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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."
Does this mean I don't have to reformat after all?
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
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.
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.
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!
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.
I was like "Holy sh*t!" But then I read the whole thing. However, if this guy confesses to killing 8 (maybe 9 people, he's not sure), why wouldn't he confess to her death if he did it? What, they're going to kill him an extra time? Make him serve an extra life sentence?
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?
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.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
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.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So Reiser is friends with Darth Helmet?
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.
You can't handle the truth.
"Look law, no Hans."
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Change the wording of the article! Yes, it's from the original article. But it's very clearly misleading and needs to be changed.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
from: http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_256204954.h tml
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.
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.
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.
Please note: I hope Hans is innocent, but this development does not appear to help him at all. If anything it may cause Hans's character to be called further into question based upon investigations into this other side of his life that was previously undisclosed.
"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 the court will put it to rest. Did Hans shoot first, or was it the other guy?
Oh, wait... wrong movie.
Note to self: get a sig.
Jebus, don't you realize? It was the ALIENS, man! The ALIENS!
HAND.
the sudden cratering of ResierFS demonstrates the huge Bus Factor of Open source software. Takeout one guy and major part of an operating system can suddenly become unsupported. This is a non-trivial thing. If you are a big bussiness do you want to commit your operations center to some Database or some communication protocol (say Samba) and filesystem (say ReiserFS) to open source solutions if suddenly overnight and with no warning it could become unsupported?
If linus got hit by a Bus tommorrow, Linux would no doubt survive but there would be a giant glitch in the force and depending on how things got restored Linux might very well start to lose it's focus.
It's a big opportunity for the Microsofts, IBMs, Oracles, SAPs and Novell's to point out that for bussiness operations continuity you should only buy software, open source or private, backed by a commercial vendor.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
He probably muttered "kill -9" and the cops thought it was a confession.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
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?
...the names of every project lead/author of every Linux project, from the Wikipedia article:
"Hans Thomas Reiser (born December 1963) is an American computer programmer famous for his contributions to the free software community in the field of file systems. In particular he is deeply involved in the Linux kernel development with his widespread ReiserFS journaling file system and its successor Reiser4. In 1997 Reiser founded and has since headed Namesys Inc., a software company specialized in operating systems and in developing and providing support for his file systems. He is currently residing in Oakland, California. Since October 10, 2006, he is charged with the murder of his missing estranged wife, Nina Reiser, and is currently being held on remand."
Seriously, it should be no real burden for submitters or even editors to add a one-phrase or -sentence bio for players not all of us may be familiar with, so that Linux laypeople here (myself included) know why this would even be construed as "news for nerds" at all.
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, Namesys Inc.).
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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'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.
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
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.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm going to bed.
"Apple did go on without Jobs," ...almost into bankruptcy, until they hired him again, and he turned the company into NeXT 2.0.
...into the latest, most expensive, least-desirable version of Windows yet, a product that makes ME look enchanting by comparison.
"MS is going on without Gates at the helm..."
"And HP is getting along fine without Carly." my point; WITH her, they were not getting along so well.
I think i will just wait for the Law and Order episode.
it just confirms that reiserfs is truly a killer filesystem.
pHansReiser->pMissingWife->pExLover->Confess();
Since you claim to be a C++ programmer, the above might help.
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...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
you're going to OJ for your next FS?
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
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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.
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.
This isn't to say I agree with such tactics, but double jeopardy means that they have to get their cases right the first time. They can't produce a version 2. This is true of both Sturgeon and Reiser. The margin for error is zero, the risks are extreme. That limits the authorities to having to play it as cool as they can.
This all assumes they're smart, of course. They could just be be stupid, too. The easy way to find out is to see if Sturgeon is arrested a month or two after Reiser is convicted or freed, and/or if he is able to kill again. If the authorities are smart, Sturgeon will be under 24-hour watch by people in a position to prevent him killing someone. If Sturgeon succeeds, or even gets close to succeeding, then the authorities are out of their tiny little minds. Alternatively, if Sturgeon is really delusional, those same authorities should have him in a secure ward the first moment they have enough evidence to prove it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
From here on, Reiser is erased.
Yeah, but he's still recoverable even though you improperly shut him down.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
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.
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.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
I'm so sick of gravity.
Do we really need to know the rate of change? duh, its changin or its not.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
"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.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
"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?