2023 | Murder Database

Elizabeth Haysom Murders Parents

Elizabeth Haysom and her boyfriend Jens Soring are two killers from Virginia who were convicted of the murders of her parents Derek and Nancy Haysom

According to court documents the bodies of Derek and Nancy Haysom were found inside of their Lynchburg, Virginia. The two had both been slashed and stabbed repeatedly

Soon after suspicion began to fall on Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Soring who had fled to England soon after the funeral would be arrested and extradited back to the United States to stand trial for murder

Elizabeth Haysom would plead guilty to two counts of accessory to murder and was sentenced to ninety years in prison

Jens Soring would plead not guilty, be convicted at trial and be sentenced to ninety years in prison

The pair would both be paroled in 2019 having served more than thirty years in prison. Elizabeth Haysom was immediately deported to Canada. Jens Soring would be deported to Germany

Elizabeth Haysom Videos

ELIZABETH HAYSOM & JENS SOERING - A BRUTAL DOUBLE MURDER OF THE HAYSOM FAMILY

Elizabeth Haysom Case

A violent crime that horrified Nova Scotians nearly 40 years ago is being revisited in a new Netflix documentary.

The four-part series, Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom, was released earlier this month. It follows the 1985 double-murder of Derek Haysom — a former president and chairman of the Sydney Steel Corporation (Sysco) in Nova Scotia — and his wife Nancy at their home in Virginia, and the ensuing media firestorm that followed in the wake of their deaths.

The killings were particularly brutal, with both victims stabbed multiple times and their throats slashed.

But what happened next is why people are still talking about the crime today.

The couple’s daughter Elizabeth Haysom, who grew up in Nova Scotia, and her boyfriend, Jens Soering, the son of a West German diplomat who she met in residence at the University of Virginia, were charged in the murders.

Not long after the killings, the couple fled to Europe, where they were picked up nearly a year later for attempting to pass bad cheques.

While in custody, British officials found letters Elizabeth Haysom had written to Soering implicating them in the murders, and contacted Virginia police.

According to a New Yorker article from 2015, Soering initially confessed to committing the murders because he wrongly assumed he would be protected by diplomatic immunity, and later recanted. He said only that he lied to prevent his girlfriend from facing the death penalty.

Elizabeth Haysom pleaded guilty to two counts of accessory to murder before the fact and was sentenced to 90 years in prison. Soering, who ended up pleading not guilty, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms for executing the killings.

In the ensuing decades, each has remained steadfast in claiming the other carried out the murders.

The docuseries, which Soering participated in but Elizabeth Haysom declined to be interviewed for, contrasts their claims in an attempt to discover who is telling the truth.

The series mentions Derek Haysom’s connection to Sysco, but doesn’t explore the family’s connection to Nova Scotia.

Born in South Africa, he held a variety of influential positions during his time in Nova Scotia, including at Sysco, a Crown corporation. Later, he became president of Metropolitan Area Growth Investments (MAGI), a venture capital organization with provincial and federal funding that made investments in local businesses.

While working for MAGI, Derek Haysom was involved in the controversial purchase of a Bermuda-registered cruise ship that was renamed the Mercator One.

The plan was to operate cruises out of Atlantic Canada in the summer months, and through the Caribbean in the winter. But the purchase was a boondoggle from the start, with the boat losing money down south, and never once operating in Canada.

Questions about its financing were raised in the provincial legislature, setting off a scandal that contributed to the electoral defeat of Premier Gerald Regan’s Liberal government in 1978.

Mercator One was sold the following year for half of what it was originally purchased for, with the provincial government estimating it lost between $8 million and $9 million on the venture.

After Derek Haysom retired in the 1980s, he and Nancy moved to Virginia. But they remained connected to the province and had a summer home near Lunenburg.

In an article published by the Globe and Mail shortly after the murders, neighbours on the South Shore said Derek Haysom was a nice guy with a special interest in cars who enjoyed driving his BMW. He had also gained some renown locally for his attempts to “produce a new strain of apple” on his property.

