Son arrested in Rob Reiner killings. Brian Walshe verdict. Plus, Keith Morrison on deadly jealousy.

0:29Hey, good morning. it's the closing chapter in the trial of Brian Walsh, the art swindler, accused of murdering and dismembering his wife. We've got a verdict. We saw the defense team walk in with no word. Walsh came in with a bailiff, shackled. In Dateline Roundup, the defense team and the Sandra Birchmore case makes a surprising request, and Karen Reed's SUV is back in the news. The car was in disrepair, including a missing radio and the infamous broken taillight. Plus, Keith Morrison will be here to talk about his latest podcast, Something About Carrie. They had had a kind of a little flirtation.

1:07It had a sort of a quasi-date, and then all hell broke loose. But first, we head to California for the latest on a double murder that has left Hollywood reeling.

1:22Actor-director Rob Reiner was the genius behind some of Hollywood's most beloved films, from This Is Spinal Tap to When Harry Met Sally. It was on the set of When Harry Met Sally where he met his wife, photographer Michelle Singer Reiner. They raised three children at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, and that's where police found Rob and Michelle dead on Sunday afternoon. Tonight, as we come on the air, we're following several breaking stories, including the murder of director Rob Reiner and his wife. Six hours later, U.S. Marshals apprehended the man investigators suspect was Rob and Michelle's killer, their very own son, Nick.

2:03NBC News Entertainment correspondent Chloe Malos has been following the case closely since it first broke and is here to tell us what she's learned. Thanks for joining us, Chloe. Thanks for having me, Lester. Chloe, it's such a tragic story. Tributes have been pouring in since the deaths of Rob and Michelle were announced. Tell us a bit more about them. You know, Lester, it's so tragic. Rob Reiner, he came from a storied entertainment family. His father, Carl Reiner, was a very famous comedian. His mother, Estelle, was an actress and singer. And a really good family friend was a man by the name of Norman Lear.

2:42and Norman Lear ended up casting him in the 1970s hit sitcom All in the Family. He played Meathead and he won two Emmys for that. And then he went on to direct movies like The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally. And that's the movie where he met his wife, Michelle. He and Michelle went on to have an incredible marriage. They were known for their political activism, their philanthropy, and it's just so tragic. Yeah, I got a chance to interview him at one point. What a terrific guy, very friendly, very affable. What do they used to call him, the mayor of Hollywood? I remember the first time I saw him, I think, was in a Starbucks on Santa Monica Boulevard, and he was just kind of the guy.

3:30So an apt title, certainly. So let's go to this past weekend. Again, a lot of us got push notifications on Sunday when news apps announced that something had happened at the Reiner home. What were the first bits of information you were hearing, Chloe? Sure. I got a phone call from our news desk who said that there was police activity and that our affiliate was on the scene and that two individuals had been found deceased in the home. Since then, we've come to find out that it was the Reiner's daughter, Romy, who called 911. She had gone over to check on her parents because she hadn't heard from them.

4:10And police officers were dispatched, and they found the Reiners dead in their bedroom. And the initial indications were that there was a knife involved. That's going to be part of the evidence. Absolutely. And we do know more, Lester, now from our reporting as to the hours that played out before their tragic ending. They were found dead Sunday afternoon. But what we know happened Saturday night was that Rob Reiner, Michelle, and their son Nick went to a holiday party hosted by TV legend Conan O 'Brien. And there were a lot of celebrities there. And Rob, like you said, affable man, walked in, introducing his son, according to two sources that I spoke with, to the celebrities and the guests that were there.

4:58And these sources telling me that Nick's behavior was odd and disruptive and that he was interrupting conversations that people were having and just walking up to them, asking odd questions. And we know that this then turned into a conversation that his parents were having with him about his mental health. They go back to their home and then they were murdered. We know from reporting that Nick was arrested after his sister called 911. You know, we haven't heard anything from Nick, but what we do know is that he had long suffered with addiction. And this was something that his parents and he were actually very public about.

