Every now and then (as with Gary Gilmore, who supplied journalists with material for months), a heinous crime is followed by a legal case that somehow morphs into something bigger than itself. Apparently, Nick Reiner, who killed his parents almost a year ago, will become the public face of what happens when a particular type of malfeasance flourishes on the fringes of the medical profession.

It is being said, now, that he received voluminous amounts of alleged treatment at the hands of people who either did not know what they were doing, or did not care whether any actual healing was ever accomplished.

This website has many ambitions: One is to know more about how and why people become addicted. Another is to dissect the path that one particular person followed, and try to figure out how to prevent others from wandering onto that byway. Some paths are more unsavory than others.

County Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Greene, who currently represents Reiner, has pointed out that this case is a tragic example of how difficult survival can be for someone experiencing mental health challenges so severe that they are unable to appreciate or even accommodate the familial support they receive. When contemporary readers learn more about how Nick treated his parents when they were alive when they were alive, they may find it hard to extend sympathy for what looks like plain old cussedness.

Inability to appreciate is a very generous assessment of a case where the parents paid for 18 stays in rehab facilities. It also makes a general point about how few institutions are really prepared to do the whole job, rather than just take a patient off the streets for a while. Various news sources have reported that, in the past, Nick was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia, but that is as much detail as the public is given. Except that he kind of didn’t really seem to want help.

What might be done about a kid like Nick Reiner? It depends on the state, and whether the legal situation is serious enough to lock him up if he refuses rehab. Some states provide for civil commitment where a person, especially a minor, can be held for varying lengths of time. An immediate safety crisis is a good reason for detainment.

In California, involuntary commitment to drug rehabilitation is a complex legal process that generally requires proving that an adult is “gravely disabled” or a danger to self or others. Because substance use disorder alone is often not sufficient cause, the state is equipped with several specific legal pathways to compel treatment.

One is the LPS Act, under which someone who just can’t cope, because of either a mental health condition or because of substance use disorder, may have a guardian appointed. A judge can order an offender to choose rehab or jail; or both.

In 2020, Nick, by now a veteran of numerous sojourns in far-flung establishments, was closing in on his 30th birthday. He was placed into a year-long mental health conservatorship, a legal status of which versions also exist in some other states. In California, the procedure begins with committal by a doctor to a mental hospital. After legal processes overseen by the Office of the Public Guardian, the next move is made by a judge. The whole point is that medication, medical decisions, and life in general are taken out of the patient’s hands while an appointed guardian decides what is best.

But even this extreme step, which many onlookers believed should have been undertaken years earlier, did not seem to have led to any positive outcome. In 2021, after a year, the conservatorship was allowed to expire, and so far, no news report has said why. The closest we get to an explanation is that by the legal definition, Nick was not “gravely disabled.” He was once again his own boss, a fact that did not bode well for anyone.

During a recent press conference, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman addressed a request from Nick’s siblings to not unseal the transcripts from the grand jury proceedings that led to his indictment. Those sessions are conducted in secret, but transcripts can later become public as a criminal case moves forward. But the two surviving children of Michele and Rob Reiner have asked for the records to stay sealed. While there may be other reasons for the request, it seems like not wanting to be further traumatized might be sufficient.

Having been in rehab 18 times before age 22, Nick explained its ineffectiveness for him: “I just couldn’t get by in these programs. I had resistance every time they tried to reach me.” Sobriety, he said, was a relative term. A person might get off of meth and heroin, while still doing alcohol and cannabis. A friend of his once told the press that Nick aspired to be, at most, a functional addict. Around his 15th birthday was his first rehab stay, and over the next four years, there were 17 more.

What else might be revealed? Maybe the reasons why his mother rarely smiled for photographs. What private hell was she concealing? Depending on their inclinations and histories, members of the public might fixate on different aspects of the crime of killing one’s parents with a knife. For instance, at birth, was Nick delivered by C-section? If so, did he believe that it affected him adversely in some way? Would choosing a knife as the murder weapon have anything to do with that? As for the possibilities when the father is the victim and a blade is the weapon, let’s not even go there.

Written by Pat Hartman. First published October 8, 2026.

Sources:

“Nick Reiner will not face death penalty over his parents’ killings,” PBS.org, September 15, 2026.

“Nick Reiner Was in a Mental Health Conservatorship in 2020,” NYTimes.com, January 15, 2026.

“Nick Reiner Speaks in Court While Handcuffed to Chair After DA Takes Death Penalty Off the Table,” People.com, September 15, 2026.

“Life With Father,” NewYorker.com, May 30, 2026.

Image Copyright: AI-Hobby-Kunst/Pixabay.