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Robert Durst, the millionaire who escaped justice for 15 years, even gave himself up by mistake

2021-09-18T03:22:10.045Z


In his flight, he came to disguise himself as a woman and wear latex masks to hide his identity. But his vanity was his downfall: he participated in a documentary about his life and confessed to three murders unintentionally. Now he was convicted of the murder of his best friend 20 years ago.


By Brian Melley - The Associated Press 

A Los Angeles jury on Friday convicted Robert Durst of the murder of his best friend 20 years ago, 

a case that resurfaced after the New York millionaire participated in a documentary

and muttered what appears to be a confession by accident. 

The documentary, aired in 2015, showed evidence implicating him in the death of his friend, Susan Berman - a crime that is connected to the disappearance of Durst's wife in 1982.

Durst, 78, was not in court for the jury's verdict, which deliberated for about seven hours over three days.

The millionaire,

heir to a New York real estate firm

, was isolated in jail for having been in contact with someone with coronavirus.

Dust faces a possible sentence of life in prison without parole when his sentence is issued on Oct. 18. 

The millionaire was convicted of the first-degree murder of Susan Berman, who was

shot in the back of the neck

at her Los Angeles home in December 2000. The crime occurred when the woman had decided to tell the police how she had helped to cover up the murder of Dust's wife.

Berman, who was the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster,

was Durst's longtime confidant

and told friends she provided him with a false alibi after his wife's disappearance.

[A couple was traveling the country in a van, but only he returned.

Her whereabouts is a mystery]

Robert Durst during his trial in the courtroom in Inglewood, Calif., On Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021.

Prosecutors described Durst as a wealthy narcissist who did not believe the laws applied to him and

ruthlessly disposed of people who got in his way

The investigation connected evidence of Berman's murder with the alleged death of his wife, Kathie Durst, and with the 2001 murder of a tenant at a Texas shelter where Robert Durst stayed while fleeing from New York authorities.

Durst

was arrested in 2015 while hiding in a hotel in New Orleans

on the eve of the issuance of the last episode of

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst

(

Curse: life and death of Robert Durst

, in Spanish) . 

In the documentary, Durst was confronted with incriminating evidence and had a reaction that to prosecutors was a confession. 

Durst left the chamber and went to the bathroom, where he muttered to himself into a microphone that was left open:

"I killed them all, of course

.

"

At his murder trial in Texas, Durst had testified in his own defense and was acquitted.

She tried the same with her best friend, but it was totally counterproductive, as she was forced to admit that she had lied under oath, made damning confessions and was left without credibility when facing the prosecutor.

The conviction marks a victory for authorities who have tried to put Durst behind bars for murder in three different states.

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Durst was never charged with the disappearance of his wife, who was never found, and was acquitted in the case of the murdered tenant in Galveston, Texas, despite

admitting to dismembering the victim's body and throwing it into the sea

.

The story of Durst, a estranged scion of a New York real estate entrepreneur, has fueled the New York tabloids since his wife disappeared.

She provided such numerous plot twists that Hollywood could not resist making a feature film about her life that ultimately led to the documentary and the discovery of new evidence in the murder of her friend Berman.

[A lawyer asks a hit man to assassinate him and make his son a millionaire after a terrible family tragedy]

Durst

fled the law multiple times

, disguising himself as a mute woman in Texas and staying under an alias at a New Orleans hotel wearing a shoulder-length latex mask.

He jumped bail in Texas and

was arrested after stealing a chicken sandwich in Pennsylvania

, despite having $ 37,000 in cash - along with two guns - in his rental car.

Assistant District Attorney Habib A. Balian holds up a rubber latex mask, worn by Robert Durst when police arrested him, on Wednesday, September 8, 2021, in Inglewood, California.

AP

He later joked that he was "the worst fugitive the world has ever known."

Durst managed to evade investigators when his wife disappeared.

But his problems resurfaced in late 2000 when New York authorities reopened the case. 

His attorney told him to prepare to be charged and he fled his life of luxury to Galveston, Texas, where he

rented a cheap apartment as "Dorothy Ciner," a woman who pretended not to know how to speak

.

He ended up ditching the costume after a few mishaps, like walking into a men's room and setting his wig on fire in a bar while lighting a cigarette.

Just before Christmas, he stated that he traveled to Los Angeles to

visit Berman

 with plans to see some of the sights.

Durst, who has long denied being in Los Angeles at the time of Berman's death, testified at trial that he found her dead on a bedroom floor when he arrived.

Berman, a writer who had been friends with Durst since they were students at the University of California, Los Angeles, was in serious financial trouble at the time.

Durst had given him $ 50,000, and prosecutors suggested he was

trying to get more money from him by telling him that he was going to speak to the police

.

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Sept.

16, 202100: 31

Nine months after the murder, Durst killed his Galveston neighbor, Morris Black, in what he said was an accident or act of self-defense.

Durst said he found Black, whom he had befriended, in his apartment holding his 22-caliber pistol.

Durst was acquitted after testifying that the 71-year-old was killed in a gun fight.

After the trial, in which he admitted to dismembering the body, Durst found he was an outcast, he said.

Despite having an estimated fortune of $ 100 million, he was rejected by multiple condo associations and said the Los Angeles County Museum of Art would not accept his money unless he donated it anonymously.

[The police celebrated the arrest of the mobster 'Diabolik', a murderer of children and pregnant women.

But it wasn't who they thought]

He thought then that the 2010 feature film based on his life,

All Good Things

,

painted a sympathetic portrait, despite implicating him in three murders.

He only objected to being depicted killing his dog, something he would never do.

He contacted the filmmaker and agreed to do lengthy interviews for a documentary.

He encouraged his friends to do the same and gave the filmmakers access to boxes from his archives. 

In this March 10, 2020 file photo, estate heir Robert Durst watches the jury during his murder trial in Los Angeles.

He came to deeply regret his decision after the HBO documentary aired in 2015, calling it a "

very, very, very big mistake

."

The producers uncovered crucial evidence linking him to an anonymous note sent to police about Berman's lifeless body. They also confronted him with a letter he had sent a year earlier: it was the same letter. It was at this point that Durst decided to go to the bathroom and muttered, among other things, "you're trapped."

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2021-09-18

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