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A Los Angeles jury convicted Robert Durst on Friday of murdering his finest buddy 20 years in the past in a case that took on new life after the New York actual property inheritor participated in a documentary that linked him to the slaying linked to his spouse’s 1982 disappearance.
Durst, 78, was convicted of the first-degree homicide of Susan Berman, who was shot at point-blank vary behind the pinnacle in her Los Angeles house in December 2000 as she was ready to inform police how she helped cowl up his spouse’s killing.
Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, was Durst’s longtime confidante who instructed buddies she supplied a phony alibi for him after his spouse vanished.
Prosecutors painted a portrait of a wealthy narcissist who didn’t assume the legal guidelines utilized to him and ruthlessly disposed of people that stood in his manner. They interlaced proof of Berman’s killing with Kathie Durst’s suspected loss of life and the 2001 killing of a tenant in a Texas flophouse the place Robert Durst holed up whereas on the run from New York authorities.
Durst was arrested in 2015 whereas hiding out in a New Orleans resort on the eve of the airing of the ultimate episode of “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” by which he was confronted with incriminating proof and made what prosecutors stated was a confession.
Durst might be heard muttering to himself on a dwell microphone in a rest room: “There it’s. You’re caught.”
Durst’s determination to testify in his personal defence — hoping for a repeat of his acquittal within the Texas killing — backfired as he was pressured to confess mendacity underneath oath, made damning admissions and had his credibility destroyed when questioned by the prosecutor.
The conviction marks a victory for authorities who’ve sought to place Durst behind bars for homicide in three states. Durst was by no means charged within the disappearance of his spouse, who has by no means been discovered, and was acquitted of homicide in Galveston, Texas, the place he admitted dismembering the sufferer’s physique and tossing it out to sea.
The story of Durst, the estranged scion of a New York actual property developer, has been fodder for New York tabloids since his spouse vanished. He supplied plot twists so quite a few that Hollywood couldn’t resist making a characteristic movie about his life that finally led to the documentary and discovery of recent proof in Berman’s slaying.
Durst ran from the legislation a number of occasions, disguised as a mute girl in Texas and staying underneath an alias at a New Orleans resort with a shoulders-to-head latex masks for a presumed getaway. He jumped bail in Texas and was arrested after shoplifting a rooster sandwich in Pennsylvania, regardless of having US$37,000 in money — together with two handguns — in his rental automobile.
He later quipped that he was “the worst fugitive the world has ever met.”
Durst escaped shut scrutiny from investigators when his spouse disappeared. However his troubles resurfaced in late 2000 when New York authorities reopened the case.
His lawyer instructed him to be ready to be charged within the case, and he fled a lifetime of luxurious to Galveston, Texas, the place he rented an affordable condo as “Dorothy Ciner,” a girl he pretended couldn’t converse. He finally dropped the disguise after mishaps that included strolling right into a males’s restroom and igniting his wig at a bar whereas lighting a cigarette.
Simply earlier than Christmas, he testified that he traveled to LA to go to Berman for a “staycation” with plans to see a number of the vacationer websites.
Durst, who had lengthy denied ever being in LA on the time of Berman’s loss of life, testified at trial that he discovered her lifeless on a bed room flooring when he arrived.
Berman, a author who had been buddies with Durst since they have been college students on the College of California, Los Angeles, had severe monetary issues on the time. Durst had given her US$50,000, and prosecutors instructed she was attempting to leverage more cash from him by telling him she was going to talk with the cops.
9 months after her loss of life, Durst killed his Galveston neighbor Morris Black, in what he stated was both an accident or self-defence. Durst stated he discovered Black, who he had turn out to be buddies with, in his condo holding Durst’s .22-caliber pistol.
Durst was acquitted after testifying the 71-year-old was killed in a wrestle for the gun. Durst then chopped up Black’s physique and tossed it out to sea. He was convicted of destroying proof for discarding the physique components.
After the trial and the ghastly proof of the dismemberment, Durst discovered he was a pariah, he stated. Regardless of an estimated US$100 million fortune, he was turned away by a number of condominium associations and stated the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork wouldn’t take his cash until he donated anonymously.
Durst thought a 2010 characteristic movie primarily based on his life, “All Good Issues,” starring Ryan Gosling as him and Kirsten Dunst as Kathie, had been largely correct and painted a sympathetic portrait, regardless of implicating him in three killings. He solely objected that he was depicted him killing his canine — one thing he would by no means do.
He reached out to the filmmaker and agreed to sit down for prolonged interviews for a documentary. He inspired his buddies to do the identical and gave the filmmakers entry to containers of his information.
He got here to deeply remorse his determination after “The Jinx” aired on HBO in 2015, calling it a “very, very, very huge mistake.”
The documentary filmmakers found an important piece of proof that linked him to an nameless be aware despatched to police directing them to Berman’s lifeless physique.
Durst, who was so assured he couldn’t be linked to the be aware, instructed filmmakers “solely the killer may have written” the be aware.
Filmmakers confronted him with a letter he despatched Berman a 12 months earlier. The handwriting was an identical and Beverly Hills was misspelled as “Beverley” on each. He couldn’t inform the 2 aside.
The gotcha second supplied the climax of the film as Durst stepped off digicam and muttered to himself on a dwell microphone within the toilet: “Killed all of them, in fact.”
Throughout 14 days of testimony that was so punishing Choose Mark Windham referred to as it “devastating,” Durst denied killing his spouse and Berman, although he stated he would lie if he did.
He tried to clarify away the be aware and what prosecutors stated was a confession throughout an unguarded second.
For the primary time, Durst admitted on the witness stand that he despatched the be aware and had been in Los Angeles on the time of Berman’s loss of life.
Durst stated he despatched the be aware as a result of he wished Berman to be discovered however didn’t need anybody to know he had been there as a result of it will look suspicious.
He acknowledged that even he had problem imagining he may have written the be aware with out killing Berman.
“It’s very tough to consider, to just accept, that I wrote the letter and didn’t kill Susan Berman,” Durst testified.
A prosecutor stated it was one of many truest issues Durst stated amid a ton of lies.
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