{"id":195961,"date":"2026-01-07T02:06:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T02:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/he-was-sentenced-to-death-rob-and-michele-reiner-loved-him-like-a-son-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T02:06:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T02:06:46","slug":"he-was-sentenced-to-death-rob-and-michele-reiner-loved-him-like-a-son-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/he-was-sentenced-to-death-rob-and-michele-reiner-loved-him-like-a-son-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"He was sentenced to death. Rob and Michele Reiner loved him like a son. – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nanon Williams was sent to death row for a murder he says he didn't commit. Decades later, through daily emails and weekly prison calls, the Reiners became family.
Less than 36 hours before they were killed last month, Rob and Michele Reiner sat in a Los Angeles theater watching \u201cLyrics From Lockdown,\u201d a one-man show about race, justice and mass incarceration in America.
The show focuses on Nanon Williams, who is serving his 34th year in a Texas prison for a murder he says he didn\u2019t commit \u2014 and who, over the past decade, quietly forged a remarkable relationship with the Reiners.
Rob, a famed director, and Michele, a photographer, producer and activist, had come to love Williams, 51, like a son, emailing him almost daily. They had invited him to live with them if he ever got out of prison. Their daughter, Romy, called Williams her big brother.
\u201cHe became like family,\u201d Romy said in a statement to NBC News.
The Reiners\u2019 bond with Williams, which has not previously been reported, was built on ideals that animated much of Rob\u2019s work \u2014 love, chosen family, compassion and redemption. After being charged with murder at 17, Williams had spent his entire adult life behind bars, much of it in near-total isolation. The Reiners lived in a world defined by film premieres, public platforms and near-constant access to power. The connection they discovered was as profound as it was unlikely.
The Reiners were \u201can integral part of my life,\u201d Williams told NBC News in an interview from prison last week. \u201cThey became a part of me.\u201d
On the last Friday evening of the Reiners\u2019 lives, Dec. 12, words that Williams wrote from prison about survival were read from a Los Angeles stage. Williams\u2019 mother and sisters were in the audience, along with the woman he\u2019d fallen in love with and married from prison. The Reiners were on a double date with their dear friends, Billy Crystal and his wife. Romy came, too.
The mood was electric. Williams\u2019 fight for freedom had been gaining traction. His case was back in court, fueled by evidence discrediting the ballistics testimony that helped convict him for a 1992 shooting.
In the theater that night, Rob spotted Williams\u2019 sister, Angela Grant Clayton, and hugged her.
\u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure Nanon gets out,\u201d he told her.
Williams\u2019 mother, Lee Diana Bolton, said Rob and Michele pulled her into a tight, lingering embrace.
\u201cThese were not phony people,\u201d she said later. \u201cThese were the sweetest, most loving people that I have ever met.\u201d
After the show, the Reiners gathered with a small circle of advocates who had been pressing for Williams\u2019 exoneration. Georgetown professor Marc Howard was one of them. Near the stage, they all discussed the latest developments in Williams\u2019 appeal.
\u201cIt was a conversation so full of hope, happiness,\u201d Howard said later. \u201cIt felt like the very next step was Nanon coming home.\u201d
Two days later,<\/strong> on Dec. 14, Nanon Williams was at the W.F. Ramsey Unit, a maximum-security prison about 40 miles south of Houston, speaking with other incarcerated men about health, trauma and survival.
When he returned to his cell, he opened his state-issued tablet \u2014 his main window to the outside world \u2014 and saw a news alert. Two people had been found dead in a home owned by Rob and Michele Reiner.
Williams immediately typed a message to Michele. \u201cPlease, this can\u2019t be true,\u201d he wrote. \u201cPlease tell me the news is lying.\u201d
Soon, though, his fears were confirmed: The Reiners were dead, and their son, Nick, had been charged with murder. Two of the people Williams was closest to in the world were gone, and he was left to grieve alone.
Receiving emails in prison can take hours, sometimes days. Messages are screened and scrutinized, creating delays that become agonizing in times of crisis.
In the days that followed, three new emails from Rob and Michele appeared on Williams\u2019 tablet. Michele\u2019s final message was timestamped Saturday, Dec. 13 at 8:26 p.m. EST. She\u2019d sent it the day after seeing \u201cLyrics From Lockdown\u201d \u2014 only hours before her death.
The subject line read: \u201cUgly Side of Beautiful\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m sure you have heard from Tera,\u201d Michele had written, referring to Williams\u2019 wife, \u201cbut the show last night was amazing.\u201d
She wrote about meeting his mother. How beautiful she was. How Billy Crystal was moved by the performance. And about hope for Nanon\u2019s future.
