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He was far less of a mastermind than he fancied himself at the time. If I recall, he bought a book on murder investigations and a socket set after his wife's d

He was far less of a mastermind than he fancied himself at the time. If I recall, he bought a book on murder investigations and a socket set after his wife's disappearance (which was easily tracked back to him), removed car seats (blood) from his car, and willingly testified in court that it was his manly dream to sleep in the car, or something along these lines. He could have likely gotten away with it if he kept his mouth shut. Luckily he had the arrogance of believing he had actually come up with a convincing story.

starkparker 3y ago
For those interested in the trial, the SF Chronicle's Henry K. Lee ran a very detailed blog on it: https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/blogs/localnews/category?blogid=37&cat=1428 https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate...
- RajT88 3y ago
  I go back periodically and read the Wired article about it. It is totally bananas: https://archive.is/BcMRF https://archive.is/BcMRF The wildest part was the friend who had an affair with his wife who blurted out unprompted on the stand that he had killed 7 people. They let that guy go!
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    The 'weird nerds' defending Reiser brought this up time and again during the trial. But Reiser showed them all up by leading the authorities to where he had buried the body afterwards so I guess that that particular angle is now settled.
    - RajT88 3y ago
      Yeah, some follow-up reporting found that the guy was lying for some weird reason. He said as much. I forget the reason.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        Apparently it's a moderately common enough phenomena that cops intentionally keep aspects of a murder scene out of news and reports, so that they can check if someone knows them or not. People are sick enough for fame that they'll murder, and being sick enough for fame to confess to someone else's murder isn't nearly as bad.
  - etc-hosts 3y ago
    I've read the same Wired article you have, it's confusing but it does not actually say that Sturgeon testified during the trial. Read it again. Sean Sturgeon was not called by the prosecution or the defense. He did not testify at the trial. The defense hinted several times during the trial that the police had not adequately investigated Sturgeon for the murder. Before the trial, Sturgeon called the Oakland police and said "I've killed 8 and half people, but I didn't kill Nina." The police didn't know what to do with the 'half' part, and discounted him as a crank.
jonathankoren 3y ago
I will always remember the Slashdot comment that said that removing the passenger seat of your car so you could sleep in your car was a reasonable thing to do, and everyone saying it was suspicious was a hater. (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) I think it was my first experience with absolute egregious fanboism.
- bdamm 3y ago
  It was probably him.
- wetmore 3y ago
  It is reasonable, although niche enough to be a bad defense. Here is a popular Instagram account where someone does exactly what you are saying is unreasonable: https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic
  - johnchristopher 3y ago
    > Here is a popular Instagram account where someone does exactly what you are saying is unreasonable: https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic Except they don't. First post shows them asking themselves if there's a more comfortable way, second post shows them installing a flat surface. https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyGu0vUuXsz/ https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyGu0vUuXsz/ https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyWqTSSJV7U/ https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyWqTSSJV7U/
    - carcampy 3y ago
      Except they do. They don’t reinstall the seat. And hence removing the seat for the purpose of camping was indeed a reasonable thing to do.
      - johnchristopher 3y ago
        > I will always remember the Slashdot comment that said that removing the passenger seat of your car so you could sleep in your car was a reasonable thing to do, and everyone saying it was suspicious was a hater. (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) > (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) > (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) Do you dig it ? A car floor is not fucking flat. That's why it's suspicious to remove the passenger seat without installing a flat surface over it. That's why the instagram poster did install a flat surface. Because they didn't want to sleep on the car floor. Because it's not flat. It's not comfortable. And because it's not comfortable it's not reasonable. > As investigators follow Hans, they discover the missing CRX, but something is missing, says prosecutor Paul Hora. "He removed the front passenger seat. Then he completely disassembled, removed the rear cargo area of the car, threw away the carpeting that covered the spare tire and the cover that covered the spare tire." > When it was Hora's turn, he asked Hans why he had removed the front passenger seat from his car. "He said he removed the passenger seat in order to make a Honda CRX a more comfortable place to sleep," Hora recalls. "His explanations were ridiculous. I mean, they were lies. A Honda CRX is an awfully small car that wouldn't be comfortable no matter what you did to sleep in it." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/betrayal-29-12-2008/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/betrayal-29-12-2008/ > On October 11, 2006, law enforcement officials said that blood spatter had been found in Hans Reiser's house and car. Forensic testing (including DNA analysis) could neither confirm nor rule out Nina Reiser as the source of the blood. Officials had not located the missing passenger seat of his car. They also indicated that they had found in the car two books on homicide investigation purchased by Reiser on September 8 — five days after Nina Reiser's disappearance: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, and Masterpieces of Murder by Jonathan Goldman.[28] Daniel Horowitz, a high-profile defense attorney, joined the defense team[6] but dropped the case on November 28, citing Reiser's inability to pay for his services.[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser#Murder_investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser#Murder_investigati... It has never been mentioned that the car was modified to accommodate for sleeping on the floor in a comfortable and reasonable way. The passenger seat, carpeting were removed but that doesn't make the floor flat. JFC.
RobotToaster 3y ago
Makes you wonder how many people do actually get away with it.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - tiltowait 3y ago
    [flagged]
- bena 3y ago
  It really depends on what you're looking to get away with. If you're looking to get away with orchestrating the murder of someone you know, it can be difficult. However, if you're just looking to get away with murdering someone in general, that's surprisingly easy. Just go a town or two over and knife a random someone in a random parking lot. Police success rates are comically low.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Police success rates on completely random murders are insanely low partially because they're insanely rare. Complete success is something like 50% overall, but in general in many of those cases that "aren't solved" they know who did it, they also know they can't prove it.
    - bena 3y ago
      Considering the number of people in prison who get exonerated, I'm glad that the ones "they know" did it aren't actually in jail. Because that seems like random chance that they're actually right. But it's also why I qualified my statements. That if you're looking to kill a particular person, that's way harder than "getting away with murder" in general. Police only have so many tools at their disposal. And if there is no link between victim and perpetrator, the job becomes way harder.
pvg 3y ago
He could have likely gotten away with it He had a plea deal offer for not much more than time served so he even had a definite option to a form of getting away with it.
- scotty79 3y ago
  Why didn't he take it? It's pretty much the best what murderer on trial can hope for. ... then again, if he was reasonable he'd probably never commit murder.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I figure it was because he thought he was so intelligent that he could run circles around the court.
  - pvg 3y ago
    You can get the details from the contemporary coverage linked in the sibling comments but it seemed like he felt he'd go to trial and be acquitted. If I had to guess, having to admit he'd been lying to everyone through the whole process was probably also a factor - the deal was something like plead to a manslaughter charge and reveal the location of the victim's body.
    - deaddodo 3y ago
      Which is what he ended up having to do anyways, but with life attached. He's an egocentric moron. At least, that's my opinion as an outside observer.
    - nailer 3y ago
      > If I had to guess, having to admit he'd been lying to everyone through the whole process was probably also a factor - the deal was something like plead to a manslaughter charge and reveal the location of the victim's body. I fully believe there is a layer of Reiser that was convinced he did not murder his wife. I didn't realise this when I was younger, but I'm pretty sure everybody lies to themselves. Like not about grey issues, but simple cases of black and white. Yes, even most people reading this lie to themselves about facts. We might not be murderers, but we do. I have an important conversation once where I told someone what they'd done wrong, and how to make things better, in a very mature way. I *remember this conversation. Years later I took a drug that is known for causing an 'ego-death' and realised what actually happened was that I was angry and tried to hurt the person as much as possible with my words. There's a book on this topic called "Night of the Gun".

