REPORT: New details emerge about how the Reiners were found dead

December 17, 2025

From the New York Times: It was Sunday afternoon when a massage therapist arrived at the white-gated home in the affluent enclave of Brentwood for a scheduled appointment with Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. The couple was scheduled to have dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama and others in just a few hours.

Getting no answer at the gate, the massage therapist called the couple’s daughter, Romy Reiner, who quickly came by with a roommate. She walked in and found her father’s body and the gruesome scene of his death.

In a separate report, the New York Post explained that Romy, 28, lives just across the street from her parents’ home.

She unlocked the gate, then went inside the house to check on her parents. It was around 3:30. By that time, her parents had been dead for several hours, and rigor mortis was already setting in for both bodies.

When a horrified Romy discovered her father’s body, she fled back outside where her roommate was waiting. The roommate reportedly called 911, while an anguished Romy called Reiner’s best friend, Billy Crystal. Crystal and his wife rushed to the scene, and reportedly saw both bodies.

According to the reports, Romy had not seen her mother’s body, and did not realize she was deceased too, until police and paramedics arrived and broke the news to her that both her parents were dead.

Romy reportedly told police that her older brother, Nick Reiner, had been staying in a guesthouse on the property. However, a source said she did not tell authorities that her brother might be a suspect, as some news outlets have reported.

Nick Reiner has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of his parents. He made his first appearance in court Wednesday morning, wearing a suicide prevention vest, and is scheduled to return to court on January 7.