Locustville
There are lessons to be learned from the tragic Rob and Michele Singer Reiner murders.
-Don’t live in Los Angeles or any of its neighboring towns. They are in a death spiral. I was last there in April, 2022. I am still reeling. Crime, filth, homelessness flourished, law abiding citizens cowered. The parks and sidewalks were covered with blue tents. Some of the “unhoused” had cars parked alongside their tents as well as barbecues, lawn chairs and card tables. My worst experience was at Santa Monica Beach, an iconic, exceptionally wide beach, known as a respite for thousands of middle-class and laboring Angelenos. I saw strung out, nearly naked, tottering men fighting with both with real and imaginary opponents, more tents and fires burning in metal garbage cans. “I am NOT getting out of the car,” I told my companion. We drove on. “The rich have their private pools and country clubs,” I mumbled, “where are the rest of the people supposed to go?”
-Drugs. Money. Entitlement. Nick Reiner, the alleged murderer of his parents, admitted that he started using drugs at 14 and went to the first of his 17 rehabs at 15. He dropped out of high school. He was violent, unemployed and lived with his parents. In 2015, Rob Reiner, a successful director, made a film about his son’s drug addiction and homelessness (“Being Charlie’) based on a script co-written by his son. In the publicity tour they did to promote the film, Rob Reiner did most of the talking and Nick Reiner’s comments were flat and and non-responsive. Did Rob Rob Reiner consider how the exposure of his son’s dangerous and anti-social behavior, would impact his potential employers? The movie was also a warning to any healthy individual who might consider entering into a personal relationship with his son. Never mind. It’s LA.
The Reiner murders is a story of denial and perhaps hubris. In the tour described above, Rob Reiner blamed his son’s problems on professionals (“the people with diplomas on their walls”) who warned him that his son was a liar. He even blamed himself for “not listening” to his son. Reiner was a man with an outsized sense of outrage. He incessantly attacked President Trump calling him a “criminal”, who “basically lies every minute of his life”, a “zombie or cockroach”. He even fantasized about his death (“Too bad he turned his head. Maybe next time they won’t miss”). Reiner did more that call Trump names. He helped create the “Committee to Investigate Russia” which “examined potential Russian interference in American elections”. (Variety). Years later, after the release of previously classified information, it is a clear that “Russiagate” and its offshoots were part of an orchestrated political effort to prevent Trump’s 2020 re-election.
Reiner apparently thought of himself as a heroic figure.
In a September, 2025 appearance on CNN he said “This may be the last time you ever see me because…there’s only a couple of us that are speaking out in this hard way. And I, we, hope and we know that there will be others.”
What precipitated Nick Reiner to assumedly kill his parents that very night and not another night, may be lost in history. Maybe Reiner told him to move out. They reportedly had a fight at a holiday party a few hours earlier. (Why he would bring an addicted and mentally ill man to a party to disturb and harass other guests, one of whom was apparently so concerned that they tried to call 911 but were stopped by the host?) It is all unknown but truth be told, was entirely predictable. Los Angeles, land of “The Day of the Locust”, “Helter Skelter”, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, dulled the Reiners’ survival instinct and they died.