Reiser Murder Case Gets Stranger

Fahrvergnuugen writes "Wired is running a story about how an ex-lover of the missing wife of accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case. While Reiser will still stand trial for the murder, this development will undoubtedly complicate things."

hmmmm

[uberjoe]

Does this mean I don't have to reformat after all?

Re:hmmmm

[Tackhead]

> Does this mean I don't have to reformat after all?

Nope. Heck, kill -8 is just a floating point exception. It's kill -9 that Hans has to worry about.

On the other hand, the guy making the confession did fsck her...

/does anyone else smell brimstone, or is it just me?

Re:hmmmm

[Penguinisto]

...true, but did he HUP or NOHUP? If he HUP'd, we're talking serious perversion...

/P

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, an accusation of murder doesn't mean that someone can't write good code. Hell, a conviction for murder wouldn't mean that. Someone with the icy logic needed to remove a threat permanently might find a career in the military - and the military has lots of programmers, and are the biggest murderers around.

Re:hmmmm

[ez76]

If he couldn't be bothered to clean up blood from his car and to get rid of his books on homicide, how the hell can we trust this guy to free memory on the heap?

So ....

[taniwha]

you're going to OJ for your next FS?

Re:So ....

[Mr2cents]

OJFS sucks. I constantly encounter error messages like "I don't say I saved your file, but if I stored it, it would be called 'readme.txt'".

Re:So ....

[hey!]

But it implements the Johnny Cochrane cache management scheme: if it doesn't fit you must commit.

Re:hmmmm

[dsfox]

You might as well ask if you can trust someone who doesn't cut his hair and clean his eyeglasses to free memory on the heap.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how things work in your town but the cops do not plant the evidence here, they just smoke it:)

true, in fact

[commodoresloat]

it just confirms that reiserfs is truly a killer filesystem.

Re:

[sumdumass]

Well, first there is a differecne between murder and killing. This difference is justification, circumstances and legalities. But more to the point.

Last I heard, they still haven't found a body. What Kind of evidence do they have against him outside his wife is still missing. I mean books are nothing more then circumstantial, But then is a ex-lover who turns out to be a serial killer (I believe 5 or more still qualifies). Some blood in the car, was it a lot or an amount that someone could have cut themselve

Re:

[notamisfit]

IIRC, any amount of Nina's DNA in Reiser's car was suspect, because she never would have willingly entered his vehicle (not sure if he owned the same vehicle before the divorce or not). Not to mention that the passenger seat hasn't been found.

Re:hmmmm

[donscarletti]

she never would have willingly entered his vehicle

Logical jumps like that are dangerous in criminal investigation, that is simply assumption, each separation is different since they are complex things and so you can't really know where she would or wouldn't go. She was last seen at Hans Reiser's house (which was a large amount of the case against him) and if she is willing to enter his house, why not his car?

Re:

[Obyron]

who turns out to be a serial killer (I believe 5 or more still qualifies).

If you want to get technical it's not serial killing unless all the killings follow the same motif and/or are part of an overarching "statement" (think of how a serial novel is released as a series of installments). If they were individual pre-planned murders all with their own justification that did not follow any theme then he is a mass murderer. If he just snapped one day and went out and killed 6 or 8 or however many people fo

Bad line wrapping!

[Kelson]

When I saw this story, I skimmed the first line, then got to the second, which read: "Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case." It was a bit of a jolt. Then I went back and realized that it was referring to his wife's ex-lover, not to Reiser himself.

This is why you don't put a giant 10-word prepositional phrase between a subject and verb, especially if that phrase ends with something that could plausibly by a subject.

Re:Bad line wrapping!

[SpectreHiro]

Makes it real easy to twist the quote, too.

...accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case.

Re: Bad line wrapping!

[Black Parrot]

This is why you don't put a giant 10-word prepositional phrase between a subject and verb, especially if that phrase ends with something that could plausibly by a subject.

Unless you're writing in German...

Re: Bad line wrapping!

[SpectreHiro]

Nope, then it'd just be a 1 word prepositional phrase that's 10 words long. ;)

Re:

[Jesus_666]

Nope, then it'd just be a 1 word prepositional phrase that's 10 words long. ;)

It'd be a one word propositional phrase that would be one word long. It's you English speakers who put those weird spaces everywhere in compounds. Take, for example, "one word propositional phrase". That's four words. If we write "onewordprepositionalphrase" we only have one word and we saved three characters (and yes, "Einwortpräpositionalphrase" would be a correct and meaningful German compound).

