http://www.wired.com Advertisement http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/wiredcom.dart/threatlevel;kw=threatlevel;kw=blogs;tile=1;sz=728x90;ord=123456789? Threat Level http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/

« Republicans Shun Wiretap and Telecom Amnesty Compromise Meeting http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/republicans-shu.html | Main http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/ | TSA Security Officer Joins Contractor Under Investigation for Security Lapses » http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/tsa-security-of.html

Hans Reiser Murder Trial: Trance Music, Belly Dancing and the Minotaur

By David Kravets Email mailto:dkravets@wired.comFebruary 21, 2008 | 8:51:28 PMCategories: Hans Reiser Trial http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/hans_reiser_trial/index.html

Reisermom2 http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/21/reisermom2.jpg

OAKLAND, California -- "She was the best man."

That was a partial description of the out-of-the-ordinary wedding between Hans Reiser, the popular Linux programmer, and Nina Reiser on May 15, 1999.

Jurors in the Hans Reiser murder trial here were bewildered as they watched an hourlong videotape of the wedding that was replete with a sexy belly dancer, a labyrinth, trance music and minotaur. Some jurors watched with smiling faces while others exhibited disinterest as the birth of the next-generation Reiser family got underway.

That union, which produced a new generation of Reisers -- two children -- ended with Hans Reiser on trial here. The open source programmer and operator of Namesys is accused of killing Nina Reiser in 2006 amid a bitter divorce and custody battle.

http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/21/reisermom2.jpg

Reisermom1 http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/21/reisermom1.jpg

The 44-year-old popular Linux programmer has pleaded not guilty, claiming his wife abandoned their children, now 6 and 8, and left Oakland for Russia, where the couple met in 1998 while Hans Reiser was overseas developing software.

The wife, at age 31, vanished after she dropped off the couple's children to the Oakland hills house where Hans Reiser was living on Sept. 3, 2006.

"She was the best man" was the testimony of Beverly Palmer, the defendant's mother who took the witness stand Thursday for the defense. She earlier testified
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/hans_reiser_trial/index.html#42425604as a prosecution witness.

On Thursday, she narrated the 15-minute outdoor wedding ceremony of Hans and Nina, in a park in the Oakland outskirts. After the wedding, friends of Palmer were seen and overheard playing what she described as "trance" music as a belly dancer gyrated her hips. (Whoever was filming the reception appeared fixated by the scantily clad woman. The judge asked that the tape be fast forwarded.)

"That's Sean Sturgeon," Palmer pointed to a man wearing a dress, white gloves and woman's hat as the crossdresser passed by jurors on a large monitor. (Sturgeon later had an affair with Nina Reiser and was, at one time, Hans Reiser's best friend.)

"He was the best lady, yes," Palmer said of Sturgeon. The best man was Sturgeon's girlfriend, she added.

(CBS paid Nina Reiser's mother, Irina Sharanova, $20,000 http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/hans_reiser_trial/index.html#45580776 for the wedding tape and other material.)

Palmer was the defense's fifth witness in a trial that began here Nov. 6.

Earlier in the day, a psychiatrist took the stand, and suggested http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/expert-in-reise.html that heavy computer users might have Asperger's Disorder http://www.aspergers.com/. The doctor, Beverly Parr, is a friend of Palmer's and was sleeping outside the courtroom during Palmer's testimony.

Dressed in kimonos, the marrying couple was seen dancing through a rock labyrinth, on their way to its center to where they would marry on a sunny, spring afternoon. During the ceremony, Hans and Nina hugged and kissed as the wind rustled their clothing. The minister was wearing a large African-styled shirt.

The wind made the minister's words barely audible. Before Hans said "I do," the minister could be overheard saying "for as long as you both shall live."

The happy couple on the tape could also be seen saying inaudible vows before about a dozen guests.

Defense attorney William DuBois likely showed the tape to display to jurors a human, softer side of the defendant who has often been vilified in court here -- a defendant who has been sitting at the defense table for three months accused of murdering the woman he's seen repeatedly kissing, fondling and dancing with on the video.

At the wedding ceremony, leading the couple through the circular, rock-drawn labyrinth was a "minotaur" beating a tambourine slowly.

"It's a half animal, half bull, half human. A mythical creature," Palmer testified.

"Did you ever consider having a church wedding?" DuBois quipped.

"No."

The defendant sat at the defense table watching the video. His facial expressions, at that time, were not visible from the gallery.

DuBois continued his questioning of Palmer: "Could you tell us what's going on here?"

