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Hans Reiser THE CASE SO FAR Hans Reiser and his wife Nina were embroiled in divorce proceedings on the Labor Day weekend in 2006. Their marriage bliss ended bitterly (no final divorce has yet been entered), and there have been struggles with support and custody. According to family law sources, Nina obtained a temporary restraining order against Hans in 2004, after accusing him of "pushing" her; On the Sunday of that weekend in 2006, Nina dropped off the couple's two small children with Hans when he was alone (Hans lived with his mother who was then attending the burning Man Festival in Nevada). Her empty car was discovered later with bags of rotting groceries, intact purse and cell phone from which the battery had been disconnected. In the absence of a corpus delicti, Mr Reiser is being tried for the murder of his wife. After a long holiday recess, the case is about at its half way point in the Oakland courtroom of Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman before a jury of seven women and five men. he was involved in the development of Linux, the open source operating system, and he has created two file systems (ReiserFS and Reiser4) for that increasingly popular alternative to Microsoft-based operating systems and software. His company, Namesys Inc, is soldiering on in his absence, but there are rumors that it may be sold to help defray its founder's growing legal expenses. Reiser was working in Russia when he met a young medical student, Nina, whom he married there. Reportedly Nina once dated one of Reiser's colleagues, one Sean Sturgeon who reportedly has confessed to several murders, but emphatically not that of Nina. One of the continuing mysteries surrounding the current case is why Reiser's lawyer has not been allowed to do much with this relationship in open court. I must assume that DuBois has been ordered not to do so, and that - for reasons best known to the authorities and the parties - Mr Sturgeon has been ruled out as a suspect. So far, the DA has not yet articulated a single detailed theory to explain how the defendant has eluded every attempt to uncover Nina's body. The couple was in marital trouble before Mrs Reiser's sudden disappearance (yes there are blood traces in suspicious places), and their children have been spirited away to Russia by "grandma" who lives there. To follow the action hour to hour, I recommend the blog by the San Francisco Chronicle's Henry K Lee.
I interviewed with Henry Lee today for a Chronicle article to appear Monday. As I have already pointed out in this space, the case is nicely balanced, with a tilt towards the prosecution. Here is the key and what to watch for: What will the jury hear - or be able to infer - about the character of the defendant, Hans Reiser? To prevail, the defense team will need to fill in the blanks about this man. If Reiser is ready and willing to testify in his own defense, it would be a mistake - in my armchair opinion - not to put him on the witness stand. Evidently, defense attorney Bill DuBois intends to put his client to the test. Yes, there are always pitfalls with that approach, and any cautious defense counsel is always tempted to run the classic "reasonable doubt" gambit without exposing the defendant to cross examination. But I have a gut feeling that close-to-the-vest approach will not work here. Will Mr Reiser be able to undergo cross examination without doing harm to his own case? In this atypical murder case, the DA will need overwhelming evidence of at least three things: * that Mrs Reiser's sudden disappearance was due to foul play; This is not a slam dunk case even if the DA carries the day on all three lines of proof. It may turn on how prosecutor Paul Hora succeeds in addressing the huge hole that remains: How, plausibly and realistically, could Nina Reiser's body have been disposed of so effectively that now, more than a full year after her disappearance, the authorities remain stumped? Hans, a Linux software guru, famous enough in his field that WIRED is following the trial, and Nina, a young Russian woman, were married in her home country in 1999. The cast of characters (minus Nina's mother) now lives in the Bay Area, USA. There are two children, now the objects of dispute in a bitter divorce that Nina initiated in 2004 because hubby was too distant. There are charges of about $12,000 unpaid child support; Nina Reiser is living with the kids in Oakland as well as reportedly enjoying the romantic attentions of Sean, her loosely wrapped paramour. Nina has just gotten Russian citizenship for the two children. On or about Friday, September 1, Hans and Nina bitterly argue - with the help of lawyers - over how their kids' time would be sent on the coming Labor Day Weekend. An agreement is reached that the time would be split between the parents. On Sunday, September 3, 2006, Nina takes the children with her to the Berkeley Bowl grocery store, where she is caught on the security camera. She places two very brief cell calls to Hans, then shows up at Hans' place (actually his mother's home, the so called "Exeter house") to drop off the children, presumably per the agreement reached on Friday. Rory also once said that he had a dream or a vision of someone carrying a large, heavy object down the stairs the night of September 3 That, too, is in dispute. Hans' mother was not home at the Exeter house on September 3 She was at the "Burning Man" festival in Nevada. It was not until Tuesday, September 5 that someone reported Nina missing. Nina's friend Ellen, called the police after picking up the two kids at school, apparently around 5:30, but can't locate Nina. She called Hans, told him that Nina is missing and asked him o keep the kids. Then Ellen told Hans that she knows Nina was at his house Sept 3 Hans' reply: "I need to talk with my attorney." On that same date, Hans was seen hosing down his driveway at about 11 PM. On September 6, Nina's van is discovered parked on the street about three miles from the Exeter house; this is on a path not consistent with driving directly to her home - about 5 miles from the Exeter place. This is what police discovered in the Odyssey van: * Nina's cell phone with the battery disconnected; When Police finally obtained a search warrant, they searched the "Exeter house" (shared by Hans and his mother) September 13 and 14. There was a floor-to-ceiling post near the front entrance. There were one blood spot & two smears about 3 and feet from the floor. Most of the blood was ID'd as Nina's and some of the blood as Hans'. Hans' car is a Honda CRX, "missing" for some time after suspicion focused on him, but located by police on September 18 after surveillance and a chase. The socket wrench set used to remove the seat was recovered from the car (later traced to a purchase by Hans in Manteca, CA, an inland community about an hour away). Other interesting items recovered included a siphon pump, trash bags, masking tape, paper towels, a copy of Masterpieces of Murder, and Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.
It is still unclear exactly where in the vehicle the blood was found, but the DNA match was solid. When Hans was brought in for a DNA sample, his fanny pack was searched. unequivocally stated that he had no contact with Mom since the day she disappeared; there were no letters, phone calls, nothing whatever from her. This alone was worth the trip for the prosecution because it will make it next to impossible to persuade the jury that Nina is alive and well in Russia. After a colloquy about unanswered correspondence with Dad, R.. was allowed to recount his vision, dream or recollection (not at all clear which) that on the night Mom vanished Dad was carrying a heavy bag down the stairs that might have contained Mom I have to assume that DuBois objected to this testimony (if it was a dream it is clearly inadmissible, for example) but made his arguments in chambers outside the presence of the jury. If, after cross examination, it...
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