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Robert Durst

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Robert Durst
Born
Robert Alan Durst

(1943-04-12) April 12, 1943 (age 81)
New York City, New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Other namesBobby Durst
EducationScarsdale High School
Alma materLehigh University (B.A.)
Spouse(s)
Kathleen "Kathie" McCormack
​
​
(m. 1973⁠–⁠1990)​

Debrah Lee Charatan
​
(m. 2000)​
Parent(s)Seymour Durst
Bernice Herstein
RelativesDouglas Durst (brother)
Joseph Durst (grandfather)

Robert Alan Durst (born April 12, 1943) is an American real estate heir and suspected serial killer, the son of New York City businessman Seymour Durst, and the elder brother of Douglas Durst, head of the Durst Organization. He is suspected of having murdered three people: Kathleen McCormack Durst, his first wife, who disappeared in New York in 1982; Susan Berman, his longtime friend, who was killed in California in 2000; and his neighbor, Morris Black, who was killed in Texas in 2001. Durst was the subject of a multi-state manhunt after Black's body parts were found floating in Galveston Bay. Although he admitted to the dismembering of Black (which he was not charged with), he was ultimately acquitted of his murder on the grounds of self-defense.

On March 14, 2015, Durst was arrested in New Orleans on a first-degree murder warrant in relation to the Berman killing. On November 4, 2016, he was transferred to California and soon after was arraigned in Los Angeles on first-degree murder charges. In October 2018, Los Angeles County Superior Judge Mark Windham ruled there was sufficient evidence for Durst to be tried for the death of Berman.[1] His trial began on March 2, 2020,[2] but was postponed when Judge Windham announced that the trial, which had been under way for six days, will stand adjourned until a later date due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3] After additional COVID-19 related delays, and a denied defense motion for a mistrial, the trial is currently scheduled to resume on April 12, 2021.[4]

Early life

The eldest of four children, Robert Durst was born on April 12, 1943,[5] and grew up in Scarsdale, New York, in a Jewish family.[6] He is the son of real estate investor Seymour Durst and his wife Bernice Herstein. His siblings are Douglas, Tommy, and Wendy. Durst's paternal grandfather, Joseph Durst, who was a tailor when he emigrated from Austria-Hungary in 1902, eventually became a successful real estate manager and developer, founding the Durst Organization in 1927. Seymour became head of the family business in 1974 upon his father's death.[7]

When Robert was seven, his mother died as a result of a fall from the family's Scarsdale home; he later claimed that, moments before her death, his father walked him to a window from which he could see her standing on the roof. In a March 2015 New York Times interview, however, his brother Douglas denied that Robert had witnessed her death.[8][9] As children, Robert and Douglas underwent counseling for sibling rivalry;[10] a 1953 psychiatrist's report on 10-year-old Robert mentioned "personality decomposition and possibly even schizophrenia".[11]

Durst attended Scarsdale High School, where classmates described him as a loner.[10] He earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1965 from Lehigh University, where he was a member of the varsity lacrosse team and the business manager of The Brown and White student newspaper.[12][13] Durst enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) later that year, where he met Susan Berman, but eventually withdrew from the school and returned to New York in 1969.[10][14]

Durst went on to become a real estate developer in the Durst Organization; however, his brother Douglas was appointed, in 1992, to run the family business. The appointment caused a rift between Robert and his family, which eventually led to him suing for his share of the family fortune.[15]

Capital Crimes for which Durst has been investigated

Police have directly questioned Durst, and sometimes conducted searches, in connection to the disappearance of his first wife, Kathie McCormack, and the homicides of Berman and Morris Black. He was tried and acquitted of murder in the Black case.