So would you guys please

Re:Bad line wrapping!

[solevita]

I tried reading the summary aloud and the kill count almost went up a notch. Short sentences help readers breath.

Re:Bad line wrapping!

[Iamthefallen]

When I saw this story, I skimmed the first line, then got to the second, which [...] was a bit of a jolt. Then I went back and realized that it was referring to [...] a giant [...] p [...] e [...] n [...] i [...] s

Summarizing like a Slashdot editor is more fun.

Re:Bad line wrapping!

[timster]

doesn't a murder case require a body (or parts of it)?

As I understand it, this is mostly a myth, but without a body it can be awfully hard to prove that the victim is dead in the first place. As an example, spouses in abusive relationships often disappear and hide themselves.

Re:

[Nutria]

Police have the ability to check bank records electoral registers criminal databases and hospital records.

Pay cash, don't vote, keep your (figurative) nose clean, and be careful.

Re:

[vidarh]

If she's alive, she's likely in Russia, where here kids and family is. I doubt she'd need to be very careful to hide in Russia - enough money to buy some fake papers would be enough.

Re:

[Bloke down the pub]

What if she went by land to Mexico or Canada and took a flight from there, bought in cash?

Re:

[vidarh]

There's enough examples of serial killers confessing to many but not all of their murders through history for whatever reasons. In some cases they'll confess later, or they will try to use it as leverage to get something they want (like attention). In others they'll first confess when faced with evidence. For that matter, it is not unusual for serial killers to confess to murders they haven't committed too. In Scandinavia there was a case a few years back where a convicted serial killer kept confessing to m

just to be clear

[seanadams.com]

in case you mis-read the summary like I did at first: it was not Hans Reiser who confessed, but Sean Sturgeon, someone his wife previously dated. It is also unclear from TFA when they say "a one-time friend of Reiser's" whether they are talking about Hans or his wife.

Irrespective of whether Hans is really guilty, if this isn't enough to show a reasonable doubt I don't know what is. In light of this, it would seem quite plausible that he was framed.

Interesting tidbit at the end of TFA:According to testimony in preliminary hearings in the case, Nina Reiser had once dated Sturgeon, but broke off their relationship in January 2006 because she was unhappy with his lifestyle and taste for sadomasochism.

Sounds like they're all a bunch of real whackos!

Re:just to be clear

[vandan]

I've thought he'd been framed from day one. He had some Department of Defense contracts for developing resier4. I wouldn't put it past them ( or the US administration ) to get bitchy over such a contract. Of course this is highly speculative, but what if, say, they asked him to implement something he didn't feel comfortable with? It's not like these guys have a problem with killing or imprisoning innocent people ( think Guantanimo Bay ). This is how they do business.

Turn in your tinfoil hat...

[warrax_666]

Jebus, don't you realize? It was the ALIENS, man! The ALIENS!

Re:just to be clear

[ShakaUVM]

Actually the default DOD response to cases like that is to throw more money at it, not to kill the guy's wife and set up an elaborate frame-job.

Of course, maybe they just wanted to mix it up a bit for variety, who knows?

Re:just to be clear

[harrkev]

I can just see the defense now:

1) No body, so the prosecution cannot prove that she is even dead.

2) If the IS dead, she recently dated a guy who has confessed to eight killings.

What are the odds that he gets convicted?

Re:just to be clear

[Qzukk]

Common sense says if Sturgeon is going to spontaneously admit to 8 (possibly 9) murders, he'll probably admit to a 10th if it exists.

It also says that if I wanted to frame some guy who I hate because I failed to steal his wife from him, I'd confess to everything but killing the woman, so that the cops will think exactly what you thought. So far in this case it seems the cops have been easy suckers, so it just might work.

Re:just to be clear

[Qzukk]

Sure that's a nice alternate theory.

So's the theory that just because a person confessed to a lot of crimes at once, that it somehow must have been the whole of his sins. It's hard to test whether this theory pans out in reality, since whenever a serial rapist or murderer goes on the block, the prosecutors generally try to stick every open case in the book on them in order to clear out their backlog, whether the person actually committed the crime or not. Of those, I wonder how many were murderers who confessed to the murders of the 5 bodies in their basement in hopes of keeping the investigators from finding the other 20 corpses in the lime pit out back?

an obsession or anger on Sturgeon's part

So this Sturgeon guy tries to steal Hans Reiser's wife, tries to seize his company, tries to take his money, and just keeps coming back for more? Yeah, he can't possibly be obsessed or angry, obviously Reiser must have had a "harass me repeatedly" sign taped to his back.

