Robert Durst’s reality-TV show of a life plays out in long-awaited murder trial next week
By Sarah Favot
Los Angeles Daily News
February 28, 2020
After decades of evading law enforcement over his suspected involvement in two alleged murders, New York real estate scion Robert Durst will now face a Los Angeles County jury following his participation in a TV documentary in which prosecutors say he implicated himself.
Interviews conducted for the six-part HBO documentary series, “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” will play a role in the trial expected to start Wednesday, where Durst, 76, stands accused of murdering his best friend, Susan Berman, in her Beverly Hills home in 2000.
The following is an in-depth look at the complicated story of how Durst went from an heir to a real estate empire to an inmate in Twin Towers Correctional facility in downtown Los Angeles.
In addition to Berman’s killing, for nearly 40 years Durst has been suspected of being involved in the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathleen Durst, in New York.
Prosecutors say Durst killed Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, to prevent her from speaking to authorities about her knowledge of Kathleen’s disappearance. They allege Durst killed his wife, though he has never been charged and Kathleen’s body has never been found.
In the filmmakers’ final interview with Durst, which aired in the final episode of the series, when confronted with evidence that could connect him to Berman’s murder, Durst asks to use the bathroom, not realizing his microphone was still on, and mutters to himself, “What the hell did I do?” and, “Killed them all, of course.”
Prosecutors believe Durst’s utterances to himself implied he killed Berman, while Durst’s defense team argued the show was edited and accused the filmmakers of coordinating with police. Transcripts of the interview show Durst spoke the key phrases in the reverse order and rambled other words in between.
Durst was arrested in a New Orleans hotel on March 14, 2015, the day before the final episode aired.
Jarecki’s attorney, Victor Kovner, said in an interview that the filmmakers didn’t know that an arrest would be made.
“It came as a surprise to them,” Kovner said.
The filmmakers went to police months after the interview with what they had found during their questioning of Durst, he said.
“This prosecution could not have taken place were it not for the careful, painstaking effort of the filmmakers,” Kovner said. “They performed an invaluable public service.”
A jury was seated last week with alternate jurors expected to be in place by Wednesday when opening statements are slated to begin. The trial is expected to last five months.
In the coming weeks, prosecutors will present their case. They are expected to rely on witnesses, one who says Durst confessed to killing Berman, and Durst’s own words and writing, which includes a key misspelling of the word “Beverly.” When it’s their turn to present their case, the defense team is expected to argue that Durst did not kill Berman and doesn’t know who did. They have pointed out that there is no DNA evidence that connects Durst to the crime scene.
It is not Durst’s first time being tried for murder. He was charged with the 2001 killing of his Galveston, Texas neighbor, Morris Black. At trial, Durst admitted to dismembering Black’s body, but claimed he was acting in self-defense as the two fought over a gun. The body was found in garbage bags in the Gulf of Mexico. Durst was ultimately acquitted.
This tangled web of killings was caused by his attempt to cover up his involvement in his wife’s disappearance, prosecutors say. Black had discovered Durst’s identity even though he was posing as a mute woman to escape the attention of New York authorities, who had reopened the investigation into Kathleen’s disappearance.
Investigators had contacted Berman for questioning. During the initial investigation into Kathleen Durst’s disappearance, Berman acted as “spokesperson” for Durst, talking to the media as his representative. Prosecutors believe Berman helped Durst cover his tracks.
Before her muder, Berman told Durst, “It’s going to be best for both of us if I — I just talk to them,” according to transcripts of Durst’s interviews with the documentary filmmakers. Durst said he told her, “Do whatever you want.”
“In hindsight, it is clear that this was the conversation that sealed Susan’s fate,” prosecutors said.
In 2001, Berman was shot in the back of her head in her Benedict Canyon home, “execution style.” Her body was found on Christmas Eve. The house was left untouched and no fingerprints were found.
In court filings, prosecutors relied on excerpts of transcripts from about 20 hours of interviews producers Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling conducted with Durst in December 2010 and April 2012, which were used in the miniseries.
The conversations spanned Durst’s childhood, Black’s killing, his relationship with Berman and his volatile relationship with his wife.
“By 1981, our life was half arguments, fighting, slapping, pushing, wrestling,” Durst told Jarecki.
