Nick Reiner's Prosecutors Allege He Did This Before the Killings

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:11)
A grand jury in Los Angeles just told us what the prosecutors think happened inside Rob and Michele Reiner's bedroom.
Not that their son killed them. They charged him with that in December. The indictment unsealed on August 12th says something. The original charges did it. It says, he planned it.
Lying in wait, that's the new allegation. And under California law, it means the prosecution is arguing that Nick Reiner concealed what he intended to do, watched and waited for his opportunity, and launched a surprise attack on his parents inside their own home.
Big news, big deal. Probably the biggest update event in this entire case since it broke.
And I welcome your thoughts in the comment section on the sub stack in YouTube as we work our way through all of this. Links are in the description. Be sure to hit subscribe as well.
The indictment also requires specific intent to kill, not recklessness, not malice, but a deliberate decision.
That allegation doesn't describe someone who stabbed.
It describes someone who decided.
And it's going to be important. These decisions, these charging documents, the verbiage in them means a lot, especially for a case where the defense of Nick Reiner is going to be very likely coming in hard on a mental health defect defense, not guilty by reason of insanity. Did he understand what he was doing when he did it? That's going to be what they're going to try and come at this case with, very likely. Now, will that be allowed in? Is that a viable defense? That's all part of the ongoing discussions that they're going to be having in that courtroom and that we will be having right here. Because they're valid arguments and they're important discussions to have because not all guilty by reason of insanity are created equal and not all are reason of insanity.
Some are planned. Some are just shitty human beings who plot and plan and their baseline is this. It's always this. It's always psychopathic behavior. Not a psychotic break, but psychopathic behavior, meaning this is who they are at all times. Not a break, not a snap from reality where something happened chemically, induced by medication, lack of medication. The makeup of that person's own chemical imbalances. But no, a psychotic break is that someone who is a psychopath, which we don't know if he is, that's the baseline. That's life. And that's very different than someone who has a break. For all you going, what about Lindsay Clancy? That's the difference. I know.
Doesn't work. It's not a fair comparison. It's not an equal comparison. It's not what we're even going to have because it's not what it is. It's a very different case, very different circumstances. And see, we can look at different things, different ways. Not everybody is the same, like no one ever is. Rob Reiner was 78, Michele Singer Reiner was 70 Their daughter, Romy, found them in their master bedroom of their Brentwood home on December 14th of 2025 The medical examiner ruled both died within minutes of receiving multiple sharp force injuries. Romy lived across the street from her parents. She came to check on them that afternoon, told responding officers that another family member should be a suspect and was dangerous. That family member was her brother, Nick. Nick's 32, he'd been living in the guest house on his parents' property. He wasn't home when police arrived. The night before, the family had attended a holiday party hosted by Conan O'Brien. Witnesses said Nick kept asking other guests if they were famous. One source described his behavior as freaking everyone out. An argument with his father broke out during the party and witnesses called it very loud. Rob and Michele left the party hours later, around 2.15 in the morning. Nick was captured on surveillance footage walking alone near a gas station close to the family's Brentwood home. He checked in to a Santa Monica hotel called the Peerside around 4 in the morning using his own credit card. The hotel was less than five miles from the house. Hotel staff said Nick appeared tweaked out and checked in but had no visible blood or injuries. He booked the room for one night and never checked out. When staff cleaned it later that day, they found the shower full of blood and blood on the bedding. He was arrested that evening near USC in Exposition Park, about 14 miles from the Brentwood home. Surveillance footage shows him at a gas station buying a drink moments before police surrounded him. He did not resist. LAPD detectives went back to the Peerside hotel the next morning. They searched Nick's room telling the front desk staff they believed he used it to clean up and dispose of evidence. Prosecutors charged him with two counts of first degree murder, no bail. He pled not guilty in February 26 Those charges already carried the death penalty. His family retained defense attorney Alan Jackson initially. Jackson withdrew in January 26, citing circumstances beyond his control. Meaning the checks not clearing, guys. Again, that's conjecture. I can't prove that. And they told the court the case involved very complex and serious issues. And look, it does. It does. Public defender Kimberly Green has represented Nick since. At his first court appearance in December, Nick sat behind glass in a blue suicide prevention smock and handcuffs. The judge barred cameras from photographing him. His siblings Jake and Romy released a statement calling the loss of their parents unimaginable pain. And they asked for privacy. The arraignment was delayed twice because Nick hadn't been medically cleared to leave the jail. By the time he formally pled not guilty in February, Alan Jackson was already gone. Nick had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder years before the killings. That wasn't a secret. His parents knew, the courts knew and the doctors who changed his medication three weeks before December 14th knew. In 2020, California court placed him under an LPS conservatorship that's reserved for adults with a grave disability, people who can't provide their own food, clothing or shelter because of a mental health disorder. A licensed fiduciary named Stephen Baer took over Nick's medical and medication decisions. The state had determined that Nick couldn't make those decisions for himself. That conservatorship expired in 2021 and from then on, Nick's treatment was voluntary. You want to learn more about how these conservatorships work and or more so don't work? We got plenty of videos on that too. Let's look up Nick Reiner in our channel. Go back to the beginning of the year when all this was beginning and going down. We dove deep into just how dysfunctional the conservatorship system in California actually is and how basically you get on it. And then from that moment forward, it finds every damn reason imaginable to get you off of it. Not because you're getting better, but because the system doesn't want you on it. Can you feed yourself? You're not qualified to be on it anymore. Basically, if you're not rocking back and forth in the corner of a room, drooling and nonverbal, you're not qualified to be on it. That's the way the system works. Families fight tooth and nail sometimes for years to get their loved one on to the conservatorship because they need the help. And then California says a big F you!