In a deeply personal tribute, Jake Reiner painted a portrait of devoted parents whose lives and futures were “ripped away” when they were murdered.
Jake recalled the devastating moment he learned of Rob and Michele Reiner’s deaths on Dec. 14 in a new Substack post.
“On the afternoon of December 14, I was in Union Station at a celebration of life for one of my best friends, Christian Anderson, who died in October. It was at that moment I received a call from my sister Romy telling me our father was dead. Minutes later, she called back telling me our mother was also dead,” Jake wrote.
“The 45-minute Lyft ride from downtown to the west side was unendurable,” he added. “My world, as I knew it, had collapsed. I was in a trance. The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened.”
Los Angeles Fire Department officials responded to a Brentwood-area home at around 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 14, where two bodies were discovered. Officials later confirmed the bodies to be of Rob and his wife, Michele.
“Upon arrival, officers located two deceased individuals inside the residence, later identified as Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner,” LAPD Assistant Police Chief Dominic Choi later confirmed during a LAPD Board of Police Commissioners meeting.
“Both victims were found in the master bedroom of the area of the home.” Officers then conducted a “thorough search” of the home and found no additional victims or suspects at the residence.
Rob and Michele’s son Nick quickly became a person of interest and was taken into custody the night of Dec. 14. He was formally charged in the double homicide of his parents on Dec. 16. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders.
In his Substack post, Jake addressed the added trauma of his brother’s alleged role in the killings.
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“We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable. Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the center of it,” he wrote. “It’s almost too impossible to process.
“I understand that people have questions about what happened,” he added. “Some of those answers will come in time. But some parts of this belong only to our family, and keeping them private is the only way to protect what little remains of something that was taken from us.”
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Nick pleaded not guilty during his Feb. 23 arraignment. A spokesperson for the Reiner family told Fox News Digital, “They have the utmost trust in the legal process and will not comment further on matters related to the legal proceedings.”
For Jake, the loss of Rob and Michele has consumed nearly every moment of his life.
“When you are not living through a tragedy the specific way Romy and I are, it’s hard to wrap your head around just how horrific this has been,” he wrote. “Because they weren’t your parents, it might be easier to move forward or even forget for a moment about what happened that day, but for us, it’s every single day.
“Every day since then has been horrendous,” he added. “Every meeting we take, every person we talk to, every tear we shed, every movement we make is connected to our parents being murdered. In the middle of trying to process the most devastating moment of your life, the world demands meetings, paperwork, decisions, and explanations; as if documentation must come before mourning.”