The article also quoted one of Derek Haysom’s former Sysco colleagues, Harvey MacLeod, who remembered him as an athletic family man who loved spending time with Nancy and his six children.

MacLeod called the murders “shocking” and questioned why anyone would have wanted to kill Derek Haysom.

In 2016, Elizabeth Haysom told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia that she was “profoundly ashamed” of her role in the crime.

After more than 30 years in prison, both she and Soering were released on parole in 2019 and deported to their home countries of Canada and Germany, respectively.

Soering continues to proclaim his innocence, claiming that he took the fall for his girlfriend. Elizabeth Haysom maintains she ordered him to carry out the murders.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/netflix-true-crime-series-till-murder-do-us-part-1.7022130

Marie Robards Murders Father In Texas

Marie Robards was a sixteen year old teen killer from Texas who was convicted of the murder of her father

According to court documents Marie Robards decided to murder her father Steven Robards and would do it with poison. Marie would steal barium acetate from the chemistry lab at her high school in Fort Worth Texas. Marie would mix the barium acetate with a serving of beans which was fed to her father who would die from what appeared to be a cardiac arrest. However a friend of Marie would eventually tell a counselor that Marie was responsible for her father’s death. Steven Robards blood was checked and the poison was found

Marie Robards would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to twenty seven years in prison however she was released on parole in 2003 which was just eight years after her trial

Marie Robards has basically disappeared after her release and is assumed to be living under a new identity

Marie Robards Videos

Marie Robards Case

A University of Texas student was in custody Wednesday on suspicion of killing her father 20 months ago by poisoning him with a substance she got from a high school chemistry class. Marie Robards, 18, is accused of putting barium in a helping of beans served with a Mexican dinner eaten by her 38-year-old father, Steven Robards, shortly before he died Feb. 18, 1993.

The student was arrested after Tarrant County Medical Examiner Dr. Nazim Peerwani conducted additional toxicology tests and ruled that Robards died of acute barium intoxication. The medical examiner first ruled that Robards died of natural causes. Police spokeswoman Lt. Pat Kneblick said Robards told a friend at Mansfield High School that she had killed her father. ‘Eventually the friend told a counselor who told somebody at the police department,’ Kneblick said. The only possible motive is that the girl was unhappy living with her father and wanted to live with her mother after her parents were divorced, Kneblick said.

Homicide Sgt. Joe Wallace said Robards got the barium, which is a metallic element used to make rat poison, bleach and other substances, from her high school chemistry class and put it in her father’s food. Peerwani would not discuss the case, but said his office keeps blood samples for up to five years after an autopsy is performed. Routine blood screening does not detect most poisons, he said.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/19/Student-charged-with-poisoning-her-dad/7014782539200/

Jennifer Pan Murders Mother In Toronto

Jennifer Pan is a killer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada who was convicted of the murder of her mother Bich Ha Pan and the attempted murder of her father Huei Hann Pan

According to court documents Jennifer Pan was upset on how strict her parents, Bich Ha Pan and Huei Hann Pann, were so along with her boyfriend Daniel Chi-Kwong Wong began to plan their murders

Jennifer Pan and Daniel Chi-Kwong Wong would make contact with David Mylvaganam and Eric Carty

On the day of the murder Eric Carty would drive David Mylvaganam and two other men to the Pan household. The group of men would force their way into the home and would tie up Bich Ha Pan and Huei Hann Pan. After robbing the home Bich Ha Pan and Huei Hann Pan were shot multiple times with Huei dying from her injuries.

When police began to investigate they noticed that even though Jennifer Pan was inside of the home at the time of the home invasion she was not tied up by the home invaders. Police would later find text messages between Jennifer Pan and Daniel Chi-Kwong discussing the plans for the home invasion

In the end Jennifer Pan, Daniel Chi-Kwong, David Mylvaganam and Eric Carty would be convicted of the murder, attempted murder and robbery and would be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for twenty five years

Jennifer Pan Videos

Jennifer Pan Case

Ontario’s top court has ordered a new first-degree murder trial for a Toronto-area woman who was convicted in a murder-for-hire plot against her parents.

