Jake Reiner published a post on Substack on Friday describing the Dec. 14 deaths of his parents as a “living nightmare” after Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner were stabbed to death in the Los Angeles home where he grew up.
In the post, Reiner wrote that he was at a memorial service for one of his best friends when he got the first call from his sister. "I received a call from my sister Romy telling me our father was dead," he wrote, and "minutes later, she called back telling me our mother was also dead." He said the 45-minute Lyft ride from downtown to the west side that followed was unendurable.
Reiner offered blunt, repeated lines: "I still wake up every morning having to convince myself that, no, it’s not a dream," and "This truly is my living nightmare." He added, "Nothing can prepare you for what it feels like to lose both parents instantly at the same time" and called the loss "too devastating to comprehend."
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 and later identified as Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner. Nick Reiner was taken into custody the night of Dec. 14 and was formally charged on Dec. 16 in the double homicide; he has pleaded not guilty.
Reiner wrote that his parents were his guiding lights — that his mother was his confidant and his father his hero — and that their love "is truly unconditional." He noted that Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner married in 1989, were married for 36 years, and had three children: Jake, Nick, and Romy. "We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable," he wrote.
This account is Reiner’s first detailed public description of the experience. He said his parents were "robbed of so many things that day," and he used the Substack post to lay out, in his words, the immediate cruelty of the calls from his sister and the suddenness of the loss.
The case has moved into the criminal process: Nick Reiner was formally charged on Dec. 16 with two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders, and he has pleaded not guilty. That contrast — a family making public its grief while a family member faces criminal charges and denies guilt — is the central friction in the story Reiner told.
Reiner’s post leaves one clear, human answer to the question his account raises: he wants the public to understand how absolute the loss feels. "The love they have for me, my brother, and my sister is truly unconditional," he wrote, returning the story to the people at its center and the absence they must now carry.
