Nick and Rob Reiner
A Los Angeles courtroom date looms as Nick Reiner remains jailed in the deaths of Rob and Michele Singer Reiner.

In the days since Nick Reiner was locked inside Los Angeles County's Twin Towers Correctional Facility, the alleged killer son of filmmaker Rob Reiner and photographer-producer Michele Singer Reiner has reportedly received no family visits at all — no consoling hand through thick glass, no carefully managed public show of unity, not even the kind of quiet contact that sometimes happens off the record.​

That absence is now being read, by those speaking to celebrity gossip writer Rob Shuter, as its own grim statement: the Reiners' relatives are grieving the dead while trying to process the unthinkable about the living. And if that sounds like a tidy headline, it is not. It is a family disaster unfolding inside a criminal court calendar.

Silence as a Survival Instinct

Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested after prosecutors say his parents were fatally stabbed at their Brentwood home in the early hours of Dec. 14, 2025, with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office alleging the attack occurred on South Chadbourne Avenue before he fled and was arrested later that evening in Exposition Park. He has since been charged with two counts of murder, and the case is proceeding through the slow, procedural machinery of the California courts.​

The latest wrinkle in this Rob Reiner murder trial update is the reported emotional distance inside the family itself — an 'it's too soon' stance that, according to Shuter's sources, may never soften. One insider quoted by Shuter framed the relatives' mindset bluntly: 'This isn't a misunderstanding or a minor scandal... He killed their parents. That changes everything.'

It is worth pausing on the obvious-but-easy-to-miss point for readers outside the US: a jail visit is not a casual pop-in. In Los Angeles, the physical setting is harsh, the logistics are rigid, and any appearance can become public fuel in a case already drenched in attention. Even if Nick Reiner is permitted visitors, the act of going — walking into that room, sitting down, being seen — carries a psychological cost that does not fit neatly into the public's appetite for neat family narratives.​

Court Dates, Counsel and a Case Still Unpled

Legally, the case remains at a stage that can surprise non-Americans: Nick Reiner has not yet entered a plea. His next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 23, after a judge delayed the arraignment when his high-profile attorney, Alan Jackson, withdrew and a public defender took over.

Jackson has publicly said he stepped aside due to 'circumstances beyond my control' — and, more pointedly, beyond Nick's control — while also insisting he believed his former client was not guilty, even as he acknowledged he could not ethically explain his reasons for leaving. NPR and the Los Angeles Times have identified the incoming public defender as Kimberly Greene, with the arraignment date pushed to allow the new defense team time to prepare.

Under California procedure, that plea hearing matters because it is the gateway to the next phase: evidence exchanges, potential motions and the kind of pretrial arguments that can define what a jury will eventually hear. Prosecutors have also alleged special circumstances — an allegation that can raise the stakes dramatically in sentencing if a defendant is convicted.

Outside the courthouse, though, the human story is sticking to the family's reported 'boundaries' — a silence described by one source as less cruelty than self-preservation. Another fear, aired in Shuter's reporting, is that more details about Nick Reiner's medical history could become public, with the family said to be alarmed by swirling claims about schizophrenia that they had previously worked to keep private.​

Meanwhile, officials have kept many investigative specifics close, leaving the public with a skeletal timeline and a steady drip of procedural updates.

Originally published on IBTimes UK