Disappearance of Kathleen McCormack Durst

In the fall of 1971, Durst met Kathleen "Kathie" McCormack, a medical student. After two dates, he invited McCormack to share his home in Vermont, where he had opened a health food store; she moved there in January 1972.[10] However, Durst's father pressured him to move back to New York to work in the family business.[16] The couple returned to Manhattan, where they married on April 12, 1973—Durst's 30th birthday.[10][17]

Shortly before her disappearance, McCormack was a student in her fourth and final year at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in The Bronx and was only a few months short of earning her degree.[18] She had intended to become a pediatrician.[19] McCormack was last seen by someone other than Durst the evening of January 31, 1982,[20][21] when she appeared unexpectedly at a dinner party thrown by her friend Gilberte Najamy in Newtown, Connecticut. Najamy noticed that McCormack was upset and was wearing red sweatpants, which Najamy found odd; McCormack had often dressed in much higher quality clothing. McCormack later left for her marital home in South Salem, New York, after a phone call from her husband.[22][19][20]

Although the couple argued and fought that evening,[17] Durst maintained that he put his wife on a commuter train to New York City at Katonah station, had a drink with a neighbor, and spoke to his wife at their Manhattan apartment by telephone later that evening.[23] "That's what I told police," Durst later told documentary filmmakers. "I was hoping that would just make everything go away."[23]

After McCormack had left Najamy's house, she was supposed to meet Najamy at a pub called The Lion's Gate in Manhattan. When she failed to show up, Najamy became concerned and repeatedly called the police for several days. Days later, Durst filed a missing person report as well. A doorman and the building superintendent at the couple's apartment on Riverside Drive claimed to have seen McCormack there on February 1, which was one day after she was last indisputably seen, but the doorman also said that he had seen her only from behind and from half a block away, and couldn't be certain that it was her.[22] A private investigator, hired by Durst's own criminal lawyer, later reported that the doorman said he had not seen McCormack arrive at all, and may not have been working the night she disappeared.[24][25]

McCormack had been treated at a Bronx hospital for facial bruises three weeks before her disappearance. She told a friend that Durst beat her but did not press charges over the incident.[22] McCormack asked Durst for a $250,000 divorce settlement.[26] Instead, Durst cancelled his wife's credit card, removed her name from a joint bank account, and refused to pay her medical school tuition.[27] At the time McCormack disappeared, Durst had been dating Prudence Farrow for three years and was living in a separate apartment.[10][26][28] Durst initially offered $100,000 for his wife's return, then reduced the reward to $15,000. Only three weeks after Durst reported McCormack missing, the superintendent at the Riverside Drive apartment found her possessions in the building's trash compactor.[29][30] When one of McCormack's friends and her sister found out that she had been reported missing, they broke into her cottage hoping to find her. Instead, they found the cottage ransacked, McCormack's mail left unopened, and her belongings in the trash.[19]

Investigation and aftermath

After McCormack went missing, police said that Durst had claimed to have last spoken to her when she called him at the Riverside Drive apartment. He claimed that the last time he had seen her was at Katonah station,[31] where she was planning to board a 9:15 p.m. train to Manhattan. He also claimed that on February 4, the supervisor at her medical school called him and said that she had called in sick on February 1 and was absent from class for the entire week. It is uncertain if it was indeed McCormack who made the call. The day after Durst received the call from McCormack's medical school, he reported her as missing. The police found his stories to be full of contradictions.

Eight years after McCormack's disappearance, Durst divorced her, claiming spousal abandonment.[17][32] In 2016, the McCormack family asked to have Kathleen declared dead, a request that was granted the following year.[33][34] Kathleen's mother, Ann McCormack, attempted to sue Durst for $100 million, alleging that he killed McCormack and deprived them of the right to bury her.[35][36] McCormack's parents are now deceased.[37] Her younger sister, Mary McCormack Hughes, also believes that Durst murdered her.[38] The New York State Police quietly re-opened the criminal investigation into the disappearance in 1999, searching Durst's former South Salem residence for the first time.[17] The investigation became public in November 2000.[17][22][28]

In August 2019, a wrongful death lawsuit filed by McCormack's sister Carol Bamonte against Durst, which accused him of murdering his wife, was dismissed on the grounds that she had waited too long to file the suit.[39] The death date for McCormack has been changed to be most likely at the time she disappeared in 1982, due to murder, instead of the previous determination of 1987 for a missing person.[40]

Homicide of Susan Berman

Susan Berman, a longtime friend of Durst who had facilitated his public alibi after McCormack's disappearance, was the daughter of David Berman, a reputed gangster who in the late 1940s operated the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. On December 24, 2000, Berman was found murdered execution-style in her home in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles, California, after her neighbors called the police to report that her back door was open and her three fox terriers were loose.

