OAKLAND, California -- As Juror No. 7, schoolteacher Vince Dunn sat a foot or so away from Hans Reiser, the Linux programmer whom Dunn and 11 other panelists convicted of first-degree murder on Monday.
In an interview Tuesday with Wired.com, the 61-year-old fifth-grade teacher recounted his six months of jury duty, some of which required sitting next to the 44-year-old defendant's immediate right during his 11 days on the witness stand.
Hans Reiser is escorted from the courtroom following a Tuesday court appearance setting his sentencing date. "I was looking at his eyes," the Oakland man said in a telephone interview. "He was faking it."
After two days of deliberations, Dunn said the panel had concluded that Reiser had killed his wife, Nina Reiser, on Sept. 3, 2006. She was last seen at her estranged husband's house in the Oakland hills, when she dropped off the divorcing couple's two young children for part of the Labor Day weekend. Reiser faces a mandatory 25 years to life at sentencing, which is set for July 9.
In opting for first-degree murder -- a decision reached on the final day of deliberation -- the jury rejected the lesser alternatives of manslaughter or murder in the second degree, finding that Reiser planned the killing in advance. Dunn said jurors arrived at the conclusion based on evidence that Reiser had strong motives for killing his wife, and his calculative behavior.
"It was a combination of things," Dunn said. "The fact that he was able to get rid of the body. It's something you do if you premeditate ... He wasn't an impulsive type of a guy. He planned things. He researched things."
A bailiff watches over Hans Reiser as he's convicted of first degree murder on Monday.
Courtroom sketch: Wired.com/Norman QuebedeauThe motives were also clear, said the juror. The 31-year-old wife had an affair with the defendant's best friend. And days before the murder, child welfare workers accused Reiser of being more than $10,000 in arrears in child-support. Jurors also noted that Reiser was frantically calling a local politician in a bid to change the family court system, which he blamed for initially giving full legal custody to Nina, Dunn said.
"After a while, we started to see how arrogant he was, how little sympathy he had for his wife," Dunn said. "He was thinking this out."
Dunn added: "It wasn't one single thing. But he had thought it out."
How does Dunn believe the developer of the ReiserFS filesystem killed the mother of his two children?
"I think he choked her and at some point and stabbed her," Dunn said. "That's a big question."
Dunn added that the seven-man, five-woman Alameda County jury was convinced the defendant was guilty because of his own testimony. The defendant lies, Dunn said, which certified his guilt.
Taking the stand, Dunn said, "didn't help him at all. That's for sure. All of his explanations didn't help."
The defendant was not a misunderstood computer geek, said Dunn. His actions following his wife's disappearance could not be explained by an overly-logical mind, or a chronic inattention to social cues. His behavior was a coverup, Dunn said.
The so-called "geek defense" was "a defense ploy to get us to accept it all," Dunn said.
Among the guilt-like behavior, Dunn said, was that the defendant admitted he threw away the passenger seat of his tiny Honda CRX and hosed down the inside of it as well. He also admitted he tried to hide he car. (Reiser testified he removed the seat to sleep in the car and hosed down the inside because it was dirty.)
Also, Dunn said, the defendant's battery from his mobile phone was removed when police detained him two weeks before his Oct. 10 arrest. Nina Reiser's battery was removed from her cellphone when police discovered her purse inside her abandoned minivan a few miles from the defendant's house. A cellphone without power cannot be traced to the nearest mobile-phone tower.
"The missing car seat was really damaging and the cell phone thing," Dunn said. "He just had zero sympathy for his wife."
He said nobody on the jury believed that Nina Reiser would have abandoned her two children, as the defendant maintained. Hans Reiser said he accused his wife of bilking his Namesys software company, and she fled back to Russia where the couple met.
"We all agreed that she was dead," Dunn said. "We all agreed that she would not have left her kids."
See Also:
- Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder
- Reiser Geek Defense Equals Cover Up to Murder
- Reiser Jurors Reach Verdict; Wired.com to Stream It Live
- Defense Lawyer Says Reiser Didn't Help Himself
- Reiser Jury Checks in for Third Day of Deliberations
- Hans Reiser Jury Deliberating Fate of Linux Developer
- Reiser Jury Deliberating; Readers Voting 'Not Guilty'
- Prosecutor Declares Reiser Had 'Motive Coming Out of His Ears'