5:44But at points, it sounded like he had become more stable. You know, a lot is really unclear right now. In 2016, Nick and Rob put out this semi-autobiographical movie called Being Charlie about a father and his son who was dealing with addiction. And you heard Nick talk about his years-long battle that began when he was just 15 years old. And you heard Rob Reiner, his father, talking about all the doctors and the help that they were trying to get for his son and that they really wanted to do this movie to pull back the curtain and say, look, just because we're this famous Hollywood family doesn't make us immune from addiction.

6:27Yeah, I think that's what's so chilling about this. Everybody kind of looks and thinks, you know, what would I do in a situation like that? So Nick is being held without bail at the Los Angeles County Jail. Usually, the prosecutor has 48 hours to file charges against someone in custody. And our cameras were outside the Superior Court of L.A. County waiting for news on that when our reporters spotted a familiar face. That's right, Lester. Alan Jackson, who famously represented Karen Reed during both of her murder trials, he is representing Nick Reiner. And when asked about who retained him, he wouldn't say.

7:03And later on Tuesday, L.A. District Attorney Nathan Hockman held a press conference and announced the criminal charges Nick is facing. These charges will be two counts of first degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders. He also faces a special allegation that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, that being a knife. So the maximum sentence for the charges is either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. But Hockman said that no decision has been made yet, Lester, about whether or not they're going to pursue the death penalty and they're going to want to talk to the family about that.

7:42There have been candles and flowers placed on Rob Reiner's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's not just celebrities in mourning. Chloe, why do you think his life and his body of work has had such an impact on people? I think everybody has a story, Lester, and so many of us are struggling with something. And so many families in this country understand the depths of addiction. And obviously, not many can relate to a double murder. But this is something that is touching people in a very profound way, Lester. Nick Reiner's arraignment is scheduled for early in the new year, so we'll find out more then.

8:22On Wednesday, Jake and Romy Reiner issued a statement thanking people for their outpouring of support and asking for their parents to be remembered for the incredible lives they lived and the love they gave. Well, we appreciate you joining us. I know your team will continue to work all the angles of the story and we'll be watching along the way. But thanks again. Thank you. Coming up, Brian Walsh and his defense team make a bold decision in the final days of his murder trial. What did the jury make of it?

9:03For eight days, a jury at the Norfolk County Courthouse in Massachusetts heard prosecutors make their case against Brian Walsh, the art swindler accused of murdering his wife, Anna, on New Year's Day back in 2023. In devastating detail, the prosecutors showed the jury the steps Walsh had taken to get rid of his wife's body, shopping for supplies to dismember her, dropping off garbage bags containing bloody items at dumpsters in the area, lying to the police flat out, all the actions of a man they argued who was methodically covering up a murder. But what the prosecutor could not tell the jury was how Anna died.

9:46The prosecutor offered no theory of the murder itself, no proof that she'd actually been killed. According to the defense, that's because Anna was never murdered at all. They admitted Walsh had illegally disposed of Anna's body. He pleaded guilty to it before trial, but they said there was a reason. Walsh had simply panicked after finding Anna dead in bed from natural causes. what they called a sudden unexplained death. When it came time for Walsh to present his defense, his attorney made a bold decision. He did not call any witnesses, not even Brian Walsh himself. Have you made a decision about whether you wish to testify at this trial?

10:29Yes, I have. And what is your decision? I will not testify. Well, then after some dramatic closing arguments, the case was in the hands of the jury. Dateline producer Dorothy Newell was in the courtroom for all of it. She's here now to tell us what happened next. Thanks for being here, Dorothy. It's quite a story. Hey, Lester. Thanks for having me. You got it. Well, first, can we talk about the defense strategy? No witnesses. Brian Walsh, as defendants often decide, did not choose to testify. Were you surprised by any of their strategy? Sure. I think a lot of people were surprised. You know, I'm not a defense attorney, and a case like this is complicated, and it calls for all kinds of strategies that may or may not work.