A few days later, the Beverly Hills Police Department received a handwritten note postmarked December 23, which contained Berman's address and the word "cadaver."[25] Durst is known to have been in northern California days before Berman was killed, and to have flown from San Francisco to New York the night before Berman's body was discovered.[17][41] Berman had recently received $50,000 from Durst, in two payments.[22][42] Although Durst confirmed to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) that he had sent her $25,000, and faxed investigators a copy of her 1982 deposition regarding his missing wife, he declined to be further questioned about Berman's murder.[43]

Durst said in a 2005 deposition that Berman called him shortly before her death to say that the LAPD wanted to talk to her about McCormack's disappearance.[44] A study of case notes by The Guardian cast doubt on whether the LAPD had made such a call, or whether then-Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro had scheduled an interview with Berman at all.[42] Durst moved to Galveston, Texas in 2000, and lived in a boarding house, as he had gone into hiding and begun posing as a woman to avoid police inquiries.[45] Durst had been tipped off to the re-opened investigation into his wife's disappearance on October 31, 2000, and immediately began planning for life as a fugitive.[42] Berman biographer Cathy Scott has asserted that Durst killed her because she knew too much about McCormack's disappearance.[46]

Killing and dismemberment of Morris Black

On October 9, 2001, Durst was arrested in Galveston shortly after body parts belonging to his elderly neighbor, Morris Black, were found floating in Galveston Bay. He was released on $300,000[47] bail the next day. Durst missed a court hearing on October 16 and a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of bail jumping. On November 30, he was caught inside a Wegmans supermarket in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, after trying to shoplift Band-Aids, a newspaper, and a chicken-salad sandwich, even though he had $500 cash in his pocket.[22][47] A police search of his rental car yielded $37,000 in cash, two guns, marijuana, Black's driver's license,[48] and directions to Gilberte Najamy's home in Connecticut.[22][49][50] Durst also used his time on the run to stalk his brother Douglas, visiting the driveway of his home in Katonah, New York while armed.[50] Durst employed defense attorney John Waldron while he was held on charges in Pennsylvania. He was eventually extradited to Texas for trial.

Trial

In 2003, Durst was tried for the murder of Black. He employed defense attorney Dick DeGuerin and claimed self-defense; DeGuerin conducted two mock trials in preparation for the case.[51] Durst's defense team had difficulty communicating with him, so they hired psychiatrist Dr. Milton Altschuler to find out why. Altschuler spent over 70 hours examining Durst and diagnosed him with Asperger syndrome, saying, "His whole life's history is so compatible with a diagnosis of Asperger's disorder." His defense team argued at trial that the diagnosis explained his behavior.[52]

Durst claimed he and Black, a cranky and confrontational loner, struggled for control of Durst's .22-caliber target pistol after Black grabbed it from its hiding place and threatened him with it. During the struggle, the pistol discharged, shooting Black in the face.[53][52] During cross-examination, Durst admitted to using a paring knife, two saws, and an axe to dismember Black's body before bagging and dumping his remains in Galveston Bay.[53] Black's head was never recovered, so prosecutors were unable to present sufficient forensic evidence to dispute Durst's account of the struggle.[51] As a result of lack of forensics, the jury acquitted Durst of murder on 11 November 2003.[54]

On 21 December 2004, Durst pleaded guilty to two counts of bail jumping and one count of evidence tampering (for his dismemberment of Black's body). As part of a plea bargain, he received a sentence of five years and was given credit for time served, requiring him to serve three years in prison.[55] Durst was paroled on 15 July 2005. The rules of his release required him to stay near his home; permission was required to travel.[56] That December, Durst made an unauthorized trip to the boarding house where Black had been killed and to a nearby shopping mall. At the mall, he ran into former Galveston trial judge Susan Criss, who had presided over his trial.[51] Due to this incident, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles determined that Durst had violated the terms of his parole and returned him to jail.[56] He was released again from custody on March 1, 2006.[57]

