A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has agreed to bar the release of Robert Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner’s autopsy reports at the request of law enforcement investigating the death of the Hollywood legend and his photographer wife.
In a prepared statement, the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said that it received a court order last week initiated by the Los Angeles Police Department to place a security hold on the cases. The order, signed by Judge Deirdre Hill, restricts the public release of “any investigative information, notes, reports or photos” related to the death investigation, according to the document obtained by The Times on Monday.
The medical examiner’s office had previously confirmed their deaths were the result of homicide, listing the cause as “multiple sharp force injuries” in its public database.
“Due to the court, order the information is no longer available,” the medical examienr’s office wrote. “No other case information or records, including the Medical Examiner report, can be released or posted on the website until further notice.”
The LAPD sought to seal the records “to ensure detectives from Robbery-Homicide Division learned of important information surrounding their deaths before the media and the public,” the department said in a statement The Times on Monday.
“The order was not sought to undermine transparency,” the department added.
Security holds are used by various law enforcement agencies to prevent the release of details from an autopsy, notes written by coroner’s investigators or results from toxicology and other tests during a death investigation. They have been used in several celebrity and high-profile cases including following the deaths of singer Whitney Houston, actor Paul Walker and the wife of actor Robert Blake.
Last month, a Los Angeles Police detective wrote in court documents seeking the prevent the release of autopsy details surrounding the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandezthat publishing such information could jeopardize their investigation. Hernandez’s body was found in September in the trunk of singer D4vd’s Tesla.
The slayings of Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, have given rise to a intensely watched legal struggle involving their son, Nick, who has been charged in the killings.
Prosecutors allege the couple’s 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, fatally stabbed his parents inside the master bedroom of their Brentwood home early Dec. 14 and then fled the area. He was arrested that night in Exposition Park near USC.
Reiner could face life in prison without parole, or the death penalty if convicted. He has not yet entered a plea and is expected to appear in court on Jan. 7.
Authorities haven’t offered a motive for the Dec. 14 attack.
Nick Reiner struggled with addiction for yearsand had been prescribed medication for schizophrenia at some point before the killings, according to two sources with knowledge of the criminal investigation.
Sources have also said he had been acting strangely and got into some type of argument with Rob Reiner at a holiday party at talk show host Conan O’Brien’s house hours before the slaying. It’s not clear what specifically they were arguing about. But some family friends told The Times the clash had been “overblown.”
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