Vince Dunn’s Interview – Dissected

April 29, 2008 · Posted in Rambles 

Vince Dunn, aka Juror #7, wasted no time in giving a couple of interviews after the verdict of murder in the first degree was delivered in court today. For those of us who believe that Reiser may have been guilty for the murder of Nina Reiser, but did not believe that the prosecution proved their case without a reasonable doubt, Dunn’s interview is a bit disturbing. The interviews contain basically the same information, so let’s take a look at one of them. (David Kravets’ blog on Wired)

“I was looking at his eyes,” the Oakland man said in a telephone interview. “He was faking it.”

Mr. Dunn is a fifth-grade school teacher. What exactly are his qualifications for being able to look into another person’s eyes and and ascertain guilt?

After two days of deliberations, Dunn said the panel had concluded that Reiser had killed his wife, Nina Reiser, on Sept. 3, 2006.

I would like to know what evidence convinced them of this. There was very little DNA evidence. None of which could actually prove anything. Cadaver dogs were unable to find any trace of a body at Reiser’s residence, the minivan or the CRX. There is no weapon and no body.

Dunn said jurors arrived at the conclusion based on evidence that Reiser had strong motives for killing his wife, and his calculative behavior.

Here are the strong motives:

The 31-year-old wife had an affair with the defendant’s best friend. And days before the murder, child welfare workers accused Reiser of being more than $10,000 in arrears in child-support. Jurors also noted that Reiser was frantically calling a local politician in a bid to change the family court system, which he blamed for initially giving full legal custody to Nina, Dunn said.

Hans was pissed off at the family court system. He was fighting to retain partial custody of his children. The fact of Nina’s affair came up briefly during the trial. I didn’t get the impression that Hans was obsessed with this. I’m not exactly sure what Dunn meant by calculative behavior. Perhaps he picked that up when he looked into Reiser’s eyes.

“It was a combination of things,” Dunn said. “The fact that he was able to get rid of the body. It’s something you do if you premeditate … He wasn’t an impulsive type of a guy. He planned things. He researched things.”

This is the comment that really gets to me. Vince Dunn states that it is a “fact” that Hans Reiser got rid of the body. Yet there is absolutely not one bit of evidence to support this fact. And, once again, Dunn gives us another example of his great ability to see into the psyche of other people. What things did Hans plan or research?
When Dunn was asked how he thought Hans had killed Nina, he comes up with this little gem:

“I think he choked her and at some point and stabbed her,” Dunn said.

Stabbed her? If you choke someone and they are dead, why risk splattering blood all over the place? Once again, we have no evidence to support this.

Dunn also comments on Reiser’s guilty behavior of having thrown away the passenger seat and the fact that the battery in Nina’s cellphone was removed. As was Hans’ cellphone battery. I hate to keep repeating myself, but there is no evidence to support that Hans was ever in Nina’s minivan; no fingerprints, no DNA, and no scent was picked up by the dogs. If Hans was so calculating and planned and researched things wouldn’t he have simply gotten rid of Nina’s cellphone? Why not hide it along with her body? The car seat wasn’t removed from the car until 12 days after Nina went missing. Mr. Dunn’s reasoning doesn’t quite work. I agree that it’s odd behavior, but it doesn’t prove premeditated murder.

“We all agreed that she was dead,” Dunn said. “We all agreed that she would not have left her kids.”

Well, she didn’t abandon her kids. Nina wanted to take them with her to Russia but was told by her lawyer that the law would not allow that. The kids are now living in Russia with their grandmother.
All we have from this first juror interview is someone stating facts where none exist. I hope another juror will come forward who can give us a better insight into what actually happened during deliberation.

Sentencing has been scheduled for July 9th.

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Comments

One Response to “Vince Dunn’s Interview – Dissected”

  1. Kenneth on May 1st, 2008 4:27 am

    “I hope another juror will come forward who can give us a better insight into what actually happened during deliberation. ”

    Unless you expect one of them to come out and say, “Well, we all agreed that we didn’t like him and figured, yeah, he probably did it,” don’t count on it.

    I agree the part about the “fact” that he hid her body was quite disturbing to me too.

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