Jake Reiner is opening up about the tragic murder of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, in his first sit-down interview eight months after their death.
Two weeks after his brother Nick Reiner was indicted on charges of murdering his parents with the special circumstance of lying in wait, Jake, 35, spoke with KABC-TV Los Angeles’ Marc Cota Robles for a nearly 10-minute interview about life without his parents and the phone call he received from his sister Romy Reiner the day of his parents’ death.
“Nobody really understands what it’s like to go through something like that until you’re living it,” Jake said. “It’s been eight months. It feels like eight years at the same time. And it also feels like eight minutes because every moment that I wake up, I’m reminded of my reality.”
On the afternoon of Dec. 14, Jake was at a celebration of life for one of his best friends — who died in October — when he received the news of his parents’ deaths.
“Romy called me, and I screened it, because I thought at the time, I’m in the middle of something, you know, I’ll call her back,” Jake said, “and then, she called immediately again, and I knew at that point that something was wrong.”
“Romy told me our dad was dead, and then she said, ‘I can’t find mom,’” he said. “I immediately went into shock.”
Jake, who worked as a local news reporter, said nothing could have prepared him for arriving at his parents’ home after receiving the phone call from Romy.
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“As a reporter, I did it for 10 years, I came up on crime scenes all the time,” Jake said, “but when it’s your crime scene, a crime scene at your childhood home, it’s like the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen.”
That same night, Jake also learned that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was looking at his brother, Nick, as the suspect.
When Jake was asked if he was surprised about the LAPD naming Nick as the prime suspect, he did not want to answer the questions, KABC-TV reported.
“He’s in jail. It’s like, I physically lost my parents, and then Nick was arrested. Now it’s just me and Romy, and we have to navigate this by ourselves essentially,” Jake said.
“For me, it manifests into anger. It manifests into rage, into how unfair this was, how I didn’t get a say in what happened. I didn’t get to stop it from happening. I had no choice in the matter,” he continued. “I just have to accept the reality of it. And to me, that is just one of the most infuriating parts of all of this.”
Jake said he knew how his parents felt about Nick and said they “never stopped helping” his brother through his reported struggles with addiction.
“My parents had unconditional love for all three of us,” Jake told the outlet. “I can tell you they never stopped wanting to help him. They never stopped helping him.”
During the interview, Jake also spoke about carrying on his filmmaker father’s legacy, saying, “I don’t necessarily know that I have this weight on my shoulders to carry on their legacy, but I do feel responsible for making sure people know them and they remember them.”
“I know they loved me. I know that they are proud of me, and I knew that,” he added.
Jake told the outlet that he still has a hard time trying to understand the deaths of his parents.
“I’ll never understand. I don’t care how it’s explained to me,” he said. “I don’t care what facts come out. I will never understand why this happened.”
Earlier this month, Jake’s brother Nick pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder with the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder by means of lying in wait after the indictment was unsealed, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said.
He also faces a special allegation that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife.
He was arrested on Dec. 15 after his 78-year-old father and 70-year-old mother were found dead with stab wounds in their home in the upscale Brentwood section of Los Angeles on Dec. 14, 2025.
“This was a profound betrayal by someone who was loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said.
“The indictment unsealed today also adds a special circumstance allegation that the defendant committed the murders by means of lying in wait. We hope that by having a grand jury return an indictment in this case, it will bring us one step closer to a trial and achieving justice,” Hochman added.
The grand jury indictment is a major step toward trial and allows prosecutors to skip California’s preliminary hearing process, where evidence is publicly aired.
Nick’s next court appearance will be held on Sept. 15.
If convicted as charged, he faces death or life in state prison without the possibility of parole. A decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made at a later date, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office added.
—With files from The Associated Press
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