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Prosecutor Tells Jurors 'Nina is Dead' and Hans Reiser 'Killed Her'

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

OAKLAND, California -- Hans Reiser's prosecutor urged jurors Tuesday to convict the Linux programmer of murdering his estranged wife, Nina Reiser, who was last seen at his Oakland hills house in 2006.

"Nina is dead and the defendant killed her," prosecutor Paul Hora told jurors at the outset of his closing arguments here.

Hora conceded to jurors that the case is based largely on circumstantial evidence. But he said the defendant should not be "rewarded" for successfully disposing of her body. He urged jurors to piece the case together, one circumstance at a time.

"Each of those individual circumstances have much more meaning," Hora said.

"She is dead. There's no doubt she's dead," Hora said. The main reason, Hora said over and again is because she would never have voluntarily left her two young children: "This woman would never abandon those kids."

The defendant maintains his wife, who was divorcing him, abandoned her children and moved back to Russia, where the couple met, after he accused her of embezzling money from his Namesys software company. She was last seen Sept. 3, 2006, after she dropped off the children to stay with Hans Reiser during the Labor Day weekend.

"He sees her as evil," Hora said, noting that the 44-year-old defendant was also bitter that she had an affair with his best friend, and the defendant accused her of making up illnesses for their son.

"He behaved like he killed her. The evidence showed that he killed her," Hora said.

As Hora showed jurors pictures of the woman with her kids displayed on a large prompt, he said, "Nina is the kind of mother who would never abandon those kids. Not Nina."

The gallery was full. Ellen Doren, who was Nina Reiser's best friend, was seated in the second row. The defendant's mother and father, who were both called as witnesses, were not here.

The kids, a boy now 8 and girl now 6, are living with Nina's mother in Russia, where Nina is from and where the couple met in 1998 while the developer of the ReiserFS filesystem was overseas hiring programmers.

Jurors took notes and appeared engaged as Hora summarized a case that began Nov. 6 here in Alameda County Superior Court and saw some 60 witnesses. The defendant, seated between his two attorneys at the defense table, took notes and craned his head to the right to view the monitor.

Hora climbed into the mind of the two young Reiser children.

"Is she hurt? Is she gone? Is she coming back?"

With thunder in his voice, Hora declared: "That's child abuse. That's vicious. That's cruel. She would never do that to her kids."

Other reasons why Nina is dead, according to Hora, is because she vanished and left behind thousands of dollars in cash, her Russian and U.S. passports, credit cards and her household items.

"She left all of her possessions," Hora said. He added: "If you're going somewhere and on the run, you might as well as take your cash with you at least."

(Police found $1,980 in her house and she had $4,500 in her bank account. Her car had $144 in rotting groceries in it with next month's rent check inside and three books about parenting, Hora said.)

In her car, the police also found packed leftovers from lunch Nina Reiser ate immediately before she went to her husband's house, Hora noted.

"You don't save leftovers if your plan is to be on a plane to Siberia later that afternoon," Hora quipped. Moments later, he added: "Who goes to the grocery store and buys a week's worth of groceries before they disappear?"

Three days before she vanished, she was seen studying to take the medical exams to become a doctor, Hora noted.

"She was planning for the future. She was planning for the future," Hora said.

Nina Reiser, he added, was scheduled to begin her new job three weeks after she vanished working with Russian immigrants at the San Francisco Health Department.

He said Nina Reiser has been gone "591 days without a trace and counting."

"She vanished, vanished from the face of the earth," Hora said.

During his 95-minute oration, Hora often conceded the case was built on "circumstantial evidence."

"But it's powerful, it's convincing, it's persuasive and it?s the truth. She's dead."

Hora's closing remarks are expected to last days.

Trial is recessing for lunch.

THREAT LEVEL is providing gavel-to-gavel coverage.

Sketches by Wired.com's Norman Quebedeau are drying and will be posted shortly.

See Also:

• Reiser Hard Drives Don't Map to Murder
• Testimony Concludes: Reiser Decries Murder Case as 'Silly ...
• Hans Reiser Turns Up 'Geek Defense' to 11
• Jury Can Consider Lesser 'Manslaughter' Verdict, Reiser Judge Rules
• Scientist Questioning Blood Evidence In Reiser Case
• Another Hans Reiser How-To Wiki: When Not to Go Camping
• Hans Reiser Defense Accusing Police of Bias
• Reiser How-To Wiki: Sleep in a Tiny Car, Convert Hatchback to Bed

Full post as published by Threat Level on April 15, 2008 (boomark / email).