11:11Keep in mind, the defense did a lot of work cross-examining the prosecution witnesses and poking holes in the prosecution's case. Both the prosecution and defense gave closing arguments. The defense, they went up first. What did they have to say? Defense attorney Larry Tipton was clear. He said the prosecution didn't prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, especially that Brian Walsh planned to murder his wife. He agreed that, yes, Brian lied to police, he made incriminating internet searches, and he disposed of Anna's body. But those actions didn't make Brian guilty of murder, let alone murder in the first degree.

11:48They may be argued that they show consciousness of guilt, but people do things, terrible things sometimes, not out of guilt, but out of fear, out of disbelief, out of confusion. Tipton described Walsh as a loving father and a loving husband, and that he had no reason to kill his wife. Yeah, but the prosecution said Walsh absolutely had a motive, that Brian Walsh knew that his wife, Anna, was having an affair. Now, what did Larry Tipton have to say about that? Did he walk around it or take it on? Well, they were pretty solidly throughout this trial saying that Brian Walsh knew his wife, Anna, had a crush on William Fastow, but that Brian didn't know about the affair.

12:31and that the two were preparing for a future together, he showed the jury pictures of a champagne bottle Anna gave Brian on New Year's Eve. And a message Anna wrote. What a year, and yet we are still here and together. Let's make 2023 the best one yet. So this all goes back to motive. If Brian didn't know about the affair, how could the prosecution say that was his motive to kill his wife? Walsh was facing a charge of first-degree murder. In other words, the prosecution needed to prove that there was some kind of planning premeditation. What did the defense have to say about that? Well, Brian's defense attorney focused on the timing of the internet searches.

13:10Remember, there was digital evidence that Brian had Googled questions like, best way to dispose of a dead body. But all those searches happened after Anna died. According to the defense, if Brian was planning to kill her and get rid of her body, he would have started looking for that kind of information much earlier. So then it was the prosecution's turn. They immediately attacked the defense's theory of Anna's sudden unexplained death. Let's take a listen to that. Anna Walters dying a sudden death from natural causes defies common sense. She was in great shape. The defendant told police that Anna was a sturdy, servient woman.

13:50Those are his words. And as for those grisly internet searches, according to the prosecution, that was one of Brian's biggest mistakes. He made those searches on his MacBook, not realizing they would show up on his son's iPad. Turns out the devices were syncing up. So the jury deliberated four hours on Friday before returning on Monday morning to continue deliberations. And then two hours later, they returned their verdict. What say the jury? Is the defendant guilty or not guilty? Guilty. Guilty of what, sir? Murder in the first degree. What was it like to be there when that verdict was announced?

14:26Well, first of all, there was no big we have a verdict moment. We were all just sitting on the benches right outside the courtroom when we saw the defense team walk in with no word. One of our reporters from the NBC station in Boston just quietly told me, I hear we might have a verdict. And then Walsh came in with the bailiffs. He looked calm. His mother who was there was stoic. And when the verdict came, she took it quietly. He did too. After the verdict came down, the Norfolk County DA, Michael Morrissey, spoke to reporters outside the courthouse. Remember, this is the same office that tried Karen Reed and took a lot of heat after her acquittal this summer.

15:04Morrissey reflected on what it felt like to win a conviction this time around. It's not about winning or losing. It's about getting the right answer. And this was the right answer. And so we don't look at cases as a wins or losses. We look at getting justice for someone. So let's not lose sight of that fact. Walsh is being sentenced later this week and faces a mandatory life sentence. Well, Dorothy, thank you so much for bringing us this case. Thanks for having me. Up next, Dateline Roundup. Speaking of Karen Reed, we've got an update for you in that case. Also, there's news on Sandra Birchmore.

15:39Plus, Keith Morrison will fill us in on his epic new podcast series set in the American heartland, Something About Carrie.

15:58Welcome back. Joining us for this week's Roundup is Dateline field producer Alex Loray. Thank you for being here, Alex. Hey, Lester. Thanks for having me. For our first story, we're heading over to Michigan for a surprising development in a story Dateline first started covering years ago as part of our Missing in America series. The alleged murder of Michigan grandmother and entrepreneur Deanne Warner. Alex, can you give us a quick recap on that case? Yeah. So 52-year-old Deanne Warner was reported missing by her three adult children in April of 2021. They suspected that her husband, Dale, might have done something to her, and it was alleged that the marriage seemed to be in trouble.