starkparker 3y ago

For those interested in the trial, the SF Chronicle's Henry K. Lee ran a very detailed blog on it: https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/blogs/localnews/category?blogid=37&cat=1428 https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate...

RajT88 3y ago
I go back periodically and read the Wired article about it. It is totally bananas: https://archive.is/BcMRF https://archive.is/BcMRF The wildest part was the friend who had an affair with his wife who blurted out unprompted on the stand that he had killed 7 people. They let that guy go!
- jacquesm 3y ago
  The 'weird nerds' defending Reiser brought this up time and again during the trial. But Reiser showed them all up by leading the authorities to where he had buried the body afterwards so I guess that that particular angle is now settled.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    Yeah, some follow-up reporting found that the guy was lying for some weird reason. He said as much. I forget the reason.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Apparently it's a moderately common enough phenomena that cops intentionally keep aspects of a murder scene out of news and reports, so that they can check if someone knows them or not. People are sick enough for fame that they'll murder, and being sick enough for fame to confess to someone else's murder isn't nearly as bad.
- etc-hosts 3y ago
  I've read the same Wired article you have, it's confusing but it does not actually say that Sturgeon testified during the trial. Read it again. Sean Sturgeon was not called by the prosecution or the defense. He did not testify at the trial. The defense hinted several times during the trial that the police had not adequately investigated Sturgeon for the murder. Before the trial, Sturgeon called the Oakland police and said "I've killed 8 and half people, but I didn't kill Nina." The police didn't know what to do with the 'half' part, and discounted him as a crank.

jonathankoren 3y ago

I will always remember the Slashdot comment that said that removing the passenger seat of your car so you could sleep in your car was a reasonable thing to do, and everyone saying it was suspicious was a hater. (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) I think it was my first experience with absolute egregious fanboism.

