re able to cover,” he says.

Also using King’s farm for practice are students at Piedmont Virginia Community College, where some of the first courses in the country are now being offered to certify search and rescue responders in operating drones.

Similarly, U.S. senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced last week that the National Science Foundation awarded the Old Dominion University Research Foundation almost $1 million for the purpose of advancing drone technology training in local colleges.

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Jason Flom on rock ‘n’ roll and getting the innocent out of prison

Jason Flom and Dahlia Lithwick discuss America's punitive tendency to lock up as many citizens as possible at the Tom Tom Founders Summit. Photo Tom Daly

Lava Records founder Jason Flom could be the most successful recording executive of this era. But it was his other great passion—for justice—that packed the Paramount at the Tom Tom Festival Founders Summit April 15.

Flom, who said he lost his virginity at a Yes concert when he was 15, launched mega-performers like Katy Perry, Lorde and Kid Rock. He recalled his father telling him, when he balked at finishing college, “Do what you want to do. Just make the world a better place.”

In 1992, he heard about a kid serving serving a 15 years-to-life sentence for cocaine under the harsh Rockefeller drug laws in New York. “I decided to get involved,” he said. “I had my own history of doing drugs. There but for the grace of God….”

Even his own attorney told him nothing could be done, but at Flom’s expense, the attorney got a hearing and the man was freed. “That was so profound,” he said. And that launched his own criminal justice advocacy with Families Against Mandatory Minimums and The Drug Policy Alliance and he was a founding board member of the Innocence Project.

A week ago, Virginia’s latest exoneration was Keith Harward, who walked out of prison after 33 years for a murder and rape he didn’t commit, convicted on the “terrible forensics” of now-discredited bite mark evidence, said Flom. DNA evidence proved he was not the murderer, and 40 percent of exonerations show who the real criminal was, said Flom. In Harward’s case, the real perp was a serial rapist who went on to attack again (he died in prison 10 years ago).

“That never needed to happen if police had done their job,” Flom said.

He noted that the United States locks up more of its citizens than any country—ever. “If another country did to our people what we do to them, we’d bomb them,” he said.

One thing that could get a half million people out of jail now would be cash-less bail, because it’s poor people who can’t make bail, said Flom. That’s being done in Washington, D.C., where people are only charged bail if they don’t show up in court, and it’s working there, he said.

Flom advocates legalization of drugs, starting with marijuana, and points to Portugal as a model. “Here we have people in prison for life for pot,” he said.

“My philosophy is harm reduction,” said Flom. “Drugs are always part of society.” He cited mass incarceration as part of the harm, and suggested letting the punishment fit the crime in instances when someone else is hurt.

Flom called those exonerated by the Innocence Project “the luckiest of the unlucky people in the world,” and said he got into work with that organization because, “I can’t imagine anything worse than being locked up for something you didn’t do.”

Between 4 percent and 7 percent of all people who are in jail are innocent, said Flom earlier Friday at the “Exoneration as Innovation in Our Legal System” luncheon. He also wondered why prosecutors are never prosecuted in the cases of wrongful convictions.

At that event with UVA’s Brandon Garrett, who wrote Convicting the Innocent, Deirdre Enright with UVA’s Innocent Project Clinic and who was involved in the hit podcast, “Serial,” Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, who’s tried to launch a justice commission in Virginia to eliminate police practices that lead to wrongful convictions, and Dahlia Lithwick, who covers the Supreme Court for Slate, participants noted that “Serial” and “Making a Murderer” have piqued the public’s interest in the innocent being incarcerated.

Advocacy, money and lawyers are needed to make change, said Flom, because it’s unlikely to come from politicians.