Ханс Райзер: Бағдарламашы, кәсіпкер және қылмыскер

American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and convicted murderer
the German film actor

Hans Thomas Reiser (born December 19, 1963) is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and convicted murderer. In April 2008, Reiser was convicted of the first degree murder of his wife, Nina Reiser, who disappeared in September 2006. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second degree murder, as part of a settlement agreement that included disclosing the location of Nina Reiser's body, which he revealed to be in a shallow grave near the couple's home. Prior to his incarceration, Reiser created the ReiserFS computer file system, which may be used by the Linux kernel but which is now scheduled for removal in 2025,
as well as its attempted successor, Reiser4. In 2004, he founded Namesys, a corporation meant to coordinate the development of both file systems.

Reiser and his company Namesys developed the journaled computer file systems ReiserFS and Reiser4. ReiserFS has been available in the Linux operating system since version 2.4.1 and has, at times, been the default filesystem on several Linux distributions including, until 2006, Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise. Following Reiser's 2006 arrest on suspicion of murder, people in the free software community expressed concern over the future of Reiser's newer filesystem (Reiser4). Shortly after Reiser's arrest, the employees of Namesys stated that they would continue to work, that the arrest had no immediate effect on the rate of the software's development, and if the case expanded over a longer time, they would seek solutions to ensure the long term future of the company. On December 21, 2006, Reiser announced that he was selling the company to raise money for his increasing legal fees. According to an interview with Namesys employee Edward Shishkin, as of January 2008, the commercial activity of the company had ceased, but it had not been sold.

In 1998, while working in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Reiser reportedly arranged to meet a Russian woman he selected from a mail order bride catalog. Five months later he married Nina Sharanova (Нина Шаранова), who was studying to become an American licensed OB/GYN. They had two children. Hans's father, Ramon, became suspicious of his new daughter in law when she took the title of CFO at Namesys at that time. Ramon was trained in military interviewing techniques and claimed that Nina lied to him when he confronted her about inexplicably fast shrinking reserves of Namesys. The Reisers separated in May 2004. Nina Reiser filed for divorce three months later, citing irreconcilable differences and alleging that their children "hardly know their father" because he was out of the country on business for most of the year, according to court records. She was granted sole legal custody of the children and shared physical custody of them with her husband. The divorce had not been finalized by the time she disappeared. Nina Reiser obtained a temporary restraining order against Hans in December 2004 after he pushed her at the height of the divorce proceedings. She dropped the temporary restraining order in late 2005 because the heat of the divorce had chilled over time.

According to a later confession by Hans Reiser to authorities, on September 3, 2006, Nina Reiser dropped their two children off with Hans Reiser at his mother's house, where he was living at the time. The pair got into a heated argument over Nina Reiser taking the children to the doctor, with Nina referencing that she had custody over the children, and so was free to do as she wished. Defense lawyer William DuBois later said that Hans Reiser alleged that Nina Reiser was fabricating illnesses in the children. Hans Reiser hit her in the face and strangled her to death. He put her body into a duffel bag, moved it into his car at night, drove it to an isolated area and buried it over the course of two nights. After cleaning his car, Hans Reiser disposed of the seat the body was placed on out of caution. Nina Reiser was reported missing on September 5, 2006. Nina Reiser's 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan, with groceries inside, was found on September 9 in Oakland's Thornhill neighborhood, just east of the SR 13 Warren Freeway. It was reported by police that neighbors first spotted the parked minivan on September 5, the day she was supposed to pick up her children at school. Following Nina Reiser's disappearance, which resulted in the removal of the Reiser children from the Reiser family, Hans Reiser attempted to obtain custody but was unsuccessful. Oakland police testified against Hans Reiser at the custody hearing, though they did not reveal the evidence on which they based their concerns. On October 10, 2006, following the second search of his home, Oakland police and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigators removed a number of items. HSI had been investigating Reiser for money laundering. Police announced that they were now treating the disappearance as a homicide case, and Reiser was arrested for the murder of Nina Reiser and subsequently charged. On October 11, 2006, law enforcement officials said that blood spatter had been found in Hans Reiser's house and car. Forensic testing (including DNA analysis) could neither confirm nor rule out Nina Reiser as the source of the blood. Officials had not located the missing passenger seat of his car. They also indicated that they had found in the car two books on homicide investigation purchased by Reiser on September 8 — five days after Nina Reiser's disappearance: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, and Masterpieces of Murder by Jonathan Goldman. Daniel Horowitz, a high profile defense attorney, joined the defense team On November 28, Reiser entered a not guilty plea and invoked his right to a speedy trial, forcing the state to schedule a preliminary hearing for December 11. On December 2, at the request of the Oakland police, search and rescue teams combed an area less than 3 mile (5 km) from Hans Reiser's house, but no new major findings were immediately announced.

