Nick Reiner’s shocking alleged double murderof his parents has shaken Hollywood to its core, but has also been complicated by reports of him suffering from schizophrenia.
The 32-year-old one-time screenwriter was recently diagnosed with the condition and taking new medication which was making him “out of his head” in the weeks before the murders, according to website TMZ.
Since then it has been speculated the diagnoses could have contributed to his flipping and killingfilmmaker Rob Reiner, 78, and photographer Michele Singer Reiner, 70, with a knife on the night of December 13. He has yet to enter a plea at court.
Although the events seem unprecedented, there are eerie parallels with the case of another drug addicted son of Hollywood royalty, who also went off the rails and attacked people with a knife, which provides hints at what could happen next.
Like Reiner, Redmond O’Neal was born into fame, as the son of Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal. He was also addicted to drugs from a young age and was in and out of rehab. In 2018 he went on a brutal knife rampage across Los Angeles, leaving two men stabbed, one in the face, and resulting in charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats and battery.
When his mental health was evaluated, it showed O’Neal was suffering schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
When his case came to court, the judge was forced to repeatedly halt proceedings when medical experts testified that he could not meaningfully assist in his own defense — a requirement for trial.
What followed was more than a year of legal limbo as O’Neal was shuttled between courtrooms, psychiatric hospitals and jail cells as the court wrestled with whether the case could even move forward.
He has since been institutionalized at Patton State Hospital in Los Angeles.
“The way the California penal code is, you can only be incompetent to stand trial for two years – then they either commit you long-term or drop the charges,” California-based forensic psychologist Dr. Natalie Sobel told The Post.
Fawcett died in 2009 from cancer and Ryan O’Neal in 2023 from heart failure. Redmond attended his mother’s funeral under police supervision, but not his fathers. He remains under California State care.
However, after seven years the court has ruled he has returned to competency and the attempted murder charges against him are moving forward, with a hearing set for January.
“He has behaved himself completely appropriately while at Patton State and is a model inmate. We will see how the case plays out, it is our hope we can resolve this matter with the District Attorney,” O’Neal’s attorney Dana Cole told The Post.
If Reiner’s attorneys raise similar concerns about their client, competency evaluations could also delay his case for years, sources told The Post.
However, Dr. Sobel also pointed out that when it comes to mental health issues, the California legal system can have many different outcomes.
Reiner was also in a better position than O’Neal when his alleged crimes occurred.
“[Nick Reiner is] a smart guy who has made films and did press tours, and he was functional enough to attend a party the night before the killings,” pointed out Deborah Denno, a professor of law at Fordham Law School, to The Post.
“The legal standard for incompetency is whether or not you can understand the nature of proceedings.”
Reiner was being treated by a psychiatrist for his condition — but in the month before the murders, his behavior became “alarming” as doctors switched his medication, sources told TMZ.
About three to four weeks before his parents were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood mansion, his prescription was altered, making him “erratic and dangerous,” the sources claimed to the outlet.
“That he’s schizophrenic, this is something that could be relevant (to a legal argument in his defense) if his medication could be associated with violence or setting him off,” noted Denno.
In the case of his parents’ slaughter, Nick — who has two surviving siblings, Jake, 34, and Romy, 28, and a half sibling Tracy, 61 — is facing two counts of first-degree murder and the District Attorney can pursue the death penalty.
Professor Denno told The Post the first his legal team will likely be focusing on is to take that off the table.
“That’s going to be the immediate, primary goal,” she speculated.
“He might end up agreeing to a plea bargain. his lawyers would want to avoid a trial at all costs,” she claimed.
If the case does go to trial, Professor Denno said Reiner’s attorneys would have a range of possible defenses to work with, including insanity and reduced capabilities based on his mental illness and medication changes.
However, Dr. Sobel said only 25% of cases where the defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity have a result in favor of the defendant.
“It’s not an easy defense to pursue, the legal standard is very complex, it’s not just whether someone can tell right from wrong, but whether you know something is morally wrong … Someone can be psychotic or mentally ill and still be sane, in the eyes of the law.
“Being high on drugs is not enough to legally meet the criteria for a Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity defense in California.”
For his part, Reiner’s high-profile attorney, Alan Jackson, has called the case “a devastating tragedy” but not given much else away, only urging people not to rush to judgment or jump to conclusions and to “respect that the system and its process deserves and that the family deserves.”
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