OAKLAND, California -- Hans Reiser's defense attorney on Thursday seized upon the confusion in the immediate aftermath of Nina Reiser's disappearance to bolster the theory that the woman disappeared last year and was not murdered by her husband as prosecutors allege.
Defense attorney William DuBois grilled Anthony Zografos, the man Nina was dating when she vanished Sept. 3, 2006 after she dropped off her two young children to her estranged husband, the maker of once popular Linux filing systems distributed by his Oakland company, Namesys.
"When Nina originally did not respond to her voice mail messages, isn't it true you thought she may have left, to just take a break and get away?" DuBois asked Zografos, who was on the witness stand for the second day.
"I did not conclude that, actually."
"I'm asking you whether your voice messages to Nina reflect the fact that…Nina may have taken off on her own, to take a break?"
Moments later, the boyfriend replied: "I was hoping she was alive and perhaps she had left."
Dozens of messages were placed by friends and family on Nina's home and mobile phones after she vanished. She has not been seen since leaving her two young children with her former husband in the Oakland hills house Hans Reiser shared with his mother.
Some of the messages said "We love you" and others: "We don't want to see you get into trouble."
"What did you mean, 'Everything can be fixed?'" DuBois asked Zografos, referring to a message the boyfriend left.
"I meant, if Nina is able to listen to her voice mails, if she was afraid something bad had happened to the kids -- nothing is broken, everything can be fixed," Zografos said in a thick Greek accent. "These are messages of a desperate man."
The court stenographer interrupted. "Say it again."
"These are messages of a desperate man."
The 12 jurors and four alternates appeared engaged in the back and forth dialogue, which is the centerpiece of the husband's defense. The husband says his wife, who was divorcing him, left the country perhaps to Russia, where the two met, abandoning their children, now 6 and 8.
At one point, the witness and defendant exchanged violent stares.
The woman's divorce attorney testified last week that Nina had asked her whether the courts would allow her to move to Russia with the kids. The children are in Russia, living with Nina's parents. Nina has never been seen since Sept.3, 2006.
Prosecutors allege the husband killed the woman that day and hid the body, perhaps in the Oakland hills to end a bitter divorce and custody battle. The authorities found trace amounts of the woman's blood at the house and in his car. Among other circumstantial evidence, the passenger seat was missing in the husband's vehicle. Inside it, there were books about murder and it was soaking wet when police found it.
DuBois also assassinated Nina's character as the fourth week of Hans Reiser's murder trial is concluding.
At one point, DuBois pointed out, two boyfriends had a key to Nina's apartment in Oakland. One man was Zografos, the other Sean Sturgeon, the husband's former best friend who confessed to police he was a serial killer but said he did not murder Nina. (Sturgeon has not been accused of murdering anyone.)
Zografos testified he watched Sturgeon return his key.
"You were actually present at the changing of the key ceremony?" DuBois asked.
"When you got a key, Sean Sturgeon had a key?" DuBois continued.
"He had a key to the house," Zografos replied.
DuBois accused Nina of being promiscuous.
"You didn't think she was looking for other men while she was dating you, did you?" DuBois asked.
"I know she wasn't."
"You say that with some authority."
DuBois was referring to Craigslist personal ad searches discovered on the woman's computer after she vanished.
Zografos was on the stand all morning Thursday under cross examination. He appeared angry by the questioning and at points became hostile. "I'm not sure I understand the question," he said at times. He often clenched his mouth while DuBois posed one question after another.
The discourse veered back to the phone messages he and dozens of others left Nina.
"I was hoping that she had run away and that she had access to her voicemail," he said.
He testified that the police told him that people going through contentious divorces sometimes vanish for a few days.
"The police themselves said it was common for people going through the problems she was going through to take some time off," Zografos testified.
"They told you this was common to happen. They said it was not unusual for this to happen?" DuBois replied.
"They said it happens, sometimes."
Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman interjected.
"Bill, I think you made your point."
The witness, however, continued: "I was looking at that as the best case scenario, that Nina was alive and that she just had a breakdown."
DuBois asked whether Zografos was lying.
"I was desperate. I was looking for some hope."
UPDATE after the jump.
AFTER LUNCH:
Oakland pediatrician Dorit Bar-Din, the Reisers' former child doctor, took the witness stand….
Like nearly a dozen others, she testified Nina was a good mother and would never abandon her kids.
"Do you have the opinion she would be the kind of parent that would vanish off the face of the earth voluntarily and abandon her children?" prosecutor Paul Hora asked.
"Objection," DuBois said. "I don't know how anybody can vanish off the face of the earth voluntarily, unless they're an astronaut."
"Overruled."
"What was it about Nina to make you think she really cared about her kids?" Hora asked.
"Her mannerism with the children. The way she disciplined the children. The regularity that she followed my guidance in terms of coming to the office," the doctor said.
She recalled Nina kneeling on her office floor, consoling her young boy not to be scared of the doctor.
"'It wasn't going to be frightening,'" the doctor whispered, repeating what she overheard Nina tell the boy.
Bar-Din quit as the Reiser kids' doctor after she said Hans threatened to sue her if she examined the children outside his presence.
"How many times did she try to get you to change her mind?" Hora asked.
"I remember three phone calls," the doctor recalled Nina placing to her.
"Did you think she loved them?" Hora asked the doctor, referring to Nina and her children.
Pause.
"Can I answer?" the doctor asked the judge.
"Yes," the judge replied.
"Anything about that last question that threw you for a loop?" Hora asked.
"Love is a big word," Bar-Din said.
The doctor testified that the husband was concerned that Sturgeon, Nina's live-in lover, was sexually abusing the two children.
"Were the kids examined for sexual abuse?" Hora asked.
"Yes they were."
"Was there evidence of sexual abuse?"
"None."
"That was after two examinations?"
"Yes."
On cross examination, DuBois queried the doctor if she could determine whether a child was "inappropriately touched" sexually without being penetrated.
"So your medical exam cannot necessarily tell whether a child has been inappropriately touched?"
"Yes."
"You don't know whether your exam revealed any inappropriate touching or not?"
"That's right."
Court is dark Fridays. Testimony resumes here Monday.
THREAT LEVEL is providing gavel-to-gavel coverage.
(Courtroom sketches: Wired News/Norman Quebedeau)
See Also:
- Video of Hans Reiser's Kids Moves Jurors at Linux Programmer's ...
- Reiser's Mom Defending Son on Her Second Day of Testimony -- Update
- Reiser Murder Trial Theme Emerging: Wife Was a Good Mom, Bad Mom ...
- Hans Reiser's Mom Tells Jurors One Thing, Police Another -- Update
- Hans Reiser Portrayed as 'Stressed' Before Nina Vanished -- Update 2
- Reiser Murder Trial: Divorce Was 'Hostile;' Couple Fought Over ...
- Police Officer to Nina Reiser: 'Get Yourself a Gun' -- Update
- Reiser Boy Becomes Pawn at Father's Murder Trial--Update