Asked in March 2015 whether she believed Durst murdered Black, Criss commented: "You could see that this person knew what they were doing and that it was not a first time. The body was cut perfectly like a surgeon who knew how to use this tool on this bone and a certain kind of tool on that muscle. It looked like not a first-time job. That was pretty scary."[51]

The Jinx TV Documentary

In early 2015, a six-part HBO documentary titled The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst described circumstantial evidence linking Durst to the murder of Berman, who was believed to have knowledge of McCormack's disappearance.[58][59] The documentary detailed the disappearance of McCormack, Berman's subsequent death, and the killing of Black. Against the advice of his lawyers[60] and his wife Debrah Lee Charatan, Durst gave multiple interviews and unrestricted access to his personal records to the filmmakers.[61][62][63] The FBI arrested Durst in New Orleans on the same day as the final episode was broadcast. The documentary ended with him moving into a bathroom where his microphone recorded him seemingly saying to himself: "There it is. You're caught! .... You're right, of course. But you can't imagine. ... Arrest him ... I don't know what's in the house ... Oh, I want this ... What a disaster ... He was right. I was wrong. And the burping ... I'm having difficulty with the question ... What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."[64][65]

The Associated Press reported that a March 1999 letter from Durst to Berman, discovered by her stepson and turned over to the filmmakers during their research,[66] provided "key new evidence" leading to the filing of murder charges.[67]

Berman trial

Arrest

A few days after a first-degree murder warrant was signed by a Los Angeles judge in relation to the Berman killing, Durst was arrested by FBI agents on March 14, 2015, at the Canal Street Marriott in New Orleans, where he had registered under the false name "Everette Ward."[68][69] Durst, who had been tracked to the hotel after making two calls to check his voicemail,[70] was observed wandering aimlessly in the lobby and mumbling to himself, having driven to New Orleans from Houston four days before.[70][58][71][72]

In addition to a .38 revolver loaded with four live rounds and one spent shell casing, police recovered five ounces of marijuana, Durst's birth certificate and passport, maps of Louisiana, Florida, and Cuba,[68][73] a "flesh-toned" latex mask,[70] the fake Texas ID used to check into the hotel, a new cellphone, and cash totaling $42,631.[69][74][75][76] Police discovered a UPS tracking number, which led to an additional $117,000 cash and a pair of shoes in a package sent to Durst by a friend in New York,[44][77] which was seized after his arrest.[68][69] Bank statements found in one of Durst's Houston condominiums revealed cash withdrawals of $315,000 in little more than a month.[76]

On March 15, 2015, New York State Police investigator Joseph Becerra, long involved with the McCormack case[22] and said to have been working closely with the FBI and Los Angeles detectives,[78] removed some 60 file boxes of Durst's personal papers and effects from the home of Durst's friend Susan T. Giordano in Campbell Hall, New York. All of these items had been sent to Giordano for safekeeping three years prior by Debrah Lee Charatan, Durst's wife at the time. Also stored at Giordano's residence were videotaped depositions of Durst; Durst's brother, Douglas; and Charatan, all of which were related to the Black case.[61]

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, in charge of prosecuting Durst, claimed to have found information uncovered by the filmmakers in the HBO documentary series The Jinx to be compelling and repeatedly flew to New York to interview witnesses, including friends of Durst and Berman.[79]

Firearm charge

On March 16, 2015, defense attorney Richard DeGuerin advised court authorities in New Orleans that his client waived extradition and would voluntarily return to California.[80] Late that same day, Louisiana State Police filed charges against Durst for being a felon in possession of a firearm and for possession of a firearm with a controlled substance, forestalling his immediate return to California.[81] Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro commented that, in light of prior convictions that could influence Durst's sentencing, "[j]ust for those gun charges here in Louisiana, [Durst] could face up to life in prison".[76]

On March 23, Durst was denied bail by a Louisiana judge after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk.[68] In an effort to hasten his extradition to California and avoid a protracted Louisiana court battle,[82] DeGuerin raised questions about the validity of the New Orleans arrest and hotel room search, pointing out that a local judge did not issue a warrant until hours after his client was detained.[83][84][85] While communicating with the LAPD and conducting an inventory of Durst's hotel room possessions, "[t]he FBI ... held him there, incommunicado, for almost eight hours".[83] According to DeGuerin, Durst was questioned extensively by a Los Angeles prosecutor and detective, without a lawyer present, on the morning after his arrest.[68][70]

