Robert Durst, real estate heir convicted of murder, dead at 78

Wealthy New York real estate heir and convicted murderer Robert Durst has died at age 78. For decades he was dogged by suspicion in several disappearances and deaths before he was convicted last year of killing his best friend and sentenced to life in prison.

Durst died of natural causes Monday in a hospital outside the California prison where he was serving a life sentence, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Durst had been held in a hospital lockup in Stockton due to a litany of ailments.

In September, Durst was convicted of shooting Susan Berman at point-blank range in 2000 at her Los Angeles home. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Oct. 14. Two days later, he was hospitalized with COVID-19, his trial attorney Dick DeGuerin said.

Durst had long been suspected of killing his wife, Kathie, who went missing in 1982 and has been declared legally dead.

But only after Los Angeles prosecutors proved that Durst silenced Berman before she could tell police she helped him cover up Kathie’s killing was he indicted by a New York grand jury in November for second-degree murder in his wife’s death.

Westchester County prosecutors, who had been trying to get Durst transferred there to face the charge, said they planned to reveal new details about the case in coming days.

“After 40 years spent seeking justice for her death, I know how upsetting this news must be for Kathleen Durst’s family,” District Attorney Miriam Rocah said in a statement.

“We had hoped to allow them the opportunity to see Mr. Durst finally face charges for Kathleen’s murder because we know that all families never stop wanting closure, justice and accountability.”

Los Angeles prosecutors also told jurors that Durst got away with murder in Texas after shooting a man who discovered his identity while he was hiding out in Texas after Berman’s killing. Durst was acquitted of murder in that case in 2003, after testifying he shot the man as they struggled for a gun.

Deputy Los Angeles District Attorney John Lewin said jurors told him after the verdict that they believed Durst killed his wife and murdered Morris Black in Texas.

Documentary renewed scrutiny

Durst discussed the cases and made several damning statements — including a stunning confession during an unguarded moment — in the six-part HBO documentary series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.

The 2015 show introduced Durst’s name to a new generation and brought renewed scrutiny and suspicion from authorities.

He was arrested in Berman’s killing the night before the final episode — which closed with him mumbling to himself in a bathroom while still wearing a live microphone: “You’re caught! What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

The quotes were later revealed to have been manipulated for dramatic effect, but the production — done with Durst’s co-operation and against the advice of his lawyer and friends — dredged up new evidence, including an envelope that connected Durst to the scene of Berman’s killing and incriminating statements he made.

Police had received a note directing them to Berman’s home, bearing the word “CADAVER” in block letters.

In interviews given between 2010 and 2015, Durst told the makers of The Jinx that while he didn’t write the note, whoever did had killed Berman.

“You’re writing a note to the police that only the killer could have written,” Durst said.

His defence lawyers conceded in the run-up to trial that Durst had written the note. Prosecutors said it amounted to a confession.

Durst admitted lying under oath

Clips from The Jinx and the 2010 movie All Good Things, in which Ryan Gosling played a fictionalized version of Durst, played starring roles at trial.

So did Durst himself.

His attorneys again took the risk of putting him on the stand for what turned out to be about three weeks of testimony. It didn’t work as it had in Texas.

Under devastating cross-examination by Lewin, Durst admitted he had lied under oath in the past and would do it again to get out of trouble.

” ‘Did you kill Susan Berman?’ is strictly a hypothetical,” Durst said from the stand. “I did not kill Susan Berman. But if I had, I would lie about it.”

The jury promptly returned a guilty verdict.

Former fugitive

Durst went on the run in late 2000 after New York authorities reopened an investigation into his wife’s disappearance. He rented a modest apartment in Galveston, Texas, and disguised himself as a mute woman.

In 2001, the body parts of a neighbour, Morris Black, began washing up in Galveston Bay.

Arrested in the killing, Durst jumped bail. He was arrested for shoplifting a sandwich six weeks later in Bethlehem, Pa., where he had gone to college. Police found $37,000 cash and two handguns in his car.

He would later testify that Black had pulled a gun on him and died when the weapon went off during a struggle. He told jurors in detail how he bought tools and dismembered Black’s body and then disposed of it.

Durst was acquitted of murder. He pleaded guilty to violating his bail and to evidence tampering for the dismemberment. He served three years in prison.

Durst had bladder cancer and his health deteriorated during the Berman trial. He was escorted into court in a wheelchair wearing prison attire each day because his attorneys said he was unable to change into a suit.

But the judge refused to grant further delays after a 14-month pause during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

 

Family drama

The son of real estate magnate Seymour Durst, Robert Durst was born April 12, 1943, and grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y. He would later say that at the age of seven, he witnessed his mother’s death in a fall from their home.

He graduated with an economics degree in 1965 from Bethlehem’s Lehigh University, where he played lacrosse. He entered a doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he met Berman, but dropped out and returned to New York in 1969.

He became a real estate developer in the family business, but his father passed him over to make his younger brother and rival Douglas the head of the Durst Organization in 1992.

Douglas Durst testified at trial that he feared his brother wanted to kill him.

“Bob lived a sad, painful and tragic life,” he said in a statement Monday. “We hope his death brings some closure to those he hurt.”

1st wife disappeared in 1982

In 1971, Robert Durst met Kathie McCormack and the two married on his 30th birthday in 1973.

In January 1982, his wife was a student in her final year at medical school when she disappeared. She had shown up unexpectedly at a friend’s dinner party in Newtown, Conn., then left after a call from her husband to return to their home in South Salem, N.Y.

Durst told police he last saw his wife when he put her on a train to stay at their apartment in Manhattan because she had classes the next day.

He would divorce her eight years later, claiming spousal abandonment, and in 2017, at her family’s request, she was declared legally dead.

Durst is survived by his second wife, Debrah Charatan, whom he married in 2000. He had no children.

Under California law, a conviction is vacated if a defendant dies while the case is under appeal, said Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School.

Attorney Chip Lewis said Durst had appealed.

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