Re:just to be clear

[X0563511]

Wow, how delightfully shallow! If we found out that Newton murdered someone we should all drop newtonian physics!

Honestly, whatever he has done on a social level (killing could be considered social interaction) has NOTHING to do with the technical merit/achievements... and we should not abandon his work merely because he (may have) killed his wife.

</bitter>

Too late...

[Roger W Moore]

Wow, how delightfully shallow! If we found out that Newton murdered someone we should all drop newtonian physics!

We already have dropped Newtonian physics. It's Einstein and Schroedinger we have to worry about now...although rumour has it that Schroedinger may have killed his cat.

I hope Newton was a murderer!

[bussdriver]

I'm so sick of gravity.

Do we really need to know the rate of change? duh, its changin or its not.

Re:

[ndogg]

Abandoning products of a nation that continues to uphold unethical laws like apartheid, or boycotting companies doing unethical things are tools to be used to make those things right. Abandoning ReiserFS simply because he murdered someone (assuming he did it) isn't going to speed up the judicial process. Continuing to use it isn't going to slow or stop it either.

Abandoning it because no one else can maintain ReiserFS is a legitimate reason, but I'm certain that someone will be able to figure it out and ma

reasonable?

[N3wsByt3]

"then seeking to recreate a "clean" version if the amount of work involved is reasonable."

No, it isn't. In fact, it has nothing to do with reason at all, and you yourself indicated as much; it's about an emotional reaction based on a feeling of distastfulness about the action of a person and projecting that feeling to cover the (non-murderous and neutral) code he created.

Logic or ratio has nothing to do with it.

Re:

[ArsonSmith]

ahhh...........can't.........move........or will think of a dick.........ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Reasonable doubt

[iamacat]

If your wife's ex-lover is a confessed serial killer, the evidence against you has to be pretty damning for you not to create reasonable doubt. Like if he was videotaped by a policeman while committing a murder and later signed a statement that he is a person on the video. It's not a big stretch of imagination that someone who killed 8 times and didn't get caught is capable of some creativity when planting evidence.

Re:Reasonable doubt

[Man On Pink Corner]

If your wife's ex-lover is a confessed serial killer, the evidence against you has to be pretty damning for you not to create reasonable doubt.

Well, either that, or she was just into psychos.

DIg a little deeper...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hans was friends with this guy Sturgeon...

Sturgeon was allegedly molested as a child which directly motivated the killing of the other eight people AND the development of extreme sado-masochistic sexual tendencies... Which is a purported reason that Hans's woman both began and ended her affair with him.

The missing link is how Hans became friends with this guy and a gossipy answer at this point is that BOTH of them were involved in some very dark sexual practices & became close friends because of this.

Pl

Re:

[that this is not und]

Just in case you weren't aware of it, there are thousands and thousands of people who are enthusiasts of recreational 'kinky' sex including degrees of sadomasochism. And believe me, the people in that community LOATHE and DESPISE serial killers and predators in their midst. There are community codes of standard that clearly delineate ethical practices. Weird as it might seem to people who've never been exposed to these forms of sexual play, you don't tie up and torture people unwillingly if you're a heal

Re:

[asninn]

Sturgeon was allegedly molested as a child which directly motivated the killing of the other eight people AND the development of extreme sado-masochistic sexual tendencies... Which is a purported reason that Hans's woman both began and ended her affair with him.

Urgh. I really hate people like that - I don't know what he did, of course, but this whole thing sure seems to be giving SSC BDSM (which is healthy, fun, and totally normal) a bad name (yet) again. The press doesn't seem to have latched on it ye

Re:

[vidarh]

Sean Sturgeon and Hans Reiser had a business relationship from 1999 to 2002. The BDSM stuff was brought up by Reiser in court proceedings as part of a lawsuit by Sean Sturgeon regarding a loan that Reiser allegedly didn't pay back. Reiser alleged that Sturgeon and Nina Reiser were having an affair at the time, and that the money Namesys loaned were mostly spent on Nina Reiser with Sturgeons full knowledge. He further alleged that Sturgeon threatened him and claimed he would hurt both Reiser, Reisers childre

Light on details

[Bryan Ischo]

The Wired piece is very light on details. It doesn't say who the Sturgeon person is supposed to have murdered, or where, or when, or whether or not any of them have any relationship to the Reiser case. Also it doesn't suggest whether or not investigators have correlated Sturgeon's confessions with any known facts about any missing people or unsolved murders. Or maybe this Sturgeon guy had already been charged in a bunch of murders and finally confessed. Who knows, the story is so light on details.

