It’s been over four months since Rob and Michele Reiner were found stabbed to death inside their home.
But for Jake Reiner, the grief is nearly as profound as it was the day he learned that his parents had been murdered
Nick Reiner has been arrested for his parents’ murders and is currently awaiting trial. Now, Nick’s older brother, Jake, is breaking his silence on the situation for the first time.
In an essay posted to his Substack page, Jake wrote candidly about the experience of learning that he had lost both his parents in horrific fashion.
“I was in Union Station at a celebration of life for one of my best friends, Christian Anderson, who died in October,” the 34-year-old wrote, adding:
“It was at that moment I received a call from my sister Romy telling me our father was dead. Minutes later, she called back telling me our mother was also dead.”
“The 45-minute Lyft ride from downtown to the west side was unendurable. My world, as I knew it, had collapsed. I was in a trance. The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened.”
At one point in the essay Jake wrote that “this is my story,” promising that his sister, Romy Reiner, “will tell hers in her own way and in her time.”
Jake added that he feels “robbed of so many things” over losing his parents, noting that the tragedy “simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me.”
“Nothing can prepare you for what it feels like to lose both parents instantly at the same time,” Jake continued.
“It’s too devastating to comprehend. I still wake up every morning having to convince myself that, no, it’s not a dream. This truly is my living nightmare.”
He added that he still finds himself dwelling on “how frightened” his parents must have been in their final moments and added that they “were the last people in the world to deserve what happened to them.”
“They should be enjoying the rest of their lives peacefully while growing older together,” he wrote.
“Instead, that was ripped away from them, from me, from Romy, and there was nothing we could do about it.”
Jake called his parents’ murders “horrific” and said that every day since then “has been horrendous.”
He eventually referenced Nick by saying that his brother is “at the center” of the tragedy.
“We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable,” Jake wrote. “It’s almost too impossible to process.”
Jake said he’s aware that “people have questions” about Rob and Michele’s deaths, and he promised that “some of those answers will come in time.”
“But some parts of this belong only to our family. And keeping them private is the only way to protect what little remains of something that was taken from us,” he wrote.