Nick Reiner: Self-Made Monster Part 3 - He Looked HOW at 4:15?!

On January 7, 2026, Alan Jackson told a Los Angeles courtroom his team had no choice but to leave Nick Reiner's defense. Then he walked outside, found the cameras, and said to take it to the bank that Nick is not guilty of murder under California law. Chapter three of Self-Made Monster: The Nick Reiner Story starts three weeks before that, at 4:15 in the morning at a Santa Monica hotel, with a staffer looking at the man checking in. What that staffer saw is the first fact on the table.

Jackson had just won Karen Read's acquittal in Massachusetts when he stood beside Nick on December 17, behind courtroom glass, with his client shackled and in a blue suicide-prevention vest. Jake and Romy Reiner had agreed to pay him. Court filings later gave the reason he left in one sentence: the family's anticipated funding did not materialize. The judge appointed a deputy public defender, Kimberly Greene, and Nick pleaded not guilty through her on February 23. In June his lawyers filed 136 pages in probate court asking for the trust his parents signed before his first Christmas, so he could hire Jackson back. Jackson showed up to the hearing and, asked whether he'd return, said it was up to Nick.

Greene made the defense's pitch on September 15: a serious mental illness, a long history of self-medicating, a system that makes treatment hard to get. The filing that followed two days later said Nick hadn't received five dollars from his trust for commissary, and that the trustees had paid their own lawyers more than a quarter million from it. It also argued that at least $325,017.49 came from his grandfather Carl, which would keep that money outside the slayer statute, the law that could bar an heir from inheriting from the people he's accused of killing. Tony lines up the pitch against the receipts. Nick Reiner has pleaded not guilty.

Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1
Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#ReinerMurders #NickReiner #HiddenKillers #RobReiner #MicheleReiner #TrueCrimePodcast #AlanJackson #NathanHochman #SantaMonica #LosAngeles