Hans Reiser Guilty For Murder Nina Reiser
July 19th, 2009 LimauAis People, World News
Jurors found Linux programmer Hans Reiser guilty of first degree murder on Monday, concluding Hans Reiser killed his estranged wife in 2006. The verdict followed a nearly six-month trial and nearly three days of deliberation
Hans Reiser, 44-year-old is developer of the ReiserFS filesystem, sat quietly as a clerk for Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman read the verdict. Hans Reiser faces a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison. Hans Reiser wearing the same dark coat he’s worn for months, the defendant was immediately removed from the courtroom by one of four bailiffs watching over the courtroom. He asked out loud if he could speak with his attorney.
Hans Reiser and his attorney had argued that Nina Reiser was not dead, and had abandoned her children to sneak away to Russia, where the couple met in 1998, after he accused her of embezzling from his software company, Namesys.
In a murder case with no body, no crime scene, no reliable eyewitness and virtually no physical evidence, the prosecution began the trial last November with a daunting task ahead. By the time prosecutor Paul Hora rested his case February 14, he had called some 60 witnesses, but presented mostly circumstantial evidence demonstrating animus between Hans Reiser and his wife, and suspicious behavior by the defendant following Nina Reiser disappearance in September, 2006.
Nina Reiser, then 31, was last seen September 3, 2006, while dropping off the divorcing couple’s two young children to stay with Hans for part of Labor Day weekend. Authorities believe Nina Reiser never left her estranged husband’s house in the Oakland hills alive.
When Nina Reiser’s best friend reported the woman missing two days later, the police launched an investigation that quickly focused on Hans Reiser. The couple had separated and were in the midst of an acrimonious divorce and custody battle.
Six days after Nina Reiser disappeared, police found Nina Reiser’s minivan in the Oakland hills about two miles from Hans Reiser’s house, and the same distance from Nina Reiser own apartment. The car contained Nina Reiser’s purse and $144 in rotting groceries that she’d purchased before dropping off the children.
When police eventually located Hans Reiser’s Honda CRX a few miles from his home, they found the interior waterlogged, the passenger seat missing, and two books on police murder investigations inside. They also found a sleeping-bag cover stained with a 6-inch wide blotch of Nina’s dried blood. Hans Reiser later testified that the couple had sex in the sleeping bag on a camping trip prior to their 2004 separation.
The only other physical evidence in the case was a trace of Nina Reiser’s blood found on a pillar inside Hans’ house.
Police arrested Hans Reiser on October 10, 2006, and he was held without bail. “I just keep thinking that I’m stuck in George Orwell’s 1984,” he told Wired.com in a jailhouse interview. “The government has taken away my kids, invaded my house, held me in solitary confinement and caused me all sorts of financial problems.”.
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