\u201cWe all said that we can\u2019t wait to watch it with you.\u201d
She signed off the way she always did.
Love you <\/em>
Michele<\/em>
Nanon Williams grew<\/strong> up in Los Angeles amid violence and chaos. As a toddler in the 1970s, he visited his father in prison. His mother had also been in jail on drug charges. At 7, Williams witnessed his uncle gunned down in the doorway of his home.
By the time he turned 11, his dad had come home, but their life together didn\u2019t last long. He was shot and killed over drug territory. Williams went to live with relatives. Today, his mother is a steady presence in his life.
As a teenager, he was on his own, buying and selling drugs.
That\u2019s what he was doing on the night of May 13, 1992, while visiting his grandparents in Houston. Several people met at a city park. Williams and others carried guns. Something went wrong. Multiple shots were fired. A 19-year-old named Adonius Collier was killed.
Williams was 17, too young to vote or buy alcohol, but old enough to face the death penalty.
The state\u2019s case rested on two pillars: the testimony of a co-defendant, Vaal Guevara, who said he watched Williams pull the trigger, and a ballistics expert who said the bullet recovered from Collier\u2019s skull came from Williams\u2019 .25-caliber handgun \u2014 not from Guevara\u2019s .22 Derringer.
Guevara, who admitted he\u2019d also shot at Collier but claimed he missed, had taken a deal: plead guilty to a drug charge, testify against Williams and serve 10 years. He ultimately served only four.
Williams acknowledges he fired his gun in the melee; witnesses said his shots injured another man. But he denies shooting Collier.
\u201cI\u2019ve done wrong,\u201d Williams said. \u201cBut killed someone? No, I\u2019ve never killed anyone.\u201d
At his 1995 trial, prosecutors described the ballistics evidence tying Williams to the murder as \u201cuncontradicted\u201d and \u201cfailsafe.\u201d His lawyer never challenged it.
The jury convicted Williams and sentenced him to death.
He remembers the judge telling him, \u201cthe sentence is until you\u2019re dead, dead, dead.\u201d He heard his mother cry out. His grandmother collapsed.
He was shipped off to death row, where he lived in solitary confinement in a small, dark cell near other men waiting for their scheduled dates to die. He began measuring time by executions. One by one, men he\u2019d come to know were taken away and never returned.
\u201cI used to feel guilty about living,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI used to wonder why I was still here.\u201d
He began etching their state-assigned numbers into his skin with a needle and ink \u2014 his own private ledger to remember them. Up his arms. Across his chest. Down his legs.
\u201cNow I know 466 men who were executed,\u201d he said.
Three years after his conviction, much of the evidence used against Williams began to fall apart<\/a>.
In 1998, his appellate lawyer requested testing of Guevara\u2019s .22 Derringer. Prosecutors asked the same ballistics expert who testified at trial to test-fire the gun \u2014 something he\u2019d never done.
The analyst, Robert Baldwin, wrote a 1998 letter to the prosecutor with his results. He said he\u2019d been wrong. The bullet taken from Collier\u2019s head had, in fact, been fired from Guevara\u2019s .22 Derringer, not Williams\u2019 gun.
In 1999, the prosecutor wrote a letter opposing Guevara\u2019s parole. In it, he made a stunning admission about his star witness: \u201cAt trial Guevara was very evasive and apparently not at all truthful,\u201d he wrote. The additional evidence, the prosecutor said, indicates that Guevara, \u201crather than merely being a witness, likely participated in Collier\u2019s murder.\u201d Guevara didn\u2019t respond to messages from NBC News.
A juror from Williams\u2019 trial later signed an affidavit filed in Williams\u2019 case saying the new evidence could have changed her verdict; another said definitively she would have voted to acquit.
In 2001, a state judge held post-conviction hearings and concluded<\/a> Williams deserved a new trial. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected her recommendation<\/a>.
Williams remained in prison, awaiting his turn to die.
The story of<\/strong> how a legendary Hollywood director and his wife became like family to a man convicted of murder began with letters and a poem.
In 2003, from death row, Williams learned about a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d segment on a Harvard Law School student who was swept into the criminal justice system simply for being Black.
Bryonn Bain had been walking past a crime scene in New York with his brother and cousin when all three were arrested; they were ultimately cleared.
Inspired, Williams wrote Bain letters about his own plight. Then he sent a poem called \u201cParallel Universe.\u201d
What if Bain had grown up in Los Angeles as Williams had, instead of on the East Coast? What if Williams had Bain\u2019s parents and opportunities? In a parallel universe, Williams wrote, maybe he\u2019d be the one at Harvard. Maybe Bain would be the one facing execution.
