A 44-year-old veteran suspected of killing a man at his north Lincoln home had been acting strange of late, neighbors say.
The news that Trenton W. Reiner, 3623 N.W. Magnolia Court, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of first-degree murder shocked his neighbors and longtime friends.
“He was always generous and loving,†said Misti Zimmerman, who has known Reiner for 15 years.
“This is not him,†added Zimmerman, standing Friday morning outside the home, cordoned off by crime scene tape.
Investigators on Friday were still trying to identify the man found dead inside the Contempo Lincoln mobile home park trailer that Reiner has owned since 2008.
Pathologists on Friday were conducting an autopsy on the man, who knew Reiner, Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said.
People are also reading…
The killing marks the city's seventh suspected homicide of 2016 and started as a disturbance call after neighbors spotted Reiner breaking the windows to his 2007 Chrysler around 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, Bliemeister said.
“The breaking of the car windows of his own vehicle (to) his neighbors who knew (Reiner) was a concerning act," the chief said Friday morning.
Officers arrived at 12:45 p.m. and received consent from Reiner to enter his home, police said in an affidavit to jail Reiner.Â
Once inside, an officer smelled decomposition and ultimately found a body that had "wounds consistent with a murder," the affidavit said.
After talking with Reiner, investigators came to believe he had killed the man, who was found inside a bedroom, according to police.
Reiner was arrested at 12:53 p.m. and booked at the jail at 3:31 p.m. on Thursday.
Police do not believe there is an ongoing threat to the public.
Bliemeister said police were still trying to establish a timeline and declined to discuss the cause of death.
He said only that the body had obvious signs of trauma.
Investigators were still trying to determine what led up to the killing, the chief said.
Police hadn't been called to Reiner's home in recent years before Thursday.
The 44-year-old doesn't have a history of violent crime and lived at the trailer with his wife, Debra Reiner, until her death in April 2014, Bliemeister said.
Trenton Reiner has been an adult ward of the state since 2004, according to Lancaster County Court records.
Court filings indicate Reiner regularly saw a psychiatrist at the VA Medical Center in Lincoln in the last 10 years.
Neighbors told the Journal Star Friday that in recent weeks Reiner had taken long walks around the mobile home court late at night and complained there were lots of flies inside his trailer.
Reiner appeared in a Lancaster County courtroom from jail via a video monitor Friday afternoon.
He wasn't charged, but Judge Thomas Fox found probable cause to hold him in jail over the weekend and set his bond at $1 million.
Lancaster County Attorney Joe Kelly said charges won't likely be filed against Reiner until next week.
Reiner's arraignment is set for Tuesday.
Three people have been killed in the city this month. Tina Jensen, 53, and Norma Voges, 55, were found dead at a home at 6715 Bethany Park Drive along with their suspected killer, Ronald "Blake" Heritage, 50, in what police ruled a murder-suicide.
Lincoln had one homicide in all of 2015.