In failing to produce the arresting officers subpoenaed for a probable cause hearing, Durst's attorneys charged that Louisiana prosecutors engaged in a "misguided attempt to conceal the facts from the court, the defendant, and the public."[82][86] Peter Mansfield, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, said that his office instructed the two FBI agents and arresting officer not to appear, arguing that DeGuerin's subpoenas were issued in an attempt to conduct "actions against them in their official capacities for the purpose of obtaining testimony, information and material maintained under color of their official duties."[87]

On April 8, a day after the U.S. Attorney filed an independent federal weapons charge,[88] Durst was formally indicted by a Louisiana grand jury for carrying a weapon with a controlled substance and for the illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.[87][89] Later that month, Durst's lawyers requested that more than $161,000 seized by authorities during their searches be returned, saying the cash "is not needed as evidence, is not contraband, and is not subject to forfeiture."[90]

After negotiations with Durst's defense team, Louisiana authorities ultimately dropped weapons charges against Durst on April 23, 2015.[91] Durst's trial on the federal weapons charge was scheduled for September 21, 2015.[92] DeGuerin confirmed rumors that Durst was in poor health, stating that he suffers from hydrocephalus and had a stent put into his skull two years before, as well as spinal surgery and a cancerous mass removed from his esophagus.[70][93]

Durst's attorneys requested a later date for the federal weapons charge trial, saying they'd need more time to prepare after rulings on pending motions. U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan later rescheduled the trial to January 11, 2016.[94] On November 16, 2015, a New Orleans federal judge ordered Durst re-arraigned on the weapons charges and scheduled a hearing for December 17. When asked, Durst's attorney said only that Durst did not kill Berman, and that he wants to resolve the other charges to expedite Durst's extradition to Los Angeles to face that charge.[95]

On December 16, 2015, prosecutors and defense attorneys told Berrigan in a joint motion that scheduling conflicts ruled out all dates before a January 11 trial date. Berrigan ultimately rescheduled the trial for February 3, 2016, and Durst changed his plea to guilty to the federal gun charge and received an 85-month prison sentence.[96][97]

Incarceration

Durst (BOP Number 45101-079) was originally placed in USP Terre Haute, but was later transferred to a Los Angeles County Jail awaiting trial.

Trial

The trial was scheduled to begin in Los Angeles after Durst was arraigned in California, but his transfer was delayed by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons due to "serious surgery," according to DeGuerin.[98]

A conditional hearing was convened in February 2017, where Nick Chavin, Durst's close friend and best man at Chavin's wedding,[clarification needed] testified that Durst had confessed to him of having murdered Berman.[99][100] Chavin will be one of the prosecution's witnesses against Durst. A preliminary hearing was initially scheduled for October 2017,[101] but was postponed to April 2018 to accommodate Durst's defense team, some of whom suffered damage to their homes and offices from Hurricane Harvey.[citation needed]

The pretrial hearings included extensive testimony from a number of older witnesses who potentially would not be available when the trial itself begins. In October 2018, Los Angeles County Superior Judge Mark Windham ruled there was enough evidence to try Durst for the murder of Berman, and Durst would be arraigned November 8, 2018. During his court appearance the following day, Durst pleaded not guilty.[102] In January 2019, Windham set Durst's trial date as September 3, 2019.[103]

At the same time the judge ruled that prosecutors can present evidence involving the Black murder.[clarification needed] Prosecutors will try to connect Berman's death with McCormack's disappearance, which they want to show as the foundation for the motive for Berman's slaying. In his ruling that prosecutors could use evidence from the Texas case, Judge Windham said the killings of Black and Berman seemed "to be intertwined." The murder charge against Durst includes the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and killing a witness to a crime. There is also an allegation that he used a handgun to carry out the murder.[104]

