The slain bodies of Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner were found in the master bedroom area of their Brentwood home, and within hours the investigation turned to focus on their younger son, a Los Angeles Police Department official reported on Tuesday to the city’s police commissioners.
Dominic Choi, the assistant chief, told the police commission that “information developed during the early stages of the investigation” had led the department to view Nick Reiner, 32, first as a person of interest, and then to arrest him on Sunday night after locating him in Exposition Park, southwest of the city’s downtown, near the University of Southern California campus.
The information provided to the commission dovetailed with an account shared this week by a person close to the family, who told The New York Times that the couple’s daughter, Romy Reiner, had discovered the crime scene. Ms. Reiner, 27, had dropped by the house of her parents house with a roommate after a massage therapist arrived at the gate for a scheduled appointment and got no answer, the family associate said. When she walked inside searching for her parents, the associate said, she went to their bedroom, saw her father’s body and reflexively ran outside, screaming, prompting her roommate to dial 911.
The associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the family was not ready to speak publicly about the matter, said that the daughter then ran back into the house to search other rooms for her mother, not realizing that Michele Reiner’s body also was in the master bedroom area.
Only after paramedics arrived did an emergency worker come out of the room and inform her that both of her parents had been killed, the family associate said.
The associate said that the daughter also told authorities that her brother lived on the property with their parents. Assistant Chief Choi told the police commission that officers who responded around 3:40 p.m. on Sunday searched the house “to determine whether there were any additional victims or suspects,” but they found none.
Nick Reiner was formally charged on Tuesday with two counts of murder, but did not appear in court until Wednesday because he had not been medically cleared to be transferred to court from jail. Flanked by his lawyers, he was dressed in a blue suicide-prevention smock of the sort issued to inmates whom the authorities believe to be at risk of self-harm. He did not enter a plea.
The nature of the evidence against Mr. Reiner has not been made public yet. The police have not said if the murder weapon was found or if they have forensic evidence linking Mr. Reiner to the crime. The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office recorded the deaths of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner in its public database, citing the cause as “multiple sharp force injuries.”
Nick Reiner’s lawyer, Alan Jackson, said outside court that there were “very complex and serious issues associated with this case” that needed time to be examined before a plea could be entered, and he urged the public not to rush to judgment.
In a statement, Romy Reiner and the couple’s older son, Jake Reiner, asked “for respect and privacy,” and for public speculation “to be tempered with compassion and humanity.”
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge agreed to delay the arraignment until Jan. 7.
Shawn Hubler is The Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, reporting on the news, trends and personalities of Southern California.
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