As Nick Reiner remains in jail, charged with the murders of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, a new documentary is exploring what could have contributed to the crimes.
"TMZ Investigates: The Reiner Murders: What Really Happened" discusses how Nick's mental health diagnosis and drug addiction potentially led to the murders of Rob and Michele.
According to the documentary, Nick was aware of his alleged actions at the time of the murders, "but he doesn't understand why he's in jail."
"Sources connected to the Reiner family tell us Nick knows what he did," Charles Latibeaudiere, the co-executive producer at TMZ, said. "He knows that he killed his parents, but he doesn't understand why he's in jail. He's delusional. He thinks this is all a conspiracy against him."
The documentary claims that the delusion stems from a change in his medication which was treating his schizoaffective disorder, which they say he was diagnosed with in 2020.
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TMZ founder Harvey Levin claimed that Nick's doctors changed his medication a month prior to the murders, after Nick complained of weight gain, which Levin said "messed Nick up ... profoundly."
The documentary then alleges that after his medication was changed, he began to behave erratically and became violent, with experts claiming Nick "should have been contained during this period of time," while doctors worked to figure out his medication.
According to the documentary, "His meds are still not right and the doctors in the jail are trying to figure it out," noting he is still "delusional."
The Mayo Clinic describes schizoaffective disorder as "a mental health condition marked by a mix of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms."
Board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring said people with the disorder will often display paranoia, but will also exhibit symptoms "such as low mood, low motivation [and] withdrawing socially."
"The scariest thing about it is that when you're altering your brain chemistry with illicit substances, i.e. you're abusing methamphetamines, you're abusing opiates, things of that nature, it can exacerbate the symptoms and make them exponentially worse," Dr. Witt-Doerring said in the documentary.
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Nick has been open about his struggles with drug addiction in the past, even writing a movie about his experiences, "Being Charlie," that Rob directed. The documentary stated that he experimented with heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine and went to rehab 18 times.
TMZ supervising producer Olivia Heinle claimed that following Nick's diagnosis, he was no longer taking any illegal drugs, but said his problem was with prescription medication. While he would go to rehab to treat his addiction, she said his other issues were not being dealt with.
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"So there's such a thing as dual-diagnosis facilities, which are places that treat both drug addiction and mental illness, so we're told that the Reiners would put down a fortune for Nick to go to these places, but the problem is that he would stay for only 30 days ... they'd get him clean off the drugs, and then they would just send him on his way without treating the mental illness," she said.
Dr. Drew Pinsky agreed, adding that "30 days for me seems almost meaningless for somebody with Nick's history," and that he would suggest putting someone with a complex case like Nick's "somewhere structured and custodial for a very long period of time, maybe permanently."
"For someone like Nick who clearly had a very long, complicated history with substance abuse and mental illness, this is not something that can be dealt with in 30 days," Dr. Witt-Doerring said. "This is something that requires a much more comprehensive, long-lasting plan that follows him out of the hospital. What happened to the Reiners is not an uncommon problem. This is happening all over the country."
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While it is still unclear what the defense strategy will be when the Reiner case goes to trial, the documentary hypothesizes that his team will pursue a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
