A BSI standard day... ruined.

[strredwolf]

That's British Standards Institute.  Aka a cool, grey, rainy day.  I could go for that.

But what lovely thing has popped up on Slashdot?

Great. Hans Reiser (ReiserFS fame) got himself convicted of murder. http://tinyurl.com/6xm776

Sigh... Nice file system.  Unfortunately, it's creator has just proven himself to be a mad scientist.

Comments

[bibliophage.livejournal.com]

Well, he's an asshole, that's for sure, which is really what got him convicted. However, I'm not so certain about the 'murderer' part.

I did a batch of background reading, and came up with a few things.

1) The mother got the kids Russian citizenship. This is generally not something you do unless you're planning on hauling the kids off to Russia, so that you can't be reached/found.

2) No body. Period. No real evidence of a body ever existing. (minor bloodstains don't count - I've left blood all over the place before, and a woman can leave blood behind at least once a month - by accident).

3) Kids removed to Russia extremely shortly afterwards by the grandmother - out of the reach of the US courts, then not returned as initially agreed (did return at one point, but conveniently the Russian psychiatrist said that the kids, that grew up in the US, needed to stay in Russia for at least a couple of years to 'recover' or something similar).

4) The "Missing Car Seat" (bloody glove) was apparently not missing until at least 10 days after the disappearance. Apparently Reiser was pulled over by a cop for a police stop, and the seat was intact at that point. (Frankly, I can think of a lot of other reasons to get rid of a car seat, and if I was going to get rid of one for evidence purposes, I'd hit a junkyard and buy a replacement with cash, not just yank it out then drive around for another month or two)

5) Ms. Reiser's ex-boyfriend was a real nutball (Sean Sturgeon) who has confessed to 8 other killings. (not convicted, just confessed)

6) The 'He had cash, a passport, and two books on murder investigations' was a bit stupid. He owned his own business; if I could, I'd carry that kind of cash for some of my transactions, and the government WANTS you to carry your passport. You DO need two types of photo ID for a lot of high end transactions. (I've been known to do this.) The books were also bought well AFTER the disappearance, when he was already suspicious about them investigating HIM. If he bought them two weeks before, maybe that'd be something to think about.

I won't be at all surprised to find an appeal succeeding in this case.