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    Beth CioffolettiJia Tolentino
    12/11/15 7:48pm

    I’ve been following this story for awhile and am pretty convinced that Soering is innocent (not the killer). He has served more than 30 years in prison. He had no criminal record before this crime, and has had no behavioral problems in the 30 years he has been in prison. Does a person just “snap” one day and do this horrendous crime, and then it never happens again? The theories for the confession that I have read involve a kind of psychological thing that was going with the love affair. Soaring was a nerdy guy, with this sexually alluring and confident (and unbalanced) woman leading him around on a string. Send him back to Germany.

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      sukatraBeth Cioffoletti
      12/11/15 11:50pm

      “had no behavioral problems in the 30 years he has been in prison.”

      I think I read this also in the New Yorker article, and remember thinking how crazy it was that someone could spend 30 fucking years in prison and not get written up ONCE for a disciplinary violation. That is one self-controlled guy.

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      DeccaLeChatsukatra
      12/12/15 1:01am

      Well, my first thought is, maybe he’s good at following orders. The girlfriend’s, and then the correctional officers’. Just a thought.

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    FreddyMercuryJia Tolentino
    12/11/15 5:31pm

    But what happened to the daughter?

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      mazzieDFreddyMercury
      12/11/15 5:41pm

      She also went to prison.

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      junegorillaFreddyMercury
      12/11/15 5:50pm

      And why were the parents targeted? What happened to the Mother? Has any of the old evidence been tested for DNA? What does the girlfriend say now?

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    AnnieGotHerGumJia Tolentino
    12/11/15 5:40pm

    “...pleasing his commonwealth’s delegates (who have just come out calling to inexplicably keep Soering under the expensive care of the Virginia criminal justice system)...”

    Not inexplicable at all. Seriously it’s hardly surprising that law and order types would prefer keeping a convicted killer behind bars than return him to what they perceive to be a much more liberal country where he’d fare far better. This happens quite regularly in international extradition cases: our officials want the accused here where our system will punish them more harshly.

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      YoSupAnnieGotHerGum
      12/11/15 6:02pm

      I wouldn’t consider myself a law-and-order type but I admit it seems inappropriate to me that someone should get a lighter sentence for a murder they committed here just because the government of the country they came from wants them to. I understand that some people are arguing that we should doubt the verdict but that’s really an unrelated issue.

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      anguauberwaldAnnieGotHerGum
      12/11/15 8:12pm

      I think the inexplicable bit is the fact that so many people are ap in arms against immigrants and how they are filling up jails and living on the taxpayers dime but, when actually given a chance to deport a convicted criminal, they are choosing to keep him in the US instead. Presumably for revenge ‘justice’, as there isn’t much other reason to push a US length sentence on him.

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    Still Cat from MAJia Tolentino
    12/11/15 5:46pm

    If they still have the evidence, surely DNA testing would be done?

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      YoSupStill Cat from MA
      12/11/15 6:06pm

      I don’t know about surely.

      http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf...

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      ToscaStill Cat from MA
      12/11/15 6:16pm

      Why would the state pay for DNA testing on the case? There is absolutely no value to them in doing so. If the evidence further incriminates people they convicted decades ago, big whoop. If it exonerates them, they have a mess of scandal, bad PR and compensation demands on their hands.

      A lawyer for the killers could probably get any surviving evidence re-tested, but they would need to pay for it privately.

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    BlanksheetJia Tolentino
    12/11/15 5:49pm

    Reading Heller’s piece, I had immediate dislike of these two. There’s no one more insufferable than an intellectual teenager. For all the good Haysom has done in prison, based on her Twitter feed, she’s still grating, even as a much older and supposedly wiser woman. (There’s also the reason that she may have been the prime mover, greatly more involved, in her parents’ death, and, if true, is still letting Soering hang, who, in his defense, has gotten less annoying.)

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      JoeoftheEmpireBlanksheet
      12/11/15 7:13pm

      I have no doubt she was the prime mover in the crime. She was clearly the one with the motive. There was no reason for him to kill his girlfriend’s parents unless she put him up to it and she was clearly present at the scene too. IMO she should have got a heavier sentence than him. If she was a man I suspect she might have.

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      Pumpkin Andy is OrangeBlanksheet
      12/11/15 8:21pm

      I thought I found her account but she only has nine followers, so that can’t be right. What’s her handle?

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    Dali Lana Goo-GooJia Tolentino
    12/11/15 8:48pm

    Never heard about this, but now I’m pulled in. I will admit, I clicked at first because the person on the left bears a striking resemblance(to me at least) to Blair from “The Facts of Life.” Sometimes I don’t look at the title that closely(or at all of I’m in a rush). Now down this rabbit hole with Google I go.

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      TimeOnTargetJia Tolentino
      12/14/15 12:41pm

      I am unconvinced of his innocence. I -WANT- to believe it, and it very much feels like she killed her parents (the amount of stabbings is indicative of deeply-held rage)

      But he was involved, somehow, and I sure as hell didn’t read an apology in there. So, in -my- mind, the killer or killer(s) is/are behind bars. Neither of them are innocent, and, bluntly, I don’t think he should be released to Germany until he tells the truth.

      He spills everything in a coherent narrative, then we’ll talk. Until then? No.

      I don’t like it. This goes against my liberal sensitivities. but at LEAST one of them are guilty, and they are playing the long con on which one of them it is. Fuck them both.

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        classyintrovertJia Tolentino
        12/11/15 11:09pm

        The New Yorker piece was long but an interesting read. It’s so crazy how people’s memories can be so different. Even after finishing it I’m not sure who I believe. And it’s not as if I needed yet another reminder of how messed up the U.S. court system is.

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          UngreyMyHeartJia Tolentino
          12/11/15 5:28pm

          FYI, you mean bloc:

          A powerful block of German politicians (including Angela Merkel herself, in conversation with President Obama) has called for Soering’s repatriation, which was blocked by the next Virginia governor, and now may be approved again by the current governor, Terry McAuliffe.

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            I Have No Account and I Must PostUngreyMyHeart
            12/11/15 5:48pm

            Nah, they all live on the same street.

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            RudelyHuxtableI Have No Account and I Must Post
            12/11/15 6:14pm

            Hey look, a Roads Scholar!

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          Hunka Hunka Burner LoveJia Tolentino
          12/11/15 7:05pm

          As someone who grew up in the area at that time (and also ended up at UVa a few years later), there is virtually no doubt that these two did it. The only issue is enough time passing that nobody feels that strongly about it and Soering’s interests pushing diplomatic buttons.

          They were both pathological liars who thought they were too smart for everyone, ran off on their little international adventure, but at the end of the day, got sent exactly where they should have by a small-town sheriff’s department.

          Just SUPER LOL at the idea that Soering confessed to save his girlfriend. Haysom was definitely pulling the strings, but Soering was involved every step of the way. You’re deluding yourself if you think otherwise, especially cloaking it in some sort of ideal that a Jefferson Scholar is too good for at least being a major accomplice in a heinous crime.

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            InsomniyakHunka Hunka Burner Love
            12/12/15 3:40am

            I know nothing about this case other than this article and the linked one from the New Yorker but that was my takeaway too. They did it and, while the details might be different from the trial, at the end of the day, the right people ended up convicted of the crime. He even said whether or not he should have been convicted is not the same thing as whether he was innocent. I do find their “after story” interesting - how prolific they both have been in prison and how differently they have reconciled their situations - but that doesn’t equate to my thinking he should be repatriated or that their sentences were too long. Apparently, for a lot of people, it does.

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