The visiting room at Twin Towers Correctional Facility is designed for contact, but for Nick Reiner, it might as well not exist. Rob Reiner’s alleged killer son has been there for weeks in a mental‑health unit in downtown Los Angeles, accused of stabbing to death the parents who once turned his struggles into a film about redemption.
No one from the family has walked through the door.
Instead, relatives of the late filmmaker and his wife, photographer‑producer Michele Singer Reiner, are said to be keeping their distance, torn between grief and disbelief as they try to process the accusation hanging over the 32‑year‑old.
‘He killed their parents. That changes everything,’ one insider told columnist Rob Shuter’s newsletter.
Rob Reiner’s Alleged Killer Son And A Family In Shock
Nick was arrested in mid‑December after Rob, 78, and Michele, 70, were found with multiple sharp‑force injuries at their Brentwood home, an affluent enclave on LA’s west side better known for celebrity real estate than police tape.
Prosecutors have charged him with two counts of first‑degree murder with a special‑circumstance allegation of multiple murders, charges that carry a maximum sentence of life without parole or the death penalty.
For readers outside the US, that ‘special circumstance’ label is not just legal jargon; in California, it signals that the case sits at the most serious end of the spectrum, where jurors may eventually be asked to weigh whether a defendant should live or die.
Nick has yet to enter a plea, with a fresh court date set for 23 February, after his high‑profile lawyer, Alan Jackson, abruptly withdrew from the case last month. Jackson cited ‘circumstances beyond control’ and later insisted he still believed his former client was not guilty under California law.
In the meantime, a public defender has taken over, and the case is moving towards the grinding machinery of a US murder trial: discovery, pre‑trial motions, psychological evaluations, arguments over what a jury will be allowed to hear.
Behind those procedural steps, a family is deciding what, if anything, they owe to the man accused of tearing them apart.
Isolation, Boundaries And A Carefully Guarded Past
When Nick first arrived at Twin Towers, one of the largest jail complexes in the world, he was placed on suicide watch, a routine move in high‑profile, high‑risk cases. He has since been taken off that status but remains in high‑observation housing, confined alone in a cell, monitored every 15 minutes, escorted by deputies and watched on camera whenever he leaves the unit.
According to law‑enforcement sources quoted in US media, he eats alone, sleeps alone, and is currently allowed contact only with legal counsel and jail staff.
On paper, he can receive family visitors. In reality, sources close to the Reiners say no relatives have come. They describe ‘grief layered on top of horror,’ insisting that the collective silence is less about vengeance than about survival.
‘They’re mourning their parents while also trying to comprehend what he’s done. You don’t just walk into a visiting room after that,’ one insider said.
Nick is the eldest of Rob and Michele’s three children, alongside siblings Max and Robbie, who have suddenly found themselves orbiting a case that has turned their family name into a true‑crime headline.
Their chosen response so far is to say nothing, no public statements beyond early expressions of shock, no apparent contact with their brother in custody. ‘Silence isn’t about cruelty,’ a source close to them insisted. ‘It’s about boundaries. It’s about surviving something unthinkable.’
That instinct to draw a line extends to Nick’s medical history. Long before the killings, he and his father co‑wrote Being Charlie, a 2015 film loosely based on his battles with addiction and mental illness. Since his arrest, reports have circulated that he has been diagnosed with a ‘mental disability‘ and possibly schizophrenia.
Family members, however, are said to be deeply fearful that more private information will spill into the public domain, not only complicating the court case but inflicting fresh harm on everyone who loved Rob, Michele and Nick.
For now, Rob Reiner’s alleged killer son waits in a locked cell in downtown Los Angeles, his future hanging in the balance on evidence that has yet to be heard and a plea he has not yet entered. On the outside, the remaining Reiners grieve the parents they lost and decide, day after day, not to cross the threshold into that visiting room.
Originally published on IBTimes UK