www.justiceforchandra.com

[rd]

[rd]

from the Slashdot discussion:

You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to allow your attorney to examine your "interpretation" and present it as best as (s)he can to a jury. What point is there in helping build a charge against yourself?


The point of helping to find his missing wife, or not.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[rd]

from the Slashdot discussion:

Does anyone else find it strange that she dropped off the kids and THEN disapears? The kids are little. I doubt that Hans would or could leave little kids alone long enough to follow her, kill her and dispose of the body. Even if he grabbed her at the door, the kids would see it. You can't have witnesses to something like this and expect to stay out of jail. And for him to do something like this requires planning (premeditation). From my experience as a divorced dad, dropp-offs are too unpredictable. Even a few minutes different in planned drop-off time, which happens frequently, can throw off a plan. He'd have to get rid of a body, murder weapon, CAR, remove evidence from his house of altercation and al kinds of stuff.


His mother lived with him. He would have had to leave the kids and his mother at home after they were dropped off and go to the grocery store parking lot and wait on his wife to come out from shopping.

There is no indication that the children can vouch that he stayed home with them after they were dropped off, otherwise he would have an alibi. It's a given that an alibi from his mother cannot be counted upon, given her participation in seeking custody of the children.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[rd]

from the Slashdot discussion:

The article said there were groceries in the van. It did not say that they were bought after she left Hans's house.


This is a really good point. And it's true her blood was found in his house. However, due to the missing front passenger seat of his car, it appears that's where the murder took place, most likely when she came out of the store back to her minivan from shopping.

I would also expect to see the receipt in one of the bags or her purse, and it would be unusual if it weren't there. No mention one way or the other on that.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[rd]

from the Slashdot discussion:

This news from SuSE, however, is very old already and apparently they indeed decided about this before Reiser got arrested.


Thanks for that link. I just saw this interesting comment there from Jeff Mahoney at Suse Labs:

http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/09/27/suse-102-ditching-reiserfs-as-it-default-fs
(excerpt)

ReiserFS v3 is a dead end. Hans has been pushing reiser4 for years now
and declared Reiser3 in maintenance mode. Any changes that aren’t bug
fixes are met with violent resistance.

end quote


I have some thoughts on the case of Nina Reiser on my site at:
Noted coder Hans Reiser arrested for wife's disappearance
http://www.justiceforchandra.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2899

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[gozgals]

OAKLAND

Why husband was arrested

Report tells of overheard argument, missing car seat, books about murder probes

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, October 13, 2006

The young children of an Oakland man accused of killing his estranged wife heard the couple arguing and using "not nice words" the day police believe he killed her, authorities said in court records released Thursday.

On a day when Hans Reiser, 42, appeared in an Oakland courtroom on charges that he murdered his wife, Nina Reiser, 31, police painted a portrait of an uncaring, abusive man who bought two books about homicide investigations five days after she disappeared.

Hans Reiser assaulted his wife after they separated in 2004 and threatened to harm her "for the rest of her life," Oakland police Officer Ryan Gill wrote in a statement that outlined grounds for Reiser's arrest. The statement didn't elaborate on the alleged assault.

Nina Reiser has not been seen since Sept. 3, when she took her children shopping at the Berkeley Bowl supermarket, then dropped them off at her estranged husband's home on Exeter Drive in the Oakland hills, Gill's statement said.

It was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and the Reisers argued about who was going to have the children -- a 5-year-old girl and a boy who turned 7 on Sept. 28 -- over the rest of the holiday, the children told police.

The boy said he had heard his parents talking at a "medium" volume while using "not nice words," the police statement said. At one point, he said, his father told him to go downstairs and "not to come back upstairs, not even to the kitchen area," according to the police statement.

Nina Reiser's 2001 Honda Odyssey was found six days later about 3 miles from Hans Reiser's home, the groceries askew in the back seat as if someone had driven the minivan wildly, police said.

Police dogs failed to find Nina Reiser's scent in the area, suggesting she was never there, the police statement said. Her body has not been found.

On Thursday, two days after he was arrested at a friend's home, Hans Reiser was arraigned on a charge of murder.

His hands shackled to his waist, the computer programmer spoke only to confirm his name and made brief eye contact with his mother, Beverly Palmer. He did not enter a plea and was ordered held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin pending his next court date Nov. 28.