16:38Family members just wouldn't believe that she would up and leave her 10-year-old daughter without a word. And Deanne, I know, owned thousands of acres of farmland, and Josh talked about the extensive searches investigators conducted looking for her in his episode on the case for Missing in America. More searches followed. Those were done by helicopter and on foot. Canine and cadaver dog searches, drone searches, ground-penetrating radar, forensic searches. They could not find Dee. That's right, Lester. But even though they didn't have a body in November of 2023, Dale was arrested and charged with her murder and also charged with tampering with evidence.

17:19Then, nine months later, there was a break in the case. The Michigan State Police found Deanne's remains sealed into a fertilizer tank on Dale's property. Wow. And Dale is expected to go on trial in late January. He pleaded not guilty. So what's new this week? So according to WTOL in Toledo, Ohio, a former detective in the case has been arrested by U.S. marshals. His name is Kevin Greca. He was on the case in the early days and has since retired. So why is he under arrest? According to the prosecutor handling the trial of Dale Warner, the former detective is a material witness, someone with critical information.

17:56In October, the prosecutor filed a petition asking any peace officer in Michigan for help tracking the detective down to bring him before the court. So fast forward to late last week, an Ohio judge signed an arrest warrant accusing him of fleeing to Ohio. On Wednesday, Greca appeared in court back in Michigan. His defense attorney told the judge he hadn't fled the state. I want it to be very clear that he was not fleeing in any capacity. He was out to dinner in Ohio when your order was executed upon him. This idea that he was a fugitive from justice simply doesn't apply. After paying bond, the former detective was let out of jail, and his attorney says he plans to cooperate moving forward.

18:38We still don't know what he knows about the case, which the prosecutor thinks is so important. We'll keep an eye on that one. For our next story, we're back in Massachusetts, not far from the courthouse where Brian Walsh was on trial. We have an update for you on the case of former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell, who was accused of murdering pregnant teacher's aide Sandra Birchmore and staging her death to look like a suicide. Farwell has pleaded not guilty. So, Alex, just this week, prosecutors made a big decision in this case. Yeah, that's right. They said in a court filing that U.S.

19:14Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed the government not to seek the death penalty. So that's off the table. In the meantime, the defense is doing something I'm pretty sure I've never heard of before. They're attempting to get the case moved to a different state because of pretrial publicity. Yeah. So back in November, the defense asked the judge to move Farwell's trial from Massachusetts to Rhode Island. The defense says cherry-picked details from an FBI agent's affidavit were written up in the press before Farwell had an attorney in the case. They claim that media coverage has biased the public into believing that he's guilty.

19:48In a court filing last week, federal prosecutors pushed back. They said that Farwell has failed to show that the pretrial media coverage will prevent him from having a fair trial in Boston. So we're waiting to see what the judge is going to decide. Well, for our final story, we're staying in Massachusetts, where the Karen Reed case continues to make news. Nearly six months after Reed was acquitted of murdering her police officer boyfriend, John O 'Keefe, by reversing her SUV into him and leaving him for dead in the snow. Her SUV is now going to auction. Yeah, Lester. So Karen Reed's Lexus SUV was in police custody for years as evidence.

20:30The car was in disrepair, including a missing radio, rodent debris, and the infamous broken taillight. But in June, it was acquired and restored by JB Auto Care in Weymouth. J.B. Auto Care plans to sell the car off at auction and donate the proceeds to Karen Reed. The operator of J.B. Auto Care spoke to NBC Boston. I think it's really, really interesting being a part of the whole thing. Now it's up and running and all ready to go. Hopefully it goes really good at auction and hopefully, you know, helps her out and pay some of her legal fees. Not sure what to think about that one. What could this car go for?