Bain, who also wrote poetry, began conceiving a stage show where he would weave his lived experience and Williams\u2019 writings into a spoken-word, multimedia performance.
The result was \u201cLyrics From Lockdown,\u201d which premiered at the National Black Theatre in 2013, with singer and activist Harry Belafonte and his daughter Gina executive producing.
By then, Williams was no longer on death row. After the U.S. Supreme Court banned executions in 2005 for crimes committed by juveniles, his sentence had been reduced to life without parole.
In 2016, Rob and Michele Reiner saw \u201cLyrics From Lockdown\u201d in Los Angeles. They were struck by Bain\u2019s performance and asked him to introduce them to Williams. They sent a letter, then arranged a phone call.
Williams had gone decades with little access to movies or television. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know who Rob was,\u201d he recalled.
He came to know Rob and Michele as kind voices on the phone. They asked questions, offered advice and showed genuine interest in getting to know him. Only gradually did it sink in that Rob was the filmmaker behind some of Hollywood\u2019s most beloved movies, including \u201cA Few Good Men\u201d and \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally…\u201d
None of that mattered to Williams. What mattered, he said, was that they were listening.
\u201cThe more they learned,\u201d Williams said, \u201cthe more pissed off Rob became, and the more loving Michele became.\u201d
The Reiners\u2019 initial interest in helping him wasn\u2019t surprising. Rob had spent decades opposing the death penalty; Michele, whose mother survived Auschwitz, carried a lifelong sensitivity to dehumanization and state violence.
But what followed would go far beyond advocacy.
Rob signed on as an executive producer of \u201cLyrics From Lockdown.\u201d The show traveled across the country, into prisons and revered public spaces: Carnegie Hall. The Apollo Theater. Lincoln Center.
Each performance carried Williams\u2019 story further \u2014 and drew more people in.
In October 2018, Georgetown professor Marc Howard, founder of the university\u2019s Prisons and Justice Initiative, saw the show at the Kennedy Center.
\u201cWhat was screaming out at me was, this man has something special,\u201d Howard said of Williams. \u201cThe letters that he\u2019s written, they hit home. They give me the chills.\u201d
Soon, Howard joined a tight circle of supporters who held regular Zoom calls about Williams\u2019 case. He found himself on screens with Rob and Michele Reiner.
What began with poetry had become a movement for freedom.
Williams\u2019 budding relationship<\/strong> with the Reiners was constrained by the barriers of prison life. Calls had to be scheduled. Letters could take weeks.
In 2021, a decision by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice narrowed that distance. It issued tablets to tens of thousands of incarcerated people.
Suddenly, he and the Reiners could email whenever they wanted. What was at first a cordial relationship quickly grew into something much deeper.
Williams described Rob as warm and curious, someone who asked questions that helped him make sense of his struggles. With his tablet, Williams could finally see some of Rob\u2019s movies.
Michele wrote most often, asking Williams how he was sleeping, whether he was eating, how he was holding up emotionally. She told him about her family, her childhood, her mother\u2019s survival of the Holocaust. Over time, Williams came to think of her as a mother figure who offered reassurance without judgment, who listened as much as she spoke.
\u201cMichele was my heart,\u201d Williams said.
The Reiners folded Williams into their lives. They introduced him, virtually, to their children, Jake, Nick and Romy. They treated him less like a cause and more like kin.
\u201cRob and Michele didn\u2019t want credit for trying to help me,\u201d Williams said. \u201cIt was just because they loved me.\u201d
It\u2019s not just Williams saying that; it\u2019s the Reiners\u2019 children, too. \u201cMy parents spoke about him with such love,\u201d Romy wrote in a statement to NBC News this week. \u201cHe has taught me more about life and human compassion than anyone I\u2019ve ever met.\u201d
Jake said in a statement that his parents \u201cwere fierce in doing everything in their power\u201d to help Williams get out one day. \u201cI know wherever they are,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthey are beaming with pride for him.\u201d
The kind of pride only a parent could understand.
A few years ago, Williams met a woman who\u2019d heard about his case. They fell in love. But Williams wrestled with what should come next. Was it fair for him to marry someone while living in bondage?
\u201cI had a fear of my chains becoming hers,\u201d Williams said.
He shared his concerns with Rob, who responded by asking Williams what he remembered after recently watching his classic fairytale comedy, \u201cThe Princess Bride.\u201d
\u201cI learned it was about true love,\u201d Williams recalled telling him.
Rob replied, \u201cYour story is about true love. If you don\u2019t fight for love, Nanon, what would you fight for?\u201d
Encouraged by Rob, Williams decided to get married.
