Former prosecutor and veteran legal analyst Michael Cardoza said if he was on Reiser's legal team he would not like what he has observed of the jury over the five days of closing arguments and rebuttal.

"They've watched Reiser (during the trial) and to my mind and to my eye they obviously don't like Reiser," Cardoza told KTVU. "They are like race horses…They are at the gate and ready to go … to get into the jury room and go -- 'We're going to get this guy.'"

Reiser and Alameda Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman have had several exchanges since the trial's beginning last November. Cardoza said those exchanges have had an impact on the jurors.

"It’s subliminal," he said. "They know the judge doesn't like him…They may even know that the defense attorney and Reiser don't get along that well."

When asked to recall a similar case of jury behavior, Cardoza harkened back to the Scott Peterson Murder trial.

"I understand how the jury convicted Scott Peterson of murder, but how did they get to death?" said Cardoza of the Redwood City verdict that sent Peterson to San Quentin's death row for the December 2002 slaying of his wife, Laci, and the couple's unborn son Connor. "They (the jury) didn't like Scott Peterson just like this jury doesn't like Reiser."

As for a prediction, Cardoza said he expected a guilty verdict of second-degree murder by possibly next Thursday.

During the closing, jurors heard Hans Reiser's defense argue that his missing wife may have absconded to her native Russia and was not the victim of a heinous murder.

They've heard poignant testimony from the couple's young son, technical information from DNA experts and the recollections of people who had a front-row seat to the Reisers' rancorous battle for custody.

Now they get the big question: What really happened to Nina Reiser?

Before the murder case went to jurors Tuesday, prosecutor Paul Hora conceded there are things that remain a mystery: Authorities don't have a weapon, a cause of death or, most importantly, a body.

But, Hora argued, "we know enough."

Nina Reiser, then 31, vanished after taking the couple's two children to her estranged husband's house on Sept. 3, 2006.

She left behind her passport, her minivan (complete with her purse and sacks of groceries) and thousands of dollars. And she left behind her children, a 6-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl -- something friends and relatives testified she never would do.

During the six-month trial, prosecutors described Hans Reiser, an Oakland software programmer, as obsessed with the details of the couple's divorce, reading from bitter e-mails he sent to his wife, including one in which he called her "evil."

When Reiser himself spoke on the stand, he often gave rambling answers and repeatedly was scolded by the judge for arguing with the prosecutor's questions.

Reiser is known in programming circles for his ReiserFS computer file system and his lawyer, William Du Bois, portrayed him as smart but eccentric. He compared Reiser to a duckbill platypus -- "odd in every way" -- but said there was nothing in his past to indicate he is violent.

Prosecutors presented evidence including small amounts of her blood found at Hans Reiser's home and on a sleeping bag sack in his car. They also noted that after she disappeared, Hans Reiser's car went missing. It was later found with the passenger seat gone and the floorboards soaked with water.

Hora pointed out that Reiser did not join in the search for his missing wife and began traveling around the area, visiting Reno, Nev., at one point. And when he was arrested, Reiser was carrying his passport and thousands in cash.

Reiser, 44, testified that he had nothing to do with Nina Reiser's disappearance, saying she left his house alive during that 2006 Labor Day weekend. He explained that he threw out the seat to make the car more comfortable to sleep in, washed the floorboards because it was dirty and withdrew large amounts of cash to pay programmers at his company, Namesys.

Du Bois argued the blood traces could have been deposited years before, when the couple was living together or during her visits to the house after they separated.

He argued that investigators didn't prove that Nina Reiser is dead, let alone murdered.

"You're asked to convict this person of murder ... when you don't even know if there was a death," Du Bois said. "You're asked to do that because he threw out the front seat of his car? That's asking a lot."