Nick Reiner, son of famed filmmaker Rob Reiner, returned to court on Wednesday, confronting charges connected to the brutal stabbing deaths of his parents.
Appearing frail and uneasy, Nick sat handcuffed before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta, clad in a yellow jail shirt and blue pants, his hair closely cropped and uneven.
The 32-year-old has entered a plea of not guilty to six felony accusations: two counts of first-degree murder, two counts related to multiple murders under special circumstances, and two involving the use of a deadly weapon, specifically a knife.
According to prosecutors, Nick allegedly murdered his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, at their luxurious Brentwood residence valued at $13.5 million. The tragic incident occurred on December 14, when they suffered fatal stab wounds, and Nick reportedly fled the scene thereafter.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, a visibly slimmer Nick appeared disoriented as Judge Ohta inquired if he consented to postponing his case for another hearing in September.
After receiving quiet counsel from his attorney, public defender Kimberly Greene, Nick softly affirmed his agreement to the judge’s request. He is scheduled to reappear on September 15, when a date will be determined for a comprehensive preliminary hearing to present the prosecution’s evidence.
Greene told the court Wednesday that she is still waiting for prosecutors to hand over some discovery evidence to her.
Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Chong responded, ‘We are still waiting for the autopsy reports on both victims.’
Nick Reiner looked pale and anxious as he appeared at LA Superior Court
Prosecutors say that Nick killed his father and mother Michele at their $13.5 million home in upscale Brentwood, LA last December 14
Reiner – who has been in custody since his arrest – will remain in jail until that September 15 hearing.
Nick, who has a long history of mental health issues, was seen having a loud argument with his father at a holiday party thrown by TV’s Conan O’Brien just hours before his parents’ bodies were found, reportedly by his younger sister Romy.
Nathan Hochman, the LA District attorney, has said that the death penalty is on the table for Reiner if he is convicted.
‘This case is a death penalty eligible case.’ he declared after an earlier hearing. ‘Along those lines we take the process in which we determine whether or not the death penalty should be sought extremely seriously. That goes through a very rigorous process.
‘We will be looking at all mitigating and aggravating circumstances, and we have invited defense council to present to us both in writing and in a pleading, any arguments they would like to make in consideration going forward or not going forward with the death penalty. So that is an ongoing process.’
Earlier this week, Nick’s older brother Jake shared his horror at finding out that his beloved parents – who were married for 36 years – had been murdered and that his younger brother Nick was charged with their slayings.
In a gut-wrenching essay on the website Substack, the 34 year-old described the moment his sister Romy, 28, gave him the nightmare news.
Describing it as ‘too devastating to comprehend’, Jake said. ‘The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened.
In a blog post this week Nick’s older brother Jake, center, shared his horror at finding out that his beloved parents, left, had been murdered
Reiner was pictured at an earlier hearing at LA Superior Court in February of this year
‘I was robbed of so many things that day. My parents won’t be at my wedding, they won’t get to hold their future grandchild, and they won’t get to see me have the successful career I’m still seeking. It simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me.’
Jake said that while still reeling from learning of his parents’ deaths, he was horrified to then learn that his brother Nick was the alleged murderer.
‘We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable,’ he wrote.
‘Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the center of it. It’s almost too impossible to process.’
Jake said that almost six months on from the murders he is still stunned that a member of his own family allegedly killed his parents.
‘Every day since then has been horrendous,’ he wrote. ‘Every meeting we take, every person we talk to, every tear we shed, every movement we make is connected to our parents being murdered.’
Jake wrote of the anguish he and his sister Romy have endured since their parents’ murders, while not mentioning Nick by name and only referring to him as ‘my brother.’
He said he and his sister have continued suffering, even as their parents’ high-profile deaths left the spotlight, writing that ‘when you are not living through a tragedy the specific way Romy and I are, it’s hard to wrap your head around just how horrific this has been.’
‘Because they weren’t your parents, it might be easier to move forward or even forget for a moment about what happened that day,’ he wrote. ‘But for us, it’s every single day.’
Jake paid touching tributes to his parents, saying that they were ‘the center of my life.’
‘They are my guiding lights, the foundation of who I am as a human being, and the most giving people I have ever known,’ he wrote.
‘A lot of people don’t have the luxury of having the best parents, the best mom, or the best dad, but I did. The love they have for me, my brother, and my sister is truly unconditional.
‘And the love they have for each other in their marriage is something I always looked up to as the standard of what a successful relationship looks like.’
While his famous father was a Hollywood legend, Jake described his mother, Michele, as ‘the engine, the backbone, and the heart of our entire family.’
‘She had a passion for life most people wish they could attain.’
He wrote of watching musicals with his mother and going to baseball games with his father, and acknowledged his privileged upbringing as the son of celebrities.
‘It’s not lost on me that I was able to have these incredible experiences, that most people don’t get to have, because of who my parents were,’ he wrote.
‘But I would trade every Dodger game, every Broadway show, every vacation, if I could just spend just one more hour talking to them and to say goodbye.’