Does anyone know any more about this Sturgeon guy and his confessions?

Death Yoga

[Sloppy]

I am shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that the creepy S&M guy who was into "death yoga" and has now admitted to other murders, is suspected of Nina's murder. I mean, that's just silly. I saw the ELER cartoon, and he wasn't in it.

Re:Death Yoga

[Dirtside]

Death yoga? I didn't read TFA, is Dhalsim involved somehow?

Son of a bitch

[roman_mir]

My girlfriend's sister was one of her Nina's best friends, they studied together in a medical university in St. Pitersburgh. She says Nina's parents are devasted, she was the only child.

Of-course his guilt is not proven yet. Judging from the B.S. that was happening in that house this was not a happy marriage.

Re:

[roman_mir]

Ok, but which one?

Re:

[R3d M3rcury]

Hang them both. Let God sort it out. :-)

Reiser's attorney speaks out

[L. VeGas]

"Look law, no Hans."

Re:Reiser's attorney speaks out

[Duhavid]

Look.

Hans shot first. Case closed.

Hans Reiser has not confessed to killing anybody!

[Omnifarious]

Change the wording of the article! Yes, it's from the original article. But it's very clearly misleading and needs to be changed.

Re:Hans Reiser has not confessed to killing anybod

[Marton]

pHansReiser->pMissingWife->pExLover->Confess();

Since you claim to be a C++ programmer, the above might help.

Reiser and Sturgeon had some serious conflicts too

[mo]

from: http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_256204954.h tml [cbs5.com]

Apparently Sturgeon was sleeping with Reiser's wife before they finalized the divorce. Also, Reiser accused Sturgeon of trying to steal money from him, and of threatening him. So there's totally motive here for Sturgeon to frame Reiser for the murder.

Re:Reiser and Sturgeon had some serious conflicts

[BoberFett]

If anything wouldn't it be more that Reiser would have a motive (jealousy) to frame the other guy?

For eight murders?

A real sharp-witted fellow

[spiritraveller]

It's unclear when Sturgeon made the confession -- he would say only, "I have cooperated since day one." Asked why he had confessed at all, he responded with this question: "In a murder case, if somebody has killed, who is a witness, is it relevant? Yes or no?"

When this reporter responded that it was relevant, Sturgeon said, "Then you have the answer to your question."

Sturgeon added that confessing was one of the most difficult decisions of his life. He also regrets being a source of distraction in the case, joking that he is not so much a red herring as a "red Sturgeon."

Yep... a regular old Hannibal Lechter. Do you think he might have had some sort of grudge against Reiser? Spurned love, and then his friend gets the girl... yathink? Maybe he set it up so that not only does Reiser lose his wife... but then has to defend a murder case for killing her.

From what's been in the press, it seems that all the evidence is circumstantial. A criminal case can be proven by circumstantial evidence, but only when it's enough to exclude all other reasonable conclusions based on the evidence. Looks like this shoots the prosecution right out of the water.

On the other hand, if the prosecution had this confession a long time ago and they are still moving forward, it's possible they have some other evidence that we don't know about yet.

Let's fix the confusing writeup

[ZackSchil]

"Wired is running a story about how Sean Sturgeon, an ex-lover of Hans Reiser's missing wife, has confessed to having killed 8 people. Hans is currently standing trial for the murder of his wife. Though the confessed murders are unrelated to the current case, this new information is sure to complicate things."

Finally!

[TheChromaticOrb]

Finally the court will put it to rest. Did Hans shoot first, or was it the other guy?

Oh, wait... wrong movie.

muttered "kill -9" and...

[G4from128k]

He probably muttered "kill -9" and the cops thought it was a confession.

Crazy Soap Opera's

[stox]

I always wondered where they got some of the crazy idea's for Soap Opera's, I don't wonder anymore. I really feel sorry for poor Hans, assuming he is innocent. This is a nightmare of unimaginable proportions. Even if he "wins", he will probably be bankrupt from paying the attorneys.