21:07Any idea? Yeah, so the company facilitating the auctions, J.G. Manning Auctioneer, says a used Lexus like this would sell for about$70 ,000. However, they say this is not a sale of a typical Lexus SUV, but a sale of a vehicle involved in a very high-profile case, so it could go for much more. Okay, well with that, we will say goodbye. Alex, thanks very much. Thanks, Lester. Well, for our final story this week, Keith Morrison and Dateline national producer Shane Bishop are here to talk about their latest original podcast series called Something About Carrie. It's a really riveting yarn set in the American heartland that involves murder, arson, stalking, and has quite a few twists that you won't see coming.

21:53At least I didn't see them. Keith and Shane, welcome to the show. Good to have you with us. It's good to be here. Thank you, Lester. So the first episode starts with this very dramatic scene in an Iowa park. A call comes into 911 from a woman who says she's been shot. Let's listen. Is there any serious bleeding? Oh, my. She's going to kill the blood. Oh, Jesus. Shane, why did you decide to start the story at that moment? Dateline likes action at the top. It's kind of a strange story because the usual Dateline stories are in a murder case, there's some big event like a 911 call when somebody finds a body, for instance, in a case.

22:31And in this one, by the time this shooting took place, the strange goings on had already been set in motion about three years before. But when this 911 call came in about a shooting in a park, it finally helped lead police to unwinding the whole confusing thing. So that's kind of why we decided to start right there. Well, it certainly wasn't a tension getter, I would call it. The Carrie in the title of the series is Carrie Farver, a computer programmer, single mom who went missing in 2012. You interviewed Carrie's son, Max, and her mother, Nancy. Max was just 14 at the time Carrie went missing.

23:10You know, there was a very intense bond in this three generations of Farvers. Carrie was very close to her mother, and her relationship with her son, Max, was unusually close. You know, a mother-son relationship can be that way, where if the mother is single and she has one child, a son is almost like they're one person in a way. And they felt so close a bond that both were mother and son. We're so flummoxed by the whole business. And Carrie, when she apparently decided to take off, and she was sending them text messages and electronic communications for years that were hurtful and strange and an indication that some psychic break must have happened.

23:55And they didn't know what it was. They got the police to help them, and it didn't go anywhere. They couldn't find her, and it just got worse and worse. Yeah, and then Carrie is simply nowhere to be found. But then Dave Krupa, a man she had started seeing just before she vanished, he tells police Carrie had been sending him threatening texts, vandalizing his car, and threatening the mother of his children. This is frightening stuff. It was very serious stuff. Yes, exactly. And they had had a kind of a little flirtation. It had a sort of a quasi-date. and then all hell broke loose when she came over and stayed at his place and strange things began to happen.

24:34And then she took off, vanished, whatever, and started sending him these terrible messages. But he was a wonderful, if I may say so, a wonderful character. Everything he said resonated and so we wanted to play as much of that as we could. I think you'd agree with that, wouldn't you, Shane? We've all been in enough interviews and we've seen people freeze up or change once they get on camera. Dave Krupa, he was just unvarnished Dave. And that's what I loved about it. And he really explains the idea of what it's like to be the target of stalking and the toll it takes on people's lives. Let me ask you about the stalking though, because it escalates at one point to an incident of arson.

25:11That's a different playing field, certainly in terms of getting the attention of police. Carrie is suspected of setting fire to the home of Dave's ex-girlfriend. It seems incredible that Carrie can keep committing these crimes and avoiding detection. It turns out that the fact that Omaha is on the west side of the Missouri River, and that's where Carrie worked, and her hometown in Iowa is on the east side of the Missouri River in Iowa, played a big role in that. I think that when you have several agencies across two states involved, and it seemed like most of the crimes were minor things, really, like stalking and vandalism until it escalated to that arson.

25:50It was tough to get all the agencies on the same page for a couple of years and for them to commit the resources to find Carrie until finally a sheriff's office in Iowa dedicated two detectives to the case and they finally broke it open. There's a lot of great detective work, Rusty, in this story, but what really stuck out to me was the willingness of the investigators to give the case a fresh look, a fresh set of eyes, Their open minds and doggedness. And they realized that maybe not all was as it seemed. It wasn't all as it seemed. And it took a long while for these smart detectives to unravel it.