The Reiser murder case is some super freaky weird sh*t

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Thu May 03, 2007 10:01 pm

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/05/reiser

A former lover of the missing wife of Linux programmer and accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case, prosecutors informed the defense last week.

Sean Sturgeon, a one-time friend of Reiser's, had already been a focus of the defense team's efforts to shift suspicion off Reiser in the disappearance of his estranged wife, Nina Reiser. Sturgeon's alleged confession to a series of unrelated murders will likely complicate the trial, which is set to begin Monday.

"Sturgeon claims that the murders were in retaliation for his abuse as a child," said Ramon Reiser, Hans Reiser's father, who was briefed by the defense team over the weekend and spoke to Wired News on Sunday.

It's unclear when Sturgeon made the confession -- he would say only, "I have cooperated since day one." Asked why he had confessed at all, he responded with this question: "In a murder case, if somebody has killed, who is a witness, is it relevant? Yes or no?"

When this reporter responded that it was relevant, Sturgeon said, "Then you have the answer to your question."

Sturgeon added that confessing was one of the most difficult decisions of his life. He also regrets being a source of distraction in the case, joking that he is not so much a red herring as a "red Sturgeon."

steve riley · Post by **steve riley** » Fri May 04, 2007 10:47 am

Wow! That guy is a piece of work. A murderer, philosopher and poet. In this country he has a bright future.

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri May 04, 2007 10:50 am

Sometimes gifted people are unstable, this seems to be one of those cases.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri May 04, 2007 11:01 am

Vogateer wrote:Sometimes gifted people are unstable, this seems to be one of those cases.

I don't know the first thing about the case, other than what I read on the almighty intarweb, but statements like these really diminish personal responsibility. Mostly what I've noticed is that people who think they are gifted tend to be prima donnas with serious ego issues. Regardless of what sort of person you are, gifted, non-gifted, whatever, *you* make the decision to be an assho|e or be a good person (or in this case a murdering assho|e).

Post by **Patrick** » Fri May 04, 2007 11:04 am

Snarkout wrote:Mostly what I've noticed is that people who think they are gifted tend to be prima donnas with serious ego issues. Regardless of what sort of person you are, gifted, non-gifted, whatever, *you* make the decision to be an assho|e or be a good person (or in this case a murdering assho|e).

Great stuff! I might have to make this my signature.

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri May 04, 2007 12:17 pm

I didn't in any way mean to make excuses for anyone or suggest that he was less responsible for his actions. I don't care if you have an IQ of 220, if you're an ass, I don't want to be around you; and if you're a murderer, you should go to jail.

But yeah, I meant the opposite of how you interpreted my admittedly vague sentence. I meant that just because he is gifted doesn't mean he's not unstable and not a murderer. I'd say Reiser is gifted in his ability to write a good filesystem, but obviously not what I'd consider a stable, normal person given what little I know from reading what the press has said, though placing a lot of trust in the press is obviously a debatable practice.

A more technical wording of what I meant to say might be:
The possession of ability and intelligence does not preclude the possibility of maniacal behavior.

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Fri May 04, 2007 1:08 pm

I'm getting the feeling from the comments in this thread that some of you guys are misreading the Wired article. The guy that just confessed to 8 murders is NOT Hanns Reiser, but his friend and his wife's ex-lover, Sean Sturgeon. This casts doubt on whether Hanns Reiser did it.

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri May 04, 2007 1:31 pm

I understood that it was the friend and Nina's lover who confessed, though it is strange that he'd confess to eight other murders and not confess to killing Hans Reiser's wife if he did it. Combine that with Nina Reiser being vaguely accused of Munchausen by Proxy and sadomasochism, and Hans Reiser being well-known for his eccentricities, and you get a strange group of people.

TankCatNinjaFish · Post by **TankCatNinjaFish** » Fri May 04, 2007 1:48 pm

greggh wrote:I'm getting the feeling from the comments in this thread that some of you guys are misreading the Wired article. The guy that just confessed to 8 murders is NOT Hanns Reiser, but his friend and his wife's ex-lover, Sean Sturgeon. This casts doubt on whether Hanns Reiser did it.

Yea, the opening to the article is very misleading:

A former lover of the missing wife of Linux programmer and accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case, prosecutors informed the defense last week.

But whatdoyaexpect from wired magazine? The grocery store tabloid of the tech world.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sat May 05, 2007 10:57 am

Vogateer wrote:But yeah, I meant the opposite of how you interpreted my admittedly vague sentence.

Yeah. My argument came out more or less wrong, too. What I meant is that society seems to look for cop-outs in order to categorize people who do terrible things. The son of a crack addict who was selling dope at 6? That's the reason he turned out that way! Teased at school? Oh, yeah, makes sense they did that. That guy who was gifted but "troubled?" Ohhh, I guess that must be why he was "unstable."

I realize we do this to try to compartmentalize and pigeon hole the "bad" parts of society and to explain away violently aberrant behavior, but we're really just deceiving ourselves when we do this. We obviously do this to help ease our fears and assuage out guilty consciences - we try to convince ourselves that the "bad" is "out there," not nearby. Certainly not inside all of us. There are a lot of bad people out there, and there are a lot of normally "good" people who do bad things when put in "the right situation." There are also many more people who surprise themselves and others by how strong and heroic they can be in bad situations. Many of these people had the same problems to deal with and same obsticles in their way that the shitheads did.

My point is that at the end of the day, most of us have had to deal with some very hard times, and have experienced some very good times, and *most* of us live our lives like decent people, with only occasional setbacks. People often look for a characteristic in the person who did the bad thing that might explain their behavior rather than looking at the person. Blaming "gifted" rather than blaming the person - or perhaps looking at the "gifted" portion as the part of the person that caused the bad behavior rather than looking at the asshole portion - seems to be our way as humans.

jturning · Post by **jturning** » Sat May 05, 2007 4:39 pm

Do you guys think he will get off? If properly worked, the angle of her murderous ex-boyfriend could be powerful to throw in doubt with the jury. Not to mention the ex-boyfriend being into sadomasochism. But I remember there being some pretty good evidence. The missing seat in his car, the books on how murders are investigated. Pretty damning stuff.

Too bad, as I'm still using his file system with my openSUSE 10.2.

TankCatNinjaFish · Post by **TankCatNinjaFish** » Tue May 08, 2007 4:00 am

jturning wrote:Do you guys think he will get off? If properly worked, the angle of her murderous ex-boyfriend could be powerful to throw in doubt with the jury. Not to mention the ex-boyfriend being into sadomasochism. But I remember there being some pretty good evidence. The missing seat in his car, the books on how murders are investigated. Pretty damning stuff.

Too bad, as I'm still using his file system with my openSUSE 10.2.

People have been put to death on less evidence, especially in California. Remember, jury are comprised primarily of those who were too stupid to get out of jury duty.

chuck · Post by **chuck** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:23 am

TankCatNinjaFish wrote:People have been put to death on less evidence, especially in California. Remember, jury are comprised primarily of those who were too stupid to get out of jury duty.

Or it's comprised of people who believe that the system works if people participate. It's the negative attitudes like yours and those unwilling to do their simple parts in society that brings things down to where they are. None of it is perfect for everyone, but if we all try just a little we can make it better together.

Voice your opinion when things aren't right, but be there to help supply ideas to lead to a solution.