In May 2019, a motion filed by Durst's attorneys claimed two handwriting samples (the anonymous "cadaver note" from 2000 informing Beverly Hills Police that a body could be found at her house, and a letter in 1999 from Durst to Berman), along with other evidence from his 2015 arrest at his hotel in New Orleans, were illegally obtained. Durst's lawyers also claim there was a Fourth Amendment violation that would exclude the New Orleans evidence and that the search of his hotel room was unlawful.[105] On May 8, 2019, Los Angeles County prosecutors filed an affidavit replying to the motion. Prosecutor John Lewin said Durst is creating an elaborate conspiracy theory between the producers of the HBO documentary miniseries The Jinx, law enforcement officers, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, to make the "Defendant incriminate himself and to time his arrest to maximize media attention and ratings. However, Defendant completely fails to acknowledge the most relevant fact leading to his arrest and the subsequent search of his hotel room and damning interview—law enforcement was on notice that Defendant was actively preparing to flee the country right after crucial evidence connecting him to Susan's (Berman) murder was widely publicized on national television. When viewed in this context, it is readily apparent that the actions taken by law enforcement were more than reasonable—they were absolutely necessary to prevent a murderer, who had already avoided apprehension for more than 30 years, from fleeing the country and evading justice."[106][107]

On May 17, 2019, LA County Judge Mark Windham granted Durst's defense team a four-month postponement of his murder trial. The delay was granted after defense lawyers raised concerns about the volume of evidence in the case and conflicts with attorney schedules.[108]

On September 3, 2019, LA County Judge Mark Windham rejected an attempt by defense attorneys for Durst to strip the producers of The Jinx of protection under California's journalist shield law by having them declared "government agents." A number of other procedural rulings also went against Durst. LA County Prosecuting Attorney John Lewin set another hearing on discovery and other matters for October 28.[109] Additional evidential hearings were held in December 2019 regarding the admissibility of statements Durst made in March 2015 just after his arrest in New Orleans, at an interview with Lewin.[110]

In a surprise move on December 24, 2019, Durst's lawyers contradicted his previous statements and filed court documents admitting that Durst wrote the "cadaver note."[111] In all previous statements about the note, Durst consistently denied writing the note, although the handwriting appears to be similar to his own as is the misspelling of the word "Beverley" contained in a prior letter to Berman that Durst admitted to authoring. During the filming of The Jinx, Durst told the filmmakers that the person who wrote the "cadaver note" was taking a "big risk," because it was something "that only the killer could have written." He told his godson, Howard Altman, "The person who wrote the note killed her." However, in August 2019, Durst's attorneys also argued that "What the note demonstrates is that the person who mailed it was aware that there was a body at the house, not that the individual murdered Susan Berman."[112]

On 2 March 2020, Durst appeared in court to begin his trial for the murder of Susan Berman, which was expected to take several months. However, the proceedings were postponed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.[113] In June 2020, a motion by the defense for a mistrial because of the delay was denied.[114] In July 2020, LA County Judge Mark Windham ruled that a further delay until April 2021 was necessary due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but he would allow the trial to proceed if Durst agreed to a bench trial, without jury. Durst declined this option and the trial is scheduled to resume on April 12, 2021.[115]

Other cases

Days after the Berman murder, police were reportedly examining connections between Durst and the disappearances of 18-year-old Lynne Schulze from Middlebury, Vermont[116] and 16-year-old Karen Mitchell from Eureka, California.[117][118][119] Investigators are also looking into a possible connection between Durst and the disappearance of 18-year-old Kristen Modafferi, who was last seen in San Francisco in 1997.[120]

Schulze, a Middlebury College freshman, visited Durst's health food store on December 10, 1971, the day she disappeared,[119] and was last seen that afternoon near a bus stop across from the store.[121] DeGuerin characterized the Schulze investigation as "opportunistic" and said he would not permit his client to be questioned by Vermont police.[122] Author and investigative journalist Matt Birkbeck reported in 2003, and again in his 2015 book A Deadly Secret, that credit card records placed Durst in Eureka on November 25, 1997, the day Mitchell vanished.[11][123][124] Mitchell may have volunteered in a homeless shelter that Durst frequented;[123] Durst, dressed in women's clothing, had visited the Eureka shoe store owned by Mitchell's aunt.[11][119][123][124] Mitchell was last seen walking to work from her aunt's store and possibly speaking to someone in a stopped car;[123][124] a witness sketch of Mitchell's presumed abductor resembles Durst.[119]

