Children Of Missing Woman In Home When Mother Slain, Police Say The Reiser Case

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Children of missing woman in home when mother slain, police say

 

Nina Reiser's two children were in the house on the day police believe her husband killed her, according to a probable cause statement filed by Oakland police this morning.

 

Police arrested Hans Reiser, 42, Tuesday after discovering splattered blood in the living room of his Montclair home and in his car. Forensic tests on the blood cannot exclude Nina Reiser, 31, as its donor, according to police.

 

Reiser will be arraigned on a murder charge this afternoon in Alameda County Superior Court. While police believe Nina Reiser is dead, her whereabouts are unknown.

 

The Reiser's two children, a girl, 5, and a boy, 7, were taken into protective custody and interviewed by police in the days after their mother's disappearance.

 

Nina Reiser dropped off her kids off at her estranged husband's home on Sept. 3, after picking up groceries at the Berkeley Bowl market. The statement said that authorities believe the kids were downstairs playing video games at Hans Reiser's Montclair home on that day, and that the kids heard their parents arguing.

 

``One of the children indicated that Hans Reiser and Nina Reiser were possibly involved in an argument,'' wrote Missing Persons Investigator Ryan Gill.

 

``The child indicated that his parents were talking at a `medium' volume and that they were using `not nice words.' '' Gill wrote. One of the children later told an investigator that he had gone upstairs and that his mom and dad were in the living room.

 

The child said that Hans Reiser told him to go back downstairs and not to come back upstairs, not even to the kitchen area, according to the statement.

 

Nina Reiser was supposed to drop off her kids and had plans that evening to meet a friend for dinner. She never showed. Nina and Hans Reiser lived together until about April 2004, when Nina told her husband to leave, police said. That's when Hans Reiser moved into his mother's Montclair home. Nina Reiser filed for divorce in 2004, and eventually won custody of their kids.

 

Police said investigators also learned that during the course of the separation that Hans Reiser had physically assaulted Nina Reiser and had made verbal threats of causing her bodily harm ``for the rest of her life.''

 

On the weekend she disappeared, the couple had argued about the weekend custody of their children. Nina Reiser had agreed to split the weekend days with her husband.

 

The two kids were taken to school on Tuesday, Sept. 5. She never picked them up. Concerned friends notified police.

 

``When the officer attempted to gather information for his preliminary investigation Hans Reiser became uncooperative and advised the officer to contact his lawyer,'' Gill wrote in the probable cause statement.

 

Police also interviewed Hans Reiser's mother, Beverly Palmer, who refused to provide a formal statement. Palmer was not at home on Sept. 3, and she told investigators that she was attending the Burning Man event in Nevada.

 

Palmer did not allow investigators inside her home when first asked, the report states.

 

On. Sept. 9 Nina Reiser's tan minivan was located in the 1500 block of Fernwood Drive, a short distance from Hans Reiser's home. It was unoccupied and locked, and grocery bags were inside.

 

``Nina Reiser's cell phone remained in the vehicle, and had been dismantled'' with the battery removed and phone flipped open, according to the statement.

 

Inside the van were personal checks, receipts and more than $100 in cash.

 

Police later reviewed surveillance footage showing that Nina Reiser and her two children left Berkeley Bowl at about 1:55 p.m., before heading to her husband's house.

 

In the days after the disappearance police said they began following Hans Reiser, and that he began trying to lose them by driving at varying speeds, turning down quiet residential streets and making abrupt stops.

 

Police recovered the 1988 Honda CRX that Hans Reiser drove in Berkeley, and said it was missing the right, front passenger seat. The seat has still not been found, police said.

 

Inside the car investigators also found a roll of large black trash bags and a socket wrench.Hans Reiser purchased two books, ``Homicide'' by David Simon and ``Masterpieces of Murder'' by Jonathan Goodman on Sept. 8 from Barnes & Noble in Berkeley.

 

Also inside the car forensics investigators found a blood stain on a sleeping bag stuff sack that measured 1 inch by 3 inches. The stain was tested and Nina Reiser could not be excluded as its donor. In addition, investigators found evidence they believe shows the car was cleaned -- including water residue under the rug.

 

When police on Sept. 28 detained Hans Reiser briefly to obtain a DNA sample, Reiser had about $8,900 in cash, his passport, and receipts, including one for a siphon pump found in his car.

 

Police said the last purchase they've been able to track by Nina Reiser is from the Berkeley Bowl on Sept. 3. Her last phone call was made to Hans Reiser's house.

 

Hans Reiser's attorney, William H. Du Bois, said he will not comment about any evidence until he is given a chance to review it.

 

``We're going to roll up our sleeves, examine the evidence carefully and get busy defending him on a case I think pushes the very limits of the doctrine of circumstantial evidence ... in a murder case'' where there is no body, Du Bois said.

 

A Web site has been launched, http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/, by friends of the missing woman and a $15,000 reward has been offered for any information leading to her whereabouts.

 

Anyone with information can contact Oakland police at 510-637-0298.

 

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/

 

Seriously, even famous computer programmers can turn evil, what has this would come to? As Shakespeare once said "Fair is foul, foul is fair". I think it's quite true to some people on Earth.

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Your thoughts?

 

 

xboxrulz

Edited October 16, 2006 by xboxrulz (see edit history)