"We don't feel numb anymore. Now we feel angry and we want justice," Nina Reiser's best friend, Ellen Doren, said outside court while accompanied by Nina Reiser's mother, Irina Sharanova. "Either Hans had something to do with it, or he knows somebody that had something to do with it, and in either case, it's time to come out with the information."

Reiser is being represented by Oakland attorneys William Du Bois and Daniel Horowitz, whose wife was murdered last year in Lafayette by a teenage neighbor of the couple, Scott Dyleski.

Outside court Thursday, Du Bois said the circumstantial case against his client is "relatively flimsy." Nevertheless, Hans Reiser "knows that this is a severe problem and a solemn undertaking," Du Bois said.

Horowitz said investigators were "leaking sensational information that may not even be accurate," and that in court the police would have to "put up or shut up."

Police found small amounts of Nina Reiser's blood in her estranged husband's home as well as in his 1988 Honda Civic CRX, which was missing its front passenger seat when police seized it Sept. 19, Gill wrote in the statement filed with the court. The seat has not been found.

After technicians removed the carpeting from the front seat area, they noticed that the floorboard had been saturated with water, the statement said.

Inside the car, police say they found a roll of trash bags, absorbent towels and two books: "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets," by David Simon, about the Baltimore police homicide squad, and "Masterpieces of Murder," by Jonathan Goodman, about notorious murder cases.

Police believe Hans Reiser bought the books at a Berkeley bookstore on Sept. 8, based on surveillance camera footage.

Horowitz said the books aren't evidence of any wrongdoing. "Anybody being pursued and followed around by the police might want to read a book whose focus is on improper police tactics," Horowitz said.

The Civic's passenger seat appeared to be in the car when Redwood City police gave Hans Reiser a traffic ticket Sept. 12, but it was gone when Oakland police seized the car a week later, the police statement said.

Nina Reiser's minivan was found Sept. 9 on Fernwood Drive near Highway 13. In addition to the groceries, police found her cell phone, its battery missing. Investigators said the last call had been placed to Hans Reiser's home at 2:02 p.m. Sept. 3.

Investigators listened to voice-mail messages on the phone. "Not one call was left by Hans Reiser to express concern, or to inquire about her whereabouts, or even mention that he had the children after picking them up from school on Sept. 6," the police statement said.

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/13/BAG2VLOTGM1.DTL

[rd]

This is pretty unbelievable, goz. Send his boy downstais and then murder the boy's mother. Holy cow.

The grocery shopping was done on the way there so it was all in his home. She couldn't even have got off a scream. And how did his mother miss all this, including carrying Nina's body out to his car, hiding his car, then getting back to his house driving her minivan three miles away. And then his mother gives him her car and she goes and gets another one.

No questions asked? Or no questions needed?

Also, the no phone calls to Nina as to picking up her children is similar to Condit after Chandra disappeared.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[rd]

This San Jose Mercury News article raises the eyebrows even more. He had almost $9,000 and his passport on him when the police detained him to get his DNA. And his mother is helping him.

This is almost a replay of Scott Peterson, except that the battery was taken out of Nina's cell phone so that her car couldn't be tracked from phone company records, whereas Scott was tracked going to San Francisco Bay.

I wonder if they have to start searching San Francisco Bay for Nina. Was the front seat used to weight her down?

rd

from www.mercurynews.com (fair use)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/15741175.htm

Police: Reiser children were in house when mother was killed
By Harry Harris and Jason Dearen
MEDIANEWS
Oct. 12, 2006

OAKLAND - Nina Reiser's two children were in the house on the day police believe her husband killed her, according to a probable cause statement filed by Oakland police Thursday morning.

Police arrested Hans Reiser, 42, Tuesday after discovering splattered blood in the living room of his Montclair home and in his car. Forensic tests on the blood cannot exclude Nina Reiser, 31, as its donor, according to police.

Reiser will be arraigned on a murder charge this afternoon in Alameda County Superior Court. While police believe Nina Reiser is dead, her whereabouts is still unknown.

The Reiser's two children, a girl, 5, and a boy, 7, were taken into protective custody and interviewed by police in the days after their mother's disappearance.

Nina Reiser dropped her kids off at her estranged husband's home on Sept. 3, after picking up groceries at the Berkeley Bowl market. The statement said that authorities believe the kids were downstairs playing video games at Hans Reiser's Montclair home on Sept. 3, and that the kids heard their parents arguing.