Wow, what are the odds?

[HeavensBlade23]

If Hans Reiser is guilty, that means Nina Reiser went from dating one killer to another killer... What are the odds of someone just happening to date two murderers?

Re:Wow, what are the odds?

[Opportunist]

Probably the same of two bombs being on one plane. That's why I never travel without one.

But try to discuss the laws of statistics with the ground personnel dimwits at airports...

Re:Wow, what are the odds?

[marcushnk]

Probably fairly high, she's likely to be predisposed to be attracted to a particular personality type...

Death Yogi

[delire]

By confessing to something really horrible you aquire a curious kind of trust in people: if he says that he didn't kill Nina then who would doubt him now that he so flippantly admitted to the killing of 8 others?

This of course can be a strategy in itself, it's a card he's earnt by confessing and can play against Reiser, someone he clearly wants to see lose everything (re 2004 case for attempted seizure of Reiser's business [cbs5.com], Namesys Inc.).

And now for something completely ... serious

[Opportunist]

Ok, but to get this discussion onto something more sensible and away from "kill -9" jokes, what does this mean? Will Reiser be released? I mean, even a blind person without a dog can sense that there's more than just "reasonable doubt" that he's the culprit when a serial murderer is involved.

The hit the ReiserFS took from this is already quite noticable. Yes, it's OSS, so anyone could pick it up. Did you ever LOOK at that source? At the sheer amount of it? Who do you think can pick that up easily? Especially with ext3 getting more and more gadgets and support, and being for some already the superior system?

Please no discussion 'bout ext3 and reiserFS. It's about as meaningful as discussions about emacs and vi.

What matters about those 2 systems is simply that one has a maintainer (group) currently and one hasn't, or at the very least has lost a key developer due to this. Does it make sense to stick with reiserFS or should one start looking around for alternatives is the question. Actually, has been since the arrest of Reiser.

Too confusing

[hurfy]

I think i will just wait for the Law and Order episode.

Still alive?

[Skinkie]

Quote from wikipedia:
It was also revealed that Nina Reiser obtained Russian citizenship for her daughter 2 years before and surreptitiously obtained Russian citizenship for her son two months before she disappeared.

Now how likely would it be that she is somewhere is big Russia :)

WTF is wrong with you people?

[melted]

All these jokes about Hans... I don't know, have you given any thought that Hans might be NOT GUILTY? Is this how you treat prominent (and talented) hackers - with presumption of guilt instead of innocence? If he's released, why would he ever write any code for people who laugh about the possibility of him riding the lightning (or whatever they do to kill people in that state)?

Seriously, jokes about Hans are disgusting. Please show some dignity and respect.

WTF is wrong with you people? Nothing.

[Shadowlore]

Humor is actually one of the most common responses to tragedies and horrible situations in which you are not personally invovled in - and often when you are. It's a defense mechanism. It is not common to see/hear humor in eulogies. I even used a "joke" regarding my grandfather in his eulogy - and everyone there laughed alongside me.

Laughter is good even in cases like this (no pun intended) - it helps us to cope and to remember that life is full of more than misery and death. Now if only the cable news netwo

Holy crap

[Plutonite]

I, for one, am amused. I was not familiar with the ex-lover before: EIGHT MURDERS? And he's not really sure about number nine, because y'know, it was just another murder and he doesn't pay much attention to these things?

If Reiser really is the killer after this miracle, it will be the funniest murder ever(not that they're funny, but just saying). Bitch cheats on husband with a serial killer/psychopath. Leaves psycho but geek husband finds out anyway, geek husband reads TFM on homicide and kills wife before psycho gets to her, psycho infuriated to the degree of staunchly defending himself on this one murder (out of he doesn't know how many) in order to get back at husband for killing the woman first.

gag order?

[sentientbrendan]

"On Monday, Superior Court Judge Don Clay issued a gag order barring attorneys on both sides from discussing Sturgeon."

How can they gag that? That seems highly relevant to the case, considering that Sturgeon clearly had a grudge against Reiser.

Most of the other posters seem to assume that the case will be dropped because of this, but if the jury is *never allowed to hear about it* how can the come to the pretty reasonable conclusion that the highly circumstantial evidence against Reiser doesn't amount to much when the victim had dated (and dumped) a known serial killer with a grudge against the defendant?

