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In the years before Rob and Michele Reiner were killed, Los Angeles police made at least two visits to their home in Brentwood.
On Feb. 25, 2019, officers conducted a welfare check after someone called 911 at 9:51 p.m. According to LAPD records reviewed by The Times, officers arrived at the address at 10:12 p.m., completed the call and reported the incident to an unidentified supervisor.
Then on Sept. 27, 2019, police responded at 4:24 p.m. to a mental health–related call for service involving an unidentified man. Officers later informed a supervisor that they found “no indication of mental illness,” according to department records.
The calls were fairly innocuous and typically would not raise eyebrows.
But authorities now allege the couple’s son, who lived in the guesthouse on their property, fatally stabbed them in their master bedroom last month.
The mental state of Nick Reiner, who struggled for years with substance abuse and had been prescribed a schizophrenia drug, has now taken center stage in his legal battle.
Prosecutors have not detailed their case, and Reiner’s legal team has not provided his own story. It is still possible his defense could present compelling evidence that Nick Reiner did not commit the killings. But if the case is strong, the trial could revolve around Reiner’s mental state and the length of sentence.
Prosecutors charged Nick Reiner, 32, with two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances for the killings in the early hours of Dec. 14. Authorities have not offered a possible motive in the case.
Reiner is back in court Wednesday and is no longer considered to be a suicide risk. He has not yet entered a plea.
Legal experts say Reiner’s attorney, Alan Jackson, is likely now working to evaluate his client’s history of mental health and state of mind at the time of the crime. Those findings could be the basis for discussions of a plea deal or the beginning of an insanity defense, attorneys say.
There are also other defenses that Jackson could pursue based on his mental history and possible changes in his medication and other factors that might not have been made public yet, including what might have triggered the killings, said Laurie Levenson, professor of law at Loyola Law School and a former federal prosecutor.
“There’s a lot still to be done to work this case up,” Levenson said. “He can either try to go for a not guilty by reason of insanity, or he might have testimony that he wasn’t able to form the mental state for the crime because of his medication and his prior mental background.”
If his defense can prove that Reiner couldn’t form the “intent to kill because of what’s happening with his medication or with his disease” then it could be a way to get a lesser charge such as second-degree murder, Levenson said. With first-degree murder charges, prosecutors must show that the accused acted with premeditation or malice.
“It is just way too early to say that this is an all or nothing case — that he’s going to be found guilty of murder one or found not guilty. There are likely to be other options,” Levenson said.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Reiner is facing possible life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors have not made a decision about whether they will seek capital punishment in the case.
If Reiner is found not guilty by reason of insanity then he would likely be committed to a mental health facility. And he might at some point be able to show that his condition has improved and have outpatient status or be released, Levenson said.
Saul Faerstein, a clinical and forensic psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at UCLA, said doctors will likely try to piece together the days leading up to the killings to determine what kind of mental state Reiner was in at the time.
“We’d want to know what was happening on Friday or Saturday. Was he beginning to decompensate? Was he acting out of character? Was he doing and saying things that surprised people or frightened people? Was he saying things that made no sense?” Faerstein said.
Reiner’s ability to check into a hotel and travel across Los Angeles where he was seen at a gas station and ultimately arrested isn’t necessarily a sign that he was of sound mind, Faerstein said.
“Those things don’t require a lot of cognitive function, and they can be done even in a delusional state,” he said.
There have been a few examples of cases in California in which charges have been reduced because of mental health factors.
In 2023, Bryn Spejcher was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for killing Chad O’Melia, a man she’d been dating, with kitchen knives inside his home in Thousand Oaks. They had been smoking marijuana out of O’Melia’s bong, which caused Spejcher to suffer from cannabis-induced psychosis.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office had originally filed a murder charge against her, but reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter after the prosecution’s experts agreed that she was in a psychotic state brought on by the marijuana intoxication. Prosecutors could not prove malice in the case.
Spejcher was sentenced to probation and community service. She’s in the process of appealing her conviction, court records show.
Michael Goldstein, a Los Angeles defense attorney who represented Spejcher, said that if Reiner attorneys can document a history of mental health issues, it could help his chances.
“Based on facts that have been revealed publicly, [not guilty by reason of insanity] appears to be a viable defense,” Goldstein said. “If successful, that would result in long-term hospitalization. It is still early in the process and Mr. Jackson made it clear there are significant issues being explored. Time will tell.”
In a case in 2010, Jennifer Lynn Bigham was found not guilty of murder and child abuse by reason of insanity after authorities said she drowned her 3-year-old daughter in a bathtub at a relative’s home in the Central Valley.
Doctors had determined Bigham was suffering from severe mental illness at the time of her daughter’s death. After roughly three years of treatment in 2013, a judge ordered her to be released from custody because doctors said she was no longer insane.
It’s possible, Levenson said, that the defense will be able to present compelling evidence of mental disorder to prosecutors to resolve the case before trial. It’s also possible the case will go to trial and he could be found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed as opposed to serving jail time.
Even if he’s committed, one day any disorders he’s diagnosed with could be treated and he could be released, Levenson said.
Though insanity defenses in many cases are not successful, based on the facts known at the time, this case could be an exception, experts say.
“It’s a pretty classic of a situation where you have what looks like a really horrific, maybe premeditated murder, and then you start learning more about his background, that it doesn’t look like he’s making this up, that there seems to be some medical history of this, the change in medication, and all of a sudden you say, ‘Wow, this might be that rare case where mental defense, or an insanity defense, will succeed,” Levenson said.
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Hannah Fry, Richard Winton
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