Reiser claims hazy memory about certain topics

Oakland Tribune, Mar 19, 2008 by Chris Metinko

Claiming his memory has grown hazy in the past 18 months, accused murderer Hans Reiser gave vague, unsure answers about his whereabouts the days after his estranged wife disappeared on Sept. 3, 2006.

Prosecutor Paul Hora, in his first full day of cross-examining Reiser, asked the defendant a myriad questions surrounding his taking the passenger seat out of his Honda CRX and throwing it away in a trash bin exactly two weeks after Nina Reiser went missing.

Reiser said he tossed the seat into a trash bin at Tom's Hardware and Auto, several blocks north of Bayfair Mall in San Leandro, on Sept. 17, 2006.

Reiser earlier testified he had removed the seat in order to sleep in his car. Reiser said he could not sleep at home _ where he had been living with his mother _ because it would hurt his mother's chances of winning custody of the couple's two children after Nina Reiser's disappearance.

Hora showed Reiser pictures his investigator had taken Tuesday at Tom's Ace Hardware on East 14th Street in San Leandro. He asked Reiser if that was the same store. Reiser said he could not identify it because the photos did not show all of the parking lot, which is what he remembered most.

The photos seemed to indicate the hardware store had only a small trash bin _ about waist high _ and Reiser said he heaved the car seat into the bin.

The prosecution said during opening statements the car seat might have been removed in order to transport and dump Nina Reiser's body.

Reiser's uncertainty about the hardware store was one of only many things he could not precisely testify to Wednesday morning. Reiser also failed to offer an exact reason as to why he had traveled to Saratoga in the South Bay to stay at campgrounds while he was trying to stay away from his mother's house, instead of camping at Lake Chabot - which is very close to his mother's home.

Reiser said he was not sure and that he was not "consistent" in his thinking at the time.

"That's a hallmark of lying?" Hora asked.

"That's a hallmark of a real person," Reiser responded.

Reiser demonstrated in court how he heaved the seat into a trash bin outside a San Leandro hardware store. However, when Hora questioned Reiser for details about where the dumpster was located, what time he threw the seat away and what else he did that day in San Leandro, Reiser's recollections was cloudy.

After one question he could not answer, Reiser responded, "You're asking for ridiculous powers of memory."

Reiser later added after another Hora question, "You're being unreasonable here."

Later in the day, Reiser failed to be able to tell Hora where he slept many nights between his estranged wife's disappearance and his arrest Oct. 10, 2006.

Hora then turned his attention to Reiser's computers that where found at his home in the Oakland hills. One of Reiser's two computers in the home had had its hard drive removed. Hora asked Reiser why he would do such a thing, and Reiser replied he had no desire for the government to take anything more from him.

Hora then asked why he thought the authorities would want to take his hard drive, and Reiser responded his attorney had told him he would be a suspect.

Reiser then told the prosecutor that the hard drives were given to his defense attorney, William DuBois.

Reach Chris Metinko at 510-763-5418 or cmetinko@bayareanewsgroup.com.