New details are emerging in a legendary local murder case.
Jens Soering was convicted of murder 20 years ago. The German native was a student at the University of Virginia in 1985 when investigators say he drove to Bedford and killed Derick and Nancy Haysom, stabbing them at their Bedford County home.
The Haysoms were parents of Soering's girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom.
A jury found Soering guilty in 1990 of carrying out the murders. He was sentenced to two life terms.
A Lynchburg-area man is now coming forward with a story about the case we haven't heard before. It's evidence Soering is hoping will set him free.
Tony Buchanan is the former owner of a body shop on Route 460 in Lynchburg. He says Haysom brought a car to his business a few months after her parents turned up dead.
Inside the car - a knife and what appeared to be dry blood. There was also mud and grass on the undercarriage. Buchanan says it looked like the car had been sitting in the woods for a while.
"Why did he wait 30 years, almost, to tell us something?" wonders Carl Wells, who was Bedford County's Sheriff in 1985 when the Haysom murders happened.
There's some key pieces of Buchanan's story Wells wishes his office could have investigated further.
"Mainly that knife," said Wells "(Buchanan) claims there was a knife in there. I would have loved to have seen that."
The Haysoms were stabbed to death, but the murder weapon was never found.
"We could have used (the knife) back at the medical examiner's office and they could have compared it with the knife wounds on the bodies," said Wells.
Both Soering and Haysom were convicted of carrying out the murders.
Unlike Soering, Haysom admitted her guilt. In a statement to the Associated Press, she says Soering's claims of innocence are false. "We are equally responsible for the murder of my parents," said Haysom "And we both deserve incarceration"
Wells agrees and says the right people are behind bars.
"They knew too much," said Wells of Haysom and Soering. They told too many factual things that happened, which matched what we saw at the crime scene. I haven't had a bit of problem sleeping with the fact that they're pulling time."
Buchanan made his statement at the urging of Soering's attorneys. They're trying to get Governor McDonnell to send him back to his native Germany or get his conviction overturned.
No matter what, this new evidence will not lead to a new trial for Soering. He has already exausted all of his appeals.
