Judge blocks release of autopsy results for Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has agreed to block the release of the autopsy reports of Robert Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner at the request of law enforcement investigating the deaths of the Hollywood legend and his photographer wife.
In a prepared statement, the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said it received a court order last week initiated by the Los Angeles Police Department to seize the cases. The order, signed by Judge Deirdre Hill, prohibits the public release of “any investigative information, notes, reports or photographs” related to the death investigation, according to a document obtained by The Times on Monday.
The medical examiner’s office had previously confirmed their deaths as homicides, listing the cause as “multiple blunt force trauma” on its public website.
“Because of the court order, the information is no longer available,” the medical examiner’s office wrote. “No further case information or records, including the Medical Examiner’s report, may be released or posted on the website until further notice.”
The LAPD wants to seal the records “to ensure that Robbery-Homicide Division detectives get important information about their deaths before the media and the public,” the department said in a statement to The Times on Monday.
“This order was not intended to undermine transparency,” said the Ministry.
Safeguards are used by various law enforcement agencies to prevent the release of information from autopsies, notes written by coroner’s investigators or toxicology results and other tests during death investigations. They have been used in many celebrity and high-profile incidents including following the death of singer Whitney Houston, actor Paul Walker and the wife of actor Robert Blake.
Last month, a Los Angeles police detective wrote in court documents seeking to block the release of autopsy data related to the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez that publishing such information could jeopardize their investigation. Hernandez’s body was found in September in the trunk of D4vd artist Tesla.
The murders of Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, have sparked a high-profile legal battle involving their son, Nick, who has been charged with murder.
Prosecutors allege the couple’s 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, stabbed his parents to death inside the master bedroom of their Brentwood home early Dec. 14 and fled the scene. He was arrested that night in Exposition Park near USC.
Reiner could face life in prison without parole, or the death penalty if convicted. He has not entered a plea and is expected to appear in court on Jan. 7.
Authorities have not yet released a motive for the December 14 attack.
Nick Reiner had struggled with addiction for years and had been prescribed medication for schizophrenia some time before the murder, according to two sources with knowledge of the criminal investigation.
Sources also said she was acting strangely and got into an argument with Rob Reiner at talk show host Conan O’Brien’s holiday party hours before she was killed. It is not clear what they were arguing about. But some friends of the family told The Times that the conflict was “overwhelming.”
