A death row inmate received a heartbreaking email from Michele Reiner just hours before she and her Hollywood legend husband Rob were allegedly murdered by their own son, the convict revealed.
Rob and Michele Reiner had attended a Los Angeles theater on Dec. 12 to see “Lyrics from Lockdown” — a one-man show about injustice and mass incarceration in the US legal system based on the life and writings of Nanon Williams.
Williams has been in prison for more than three decades and has been sentenced to death for a murder he maintains he did not commit.
The couple and Williams had formed an unlikely bond over the years after the Reiners learned about his story and became “an integral part of my life” as they communicated regularly in his bid for freedom, Williams told NBC News in an interview from a Texas prison last week.
But on Dec. 14, Williams was devastated when he opened his state-issued tablet in prison and read the horrific news that Rob and Michele Reiner had been found stabbed to death in their home — and their son Nick was charged with the killings.
He immediately wrote a frantic email to Michele, whom he described as a mother figure to him: “Please, this can’t be true,” he wrote. “Please tell me the news is lying.”
Emails are often delayed for prisoners as they are closely scanned by security, and days later he received an email dated 8:36 p.m. on Dec. 13 from Michele raving about the show, which was also attended by Williams’ mother, siblings and wife he married from prison, Tera.
The Reiners’ dear friends, Billy Crystal and his wife, as well as their daughter Romy, had also been there.
“We all said that we can’t wait to watch it with you. And your whole family was there, it was great. I loved your mother. She is so beautiful and I told her that she must have done something right because you turned out so well,” Michele wrote.
She then ended the note, as always: “Hope you’re doing well, Love you, Michelle.”
The beloved couple were found dead in their Los Angeles Mansion the following day.
The Reiners, who were outspoken supporters of social justice causes, first saw “Lyrics from Lockdown” in 2016 and were immediately taken with Williams’ writings and fight for his life.
He was charged with murder at the age of 17 in 1992 and sentenced to death in 1995 for the killing of 19-year-old Adonius Collier, who was shot to death at a park in Houston.
He was ultimately convicted based largely on “failsafe” ballistic evidence that Collier was shot by Williams — who admitted to firing a gun — and not co-defendant, Vaal Guevara, who also fired a gun in the fracas and had testified against him in exchange for a sweet plea deal with the state.
But years later, the evidence began to crumble and the ballistic expert told prosecutors he had been wrong. Prosecutors, in court documents opposing his parole in 1999, admitted that “Guevara was very evasive and apparently not at all truthful” on the stand, NBC News reported.
Here’s the latest on the death of Rob Reiner:
In 2001, a state judge held post-conviction hearings and determined Williams deserved a new trial — but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the recommendation.
“The more [The Reiners] learned,” Williams said, “the more pissed off Rob became, and the more loving Michele became.”
Once he was issued a tablet in 2021, his communication with the Reiners became more regular, with Michele writing to him the most often, asking him about how he was doing and sharing stories from her own family’s life.
“Michele was my heart,” Williams said.
He was even introduced via Zoom call to their children — Jack, Romy and Nick. He said he felt nothing but love from the family.
“My parents spoke about him with such love,” Romy wrote in a statement to NBC News this week. “He has taught me more about life and human compassion than anyone I’ve ever met.”
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