bdamm 3y ago
It was probably him.
wetmore 3y ago
It is reasonable, although niche enough to be a bad defense. Here is a popular Instagram account where someone does exactly what you are saying is unreasonable: https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic
- johnchristopher 3y ago
  > Here is a popular Instagram account where someone does exactly what you are saying is unreasonable: https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic Except they don't. First post shows them asking themselves if there's a more comfortable way, second post shows them installing a flat surface. https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyGu0vUuXsz/ https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyGu0vUuXsz/ https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyWqTSSJV7U/ https://www.instagram.com/salvagetoscenic/reel/CyWqTSSJV7U/
  - carcampy 3y ago
    Except they do. They don’t reinstall the seat. And hence removing the seat for the purpose of camping was indeed a reasonable thing to do.
    - johnchristopher 3y ago
      > I will always remember the Slashdot comment that said that removing the passenger seat of your car so you could sleep in your car was a reasonable thing to do, and everyone saying it was suspicious was a hater. (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) > (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) > (Bro. A car floor isn’t even flat.) Do you dig it ? A car floor is not fucking flat. That's why it's suspicious to remove the passenger seat without installing a flat surface over it. That's why the instagram poster did install a flat surface. Because they didn't want to sleep on the car floor. Because it's not flat. It's not comfortable. And because it's not comfortable it's not reasonable. > As investigators follow Hans, they discover the missing CRX, but something is missing, says prosecutor Paul Hora. "He removed the front passenger seat. Then he completely disassembled, removed the rear cargo area of the car, threw away the carpeting that covered the spare tire and the cover that covered the spare tire." > When it was Hora's turn, he asked Hans why he had removed the front passenger seat from his car. "He said he removed the passenger seat in order to make a Honda CRX a more comfortable place to sleep," Hora recalls. "His explanations were ridiculous. I mean, they were lies. A Honda CRX is an awfully small car that wouldn't be comfortable no matter what you did to sleep in it." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/betrayal-29-12-2008/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/betrayal-29-12-2008/ > On October 11, 2006, law enforcement officials said that blood spatter had been found in Hans Reiser's house and car. Forensic testing (including DNA analysis) could neither confirm nor rule out Nina Reiser as the source of the blood. Officials had not located the missing passenger seat of his car. They also indicated that they had found in the car two books on homicide investigation purchased by Reiser on September 8 — five days after Nina Reiser's disappearance: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, and Masterpieces of Murder by Jonathan Goldman.[28] Daniel Horowitz, a high-profile defense attorney, joined the defense team[6] but dropped the case on November 28, citing Reiser's inability to pay for his services.[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser#Murder_investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser#Murder_investigati... It has never been mentioned that the car was modified to accommodate for sleeping on the floor in a comfortable and reasonable way. The passenger seat, carpeting were removed but that doesn't make the floor flat. JFC.

RobotToaster 3y ago

Makes you wonder how many people do actually get away with it.

mschuster91 3y ago
[flagged]
- tiltowait 3y ago
  [flagged]
bena 3y ago
It really depends on what you're looking to get away with. If you're looking to get away with orchestrating the murder of someone you know, it can be difficult. However, if you're just looking to get away with murdering someone in general, that's surprisingly easy. Just go a town or two over and knife a random someone in a random parking lot. Police success rates are comically low.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Police success rates on completely random murders are insanely low partially because they're insanely rare. Complete success is something like 50% overall, but in general in many of those cases that "aren't solved" they know who did it, they also know they can't prove it.
  - bena 3y ago
    Considering the number of people in prison who get exonerated, I'm glad that the ones "they know" did it aren't actually in jail. Because that seems like random chance that they're actually right. But it's also why I qualified my statements. That if you're looking to kill a particular person, that's way harder than "getting away with murder" in general. Police only have so many tools at their disposal. And if there is no link between victim and perpetrator, the job becomes way harder.

pvg 3y ago

He could have likely gotten away with it He had a plea deal offer for not much more than time served so he even had a definite option to a form of getting away with it.

scotty79 3y ago
Why didn't he take it? It's pretty much the best what murderer on trial can hope for. ... then again, if he was reasonable he'd probably never commit murder.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I figure it was because he thought he was so intelligent that he could run circles around the court.
- pvg 3y ago
  You can get the details from the contemporary coverage linked in the sibling comments but it seemed like he felt he'd go to trial and be acquitted. If I had to guess, having to admit he'd been lying to everyone through the whole process was probably also a factor - the deal was something like plead to a manslaughter charge and reveal the location of the victim's body.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    Which is what he ended up having to do anyways, but with life attached. He's an egocentric moron. At least, that's my opinion as an outside observer.
  - nailer 3y ago
    > If I had to guess, having to admit he'd been lying to everyone through the whole process was probably also a factor - the deal was something like plead to a manslaughter charge and reveal the location of the victim's body. I fully believe there is a layer of Reiser that was convinced he did not murder his wife. I didn't realise this when I was younger, but I'm pretty sure everybody lies to themselves. Like not about grey issues, but simple cases of black and white. Yes, even most people reading this lie to themselves about facts. We might not be murderers, but we do. I have an important conversation once where I told someone what they'd done wrong, and how to make things better, in a very mature way. I *remember this conversation. Years later I took a drug that is known for causing an 'ego-death' and realised what actually happened was that I was angry and tried to hurt the person as much as possible with my words. There's a book on this topic called "Night of the Gun".