"One of the children indicated that Hans Reiser and Nina Reiser were possibly involved in an argument,'' wrote Missing Persons Investigator Ryan Gill.

"The child indicated that his parents were talking at a 'medium' volume and that they were using 'not nice words.''' Gill wrote. One of the children later told an investigator that he had gone upstairs and that his mom and dad were in the living room.

The child said that Hans Reiser told him to go back downstairs and not to come back upstairs, not even to the kitchen area, according to the statement.

Nina Reiser was supposed to drop her off kids and had plans that Sept. 3 evening to meet a friend for dinner. She never showed. Nina and Hans Reiser lived together until about April 2004, when Nina kicked her husband out, police said. That's when Hans Reiser moved into his mother's Montclair home. Nina Reiser filed for divorce in 2004, and eventually won custody of their kids.

Investigators also learned that during the course of the separation that Hans Reiser had physically assaulted Nina Reiser and has made verbal threats of causing her bodily harm ``for the rest of her life.''

On the weekend she disappeared, the couple had argued about the weekend custody of their children. Nina Reiser had agreed to split the weekend days with her husband.

The two kids were taken to school on Tuesday, Sept. 5. She never picked them up. Concerned friends and Nina Reiser's boyfriend notified police.

"When the officer attempted to gather information for his preliminary investigation Hans Reiser became uncooperative and advised the officer to contact his lawyer,'' Gill wrote in the probable cause statement.

Police also interviewed Hans Reiser's mother, Beverly Palmer, who refused to provide a formal statement. Palmer was not at home on Sept. 3, and she told investigators that she was attending Burning Man in Nevada.

Palmer did not allow investigators inside her home when first asked, the report states.

On. Sept. 9 Nina Reiser's tan minivan was located in the 1500 block of Fernwood Drive, a short distance from Hans Reiser's home. It was unoccupied and locked, and grocery bags were inside.

"Nina Reiser's cell phone remained in the vehicle, and had been dismantled (battery removed and phone flipped open),'' according to the statement.

Inside the van were personal checks, receipts and more than $100 in cash. The evidence recovered in the vehicle did not indicate to investigators that robbery was the intended motive.

Police later reviewed surveillance footage showing that Nina Reiser and her two children left Berkeley Bowl at about 1:55 p.m., before heading to her husband's house.

In the days after the disappearance police said they began following Hans Reiser, and that he began trying to lose them by driving at varying speeds, turning down quiet residential streets, and making abrupt stops.

Police recovered the 1988 Honda CRX that Reiser drove in Berkeley, and noticed it was missing the right, front passenger seat. The seat has still not been found, police said.

Inside the car investigators also found a roll of large black trash bags and a socket wrench.

Hans Reiser purchased two books "Homicide'' by David Simon and "Masterpieces of Murder" by Jonathan Goodman on Sept. 8 from Barnes & Noble in Berkeley.

Also inside the car forensics investigators found a blood stain on a sleeping bag stuff sack which measured 1 inch by 3 inches. The stain was tested and Nina Reiser could not be excluded as its donor. In addition, investigators found evidence they believe shows the car was cleaned --_ including water residue under the rug.

When police on Sept. 28 detained Hans Reiser briefly to obtain a DNA sample Reiser had about $8,900 in cash, his passport, and receipts, including one for a siphon pump found in his car.

Police said the last purchase they've been able to track by Nina Reiser is from the Berkeley Bowl on Sept. 3. Her last phone call was made to Hans Reiser's house.

Reiser's attorney, William H. Du Bois, said he will not comment about any evidence until he is given a chance to review it.

"We're going to roll up our sleeves, examine the evidence carefully and get busy defending him on a case I think pushes the very limits of the doctrine of circumstantial evidence ... in a murder case'' where there is no body, Du Bois said.

A Web site has been launched, www.ninareiser.com, by friends of the missing woman and a $15,000 reward has been offered for any information leading to Reiser's whereabouts.

Anyone with information can contact Oakland police at 510-637-0298.

[rd]

from the Slashdot discussion:

she's sucking $8000/month alimony out of him... nbc11.com

This is weird reporting. From the www.nbc11.com article Hans Reiser's Software Could Be Phased Out:

According to sources close to the investigation, Reiser had to pay $8,000 in alimony a month to Nina Reiser.

