Rob Reiner’s Son Is Booked on Suspicion of Murder: Live Updates

The Los Angeles Police Department confirms that a son of acclaimed director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, is “responsible” in the deaths of his parents.

Below, everything we can confirm about the investigation so far, updating live as information becomes available. 

Nick Reiner is “responsible for their deaths.”

On December 15, the LAPD confirmed to Vulture that the couple’s 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, had been “booked for murder” and remains in custody with no bail, though it was initially reported as $4 million. “As a result of the initial investigation, it was determined that the Reiners were the victims of homicide,” the LAPD shared in a statement. “The investigation further revealed that Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of Robert and Michele Reiner, was responsible for their deaths.” The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s public inmate records indicate that Nick was booked into custody at 5:04 a.m. on December 15. Specific charges against Nick have not yet been publicly shared. Previously, People alleged on December 14 that Nick had killed his parents, citing multiple unnamed sources who’d spoken with family members.

What has happened so far?

The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call for medical aid at 3:38 p.m. on December 14 at the Reiners’ Los Angeles home, where the couple was found dead. Police officers then arrived at the scene at 3:40 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department, which tweeted on December 14 that the Robbery-Homicide Division opened an ongoing investigation “into an apparent homicide.” Unnamed law-enforcement sources told TMZ that the Reiners had “suffered lacerations consistent with a knife,” with ABC 7 reporting that the pair were stabbed to death.

At a press conference that evening, LAPD deputy chief Alan Hamilton noted that the incident was not being officially labeled as a homicide, explaining that officers were still waiting to obtain a search warrant for the Reiners’ residence. “At this time it’s a death investigation,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “Until we get inside, we can’t call it anything.” Hamilton added that police had not yet identified a person of interest or detained anyone in connection with the deaths. He also said family members would be interviewed as part of the investigation.

According to a TMZ report citing family sources, Nick and Rob got into a loud argument at Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party on December 13. Per People, Rob and Michele’s daughter, Romy, found her parents dead the next day. TMZ’s sources claim that Michele had been telling friends for the last few months that she and Rob didn’t know what to do about Nick’s alleged substance use and mental issues.

What else do we know about Nick Reiner?

Nick has previously spoken about growing up as a teenager with substance-use issues during the press tour for the 2016 film Being Charlie, which he co-wrote and Rob directed. In a Q&A, Nick estimated that he had gone to rehab programs 17 or 18 times between the ages of 15 and 19. (Rob later reflected to the New York Post that he and Michele had “overreacted,” stating that most rehab programs “are punitive.”) After Nick refused his family’s wishes for him to return to rehab, he ended up living on the streets in Texas, Maine, and New Jersey. “I’m so grateful I’m still alive, and I can say I’m more than a spoiled rich kid,” he told the Post.

Being Charlie follows a young addict whose parents stage an intervention after he goes through multiple stints in rehab. Rob told the Los Angeles Times that the story was “not exactly autobiographical, but it does draw from our experiences.” (Per the Times, one climactic scene in which the dad tells his son “I’d rather you hate me and you be alive” was taken almost verbatim from the Reiners’ own lives.) Nick suggested to NPR that the main character, Charlie, is meant to show “how ugly it gets,” noting that a lot of people who go through addictions “are kind of hard to love when they’re doing those sorts of things.”

For Rob, Being Charlie was “the most satisfying creative experience I ever had” because he got to work with his son. “Even though we had struggled through some difficult things and the making of the movie certainly drudged those things up,” he said, “it was also an opportunity to work through a lot of that stuff.” Similarly, Nick described the process of making the film to Business Insider as a “real corrective emotional experience.”

After Being Charlie, Nick wanted to continue his career as a screenwriter; he told the Post he was living with friends and working on a comedy for TV. The Reiner father-son duo told NPR that they both wanted to work together again — but that Nick wanted to do some independent projects first. “I do understand him wanting to forge his own way. I do know what that’s about, I went through it,” Rob, who was the son of comedy icon Carl Reiner, said. “And he’s brilliant and talented and he’s going to figure out his path.”

Family and friends are shocked by the “sudden loss.”

“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,” a spokesperson for the Reiner family said in a December 14 statement. “We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.” The couple had three children together, sons Jake and Nick and daughter Romy; Rob also shared a daughter, Tracy, with his ex-wife, filmmaker and actress Penny Marshall. 

People reported that Billy Crystal and Larry David, both longtime friends and collaborators of Rob’s, visited the Reiners’ home shortly after news of their deaths broke on December 14. A neighbor told ABC 7 that Crystal “looked like he was about to cry” and arrived separately from David.