The alleged double m*rder by Nick Reiner sent shockwaves through Hollywood. However, it has also been complicated by reports of him suffering from schizophrenia.
Nick Reiner has medical issues
The 32-year-old one-time screenwriter was recently diagnosed with the condition and is taking new medication which was making him “out of his head” in the weeks before the murders, according to website TMZ.
It has been speculated that the diagnoses could have contributed to his flipping and k*lling filmmaker Rob Reiner, and photographer Michele Singer Reiner with a knife on the night of December 13th. He has yet to enter a plea at court.
The events that transpired seem unprecedented but there are eerie parallels with the case of another drug addicted son of Hollywood royalty, who also went off the rails and attacked people with a knife, which provides hints at what could happen next.
Similar to Reiner, Redmond O’Neal was born into fame as the son of Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal. He was also addicted to drugs from a young age and was in and out of rehab. In 2018, he went on a brutal knife rampage across Los Angeles, leaving two men stabbed, one in the face, and resulting in charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats and battery.
As mental health was evaluated, it depicted O’Neal was suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
When his case came to court, the judge was forced to halt proceedings multiple times when medical experts testified that he could not meaningfully assist in his own defense — a requirement for trial.
What followed was more than a year of legal limbo as O’Neal was shuttled between courtrooms, psychiatric hospitals and jail cells as the court wrestled with whether the case could even move forward.
He has since been institutionalized at Patton State Hospital in Los Angeles.
“The way the California penal code is, you can only be incompetent to stand trial for two years – then they either commit you long-term or drop the charges,” California-based forensic psychologist Dr. Natalie Sobel told The Post.
Fawcett died in 2009 from cancer and Ryan O’Neal in 2023 from heart failure. Redmond attended his mother’s funeral under police supervision, but not his father’s. He remains under California State care.
