Gaunt Nick Reiner seen in custody for first time as he pleads not guilty to murders of Hollywood director dad Rob and mom Michele: Heard saying a single word in hoarse whisper
Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty to murdering his parents in court on Monday.
The 32-year-old looked gaunt as he sat hunched over in court on Monday in Los Angeles, California, wearing brown prison garb.
His mother and father were found stabbed to death inside their $2 million Brentwood home on December 14.
Hours later, Nick was arrested and has been held without bail.
Nick was heard faintly whispering ‘Yes’ in court when asked if he understood the proceedings during his appearance, which marked the first time he’s been seen in custody.
His head was shaved as he looked into the crowded courtroom, as if looking for someone he knows.
This was Reiner’s third court appearance after he was arrested following his parents’ gruesome murders.
He is due to appear in court again on April 29.
The 32-year-old looked gaunt as he sat hunched over in court on Monday in Los Angeles , California, wearing brown prison garb
Pictured: The home where the Hollywood couple were found murdered
Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found stabbed to death just hours before Nick was arrested and held without bail
Reiner has long dealt with mental health issues, as it was previously claimed that he had been placed in a mental health conservatorship five years before allegedly murdering his parents.
He also switched his schizophrenia medication about a month before his parents were found dead by his sister, Romy.
Nick’s latest court appearance comes just days after comedian Conan O’Brien broke his silence on his parents’ deaths.
Just hours before Rob and Michele were found, the filmmaker was seen clashing with Nick at O’Brien’s holiday party.
‘It’s just so awful,’ O’Brien, 62, said in an interview with The New Yorker on Friday.
‘I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them,’ he said, adding that he and his wife, Liza Powel O’Brien, ‘were seeing them a lot.’
‘They were just such lovely people. And to have that experience of saying goodnight to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone. I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there’s no other word for it.
‘And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there — and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend,’ O’Brien added.
It was reported that all three Reiners attended O’Brien’s December 13 holiday party, where the filmmaker and his son were involved in a ‘very loud argument.’
It was also recently revealed that Nick has been acting ‘almost childlike’ in jail and that he is ‘not competent to stand trial right now.’
TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin told Fox & Friends last week: ‘He is almost childlike in jail, we’re told.
‘He can’t process the consequences of what he’s done. He knows what he did.
‘He just can’t understand where he is right now, and I know that sounds crazy, but he is out of his head right now,’ Levin added.
Levin said that the killings were ‘incredibly brutal’. ‘We know people in the medical examiner’s office who are traumatized just by the pictures,’ he said.
The TMZ producer added that the killings had ‘all the markings of a meth murder’ and that Nick had been using the hard drug at the time.
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