Jennifer Pan, then 28, was sentenced in 2015 to life in prison with no parole for 25 years for first-degree murder, and life for attempted murder in a 2010 attack that left her mother dead and her father with a critical head wound.

Her three co-accused — her on-again, off-again boyfriend Daniel Wong, Lenford Crawford and David Mylvaganam — were convicted on the same charges.

Pan and the three men appealed and on Friday, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ordered new trials for the first-degree murder convictions.

“It’s a very important day,” Stephanie DiGiuseppe, one of the lawyers who represented Pan in the appeal, said in an interview with CBC News. “Her fight is not over.”

DiGiuseppe said the decision is a landmark in Pan’s push to exonerate herself.

The court says the trial judge erred by suggesting to the jury only two scenarios for the attack — one in which the plan was to murder both parents and another in which the plan was to commit a home invasion and the parents were shot in the course of the robbery.

“Because the jury was deprived all of the available options, the conviction is not safe,” DiGiuseppe said.

The Appeal Court says the trial judge should have given the jury second-degree murder and manslaughter as other possible verdicts in the death of Pan’s mother.

The court dismissed the appeals on the attempted murder convictions.

DiGiuseppe said they haven’t decided on a potential further appeal of the decision to uphold Pan’s attempted murder conviction. She added that is something her lawyers are considering.

She said they don’t yet have a sense of the timing around a new trial.
Plot began after ultimatum from parents: Crown

Prosecutors said during trial that neither Wong nor Crawford were at the Pan home on the night of the attack, but acted as middle-men for her and the men who carried out the killing. Another man whose case proceeded separately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 18 years.

The Crown said Pan started plotting her parents’ murder after they forced her to choose between them and Wong, who dealt marijuana and managed a Boston Pizza.

The ultimatum came after the Pans discovered much of what their daughter had told them over the past decade was a lie. She had never graduated high school, graduated from university with a pharmacy degree, volunteered at the Hospital for Sick Children, nor was she working at a Walmart pharmacy, the Appeal Court said.

Pan decided to move back home, but testified that she had a poor relationship with her father, who was the “rule maker” of the household, while she was closer with her mother.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/jennifer-pan-new-trial-1.6849590

Dorice Moore Murders Abraham Shakespeare

Dorice Moore is a killer from Florida who was convicted of the murder of lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare.

According to court documents Abraham Shakespeare had recently won thirty million dollars in the lottery which had its positives but unfortunately on the negative side attracted all sorts of attention from people wanting to get their hands on his millions and that included Dorice “Dee Dee” Moore

Dorice Moore would worm her way into the life of Abraham Shakespeare by pretending to write a book on how people were attempting to take advantage of lottery winners. Soon Dorie Moore would become Abraham Shakespeare financial advisor and proceeded to rob him blind

When Abraham Shakespeare confronted Dorice Moore regarding his missing millions the woman instead of attempting to make amends would plot his murder. Abraham Shakespeare would be fatally shot and placed under a concrete slab in her backyard

Dorice Moore would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole

Dorice Moore Now

DC Number:	T30310
Name:	MOORE, DORICE D
Race:	WHITE
Sex:	FEMALE
Birth Date:	07/25/1972
Initial Receipt Date:	12/11/2012
Current Facility:	LOWELL ANNEX
Current Custody:	CLOSE
Current Release Date:	SENTENCED TO LIFE

Dorice Moore Videos

Dorice Moore Case

A Florida woman was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the slaying of a lottery winner in central Florida.

Dorice “Dee Dee” Moore showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Judge Emmett Battles sentenced her to mandatory life without parole for the murder and an additional minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years for using a gun in the commission of a felony.

Battles called Moore “the most manipulative person” he had ever seen, describing her as “cold, calculating and cruel.”

Earlier, he had instructed the jury that it could convict her of a lesser charge. Jurors deliberated for more than three hours before finding Moore guilty of murdering Abraham Shakespeare, who won millions in 2006. Shakespeare’s mother was in the courtroom, but showed no emotion.

