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Comment by dlandau | Hacker News Reader

That he still wrote "in prison for killing my wife Nina" when she wasn't his wife anymore at the time indicates IMO that he still doesn't get it.

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Legally speaking, she was, since the divorce wasn't finalized.

I don't think that matters much. To all practical intents and purposes she was no longer 'his wife' and given that he killed her the fact that the divorce was never finalized shouldn't give him extra rights.

How is he supposed to refer to her? ex-wife is incorrect. By name doesn't provide enough context for people that don't know about him.

The fact is - he killed his wife.

> To all practical intents and purposes she was no longer 'his wife'

It doesn't work like that, though. My soon-to-be-ex-wife is still listed as spouse on our health insurance because I can't remove her until the divorce is finalized. I still have to specify her in many legals documents as my wife.

Even outside the legal field, many in my personal life consider her as my wife, go "call me when it's finalized".

That's besides the point, the question is whether you still think of her and refer to her as 'your wife'. And then extrapolate to the - obviously hypothetical - situation in which you murdered your soon-to-be-ex-wife and still refer to her as 'my wife' many years later. It's bizarre that this needs to be spelled out. This isn't a legal issue, it's a bit of insight in how Reiser feels about the person he murdered.

Well, in my mind, he is referring to the state at the point of murder. The fact that they were going through the divorce process isn't important here (to us bystanders, to the investigator it's a motive).

I think this is just bs for his next parole hearing tho.

I'd say that saying "my wife" makes it worse for him than saying "my ex-wife", maybe that's just me.

Doubly so because she's, you know, dead.

That's how I read it as well.

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