The preliminary hearing opened on December 11, 2006, with Reiser being represented by attorney William Du Bois. At the hearing, a forensic technician testified that blood matching Nina Reiser's DNA had been found on a bag in Hans Reiser's car, and on a pillar in his mother (Beverly Palmer)'s home, where he had been living since the separation. It later emerged that a mistake had been made when the police analysed the blood on the pillar, rendering the evidence inconclusive. Police also testified that they had found a 40 piece socket set which may have been used to remove the passenger seat, a receipt for the purchase of the socket set from Kragen Auto Parts, four seat bolts, and a ratchet wrench with a socket on it, suggesting that the seat may have been removed recently. A traffic officer who had pulled Reiser over nine days after Nina Reiser went missing testified later in the trial that the passenger seat had been present at the time, and that he had not seen any blood.

On March 23, 2007, Reiser pleaded not guilty before Judge C. Don Clay. Shortly after, the court learned of a complication in the trial regarding a former friend of Hans Reiser named Sean Sturgeon. Sturgeon, who had previously dated Nina Reiser, was claiming to be responsible for eight murders and possibly a ninth. In an interview with Wired News, Sturgeon vigorously denied that Nina Reiser was one of them. With the police doubting that the alleged murders ever took place, Judge Clay issued a gag order against discussing Sturgeon at the trial. On June 11, Reiser's trial was assigned to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, who had presided over a number of murder and death penalty cases.

On July 23, 2007, hearings on pretrial motions began. Potential jurors were to be brought to court on August 29, 30, and September 4, to fill out questionnaires, but face to face questioning of prospective jurors was not planned to begin until September 19, 2007. Opening statements were expected to begin on October 29, 2007; however, they were postponed and rescheduled for November 5, 2007. The defense stated that the delay was due to possible prejudicial information in a television segment about the case to be aired on November 2. The prosecutor stated that the delay was necessary as more time was needed for additional pretrial motions.

Hans Reiser's murder trial began on November 6, 2007 with opening statements from prosecutor Paul Hora. Reiser vigorously denied responsibility for the murder throughout the trial. When Reiser testified in his own defense, his implausible claims and erratic behavior in the courtroom largely undermined his claim of innocence. Psychiatrist Beverly Parr testified that he "possibly" exhibited symptoms of Asperger syndrome but did not make a diagnosis. On November 13, 2007, Reiser's eight year old son, Rory, who had made one out of two planned appearances in the pretrial hearing, arrived from Russia to testify for the prosecution. Both of his grandmothers were ordered out of the courtroom before he took the stand. The prosecution and defense teams both considered the testimony inconsistent, and Du Bois complained that the boy had been coached. After three days of closing argument, the prosecutor concluded by urging jurors to convict Hans Reiser for murdering his wife. In his closing argument, Reiser's attorney, William Du Bois, urged the jury to consider a sentence of voluntary manslaughter if they believed that Nina was dead and that Hans Reiser killed her in a moment of passion. On Monday, April 28, 2008, Hans Reiser was found guilty of first degree murder. On Monday, July 7, 2008, Reiser led police to Nina's shallow grave in the Oakland Hills. Reiser's attorney, William Du Bois, who was handcuffed to Reiser and accompanied by a heavy police guard to the site, said that the remains were found buried on the side of a hill between Redwood Regional Park and the Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, less than from the home on Exeter Drive where Reiser lived with his mother, and where Nina Reiser was last seen alive on September 3, 2006. Oakland homicide detective Lt. Ersie Joyner recalled that Reiser led them directly to the exact site, without any hesitation or confusion.

On September 5, 2008, Reiser arrived at San Quentin State Prison to begin his sentence. Reiser tried to appeal his second degree murder conviction on October 30, 2008. The request was denied by Judge Larry Goodman on November 13, 2008. On January 10, 2009, it was reported that Reiser was recovering after having been beaten by several prisoners. On January 28, 2009, he was transferred to Mule Creek State Prison. In February 2011, he was transferred to Pleasant Valley State Prison. as of 2020, Reiser was housed at the Correctional Training Facility near Soledad, California, with a tentative parole eligibility date of August 2027 after parole was denied in 2022. As of November 2021, he was in the California Health Care Facility. In September 2011, Hans Reiser filed a civil lawsuit. In his complaint, he named more than 70 defendants, including trial judges and his attorney, William Du Bois. He claimed, among other things, that his attorney had conspired with the judge to file motions against him, which were impossible to appeal, and that his attorney had forced him to take the stand against his will. After several rounds of amendments and additional complaints, the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice. In July 2012, a jury awarded Reiser's children $60 million against their father for the death of Nina Reiser. Reiser acted as his own attorney during the trial and tried to argue that he killed his wife to protect their children.