The rich and sulphurous American heir Robert Durst, recently sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his best friend after years of twisted proceedings, died on Monday (January 10) in detention at the age of 78, announced the one of his lawyers.
The multi-millionaire died "
of natural causes linked to the long list of medical problems that we have repeatedly raised in court over the past two years
," said lawyer Chip Lewis.
Read alsoThe American heir Robert Durst sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a friend
Robert Durst was convicted in September by a Los Angeles court of killing his friend Susan Berman with a bullet to the head at the latter's home in 2000, in Beverly Hills.
The prosecution argued that he had thus sought to cover up his role in the murder of his wife Kathleen, killing Susan Berman to prevent him from responding to the New York police officers who were investigating his wife's disappearance in 1982.
A neighbor killed and dismembered
Robert Durst, who has always denied outright, was officially indicted in New York last October shortly after his life sentence in California. Black sheep of one of the biggest families of the New York real estate, Robert Durst was arrested in March 2015 on the eve of the broadcast of the last episode of a six-part biographical documentary from HBO, "
The Jinx
". The series revisited another bloody episode in Robert Durst's life: the murder of a neighbor, which he then dismembered and thrown into the sea.
He had been acquitted of this crime thanks to an army of prestigious lawyers who had pleaded a mixture of self-defense, an accidental gunshot and acts committed under the influence of alcohol.
In "
The Jinx
" Robert Durst seemed to make an involuntary confession, whispering to himself as he was in the bathroom and his wireless mic was not turned off, "
What did I do? "
?
I killed them all, of course.
In an interview with prosecutors after his arrest, Robert Durst defended himself by asserting that he was under the influence of drugs during the filming of the documentary and that these words therefore meant nothing in particular.