"They were sort of dancing their way into the middle of the labyrinth," Palmer said of Hans and Nina. "They were going to meet the minister there."

"This is what you and Nina had planned?" DuBois asked.

"Yes."

"What was the significance of that?" DuBois asked, referring to the labyrinth.

"I don't quite remember that now."

"Why would you want to have a wedding in a labyrinth?"

"I just liked the idea of the labyrinth," she said. "It was a metaphor for the difficulties in life."

On cross examination, prosecutor Paul Hora followed up on statements Palmer made immediately after taking the stand. She testified that, in 2005, Nina Reiser had tried to extort her for an unspecified amount of money, threatening to move herself and her children to Switzerland.

Hora asked why Palmer would have told police, when Nina Reiser went missing, that her daughter in law was a "lovely" person.

"Because even lovely people do desperate things," she said.

Hora also asked whether Palmer knew Nina Reiser's whereabouts.

"Do I know where Nina is now?" Palmer asked. "I have no idea where Nina is now."

Testimony resumes Monday. Trial is always dark here on Fridays.

THREAT LEVEL http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/ is providing gavel-to-gavel
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/hans_reiser_trial/index.htmlcoverage.

Sketches by Wired's Norman Quebedeau. See Also: * Hans Reiser Murder Trial: The Vilification Defense Begins --

UPDATE II http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/237774743/click.phdo#previouspost

Last Prosecution Witness to Take Stand in Hans Reiser Murder Trial ... http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/233209117/click.phdo#previouspost
Nina Reiser's Mom Sobbing on Witness Stand -- UPDATE http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/233423394/click.phdo#previouspost
Hans Reiser Murder Trial Refocusing on Nina Reiser -- UPDATE http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/230490677/click.phdo#previouspost
Nina Reiser's Mother Agitated on Cross Examination http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/234683753/click.phdo#previouspost
Judge Threatening to Exclude Hans Reiser From His Murder Trial http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/226053881/click.phdo#previouspost
Hans Reiser in the Sierra Nevada Mountains 21 Days After Wife ... http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/225461921/click.phdo#previouspost
Cops Find $9000 and Passport on Hans Reiser http://feeds.wired.com/r/wired27b/3/226838400/click.phdo#previouspost

http://digg.com/submit?url=http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html&title=Hans%20Reiser%20Murder%20Trial:%20Trance%20Music,%20Belly%20Dancing%20and%20the%20Minotaur add to StumbleUponStumble http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html&title=Hans%20Reiser%20Murder%20Trial:%20Trance%20Music,%20Belly%20Dancing%20and%20the%20Minotaur ShareThis

http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/wiredcom.dart/threatlevel;kw=threatlevel;kw=blogs;tile=2;sz=300x250;ord=123456789?

http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/wiredcom.dart/threatlevel;kw=threatlevel;kw=blogs;tile=2;sz=300x250;ord=123456789? http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/wiredcom.dart/threatlevel;kw=threatlevel;kw=blogs;tile=2;sz=300x250;ord=123456789?

*yawn*

Who really cares about this? This has nothing to do with your charter. Apperently you have some hardon for ReiserFS which has nothing to do with anything. Does wired actually pay you for this? Because its a pretty sad gig.

Posted by: blah | Feb 21, 2008 8:00:46 PM http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-103713046

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-103713046

A minotaur and trance music? I hate furries.

Posted by: Left Hand Side | Feb 21, 2008 9:38:10 PM http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-103723734

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-103723734

I love to read about this trial. It is very interesting ...

Posted by: messner | Feb 23, 2008 4:58:32 AM http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-103975224

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-103975224

> I love to read about this trial. > is very interesting ... Indeed! In its morbid way it's absolutely gripping. I really don't know whether he did or not, but I do know that if Justice is going to be not only done, but seen to be done, then everybody should be able to watch the key-strokes coming off the official stenographer's machine. That should stop shonky lawyers creaming the system.

Posted by: Christopher | Feb 24, 2008 3:04:01 AM http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-104128678

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-104128678

You can't just start saying a missing person is not only dead, but murdered, and then point fingers at people. Nina is probably off in some dissociative fugue from all the stress from Hans and the divorce.

Posted by: yeeha | Mar 21, 2008 12:59:37 PM http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-107860338

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/hans-reiser-m-3.html#comment-107860338

Post a comment

You are currently signed in as (nobody). Sign Out http://www.typepad.com/t/comments?__mode=signout&user_id=1067988&entry_id=45968304