RICHMOND — Del. Lacey Putney delivered a floor speech Tuesday urging the House of Delegates to adopt a resolution opposing the transfer of convicted murderer Jens Soering to his native Germany.
“I have not experienced such a rash of concern and disappointment from my constituents in all of the years I have been in this body when they learned the outgoing governor had agreed to let this gentleman go back to Germany,” said Putney, I-Bedford, who is in his 49th year as a delegate.
The House then voted 97-0 for a resolution supporting the revocation of former Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s consent to turn Soering over to the U.S. Justice Department for transfer to Germany.
Soering, the son of a German diplomat, is serving two life sentences at Brunswick Correctional Center for the 1985 stabbing deaths of Derek and Nancy Haysom at their Bedford County home. Elizabeth Haysom, Soering’s girlfriend at the time and the Haysoms’ daughter, is serving a 90-year sentence as an accessory to the murders.
Soering and Elizabeth Haysom were students at the University of Virginia at the time. When police focused the investigation on them, they fled to Europe and were arrested in England, bringing international attention to a case that already was one of the most sensational crimes in Bedford County history.
Under the transfer terms to which Kaine agreed, Germany would be allowed to release Soering from prison after two years.
“We think he should spend the remainder of his sentence here in the Commonwealth where he committed these heinous crimes,” said Putney, who doesn’t often deliver floor speeches. He made an exception Tuesday, saying, “Let me just take a minute of your time.”
Putney, without mentioning Kaine by name, noted that Del. Rob Bell, D-Albemarle County, had written a letter to the U.S. attorney general objecting to the transfer, and said most House members had signed the letter.
Bell’s letter supported Gov. Bob McDonnell’s request to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that sought to revoke Virginia’s consent to the transfer. McDonnell sent the revocation notice Jan. 19, three days after he took office and a week after the outgoing governor had authorized the transfer.
The measure the House approved Tuesday, SJR 149, was introduced by Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg. The Senate approved the resolution Feb. 16 on a voice vote with no opposition.
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