“She got every bit of his money,” said Assistant State Attorney Jay Pruner in closing arguments. “He found out about it and threatened to kill her. She killed him first.”

Prosecutors built much of their case from confidential informant’s statements and financial records.

“There were a lot of people who owed Mr. Shakespeare a lot of money. One guy owed him a million dollars,” argued Defense Attorney Hileman. “The police focused on Dee Dee Moore and they didn’t even consider other people.”

Moore was briefly banned from the Tampa courtroom Monday over concerns that she may have threatened jurors. She was back a short time later for closing arguments, but said she did not want to take the stand in order to protect her family.

At times, the defendant closed her eyes and averted her face from the jury as prosecutors played audio recordings made by an undercover officer posing as a criminal who would take the fall for Shakespeare’s murder.

Prosecutors said the 40-year-old Moore befriended Shakespeare in late 2008, claiming she was writing a book about how people were taking advantage of him. They claim Moore later became his financial adviser, eventually controlling every asset he had left, including an expensive home, the debt owed to him and a $1.5 million annuity. She ultimately swindled Shakespeare out of his dwindling fortune, then shot him and buried his body under a concrete slab in her backyard, Pruner said.

In opening statements, Moore’s attorney told the jury that his client was trying to help protect Shakespeare’s assets from a pending child-support case when he was killed by drug dealers who haven’t been caught.

Former inmate Rose Condora, who was locked up with Moore, said she visits her friend every night at the jail.

“She’s not what people think she is. She did not kill that man,” Condora told reporters during a break in the trial.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/10/florida-woman-lottery-murder/1759917/

Brian Golsby Murders Reagan Tokes

Brian Golsby is a killer from Ohio who was convicted of the murder of Ohio State University student Reagan Tokes

According to court documents Brian Golsby would abduct twenty one year old Reagan Tokes as she was leaving her part time job downtown Columbus Ohio. The young woman would be sexually assaulted and robbed before she was forced into a vehicle and driven to Scioto Grove Metro Park. Reagan Tokes was forced to strip naked and was marched into a field where she was fatally shot

Brian Golsby who had recently been released from prison for the kidnapping and attempted sexual assault of a woman would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole

Brian Golsby Now

Number A743409

DOB 01/26/1988

Gender Male Race Black

Admission Date 04/12/2018

Institution Ohio State Penitentiary

Status INCARCERATED

Brian Golsby Videos

https://youtu.be/0Vd4smyVWyo?si=6KpnWlU3Qyt8ugLN

Brian Golsby Case

The sentencing phase of the Brian Golsby murder trial started Friday morning. He was convicted for the murder of Ohio State senior Reagan Tokes.

The defense asked the jury to understand Golsby, not sympathize with him. They said he came from a father who didn’t want him and a mother who would beat him. They hope understanding from the jury would be enough to spare his life.

They argued he was in and out if foster care from two-years-old into his teens. Golsby had an alcoholic mother who abused him and was raped by a neighbor at age 12, they said.

“She was regularly beating Brian with a plastic jump rope for abuse and humiliation,” said Diane Menashe, Golsby’s defense attorney.

Menashe said Children Services continued to try to keep Golsby with his mother.

Prosecutor Ron O’Brien argued others in similar hard spots don’t commit violent crimes.

“Those other people don’t commit robberies, rapes, kidnapping and shoot poor young girls in the head,” said O’Brien.

A psychologist took the stand who specializes in counseling gay and lesbian individuals. Golsby had stated he believed himself to be gay about 10 years ago.

His attorneys said Golsby does have a history of acting out sexually but never had gotten the help he needed

On Friday afternoon, at the sentencing phase of the trial, Golsby apologized to Tokes’ family.

He also said that the associate named TJ, who forced him to rape the 21-year-old, wasn’t real:

Today I would like to apologize to the Tokes family for the crimes I committed against your daughter. When I first got locked up, I lied about everything. 22 I said there was a TJ. There is no TJ. TJ is not real. 26 I made TJ up. 28 because I was trying to wiggle may way out of the crime.