If the prosecution knew about this, why'd they even bring it to trial?

Re:Ouch

[Danga]

So Hans Reiser is a full-blown sociopath? Goddamn. Looks like he may have killed ReiserFS, too.

If you can't even RTFA at least read the summary!

"ex-lover of the missing wife of accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case."

It is not Hans Reiser confessing to eight other killings, it is an EX LOVER of the wife who is confessing to eight other killings.

As far as ReiserFS, I don't really care if that dies since I don't use it myself. I am sure it will still be around a while though no matter what happens.

Re:Ouch

[eMbry00s]

the wife who is confessing to eight other killings

What? But how is that even possible!?

I'm going to bed.

Re:

[DeadChobi]

Lol. You're missing the point of open source, which is that, if something is mission-critical, and the maintainer falls off the face of the earth, anyone, and I mean anyone, can pick up the code and continue on. The practical upshot of this is that, if suddenly overnight and with no warning your software became unsupported you could hire someone to provide support because you have all the code.

Re:The bus factor of OpenSOurce

[Overly Critical Guy]

I think you're missing the point, which is that the OSS philosophy that someone will just come along and pick up the project is quite different from reality, as evidenced by the cratering of ReiserFS since this happened. If you're using a product from a business, it's a different story since a business can hire someone experienced enough to replace the previous developer. You're right that a business could pick up the project since the code is out there, but then why isn't that happening with ReiserFS?

Re:

[cduffy]

Some arbitrary random person might not come along, but if it's worth money (and if it's important, it's worth money, right?), you sure can pay someone to.

Namesys (the company behind ReiserFS) is still around even without Hans. You ask "why isn't that happening with ReiserFS" -- but the business behind ReiserFS hasn't even gone away in the first place!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a different story since a business can hire someone experienced enough to replace the previous developer.

And if they lay everyone who worked on it off and hire a bunch of foreigners, what then? All you're doing is shifting from one set of problems to another.

why isn't that happening with ReiserFS

Good question, it might be that the assumption is that Hans Reiser didn't do it, and will resume working on it. Maybe the assumption is that he did do it, and he'll kill anyone who tries to take the project a

Re:The bus factor of OpenSOurce

[mfrank]

I'm still running Windows 98 on an old computer; who at Microsoft do I call to get a bug I found fixed???

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales

I do?

[Rimbo]

"Apple did go on without Jobs," ...almost into bankruptcy, until they hired him again, and he turned the company into NeXT 2.0.

"MS is going on without Gates at the helm..." ...into the latest, most expensive, least-desirable version of Windows yet, a product that makes ME look enchanting by comparison.

"And HP is getting along fine without Carly." my point; WITH her, they were not getting along so well.

Re:I do?

[Darby]

.into the latest, most expensive, least-desirable version of Windows yet, a product that makes ME look enchanting by comparison.

Come on Dude, don't be so hard on yourself.

Re:

[logicnazi]

Actually they are still implementing much of Carly's plan. A lot of observers think she just wasn't given enough time for her changes to show progress.

Re:Ya prove my point

[UncleTogie]

...And HP is getting along fine without Carly...

I wouldn't hold Fiorina up as a shining example of leadership. She pretty much singlehandedly gave HP the biggest case of corporate indigestion since AOHell/Time-Warner with Compaq, drove off a good share of the company talent pool with drama queen theatrics, and was finally thrown out of office by the board of directors...

Not something I'd care to be known for...

Re:What are the odds?

[Danga]

Well they did find blood in his vehicle and house. From the article:

"Though no body has been found, Reiser was arrested Oct. 10 after the Oakland Police Department found small drops of blood in his house and in his Honda CRX"

Makes it a little fishy although I am sure I have small drops of blood around my house and in my cars too from small cuts and stuff happening while doing stuff outside. I would hope they need more than that to tie the "murder" to him. I think she just took off somewhere myself, I mean she was cheating on him so I don't think it is too far out of the ballpark.

Re:What are the odds?

[Dogtanian]

Bear in mind that in forensics, the "drops" of blood can be microscopic. For example, when we hear that XYZ accused had 100 drops of blood on his clothing, it isn't necessarily the massively blood-splattered shirt it might sound like. Now, I don't know how likely it is that we might have drops of blood of such size around our houses/cars as a result of normal activity (which would normally go unnoticed). Still something to consider, though.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It was more than "small drops of blood". The front passenger seat in his car had been removed and hasn't been recovered yet.

