Son of filmmaker Rob Reiner in court on charges of murdering parents

The younger son of Hollywood filmmaker and political activist Rob Reiner made his first court appearance on Wednesday for the two murder charges he faces in the stabbing deaths of his parents, who were found slain in their Los Angeles home over the weekend. The arraignment was delayed until January 7, and Nick Reiner, 32, did not enter a plea. Bearded and wearing a blue protective vest, he made the court appearance three days after his arrest and a day after he was charged with one of the most shocking celebrity homicide cases in the city’s history. He is accused of fatally stabbing his parents, actor-director Rob Reiner, 78, and photographer-producer Michele Reiner, 70, in the early morning hours of Sunday in the affluent west LA neighbourhood of Brentwood, then fleeing the scene. After the hearing, Nick Reiner’s lawyer Alan Jackson called the case “a devastating tragedy that has befallen the Reiner family”. He said the proceedings will be very complex. “And we ask that during this process you allow the system to move forward in the way that it was designed to move forward,” Jackson said outside the courthouse. “Not with a rush to judgment, not with jumping to conclusions.” Jackson declined to answer shouted questions from dozens of reporters surrounding him. Family members were not present for the hearing. But Nick Reiner’s two siblings, brother Jake Reiner, 34, and sister Romy Reiner, 27, issued a joint statement afterwards, their first public comment since the killings. “Words cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day,” the two wrote. “The horrific and devastating loss of our parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, is something that no one should ever experience. They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends.” According to a New York Times account, it was Romy Reiner who found her father’s body, after a massage therapist arriving at the house for an appointment failed to get an answer at the front gate and called the daughter for assistance. The daughter was unaware that her mother was also dead until after paramedics arrived, the Times reported, citing someone close to the family. Nick Reiner, who has publicly acknowledged a years-long struggle with drug addiction, was arrested that night in a downtown Los Angeles park near the University of Southern California campus. Authorities said he was taken into custody without incident and was booked on suspicion of murder into a downtown jail, where he remains held with bond. If convicted as charged, Reiner would face life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty. District Attorney Nathan Hochman said prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek the death sentence. California has had a moratorium on carrying out the death sentence since 2019. Capital punishment remains on the books in California, but nobody has been put to death in the state since 2006, and Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019 gave an executive order instituting an indefinite moratorium on executions. According to prosecutors, a knife was used in the Reiner killings, but few other details were given about the circumstances of the slayings. Authorities have made no mention of a possible motive or whether drug use was a factor. Various news media outlets have reported that Nick Reiner quarrelled heatedly with his parents on Saturday night at a holiday party hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien. Asked whether investigators had recovered the murder weapon, Hochman said on Tuesday that this would be revealed in court. Autopsies, once completed, will determine the precise cause, manner and times of death, officials said. Nick Reiner, the younger of the couple’s two sons and their middle child, has spoken of being in and out of drug rehab facilities since he was 15 and periods of homelessness that occurred when he refused to seek treatment for his addictions. Those experiences inspired the movie Being Charlie, co-written by Reiner and his father. As an actor, Rob Reiner was best remembered for his role on the television comedy All in the Family as Mike “Meathead” Stivic, the son-in-law and liberal foil of the lead character, working-class bigot Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor. Reiner went on to a prolific Hollywood career as a filmmaker, directing such popular films as This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, Stand by Me, A Few Good Men, Misery and The American President. His final film, a sequel to the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, was released this year, 41 years after the original. His wife, Michele, was at one time a photographer who captured the image of Donald Trump that appears on the cover of his book Trump: The Art of the Deal. She and Rob Reiner met while he was directing When Harry Met Sally and wed in 1989. Rob Reiner, a native of New York and son of the late comedy writer and actor Carl Reiner, also was well known for his political activism and as a supporter of the Democratic Party. He was first married to Penny Marshall, who starred in the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley, and was also a producer and director. He was the adoptive father to Marshall’s daughter. Additional reporting by Associated Press

Son of filmmaker Rob Reiner in court on charges of murdering parents

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Nick Reiner, 32, faces two counts of first-degree murder as the DA weighs whether to seek the death penalty

Nick Reiner, 32, faces two counts of first-degree murder as the DA weighs whether to seek the death penalty