Sources also told NBC11 that Hans Reiser was seen walking around town with several thousand dollars in cash and his passport.

end quote


The divorce wasn't final. Do you pay alimony while you're separated? Other articles report that he was to share child expenses with his estranged wife, and that she filed with the court that he hadn't paid it. The exact amount was not reported, but it wasn't alimony.

The $8,000 per month, if it actually is based on anything true, could be all the monthly bills that the family had, including the mortgage of their home that he no longer lived in, but even with that $8,000 is extreme.

Also, how does one see someone walking around town with several thousand dollars and a passport? Were they sticking out of his pocket protector?

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[gozgals]

Me thinks the elusive genius Hans bought those crime books on our heinous murderers before his vicious crime but took bits and pieces from those true accounts! He failed to learn from the past mistakes of Peterson, OJ, Condit, and even our infamous Dentist Barton. (Possibly killing while a child is in the house) His crimes are tripping over theirs if one finds the strands of comparison between some of the facts that are intertwined. Let's hope Nina does not wash up the way poor Laci did.



Hans is not looking like such a bright fellow anymore

Goz

[gozgals]

http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/10/16/n/HeadlineNews/NOT-THE-NORM/resources_bcn_html


ORLOFF ADMITS IT'S UNUSUAL TO CHARGE MURDER WITH NO BODY
10/16/06 7:00 PDT
OAKLAND (BCN)

[gozgals]

Who are these sources?

And they always seem to be around in every case!

[rd]

Funny thing is, he doesn't need funds while he's incarcerated!

But seriously, he would not have access to a computer and the internet, which is what he would need to work.

What he would do with the money is continue paying Russian programmers that he currently hires at Namesys to continue working on it.

But it's a lot deeper than that. He was out of money to pay them when he murdered Nina, so he:

- would not have to pay anything to his wife
- possibly collect life insurance on her
- could sell their house
- and could live rent-free with his mother.

Remind you of Scott Peterson? If that isn't enough, Nina is probably underwater in San Francisco Bay or somewhere near tied to his front passenger car seat. And from seeing Laci wash ashore, you can bet it is well secured to her torso.

But there's even more to this.

Reiser has such an insane ego that even if he follows his wife's death, he wants his namesake software file system to live on.

But that possibility disappeared along with his wife and carseat.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[gozgals]

Hans plans seemed to vanish when he took the tragic steps to get rid of his wife Nina.

[gozgals]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/23/BAGDBLUGV339.DTL



Reward for missing Oakland mom stands at $25K
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, October 23, 2006


PDT OAKLAND -- A reward for information leading to the discovery of an Oakland woman who authorities believe was killed by her estranged husband now stands at $25,000, her boyfriend said today.

Nina Reiser, 31, disappeared in September. Her body hasn't been found, but on Oct. 10 police arrested her estranged husband, computer programmer Hans Reiser, 42, on suspicion of murdering her.

Eighteen billboards are in place in Oakland and Berkeley with pictures of Nina Reiser. In September, authorities announced a $15,000 reward for information leading to her location. That reward has now increased by $10,000, said her boyfriend, Anthony Zografos.

"We plead with anyone with information that may help police locate Nina to come forward," Zografos said today. "It is the right thing for the community, Nina's friends and family and most importantly her children, who are faced with the prospect of never finding out where their mother is."

Hans Reiser was arraigned Oct. 12 in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland on a charge of murder. He is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and is due back in court Nov. 28.

"We were all hoping that this was a terrible mistake," Zografos said. "Unfortunately the evidence suggests that this is a terrible tragedy and a heinous crime was committed. Hopefully the increased reward will help find Nina and bring this to a closure."

Nina Reiser was last seen at her husband's home on Exeter Drive in the Oakland hills on Sept. 3, when she dropped off the couple's two children. They may have heard their parents arguing and using "not nice words" that day, Oakland police said in court records.

She failed to meet her best friend, Ellen Doren, at her house later that evening, authorities said. Her 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan was found Sept. 9 in the city's Thornhill neighborhood.

Nina Reiser's friends have started a Web site, www.ninareiser.com.

Police ask anyone with information to contact Oakland homicide Sgt. Bruce Brock at (510) 238-3821 or a police tip line at (510) 637-0298.

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com