Nick Reiner, an celibate, appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing in the December 2025 murders of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner.
Nick, 32, was wearing a yellow prison jumpsuit and blue pants, with a shaved head and a beard. He sat emotionlessly next to Kimberly Greene, the Los Angeles County deputy public defender who took over the case in January after the resignation of high-profile attorney Alan Jackson, with a cold stare.
Green explained that she and her team were still waiting on Rob and Michelle’s autopsy reports, so Judge Samuel Ohta extended the preliminary hearing until September 15th.
When Ota asked Nick if he understood that he was waving his right to a limited preliminary hearing, he muttered, “Yeah.”
Nick was arrested by Los Angeles Police Department officers on December 14, 2025, shortly after his father and mother, aged 78 and 70, respectively, were found stabbed to death inside their Brentwood home.
Nick was charged with multiple counts of murder and two counts of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of personal use of a knife.
Rob and Michelle’s death certificates say they died “within minutes” of “multiple sharp force injuries” caused by “another person’s knife.”
If convicted, Nick faces the possibility of the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole, although he has remained in prison at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility since his arrest.
Nick, who got into an argument with his parents at Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party on December 13, was diagnosed with schizophrenia before the murder and had a long history of drug addiction.
He pleaded not guilty in February.
Rob and Michelle, who were married in 1989, are also parents to son Jake Reiner, 34, and daughter Romy Reiner, 28. Before marrying Michelle, actor and director Rob was married to Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1981. While they were dating, Rob adopted a daughter, Tracy Reiner, 61.
Jake broke his silence about his parents’ deaths in an essay for Substack last week, detailing the exact moment he learned of their deaths.
“I was at Union Station to celebrate the life of one of my best friends, Christian Anderson, who passed away in October,” Jake wrote. “Just then, my sister Romy called me to tell me that my father had passed away. A few minutes later, she called me back and told me that my mother had also passed away.”
Jake continued, “The 45-minute Lyft ride from Downtown to the Westside was unbearable. My world as I knew it fell apart. I was in a trance. The only thing I could focus on was that I had to go to my childhood home. I had to go to my sister. I had to figure out what the hell was going on.”
Jake lamented that he felt “so much was taken away” after losing his father and mother, adding that the tragedy “shattered my heart and enraged me at the same time.”
“Nothing can prepare you for the feeling of losing both of your parents at the same time,” he added. “It’s too shocking to understand. I still have to wake up every morning and tell myself, no, this is not a dream. This is truly a living nightmare for me.”
