The murders of director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, have rocked Hollywood, especially after their son Nick was arrested in connection with their brutal deaths.
Us Weekly exclusively spoke to two experts in the area of parricide — the act of killing one’s parent or relative — who discussed what might drive a child to murder their loved ones, as well as the signs and preventative measures to avoid such a tragedy.
Denise Paquette Boots, a criminologist in the Public Policy Program at University of Texas at Dallas, and Dr. Kathleen M. Heide, a distinguished professor at the University of South Florida and author of Why Kids Kill Parents, who have not studied Nick’s case, told Us that parricide offenders are broken down into a “four-part typology”: the severely abused adolescents, the mentally ill, the antisocial and the enraged offender.
“Severely abused kids who kill parents [are] individuals who kill parents because of longstanding abuse, which can be documented,” Heide told Us.
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“Severely mentally ill parricide offenders are individuals who by definition have a severe mental illness, typically psychosis, so along the schizophrenia spectrum, and then sometimes bipolar disorder or major depression with psychotic features.
“Dangerously antisocial [offenders] kill because the parent is an obstacle or they kill for a selfish instrumental reason. It could be to get money, it could be to get freedom, it could be to date the person they want to date,” she explained.
“[The] fourth type is enraged, and these are individuals who very often, not always, but have a substance abuse disorder. And the important part is they have a lot of underlying anger, which may be related to abuse or may not, but the point is that they kill their parents when they are enraged,” Heide continued. “And often in these cases, their parents have been overindulgent. And then finally, say to their son or daughter, it’s time to grow up and do a little bit of tough love or setting what we’d say are appropriate boundaries. And these individuals who could be adolescents or adults have very little frustration tolerance and kill out of rage.”
Nick, 32, had openly struggled with substance abuse, and insiders previously told Us that he had “always been hostile and volatile” toward his family.
“Healthy, happy kids, of whatever age, don’t kill their parents,” Heide said. “Why does this crime evoke horror? It’s so taboo because the one thing you don’t do is kill the very people who gave you life.”
She added: “The reasons can be many. But the point is there’s always a reason.”
While parricide is the “rarest of the rare,” making up only one to two percent of homicides (according to Heide, about 20 cases at most a year among juveniles and adults), Boots told Us the majority of adult parricide perpetrators are the mentally ill, and the crimes are “typically committed with firearms.”
“The second highest is actually with cutting instruments,” she said. (Rob, 78, and Michele, 68, were stabbed to death.)
Heide also weighed in, sharing that stabbing is always “a more personal type of killing. It also involves more effort.”
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“When the victim is known, it can indicate more of [an] emotional connection and can also tell you something relationally what’s going on there,” she said. “So it’s certainly significant.”
Boots outlined the typical parricide profile, telling Us that offenders often have “less of a history of offending and delinquency than other types of homicide offenders, and they’re typically white [males], unmarried and unemployed. They commonly live with their parents at the time of the offense.” (Rob and Michele’s son lived with them in their Brentwood, California, mansion).
According to the professor, parricide offenders are usually in their early 20s or early 30s.
“It’s more common that only one person is killed. But it’s not uncommon that we see two victims, and it’s both parents,” Boots said, pointing to a study she did with Heide, in which they discovered that out of 147 homicides, “about 59 percent of the parricides were one victim, and 27 percent were two victims.”
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She shared that “63 percent involved a father being killed, and 61 percent a mother was killed.”
Boots added, “What we see in some of the severely mentally ill parricide offender typology is that mothers tend to be caretakers. Normally, it’s not uncommon that a mother is killed in those instances, but fathers are also killed. It’s a double tragedy.”
According to Boots, “This is a gendered crime. It is a male-dominated phenomenon. It’s not that girls don’t kill their parents, but it is a much rarer parricide. Offenders are usually male.”
Parricide crimes are not discriminatory, as seen in the case of the legendary Hollywood filmmaker and his wife.
“Even people with privilege are looking for help for their kids, especially their adult kids. They may not have the ability to make those decisions for them, but middle-aged and elderly parents, in particular, caring for adult sons and daughters are often marginalized,” Boots told Us. “I’m not sure what the situation was with the Reiners. Sometimes we assume that because they’re famous, because they’re loved and they’re well-known, that they could never want for anything, but we don’t know what their lives were like.”
The best practice to help reduce incidents of parricide would be getting assessments for the key demographic that look at risk factors, said Boots.
“We may see things ramping up in that house with aggression or violence that put parents at risk, but also put that person that’s struggling with those addictions or mental illness that we see they’re struggling as well and are able to get them help. It’s a really hard thing with adult kids,” she noted.
Boots said the Reiners’ deaths are “an incredible loss for all of the children, and that even includes Nick, if he is indeed the perpetrator, he’s now lost two people that maybe loved him the most in his life, and that’s a terrible thing.”
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Heide noted the Reiners’ case is “tragic” — but “they’re all tragic.” Boots shared the same testament.
“While this is a rare event, the ripple effects of a parricide, it’s like a tsunami wave coming over a family,” she told Us. “It should give us all pause. The Reiners clearly love their family very much. I mean, all indications are, I did not know them personally, but they were a loved family, and they were giving, and they were activists in their community that cared about others. They cared about causes bigger than themselves.”
Rob and Michele were found dead in their home on Sunday, December 14. Nick was arrested on a murder charge soon after, police confirmed to Us.
A source shared that Nick was acting “creepily” at Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party, which his parents also attended, the night before their murders.
“Nick was going up to people at Conan O’Brien’s party asking if they were famous,” the insider claimed.
TMZ reported that Rob and Nick got into a “very loud argument” at the gathering, which other attendees overheard.
Rob and Michele married in 1989 and shared three children: Jake, Nick and Romy. (Rob also adopted ex-wife Penny Marshall’s daughter, Tracy.)