Re:

[fishbowl]

>It was more than "small drops of blood". The front passenger seat in his car had been removed and
>hasn't been recovered yet.

I understand all about rules of evidence and presumption of innocence, but this was a very strange detail.

I've been a vintage car enthusiast for a long, long time, and I could probably name the time, place, and parties to almost every single car part that was ever traded, installed, or removed from one of my cars. I'd definitely be able to tell you what happened to something as

Re:What are the odds?

[scum-e-bag]

I'd definitely be able to tell you what happened to something as significant as a passenger seat.

Yeah, sure you could. However, if you were accused of murder, the first thing you'd do would be to shut your mouth and tell no-one anything about anything (including car seats), besides your lawyer of course.

Re:

[vidarh]

It's earlier been reported that Hans Reiser early started refusing to cooperate with the police. Something which I'd consider very reasonable if he had the slightest suspicion the police were seriously considering him a suspect. Anything he tells them would potentially come back to haunt him if they find inconsistencies or can turn around and fit what he tells them into a more believable scenario for a jury. If I'd been suspected of a crime or arrested - innocent or not - the first thing I'd do would be to

Re:

[Frosty Piss]

Small drops of blood.

I'll bet there are small drops of most peoples blood in their cars and houses. People bleed, it happens. This alone should not be taken as strong evidence of anything other than a bloody nose or cut finger.

Re:What are the odds?

[kestasjk]

I'd like to hear the "People bleed, it happens" defense used in court. It might work well if you give a menacing look at the jury when you say "it happens".

Re:What are the odds?

[vidarh]

Lets rephrase that a bit: She was in the middle of a custody battle that she might worry about losing after various allegations of hers didn't seem to stick, and now he is in jail and the children are with her family in Russia and won't be coming back, even though they're wanted to testify in the case.

There's at the very least a chance she stage her own disappearance to get Hans in trouble and went back to Russia and got her kids brought there.

Re:For those of us who don't keep track...

[Dystopian Rebel]

Don't worry about the facts. Hollywood will pick this story up and turn into "Entertainment".

"Nicholas Cage in... HellReiser!"

Re:Unlikely conincidence..

[ScrewMaster]

There aren't many people actually capable of comitting a murder, so the fact that Nina Reiser's ex-lover is a self-confessed serial killer strikes me as a far too remarkable coincidence.

It depends upon the motivation, the stakes. I wouldn't kill someone for money. I wouldn't kill them for revenge. I wouldn't kill them because they angered me. On the other hand, say you tried to kill my fiancee: I'd murder you in a heartbeat without batting an eye. Now, even if I escaped official punishment I would pay a high price for that act. Most of us would, but we're all capable of murder, at some level. We have to be, because sometimes ... it's the right thing to do. There a lot of people in the United States that don't understand that anymore, don't accept that human life is valuable but not infinitely so, and that some are worth more than others. We may all have been created equal, but sadly not all end up that way.

You're right in that by far the majority of us won't kill for trivial reasons, although one has to wonder how much of that reluctance is due to the sanctions imposed by society against such behavior, or some intrinsic aversion to killing. Sociopathy, to varying degrees, is more common than one might want to believe, so maybe all that's keeping murder in check is the fear of consequences. I mean, all societies feel the need to impose severe punishment for murder, which leads me to believe that, at the core, we aren't quite as civilized as we think we are.

Besides, O.J. Simpson killed two people in cold blood, and in spite of substantially more incriminating evidence, O.J. managed to get off scott free. O.J. had mountains of money to spend on his Dream Team though.

Re:

[jd]

Easy. They have a confession, but probably no hard evidence that anyone is actually dead or even missing, or he would most definitely be in jail. They're probably hoping for him to say or do something that can stand up in court - an unsupported statement isn't much to go on. If he can help in determining Hans' guilt or innocence, then so much the better, and he's more likely to cooperate in that if he's not behind bars.

This isn't to say I agree with such tactics, but double jeopardy means that they have t

Re:

[proverbialcow]

From here on, Reiser is erased.

Yeah, but he's still recoverable even though you improperly shut him down.

Re:

[Bloke down the pub]

I'm starting the "Free Hans Reiser" movement.

Is that free like speech, or free like beer?