LOS ANGELES - Robert Durst, a wealthy New York real estate heiress and unsuccessful fugitive who went missing and killed those around him before being convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his best friend. Suspicion of death had been going on for decades, he has died. , He was 78 years old.
His attorney, Chip Lewis, said Durst died at a state prison hospital in Stockton. He said that it was due to natural causes due to several health problems.
Durst was convicted in September of shooting Susan Berman at point-blank range at her Los Angeles home in 2000. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 14 October. Two days later, he was hospitalized with COVID-19, said his trial lawyer, Dick DeGuerin.
Durst has long been suspected of murdering his wife, Cathy, who went missing in 1982 and was declared legally dead. He was eventually convicted of second-degree murder in his death in November.
Twist of cases against him
Prosecutors in Los Angeles presented evidence Durst silenced Berman as she helped him cover up Cathy's murder and was about to speak to investigators. He also argued that he killed a Texas man who discovered his identity while secretly living in Galveston after Berman's murder. Durst was acquitted of murder in that case in 2003, after testifying that he shot her in self-defense.
Durst discussed matters and made several hurtful statements, including a surprising confession during an unintentional moment in the six-part HBO documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst."
The show made his name known to a new generation and brought renewed scrutiny and suspicion from the authorities. She was arrested in Berman's murder the night before the final episode, which ended with her muttering to herself in the bathroom wearing a hot mic: "You're caught! What did I do? Killed them all, Absolutely. "
The quotes were later manipulated for dramatic effect, but the production - done in collaboration with Durst against the advice of his lawyer and friends - removed new evidence including an envelope that depicted Durst with the scene of Berman's murder. Along with shoddy statements. He created.
The police had found a note instructing them to go to Burman's house, in which only the word "CADAVER" was written in capital letters.
In interviews given between 2010 and 2015, Durst told the producers of "The Jinx" that he had not written the note, but that whoever did had killed it.
"You're writing a note to the police that only the killer could have written," Durst said.
His defense attorneys admitted during the trial that Durst wrote the note, and prosecutors said it amounted to a confession.
How the test turned out
Clips from "The Jinx" and the 2010 film "All Good Things" in which Ryan Gosling played a fictionalized version of Durst played roles in the trial.
As did Durst himself. Her lawyers again risked putting her on the stand, which turned out to be about three weeks of testimony. It didn't work as it did in Texas.
Under disastrous cross-examination by prosecutor John Levine, Durst admitted that 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 fiction," Durst said from the stand. "I didn't kill Susan Berman. But if I had, I would have lied about it."
The jury immediately returned a guilty verdict.
For a long time it seemed that he would avoid any such conviction.
Durst fled in late 2000 when New York officials resumed the investigation into his wife's disappearance, renting a modest apartment in Galveston and disguised himself as a silent woman.
In 2001, the body parts of a neighbor, Morris Black, began to be washed away in Galveston Bay.
Arrested in the murder, Durst took bail. He was arrested six weeks later for shopping for a sandwich in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he had gone to college. Police found $37,000 in cash and two grenades from his car.
He will testify that Black had drawn a gun at him and died when the weapon went off during the conflict. He detailed to the jurors how he purchased the equipment and dismembered and disposed of Black's body. He was acquitted of murder. He pleaded guilty to breach of his bail and tampering with evidence to refute. He served three years in prison.
Durst's health issues
Durst had bladder cancer and his health deteriorated during the Burman trial. He was taken to court in a wheelchair every day dressed in prison attire as his lawyers said he was unable to change into a suit. But the judge ruled out further delays after a 14-month pause during the coronavirus pandemic.
DeGuerin said Durst was "very, very sick" during his sentencing hearing and that it was the worst in the 20 years he spent representing him.
Durst entered the courtroom with empty eyes. After Berman's loved ones told the judge how his death affected their lives, Durst coughed heavily and then appeared to be struggling to breathe. His chest became heavy and he pulled his mask under his mouth and began to take a bribe for air.
Heir care
The son of real estate magnate Seymour Durst, Robert Durst was born on April 12, 1943, and grew up in Scarsdale, New York. He later said that at the age of 7 he witnessed his mother's death after falling from his house.
He earned a degree in economics from Lehigh University in 1965, 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 developer in the family business, but his father passed it on to his younger brother and rival Douglas to head the Durst organization in 1992.
In 1971, Robert Durst met Kathy McCormack, and the two were married in 1973 on her 30th birthday.
In January 1982, his wife was a student of her final year in medical school when she went missing. She appeared unexpectedly at a friend's dinner party in Newtown, Connecticut, then left after calling her husband to return to their home in South Salem, New York.
Robert Durst told police that he last saw her when he put her on the train to live at his apartment in Manhattan because he had class the next day.
He would divorce her eight years later, claiming the husband and wife had deserted, and in 2017, at the request of her family, she was declared legally dead.
Robert Durst is survived by his second wife, Debra Chartan, whom he married in 2000. They did not have any child.
Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School, said that under California law, if a defendant dies, the case dies during appeal.