By then, Howard, the Georgetown professor, had traveled to Texas nearly a dozen times to visit and had also become like family. Williams knew that Howard had officiated weddings for friends, so he asked Howard to marry him and his wife, Tera.
\u201cIt was the most amazing moment I\u2019ve ever had in my life,\u201d Williams said.
A year later, it seemed as if even better days might be possible.
In 2024, after a complaint filed by the University of Colorado Law School\u2019s Criminal Defense Clinic, the Texas Forensic Science Commission issued a 157-page report<\/a> officially confirming that the ballistics testimony used to convict Williams was wrong. The Innocence Project joined the effort soon after.
Last year, Williams\u2019 legal team requested a new trial<\/a> under a Texas law enabling people to challenge convictions based on \u201cjunk science.\u201d The Harris County District Attorney\u2019s Office opposed the request, saying in a statement that it was \u201cconfident the conviction is warranted.\u201d
Rob, Michele and Romy all wrote letters on Williams\u2019 behalf.
\u201cHe is the most intuitive person I\u2019ve ever known,\u201d Michele wrote of Williams<\/a>. \u201cAnd although he says we have given him so much, he has given me so much more.\u201d
Rob\u2019s letter took Williams\u2019 breath away.
\u201cI\u2019ve led a high profile life for over fifty years,\u201d Rob wrote<\/a>. \u201cAnd in that time I\u2019ve met some very impressive and influential people. But if I\u2019m being honest, apart from my father, no one has impressed me more and been more influential to me than Nanon Williams.\u201d
Apart from my father.<\/em>
He was talking about Carl Reiner, the comedian, writer and director.
\u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI don\u2019t even know how to digest that.\u201d
More recently, Williams had been working on ideas to spread Rob\u2019s wisdom to the men around him. The plan was for Rob to visit the prison and screen his movie, \u201cStand By Me,\u201d then lead a discussion afterward.
Williams asked his sister to order rubber bracelets emblazoned with the movie\u2019s title. They were distributed throughout the prison. Men who had never heard of Rob Reiner began talking about what the title meant. What it means to stand by someone.
The screening was scheduled for December.
It never happened.
Last week, Williams<\/strong> sat in the visiting room at the W.F. Ramsey Unit, emotional and exhausted.
\u201cI have not hardly been asleep,\u201d he said.
He\u2019s thought constantly about Rob and Michele. About the emails that arrived too late. About the \u201cStand By Me\u201d screening that\u2019ll never happen. About Nick Reiner.
When news broke that Nick had been arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, Williams sat with the weight of it \u2014 and the irony.
\u201cI was judged to be a killer, a monster beyond redemption,\u201d he said slowly. \u201cThe question I ask myself is, \u2018What would they want for their son?\u2019\u201d
He let the question hang in the air.
\u201cWhat love and compassion and understanding would they want for him? If they would have it for me, why not him?\u201d
He recalled the Reiners\u2019 love for their son as they tried to support him through his troubles; authorities have said Nick<\/a> was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sources familiar with his behavior say he had been acting erratically before the murders<\/a>. He hasn\u2019t entered a plea.
The parallels are staggering. A judge could soon issue an order on whether Williams\u2019 appeal can move forward, the same month Nick is expected to face arraignment. News reports suggested Nick could face the death penalty, the same sentence Williams once received.
\u201cI understand being caged like an animal,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI understand the pain that is to come. The reflection. Looking into the mirror, wondering if you harmed your own soul by the choices you\u2019ve made.\u201d
Wearing a \u201cStand By Me\u201d bracelet, he looked down at his hands \u2014 scarred knuckles, tattooed arms covered in numbers, each one representing a man who had been killed by the state.
\u201cI have a responsibility to Nick,\u201d he said finally. \u201cIf I ever get out of here, how could I not try to do something to help him?\u201d
Williams has spent 34 years thinking about culpability and compassion. Judgment and grace. What it means to be deemed irredeemable.
He learned to forgive people who killed his father, who took his mother away, who sent him to death row for a crime he says he didn\u2019t commit.
But it was his relationship with the Reiners that finally healed his anger.
\u201cI feel like Michele stole it from me,\u201d he said softly.
The Reiners left him with something, too \u2014 a lesson Rob repeated again and again.
\u201cThe greatest stories,\u201d he had told Williams, \u201cshould be about love.\u201d
Even when they break your heart.
Dan Slepian is an award-winning investigative producer and a veteran of “Dateline: NBC.”\u00a0
Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Maryland, and author of "They Came for the Schools."
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeNanon Williams was sent to death row for a murder he says he didn't commit. Decades later, through daily emails and weekly prison calls, the Reiners became family.Less than 36 hours before they were killed last month, Rob and Michele Reiner sat in a Los Angeles theater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}