Rob Reiner and his family, including son Nick (fourth from left)
Celebrated Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, producer Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their Brentwood, California, home on Sunday.
Their son Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested in Los Angeles on Sunday and has been booked on suspicion of murder. Police have said the couple were victims of homicide.
Rob Reiner, who was known for directing movies such as This is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally, had two sons and a daughter with his wife of 36 years.
Here’s what we know about Nick Reiner, their younger son, and the investigation so far.
What happened?
The couple’s youngest child, daughter Romy, found their bodies in their home in Brentwood, a celebrity enclave full of mansions, boutique shops and restaurants on the westside of Los Angeles, multiple sources confirmed to the BBC’s US media partner CBS News.
The Reiners had suffered multiple stab wounds, CBS News reported. Their cause of death has not officially been released.
When was Nick arrested?
Nick Reiner is currently in custody after being arrested on Sunday, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department records.
He was “booked for murder”, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said on Monday.
In a Monday statement, police said that after their initial homicide investigation at the Reiners’ home, it was “further revealed” that Nick Reiner “was responsible for their deaths”.
Theories about a possible motive have bounced around social media, with President Donald Trump linking the death of the late director – an outspoken Democrat – to Trump Derangement Syndrome, which has spurred bipartisan condemnation. The president coined the phrase to describe his most persistent and vocal critics.
However, no alleged motive for the killings has been disclosed.
Nick Reiner was located and arrested on Sunday night, police said. He was booked for murder and remains in custody with no bail. LA Country Sheriff’s jail records previously said he was being held with bail set at $4m (£3m).
The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday, when prosecutors will decide about filing charges, police said.
Reiner had spoken of his son’s struggles
The family openly discussed Nick Reiner’s long struggles with substance abuse and an addiction to hard drugs ahead of the release of his semi-autobiographical 2015 film, Being Charlie. The father and son had teamed up to write and direct the movie about a teenager addicted to drugs and his difficult road to recovery.
The Princess Bride director and his wife said that they had felt desperate during their son’s struggles, but when he would tell them that a rehab program wasn’t working, they didn’t always listen and took the word of the professionals treating their son. He was in and out of rehab centres for years and experienced homelessness as a teenager.
“We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he’s a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them,” Michele Reiner told the Los Angeles Times in 2015.
Rob Reiner added: “We listened to them when we should have been listening to our son.”
The film appeared to provide healing for the family.
Rob Reiner said that by the time they started making the movie their relationship “had gotten so much closer”.
Likewise, Nick Reiner told Variety at the time that their relationship grew during the process. Although he loved working with his dad on the film, he added that he wanted to be independent and complete his own projects.
Reiner had four children
Rob Reiner was previously married to late filmmaker Penny Marshall and adopted her daughter, Tracy Reiner, 61.
He met Michele Singer on the set of When Harry Met Sally, and a few years later they had their first son, Jake.
In a 1998 interview with the BBC right before his daughter Romy was born, he reflected on parenthood, saying that his approach to child-rearing was changing and through his experiences with his sons – Jake was six and Nick was four – he was “learning about being a parent”.
That same year, Reiner helped pass an initiative to use revenue from cigarette taxes for prenatal and early childhood support programme called California First Five.
“Hopefully what I’m doing is I’m trying to improve the fabric of society by making an investment early on with children,” Reiner said, “So that we will have a reduction in crime and teen pregnancy and drug abuse and child abuse.”
