Before their tragic deaths in December, Rob and Michele Reiner were tirelessly working to exonerate a once-convicted death row inmate, Nanon Williams, whose conviction was based on now-discredited evidence. The bond between the couple and Williams grew so strong that they planned to invite him to live with them if he were ever freed.
Williams had spent 34 years in Texas prison for the murder of a teenager in 1992, a crime he insists he did not commit. As liberal activists on multiple social fronts, the Reiners became an integral part of Williams' life, and he considered them to be a part of his family.
"They were an integral part of my life," Williams said in an interview from W.F. Ramsey Unit, a maximum-security prison about 40 miles south of Houston. "They became a part of me."
On December 14th, Rob and Michele were found dead inside their Brentwood home, with multiple sharp knife wounds. Their 32-year-old son, Nick, was arrested hours later on suspicion of murder and was subsequently charged with two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders. A court appearance where he is expected to be arraigned will take place on Wednesday.
Williams's story is one of trauma and injustice. As a 17-year-old in Houston, he was involved in a scuffle in a local park that led to the death of 19-year-old Adonius Collier. His trial was plagued by faulty evidence and a lackluster defense, with faulty ballistics evidence going unchallenged by his attorney. Even worse, the other defendant, Vaal Guevara, took a plea deal to testify against him.
Despite the evidence against him, Guevara was given a more lenient sentence of 10 years, while Williams was sentenced to death for the murder of Collier. On death row, Williams lived in a small, dark cell with other men who were also sentenced to die. He began etching other inmates' assigned numbers into his arm with a needle and ink, reaching 466 numbers of men set to be executed.
"I used to feel guilty about living," Williams told NBC News. "I used to wonder why I was still here."
His despair is channeled into his one-man show, "Lyrics From Lockdown," which combines themes of race, justice, and America's prison system. The play focuses on Williams's story and was written by Bryonn Bain after he was contacted by Williams from prison. The multimedia performance combines Williams's writings with Bain's personal experiences. An L.A. performance of "Lyrics From Lockdown" on a double date with Billy Crystal and his wife, Romy, was one of the last events the Reiners attended. After the show, they spoke with Williams's family and other activists about the progression of his case and the hope they felt for his exoneration.
Rob and Michele were staunch opponents of the death penalty, and seeing "Lyrics From Lockdown" for the first time in 2016 led them to Williams's story. Over the past decade, Williams slowly became a part of their lives as they shared stories of their lives and asked each other questions that helped them navigate their difficulties. Michele, in particular, became a crucial part of his survival.
"Michele was my heart," Williams told NBC News.
As his support network and the details of his story spread, partially because Rob signed on as executive producer of "Lyrics From Lockdown" and helped usher performances of the show across the country, a break came in the case that is now providing hope for his freedom. In 2024, the University of Colorado Law School's Criminal Defense Clinic filed a complaint that led the Texas Forensic Science Commission to issue a lengthy report confirming what Williams had always known: The ballistics testimony used to convict him was wrong. Following this bombshell revelation, Williams's legal team sought a new trial under a Texas law that allows the challenging of convictions based on "junk science." Prosecutors are fighting back and his team is awaiting a judge's ruling on whether he can move forward with his appeal.
When Williams returned to his cell and learned of the Reiners' deaths in Los Angeles, he immediately typed a message to Michele: "Please, this can't be true. Please tell me the news is lying." In return, he only received messages from the Reiners written prior to their deaths, as communication with inmates can take days to pass through security. Their final messages told him about the great performance of the show about his life they had just seen. It was time-stamped Saturday, Dec. 13th at 8:26 p.m.
Learning that Nick Reiner had been charged with the murders, Williams says that the lingering question is one that haunted the couple for decades as they struggled to care for their troubled son, who spent years in and out of drug rehabilitation facilities and apparently had schizophrenia: "I was judged to be a killer, a monster beyond redemption," he told NBC News. "The question I ask myself is 'What would they want for their son? What love and compassion and understanding would they want for him? If they would have it for me, why not him?"
