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Hans Reiser Interview from Prison
JLester writes "Wired Magazine has an interview this month with Hans Reiser (of the ReiserFS journaling file system for Linux) from prison. It contains more details about the murder case against him. Some of the questions still go unanswered though."
The story about Hans Reiser gets weirder every time I read about it. It's like you're reading some surrealistic novel, or maybe a plot by Grisham.
... ?)
For one, there is the question whether he is being framed (by a former friend, russian mafia,
Also there is the problem of (suspected) murder, but no body has been found. So, all evidence will be circumstantial and therefore open to lots of discussion/interpretation. "The brothers Karamazov" by Dostojevski has some very nice examples of how wide apart such interpretations can be (without the reader being able to tell which interpretation is true). Probably someone could write an interesting novel based on this story as well. It's getting so weird, you just can't make such stuff up.
It could become an interesting case to follow, so I'm hoping groklaw might pay some attention to it (if such hearings are even public - I don't have much clue about the US judicial system, but it seems unlikely).
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
From what I've read, he doesn't come off as very innocent. I read the article in the paper magazine last weekend, and he just seems like a really weird guy. Despite the fact that they picked this interviewer because they thought he would understand Reiser, because he is a misunderstood geek, he still came off as quite a weird guy. The whole part about playing battlefield vietnam with his 6 year old so he could "become a man" was just kind of weird, and really made me question his values. Not that I'm against kids playing violent games, but his whole reasoning behind it was just kind of creepy.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
You are quite possibly the only person on Slashdot (Or at least, the only person who posts under their real name) who has a personal connection to Hans & Nina Reiser. You shouldn't be too surprised that the vast majority of posters arn't going to take it as seriously.
There's also the 3 guys that were accused, when they were teenagers, of killing three eight year-old boys, and were placed in jail (one on death row). The evidence is absolute crap, and the "investigation" into the murders was bumbled and shoddy. The key evidence against the "leader" was that he wore black a lot and liked to read about Wicca and other "satanic" and "demonic" things... like heavy metal music. Oh no!
HBO has played two documentaries on this case (Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2) and they are enraging. Granted you're seeing edited information, but if you can, I'd really recommned seeing these two DVDs. Amazon is selling them DVD 1 and DVD 2
There's also a web site dedicate to the cause of helping the guys (Known as The West Memphis Three) get a fair trial and have real evidence shown (which there doesn't seem to be any of). Visit wm3.org for details.
I've been fascinated with this case for 10+ years and check out the wm3 site a few times a year to see what's new with the case. It's an absolute tragedy that three children were killed, and it's another tragedy that three other lives (teenagers) were destroyed as well if in fact they are innocent, as it would seem they may be.