Although the FBI ultimately could not connect Durst to the Long Island serial murders (in which some victims were disposed of in a similar manner to the Black killing), the Bureau created an informal task force in 2012 to work with investigative agencies in jurisdictions where Durst was known to have lived in past decades, including Vermont, New York, and California.[11][125] In the wake of his recent arrest, the FBI encouraged such localities to re-examine cold cases.[125] Texas private investigator Bobbi Bacha has also traced Durst operating under stolen identities in Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Virginia.[126]

Personal life

On December 11, 2000,[42] shortly before the Berman killing, Durst married Debrah Lee Charatan.[127][128][129] According to The New York Times, the couple briefly shared a Fifth Avenue apartment in 1990 but "have never lived together as husband and wife."[61][127] Durst once told his sister that it was "a marriage of convenience";[42][50] "I wanted Debbie to be able to receive my inheritance, and I intended to kill myself," Durst said in a 2005 deposition.[44]

According to The New York Times, Charatan lived with one of Durst's real estate lawyers, Steven I. Holm, as of May 2017.[44] It was reported in Real Estate Weekly that Stephen I. Holm died on October 17, 2019, and Debrah Lee Charatan was his wife.[130] After being referred to as Holm's wife at his funeral, and in the obituary in the New York Times, Charatan sent the Times a letter saying she and Holm were not married and asked them to print a retraction.[131] Charatan and Holm were involved with a number of philanthropic ventures together.[132]

Durst traveled and lived under dozens of aliases over the years,[133] using different identities to buy cars, rent apartments, and open credit card accounts.[134] "He had a scanner, copier, and a laminating machine," a former office employee of Durst told Newsweek. "What I didn't realize is that I unwittingly saw what would have allowed Robert Durst to make a fake driver's license."[133] Durst was also "a prolific user of private mailboxes," and apparently conducted business under a number of canine-themed names: Woofing LLC, WoofWoof LLC, and Igor-Fayette Inc.[134]

In the early 1980s, Durst owned a series of seven Alaskan Malamutes, all of which were named Igor and all of which died under mysterious circumstances, according to his brother, Douglas. In December 2014, prior to the airing of The Jinx, Douglas told The New York Times that, "In retrospect, I now believe he was practicing killing and disposing [of] his wife with those dogs."[134][135] Durst was once recorded saying he wanted to "Igor" Douglas.[136] Durst, however, has disputed the assertion that he owned seven dogs named Igor; he owned three, he said, one that was run over and another that died in surgery after eating an apple core, "before the Igor that lasted forever."[27]

In late 1981, while Durst was still married to McCormack, he was nearing the end of a three-year affair with Prudence Farrow, who was also married at the time. According to the New York Post, a few months before McCormack's disappearance in January 1982, Farrow called her and asked that she give Durst up, as friends said she wanted him all to herself. After Durst was acquitted of murdering Black in 2003, Farrow contacted law enforcement authorities with concerns for her safety, as she said Durst was angry with her for terminating their relationship three days before McCormack disappeared.[137]

Durst has had a number of significant medical issues since 2015, including major surgeries for esophageal cancer, having a shunt installed in his brain for hydrocephalus, and cervical spinal fusion.[138] When arrested in New Orleans in 2015, he was found to be in possession a variety of drugs, including the sleep aid melatonin, a muscle relaxant, and medications for high blood pressure, blood flow, and acid reflux.[139]

Financial status and residences

In mid-2002, Durst signed over a power of attorney to Charatan,[127] and it is believed their holdings remain closely intermingled, although the current status of their relationship is unknown.[140] In 2006, Durst gave Charatan around $20 million of his $65 million trust settlement.[61]