Golsby then asked the jury to have mercy on him:

The only other thing I have to say is, um... please have mercy on me. 41 that’s all I’ve got to say.

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/defense-claims-golsby-was-beat-by-mother-and-neglected-by-father

Brian Golsby News

The verdicts against Brian Golsby came in rapid fire: guilty on all counts in the kidnapping, robbery, rape and aggravated murder of Ohio State University student Reagan Tokes.

Jurors reached their decision Tuesday on the nine charges and multiple specifications that could lead to the death penalty after about five hours of deliberation on what would have been Tokes’ 23rd birthday.

After members of her family heard the first guilty count, they paused and bowed their heads.

Her mother, Lisa McCrary-Tokes, later burst into tears as she embraced Reagan’s younger sister Makenzie, who graduated last year from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and staff were massacred Feb. 14.

In closing arguments Tuesday morning, prosecutors cast Golsby, 30, as a cold and calculating hunter who stalked the area around Ohio State on Feb. 8, 2017, after leaving a Neil Avenue COTA bus. He came upon the Bodega Cafe on North High Street, where Tokes was leaving her server shift.

“He went out to hunt that night and he found Reagan Tokes,” Jimmy Lowe, a Franklin County assistant prosecutor, told jurors. “There’s no mystery here.”

Critical evidence included Golsby’s DNA, which prosecutors said was found “everywhere.” Golsby also was tracked by his GPS ankle bracelet, which he was required to wear because of a previous conviction.

The kidnapping, robbery, rape and eventual fatal shooting of Tokes at Scioto Grove Metro Park in Grove City was “every woman’s nightmare,” said Jennifer Rausch, another prosecutor. She described Tokes’ willingness — for two hours — to comply with Golsby in a bid to save her life, her pleas that she “just wanted to live,” and Golsby’s attempts to cover his tracks.

“Why are you shooting twice if you don’t have the purpose to kill her? Why are you holding the gun to her head?” asked Rausch.

Defense attorney Diane Menashe, who now will try to spare Golsby from death, told jurors that her client wasn’t smart enough to purposely plan such a crime, or be a “master manipulator.”

“I submit to you that if Mr. Golsby didn’t want to get caught, then perhaps he should not have worn the GPS bracelet,” she said. “Not only that, he charged it … he didn’t want to let the battery die.” Menashe said that Golsby instead likely shot Tokes when he panicked at the park.

The prosecution countered that Golsby knew that she would easily be able to identify him if he let her live.

Menashe also said that DNA found in Tokes, on cigarette butts in her car and elsewhere were matched to an “unreliable” DNA profile of Golsby from a previous crime in 2010.

Jurors were given the case about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday and told that they would be sequestered in a hotel that evening.

But an hour after they left the courtroom, Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott called them back, admonishing jurors after learning that one of them had discussed the case with someone — information based on a phone tip from a concerned citizen. That juror was then replaced with an alternate.

“I’m sorry that this happened,” Serrott told the jury. “You’ve got to take my orders seriously… I’m sitting up here as a judge, and I’ve lost sleep in this case.”

Golsby, in a white shirt and with dreadlocks that were pulled back, showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. At one point, while alone at the defense table as his attorneys looked over the signed juror verdicts, he placed the tips of his fingers together like a steeple, then turned them inward.

Mrs. Tokes, weeping, nodded in agreement as each jury member was asked on a defense request to confirm the decision.

The sentencing phase of the capital case will begin Friday morning with an expected review of Golsby’s upbringing and reported neglect, which will be part of defense attorneys’ efforts to show mitigating circumstances that might lead the jury to spare Golsby from a death sentence in favor of life in prison without parole.

The Tokes family declined comment after the verdict.

Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said afterward that he wasn’t surprised at the verdict.

“If we only proved half of what (evidence) we had,” he said, “we would have had more than enough” to meet the burden of proof.

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/courts/2018/03/13/brian-golsby-guilty-on-all/12990816007/