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."

What are the odds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to think that the ex-lover who confessed to killing eight people should be investigated with respect to the disappearance of Han Reiser's wife. As I understand it, there is no evidence at this time tying Reiser to his wife's disappearance except for speculation.

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.

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: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.

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.

Re:What are the odds?

[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?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I would hope they need more than that to tie the "murder" to him

But he also owned a book on true murder stories!!

Your criminal justice system in USA == INSANE.

(ps: not joking, http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007 /03/72931 [wired.com] search for Masterpieces of Murder)

Re:The bus factor of OpenSOurce

[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: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: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: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>

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.

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?

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.

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: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.

Re:Wow, what are the odds?

[marcushnk]

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

Re:just to be clear

[gujo-odori]

That's a rather poorly thought out argument. Some of you are no doubt old enough to remember the immense pressure that was brought against the South African government to end Apartheid, pressure which was successful. The most important part of that was divestiture in South African assets by public and private investors, universities, governments, you name it.

This had a very negative impact on the South African economy and eventually the government caved and repealed Apartheid.

Now, let's s/ReiserFS/Apartheid/g in your argument.

"Honestly, whatever the South African government has done on a social level has NOTHING to do with the technical merits/achievements of South Africa, and we should not divest ourselves of South African stocks, bonds, or Krugerrands just because they are keeping blacks in near-slavery through Apartheid laws."

That doesn't sound so good, does it?

How about another one?

"Honestly, whatever Google, Cisco, etc. have done to prevent political freedom and freedom of speech in China by building the great firewall, that has NOTHING to do with the technical merits of their products, and we should not turn away from them merely because they are helping keep people in chains."

How about one more, dating to the 1970s:

"Honestly, whatever Nestle has done or failed to do by pushing its baby formula in the third world without educating parents to the dangers of using formula without access to clean water, that has NOTHING to do with the technical quality of their products, and we should boycott them merely because their marketing practices (may have) contributed to the deaths and illnesses of many thousands of infants."

Those sounds ridiculous at best, or morally reprehensible at worst, and they are. I would counter your statement about Reiser that if it is found he killed his wife, then yes, we should abandon his work over that reason alone.

If that is not enough for you, then, as others have pointed out before me, I will resort to solid technical reasons. Hans Reiser is the chief architect and principle developer of ReiserFS. If he is convicted and sentenced to a long prison term or to death, that puts both the present release version and all future versions of ReiserFS in jeopardy. If I were using ReiserFS, I would have already migrated off of it as a precaution

Re:I do?

[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: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.

The crater of Cius: a cautionary tale

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I will erect a sign here now before it happens:

"The smoking crater you see before you is what remains of Cius' user account after an ill-advised venomous attack on a man who should be considered innocent until proven guilty."

p.s. fuck you cowboyneal, your sloppy editing might be excusable on non-important matters but this is about some guys murder trial ok, have a bit more respect for the gravity of the situation, clean the cheetos residue off your fingers and do a proper job for once.

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 networks would ealize this.

Re:Bad line wrapping!

[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.

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:What are the odds?

[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 shut my mouth and only open it when my lawyer tells me to.

As such, we have NO basis for saying anything about the car seat. We don't know when it was removed. We don't know if Hans Reiser knows where it is. We don't know if he has a plausible explanation for what happened to it.

As for the blood, we don't even know who the blood came from - to my knowledge the police have only stated they haven't been able to rule out that it is from Nina Reiser.

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:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Murder is a legal term for killing against the government's laws. The military and law enforcement are government supported violence management professionals.