The relationship between Durst and the filmmakers began in December 2010 with the release of Jarecki’s film, “All Good Things,” that starred Ryan Gosling as Durst and Kirsten Dunst as Kathleen. It was billed as a dramatization of Durst’s life, though it didn’t use Durst’s name.
The film implicates Durst in his wife’s disappearance and the murders of Black and Berman. It also shows Durst killing his dog “Igor.”
Ahead of the film’s release, Durst obtained a copy of the screenplay and “liked what he read,” prosecutors said. He got in touch with Jarecki and watched a screening of the film. The producers then conducted an on-camera interview with Durst, who gave a commentary of the film.
During the interview, Durst said the film was an accurate portrayal of his life.
“The movie was very, very, very close in much of the ways about what, pretty much, happened,” Durst told Jarecki.
Durst participated in the interviews against his lawyers’ advice. He figured that Jarecki didn’t do a “hatchet job” on the film, so he assumed the documentary miniseries would be the same.
Episodes of “The Jinx” aired on Sundays beginning on Feb. 8, 2015. The final episode aired on March 15, the day after Durst’s arrest.
The second-to-last episode depicts the filmmakers’ discovery of a letter that Durst had sent to Berman at her Beverly Hills home. On the envelope of the letter, “Beverly” was misspelled as “Beverley.” The same misspelling was found in an anonymous letter that was mailed to Beverly Hills police the day before Berman’s body was discovered. The letter contained Berman’s address and the word “cadaver.”
In addition to the spelling error, prosecutors said there were “stark similarities between the handwritings.”
In the final episode when confronted with the letters, Durst conceded to Jarecki that he was unable to tell the difference between the two “Beverley Hills” writings and couldn’t say which one he did write and which one he didn’t.
Prosecutors believe the “clear implication” was that Durst was the author of both letters and was Berman’s killer.
After being confronted with the letters, Durst went to the bathroom in the hotel room where the interview was taking place, not realizing his microphone was still hot.
Before he even closed the door, he muttered to himself, “Killed them all, of course,” according to transcripts.
He also mumbled some indiscernible words before he said, “What the hell did I do?”
In the film, the lines were presented in the reverse order, which closed out the series.
“We’re here today,” Mr. Durst’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, told The New York Times last year, “because the purpose of the producers of the “The Jinx” was to win an Emmy, not to actually document Bob’s story. This is show business. It’s not a documentary.”
It was decided ahead of the trial that the documentary itself wouldn’t be used as evidence, rather the transcripts from the interviews could be used.
In court filings submitted ahead of the trial, Durst admitted that he was the author of the “cadaver” note after the defense team attempted to prevent handwriting experts from testifying. DeGuerin has said even though Durst wrote the note, it doesn’t mean that he killed Berman.
Defense attorney David Chesnoff has pointed out that there were no fingerprints, DNA, blood, hair samples or eyewitnesses linking his client to the crime scene. Durst’s defense team has long insisted that their client did not kill Berman and does not know who did.
As the final episodes of the miniseries were about to be aired, Durst fled. He rustled up thousands of dollars and bolted to New Orleans, where he was arrested in a hotel by FBI agents on March 14, 2015, the day before the final episode aired.
In a motion filed last year, the defense asked a judge to rule that the filmmakers were agents of law enforcement and therefore, should be stripped of protections for journalists under California’s shield law. Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham rejected the request, saying the defense hadn’t shown that the filmmakers became so entangled with law enforcement to warrant granting the motion, Courthouse News reported.
“We believe that the work of these journalists will be further vindicated at the conclusion of the trial,” Jarecki’s attorney said.
One question that will likely be examined by the defense at trial is the ethics of using audio recordings while Durst was off-camera and seemingly unaware that he was being recorded.
Marcia Rock, a professor and director of NewsDoc at New York University, said in an interview it is a common documentary technique to “let it roll.” She also noted New York is a “one-party” state, meaning the person being recorded is not required to give his/her consent.
“It was ‘gotcha,’ but I think it was fine, people should be aware of what they’re doing,” Rock said.
Other key testimony is expected to come from New York ad executive Nathan “Nick” Chavin, who was best friends with both Durst and Berman. Chavin told prosecutors Durst confessed to killing Berman.
“I had to do it. It was her or me, I had no choice,” Chavin said Durst told him.
Durst faces a life sentence if convicted.
EDITOR’S NOTE; Let’s hope Durst’s prosecutors and his trial judge won’t be like the incompetent dickheads in the O.J. Simpson trial.
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