Derek and Nancy Haysom had lived all over the world before settling in Lynchburg. He was 72, a retired steel executive originally from South Africa who had made a fortune working on three continents. She was two decades his junior with family ties to Virginia's aristocracy and as a young woman, had travelled the world with her father, a renowned geologist. Nancy had convinced Derek to retire to Lynchburg, where she had attended high school. The two had five adult children from previous marriages, but only one daughter, Elizabeth, from their own union.

In 1985, Elizabeth was 20 and a student at the University of Virginia. It was there that she met and began dating Jens Soering, the son of a German diplomat and a University Jefferson and Echols scholar.

On 30 March 1985, Derek and Nancy Haysom were viciously attacked in their home. He was stabbed 39 times and she was nearly decapitated. A family friend discovered the bodies several days later and police were baffled, as the killer or killers had left few clues and no discernable motive. As days and weeks passed with no arrest, local residents began to panic and rumours began to spread.

With no other leads, investigators began focusing on discrepancies in Elizabeth Haysom's alibi. Elizabeth told investigators that her parents had not liked Jens and wanted Elizabeth to end her relationship with him. She and Jens had plotted their murder. She spent the weekend of the murder in Washington establishing their alibi, while Jens travelled to Lynchburg and killed her parents. She pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder before the fact. Jens successfully resisted extradition until 1990, citing the possibility that he could face the death penalty, a punishment considered barbaric by many European nations. At his trial, Jens claimed that Elizabeth had actually killed her parents without his prior knowledge. She had begged him to cover for her and, believing that his father's diplomatic status would give him immunity, Jens concocted the story to which Elizabeth had already confessed. But the jurors didn't buy Jens' story, and he was sentenced to life in prison.