Nick Reiner pleads not guilty to murdering his parents Rob and Michele

Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty to murdering his parents Rob and Michele in court on Monday. 

The 32-year-old looked gaunt and hollow-eyed as he sat hunched over in court in Los Angeles, California, wearing brown prison garb. 

His mother and father were found stabbed to death inside their $13.5 million Brentwood home on December 14. 

Hours later, Nick was arrested and has been held without bail. 

Nick was heard faintly whispering 'Yes' in court when asked if he understood the proceedings during his appearance, which marked the first time he's been seen in custody. 

His head was shaved as he looked into the crowded courtroom, as if searching for someone he knows. 

At one point, an unidentified elderly woman waved at him, and Nick mouthed 'hi' to her and the older man sitting next to her.

This was Nick's third court appearance after he was arrested following his parents' gruesome murders. It was the first time LA County Superior Court Judge Theresa McGonigle allowed him to be photographed in custody. 

The death penalty is still on the table for Nick, LA County DA Nathan Hochman said. 

Shortly after the three-minute hearing, Hochman addressed reporters outside the Downtown LA courtroom

‘The case is on track. We have provided the bulk of discovery to defense council and we are now waiting for the coroner’s report. That will be provided to the District Attorney’s Office and we will ensure that it will provided to defense council.

‘This case is a death penalty eligible case. 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.’

He is due to appear in court again on April 29. 

Nick has long dealt with mental health issues, as it was previously claimed that he had been placed in a mental health conservatorship five years before allegedly murdering his parents. 

He also switched his schizophrenia medication about a month before his parents were found dead by his sister, Romy.   

Nick's latest court appearance comes just days after comedian Conan O'Brien broke his silence on his parents' deaths. 

Just hours before Rob and Michele were found, the filmmaker was seen clashing with Nick at O'Brien's holiday party.  

'It's just so awful,' O'Brien, 62, said in an interview with The New Yorker on Friday.

'I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them,' he said, adding that he and his wife, Liza Powel O'Brien, 'were seeing them a lot.' 

'They were just such lovely people. And to have that experience of saying goodnight to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone. I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there's no other word for it.

'And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there — and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend,' O'Brien added.

It was reported that all three Reiners attended O'Brien's December 13 holiday party, where the filmmaker and his son were involved in a 'very loud argument.' 

It was also recently revealed that Nick has been acting 'almost childlike' in jail and that he is 'not competent to stand trial right now.' 

TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin told Fox & Friends last week: 'He is almost childlike in jail, we're told. 

'He can't process the consequences of what he's done. He knows what he did.

'He just can't understand where he is right now, and I know that sounds crazy, but he is out of his head right now,' Levin added. 

Levin said that the killings were 'incredibly brutal'. 'We know people in the medical examiner's office who are traumatized just by the pictures,' he said.

The TMZ producer added that the killings had 'all the markings of a meth murder' and that Nick had been using the hard drug at the time.

Prior to his hearing, a legal expert predicted that Nick's lawyer might build a public insanity defense for him. 

'One reason to roll out a mental defense now is that, by waiting, it can undermine the credibility of an argument later, causing people to ask, “If he’s so bad off mentally, why didn’t you raise the issue earlier?"' lawyer Royal Oakes told the New York Post. 

Oakes said Nick's legal time might introduce the potential mental health strategy later on now that he has entered a plea of not guilty.