On February 23, Nick Reiner appeared at the Los Angeles Superior Court, where his lawyer entered a plea of not guilty to the brutal murder of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, late last year. Dressed in a brown, jail-issued jumpsuit and sporting a shaved head and facial hair, the 32-year-old sat behind a glass wall and smiled briefly at his attorney when she approached him. He spoke only once, responding “yes” when Judge Theresa R. McGonigle asked whether he understood he was waiving his right to a speedy trial. “He was looking around,” an eyewitness tells Us Weekly, “but beyond that smile, he was pretty emotionless.”
Nick — who’s being held without bail at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in L.A. — is due back in court on April 29. Rob, 78, and Michele, 70, were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home on the afternoon of Dec. 14. Their 28-year-old daughter, Romy, discovered her father’s body in the couple’s primary bedroom. (The legendary When Harry Met Sally director and his wife of 36 years, a photographer and producer, also shared son Jake, 34, and Rob was dad to Tracy, 61, ex-wife Penny Marshall’s daughter, whom he later adopted.) Nick was arrested that night and later charged with two counts of first-degree murder, with special circumstances alleging multiple murders and the use of a knife.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole or the death penalty. It’s a trying time for all involved as Nick’s future hangs in the balance. It was reported in January that he’d been taken off suicide watch but remains in HOH (High Observation Housing). “Last I heard, the family has not been in communication with Nick,” a source tells Us. “They just cannot handle that at the moment.”
Nick’s mental health will remain front and center as his case progresses. A second source recently told Us that the screenwriter — who’s widely reported to suffer from schizophrenia and has been open about his past struggles with drug addiction — had fired his psychiatrist and changed medications shortly before Rob and Michele were killed. “The medical staff warned Rob and Michele not to let Nick live at home until he got his medication straightened out,” the source says. (Nick got into a fight with his parents the night before their murders at Conan O’Brien’s holiday party; he had been staying in their guest house at the time.)
Many predict he’ll try for an insanity defense. In early January, after Nick’s defense attorney Alan Jackson withdrew unexpectedly from the case (he cited circumstances that were “beyond” his and Nick’s control), he told reporters he believes his former client is “not guilty of murder” under California law following a comprehensive “top to bottom” three-week investigation. Former L.A. district attorney R.J. Dreiling believes that Jackson may have been “signaling” that Nick was not guilty due to mental health issues. (There’s been recent speculation that Romy and Jake have cut off Nick’s financial support; public defender Kimberly Greene is currently representing him.) “The defense will argue that Nick’s mental illness is what drove him to commit these acts,” adds Dreiling, “and the prosecutor will argue that even though he was mentally ill, he knew exactly what he was doing.”
The second source sheds new light on what was happening in the weeks leading up to the murders, revealing that Rob and Michele were trying to help Nick figure out his meds because “they weren’t working anymore.” According to the source, the medical staff had “warned Rob and Michele not to allow Nick to stay at their home due to the meds being switched, and [said] that it could make him exhibit even more erratic behavior.” In a January profile on Nick, The Washington Post reported that “as much as he resisted his parents’ interventions,” he consistently ended up living back at home because he’d “become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing.”
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Both Nick and his late dad spoke publicly about Nick’s addiction issues. In 2015, while promoting Being Charlie, a film about a teen drug addict cowritten by Nick, Rob told The Los Angeles Times he regretted sending his son to drug treatment centers as a teen and young adult. (In December, a journalist told The Hollywood Reporter that Rob and a then-sober Nick informed him in 2015 that Nick had been to rehab roughly 18 times, and was at times living on the streets.) “We were desperate, and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should’ve listened to our son,” Rob told The Los Angeles Times. “Nick struggled emotionally from a very young age,” a third source tells Us. Adds a fourth source: “Michele was extremely protective of him and worried for him constantly.”
In 2018, Nick detailed a 2017 bender on the Dopey podcast. “I was totally spun out on uppers — I think it was coke and something else,” he said, noting that he was up “for days on end” and “wrecked” everything in Rob and Michele’s guest house. “It’s very common [for addicts] to have animosity towards their parents,” David Manheim, host and creator of Dopey told Us in December. (Nick had been a guest on the show multiple times.) “[But Nick] never struck me as someone who was capable of murder.”
Those close to the Reiners were well aware of the family’s struggles. (In mid-January, The New York Times reported that Nick had been under a mental health conservatorship between 2020 and 2021.) “Michele and Rob did everything a parent could possibly do to help Nick,” a source told Us in December. “It became a cycle of seeking treatment for him, kicking him out, and him moving back in. This went on for years.” The source said Romy has been especially impacted by Nick’s “hostile and volatile” behavior. “It’s been so much of their life. She’s been so traumatized.”
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Nick’s legal journey will be an uphill battle. Dreiling says a not guilty plea in a case this serious is a “very routine” part of the process that gives each side time to review police reports, witness interviews and medical records before the case moves forward. (Prosecutors said on Feb. 23 that Rob and Michele’s autopsies have not yet been completed; the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s Office previously said the couple died of multiple sharp force injuries.)
Lawyers will attempt to set a preliminary hearing date on April 29; prosecutors will then have to prove they have enough evidence to go to trial. Dreiling predicts they’ll call witnesses who attended O’Brien’s Christmas party to talk about what they saw. (TMZ reported Rob and Nick got into a “very loud” argument there; a source told Us that Nick “was going up to people… asking if they were famous.”) “The prosecutor will use this as motive,” explains Dreiling, “and the defense will argue that he was mentally ill at the time.” Dreiling notes that Nick would be “committed to a lockdown psychiatric facility for a lengthy period of time” if found not guilty on the basis of insanity.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani tells Us that for Nick’s legal team to prove insanity, the defendant has to be “unable to tell right from wrong,” noting, “if you’re capable [of having] an argument with your parents at a Christmas party, you are not insane.”
Rahmani says the defense will have a hard time arguing self-defense (“it’s unlikely a juror will believe the son — who’s much younger — was at imminent risk”) or manslaughter (“when you come back the next day with a knife, that’s too much time for a heat of passion manslaughter defense,” he explains). “All signs point to premeditated murder,” Rahmani says, adding that the death penalty “is unlikely” given that the state of California hasn’t executed anyone in 20 years. (Rahmani notes a plea agreement is not out of the question and that a sentence of 50 years to life “would be a big win” for the defense.) “We take the process in which we determine whether or not the death penalty should be sought extremely seriously,” said D.A. Nathan Hochman at a February 23 press conference.
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Rob and Michele’s children are picking up the pieces as best they can. In the wake of Jackson’s exit as Nick’s attorney in January, the Reiner family released a statement saying they have “the utmost trust in the legal process and will not comment further on matters related to the legal proceedings.” On the day of Nick’s hearing, Romy was seen hiking with her boyfriend, Alex Siliberg, and her dog, and in late December, the siblings were spotted walking together on a Malibu beach. (Romy and Jake have reportedly been staying at a Malibu property owned by their late parents.) “Romy and Jake are leaning on each other, but they are struggling,” says the first source. “The family has been going through an exceptionally hard time since losing Rob and Michele. There are so many unanswered questions,” adds the source, “and so much grief.”
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