In 2011, Durst purchased a $1.75 million townhouse on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. A source close to his estranged family confirmed that he was living there at least some of the time, and they were keeping him under surveillance.[134][141][142] Durst also owns three condominiums in a multi-story complex in Houston,[43] and after filing suit, received a $200,000 settlement in 2006 from a Houston developer who refused to let him move into a unit newly purchased by his wife, which she had then immediately resold to Durst for $10.[143][144] At the time of Berman's murder in Los Angeles, Durst had just sold a home in Trinidad, California,[41][123] but maintained an office in Eureka while renting in nearby Big Lagoon.[145]

Media have variously reported Durst's financial status as "real estate baron,"[141] "rich scion,"[141] "millionaire,"[54] "multimillionaire,"[146] and "billionaire."[56] The Durst family's real estate holdings are worth more than $4 billion, but his brother Douglas was in control of the company beginning in 1994, shortly before their father's death.[141] From about 1994 to 2006, Robert waged a legal campaign to gain greater control of the family trust and fortune. During that time he received $2 million a year from the trust. In 2006 the case was settled, with Durst giving up any interest in his family's properties and trusts in exchange for a one-time payment of about $65 million.[147] It is unknown how much of that went to legal fees and taxes.[141] Durst remained active in real estate; he reportedly sold two properties in 2014 for $21.15 million after purchasing them in 2011 for $8.65 million.[148] At the time of his 2015 arrest, the FBI estimated Durst's net worth at approximately $100 million;[69][74] The New York Times estimated his net worth at $110 million.[88]

On May 1, 2015, the New York Post reported that Douglas had settled litigation against Jinx filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, having confirmed that Robert was the source of videotaped depositions that appeared in the documentary. Robert's disclosure apparently violated the terms of his 2006 agreement with the Durst family, which had dispersed to him a lump sum of family trust assets. Although it was unclear whether Jarecki confirmed Robert as his source—The New York Times reported in March 2015 that Jarecki was given "unrestricted access" to Robert's personal records, including the videotaped material—the settlement paves the way for Douglas to reclaim as much as $74 million of his brother's assets, effectively freezing those assets pending court judgment. This could affect Robert's ability to pay for high-caliber legal representation without tapping into real estate or other investments. The Post reported that Douglas was "mulling his next move."[149][150]

In November 2015, nearly 34 years after her disappearance, McCormack's three sisters and 101-year-old mother sued Durst for $100 million, citing his apparent role in her murder and his denial to her family of the "right to sepulcher," a New York law that grants immediate relatives access to a deceased person's body and the opportunity to determine appropriate burial.[151] If successful, the lawsuit could deprive Durst of most or all of his inherited fortune.[151] McCormack's brother James had attempted in October 2015 to file a wrongful death suit against Durst on behalf of his mother, but was challenged by one of his sisters, who holds her mother's power of attorney.[151] DeGuerin said that "there is no evidence that Robert Durst had anything to do with Kathleen's disappearance. Anybody can file a lawsuit, but eventually they'll have to come with evidence."[151] On December 7, 2015, the same family members filed a suit asking the court to freeze Durst's assets. The family's attorney, Robert Abrams, called Durst the "poster child" for why courts block defendants from disposing assets while civil lawsuits are pending.[152] In July 2016, the McCormack family asked the Surrogate's Court in Manhattan to "declare that Kathie died on January 31, 1982, when she was murdered by her husband, Robert Durst" so the sepulcher lawsuit could proceed.[153] The court granted the request in 2017.[34]

In 2012 and 2013, Durst's family members sought and received restraining orders against him, claiming they were afraid of him. Durst was charged with trespassing in New York for walking in front of townhouses owned by his brother Douglas and other family members. He went on trial and was acquitted in December 2014. The judge also vacated the thirteen orders of protection his family members had taken out on him.[154][155][156]

In July 2014, Durst was arrested after turning himself in to police following an incident at a Houston CVS drugstore in which he allegedly exposed himself without provocation and urinated on a rack of candy. He then left the store and casually walked down the street. Durst was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief.[157][158] In December 2014, he pleaded "no contest" and was fined $500. His lawyer described the incident as an "unfortunate medical mishap," as Durst had just been released from a hospital where he had undergone two medical procedures.[159][160][161] The incident was recorded on videotape.[161]

See also

References

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Further reading

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