April 15, 1964 - Elizabeth Roxanne Haysom is born in Salisbury, Rhodesia, now called Harare, Zimbabwe.

August 1, 1966 - Jens Soering is born in Bangkok, Thailand.

August 25, 1984 - Elizabeth and Jens enter the University of Virginia. Jens meets Nancy Haysom, Elizabeth's mother, for approximately two minutes.

December 1984 - Jens and Elizabeth fall in love.

February 1985 - Jens has lunch with Derek and Nancy Haysom, his only meeting with his girlfriend's parents before their murders.

March 30, 1985 - Derek and Nancy Haysom are killed in their home in Bedford County, Virginia.

June 1985 - Jens and Elizabeth vacation in Europe.

October 12-13, 1985 - After returning to the university of Virginia for the fall semester, Jens and Elizabeth flee to Europe and the Far East when the police show interest in them.

April 30, 1986 - Jens and Elizabeth are arrested in London, England, on check fraud charges.

June 5-8, 1986 - Jens and Elizabeth are interrogated by American and English detectives about the murders of Elizabeth's parents. Both claim they committed the murders themselves, but only Jens confesses in detail. Elizabeth is allowed to retract her confession.

August 24, 1987 - Having waived extradition, Elizabeth pleads guilty to first degree murder "as an accessory before the fact." Jens fights extradition because he, unlike Elizabeth, was indicted on capital murder charges.

October 8, 1987 - Elizabeth is sentenced to ninety years in prison.

August 9, 1988 - Jens' extradition is held up by a last-minute appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

August 1, 1989 - British officials agree to extradite Jens only on the condition that the capital murder charge not be processed.

January 12, 1990 - Jens is extradited and taken to Bedford County Jail.

June 1-21, 1990 - Jens is tried and convicted on two counts of first degree murder.

September 4, 1990 - Jens is sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment.

March 1992 - The Virginia Supreme Court denies Jens' appeal.

May 25, 1994 - Elizabeth applies for parole for the first time and is denied.

Summer 1995 - Gail Starling Marshall, until recently Deputy Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, takes over Jens' appeals.

July 1995 - The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board finds that Jens' lead defense attorney at his trial, Richard Neaton, is guilty of five counts of misconduct related to the handling of Jens' case and suspends his license for four years.

November 1995 - Jens publishes his "true crime" autobiography, Mortal Thoughts, on the internet with the help of an old high school friend.

November 1996 - An evidentiary hearing is held at Bedford County Courthouse, on evidence suppressed by the prosecution before Jens' trial. The judge rules that the evidence should have been turned over to the defense, but that it would not have led to a different verdict.

January 2001 - The U.S. Supreme Court denies Ms. Marshall's final appeal of Jens' conviction without granting a hearing.

February 2001 - Jens begins writing The Way of the Prisoner - Breaking the Chains of Self through Centering Prayer and Centering Practice.

November 2001 - Jens completes The Way of the Prisoner, and a friend sends the manuscript to Fr. Thomas Keating, co-founder of the Centering Prayer movement. Fr. Keating reads the manuscript and sends it to his publisher, Gene Gollogly of Lantern Books.

August 2003 - Jens applies for parole for the first time and is denied.  His next hearing is scheduled for 2006.

September 2003 - After extensive re-writing, The Way of the Prisoner is published by Lantern Books.  Jens begins writing his second book, An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse - An Essay on Prison Reform from an Insider's Perspective.

Spring and summer 2004 - Jens begins writing his third book, The Convict Christ - What the Gospels Say About Criminal Justice.

September 2004 - An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse is published by Lantern Books.

September 27- November 9, 2004 - Jens is placed in the prison's punitive segregation unit and put under investigation. Although he is not charged with a disciplinary offense when he is released, he is not allowed to return to his former prison job.

January 2005 - Jens begins writing his fourth book, The Church of the Second Chance - How Faith and Forgiveness Can Transform Our Broken Criminal Justice System.

May 2005 - Lantern Books agents The Convict Christ to Orbis Books, which accepts the book.