Shownotes Transcript
Hey, weirdos, Elena here. If you're looking to kick back and relax with Morbid, Wondery Plus is the way to go. It's like having a cozy seat in our haunted mansion. No ads, just you and early access to new episodes. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
From the creator of Think Twice, Michael Jackson, listen to the new Audible original Final Thoughts, Jerry Springer. Once known as the king of trash TV, Springer was the notorious talk show host whose wild daytime program transfixed audiences everywhere.
Join Springer's personal and professional life as the ratings soared and the reviews soured. Hear revealing interviews about the choices we make and the regrets we may have. Listen to the new, trashy, and true Audible Original Final Thoughts, Jerry Springer, by going to audible.com slash Springer.
Life doesn't happen bi-weekly, so why should payday? The money you earn can be in your hands today with Earnin'. Earnin' is an app that gives you access to your pay as you work, up to $150 per day, with a max of $750 between paydays. Just download the Earnin' app and verify your paycheck, then access up to $150 a day as you work and leave an optional tip. Any money you access plus tips are automatically repaid from your next paycheck.
I think earnin' is so good for so many different things because as we all know, emergencies and crappy things like, you know, an unexpected trip to the vet or you having to replace a tire always happen when you have like no money. But you won't find yourself in that position if you got earnin'. Download earnin' today, spelled E-A-R-N-I-N, in the Google Play or Apple App Store. When you download the earnin' app, type in Morbin under podcast when you sign up. It will really help
Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. This is Morbid, and we've had...
We've had a good day. I know, it's been like a hectic good day. Yeah, it's a creative day, a very fun day. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a blast. I figured out a technical issue. She did, I watched her do it. I never figure out technical issues and this is big for me. The only reason you're hearing our voices right now is because Ash figured it out. You know when that's ever happened? Not before this. None. None. None.
As your youngest would say, none times. None times. They have none-dama. Yeah, so we're feeling good. Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's anything really exciting.
Really exciting. I feel like there's so many exciting things happening that we can't talk about. I know, but we will. We're not being one of those people who are like, we can't talk about it right now. We just have so many things happening that we just can't tell you. But you will absolutely find out about these things. Oh, you know what was fun? The other night going to Ronnie and Ben's live show. That was so much fun. And by the time you hear this, that will have been approximately 32 months ago. Yeah.
But it was just no. We had a great time. We did. We had a great time. Ronnie and Ben from Watch What Crappens came to Boston for a show. I laughed so hard during that show that my jaw hurt. Oh, my God. If you love reality television, specifically Bravo, and you're not listening to Watch What Crappens. You gotta.
Ronnie and Ben, for anybody out there that doesn't know, they recap these shows, but they do it in such a magical way. They do the voices of every... Yeah, they impersonate all the housewives. Yeah, they impersonate everything. Like Summer House, Housewives. They even do on their Patreon, they do White Lotus recaps, which are so much fun. It's very worth it. They're very...
they're hilarious. They put out insane amounts of content. Truly. And they're just like the loveliest human beings. We love them. Yeah, they're great. So that was a lot of fun. We got to meet a lot of weirdos there. I know. That was so fun. So that was a lot of fun. If we ran into you, it was lovely and we were very happy to run into you. Yeah. We met a lot of Massachusetts girlies. Yeah. We met a lot of Boston girlies around the town. Newtown sisters, if you will. It was fun. It was. We loved it.
Yeah. And it made us really want to like, we were like, ooh, looks like fun at the Wilba. We might have texted our touring manager. We might have. Not for a tour. Not for a tour. Not for a tour. Let's be clear. Yeah. We have a touring manager even though we don't tour. Okay.
He's often sad. He is often sad. In fact, he didn't believe us that we wanted. We were like, what if we did like one show on like this date? And he was like, I don't believe you. Yeah, he was like, yeah, sure. He's like, I'll look into dates, but I don't believe you. So, you know what? Maybe that's in the future. Maybe. The future is bright, everybody. Oh, I was trying. I used to wear shades. It's so bright. I was about to go, future. And then I didn't know why. And it's the Sabrina intro. Yes.
It's like season three or something. Sabrina the Teenage Witch's intro gets wild. Future. Is it saying future? Is it? Probably not. I don't think so. Everybody knows I sing the wrong lyrics. Is it not, though? No, because now you got me in my head. Hold on, I'm going to Google it. No, it's saying... That one I think is future. No, it's saying... It's not? It's not?
It's not future. It doesn't even sound like that at all. Do you know how many times this happened to me in my lifetime? It happens so much. Guys, it doesn't say future. No, it's a secret. I knew it. I was like, future, I know it's not. But then all I had was future in my head, so I couldn't. No, what it is is that I'm so compelling. You are. You're very compelling. You compelled future into my head. Wow. Yeah.
Now I feel like I'm singing that for like another purpose. Like future. Maybe you are. I don't know. You just connected it to the wrong nostalgia bomb. I don't know. Let me know in the comments. But either way, the main part of that was the future is bright. Yeah, I was wondering how we even got there. Lots of fun plans for the future. The near future. So let's get into it. I'm ready for part two. Let's get into part two of Robert Durst because...
This guy sucks. Yeah. That's accurate. Yeah, he sucks a lot. I want to rewatch The Jinx, though. You should. It has an amazing theme song. I know. We talked about that last time. Fresh Blood by The Eels. I think that theme song was actually in Yellow Jackets, the last episode I watched. And I said, oh, I love this song. Yeah, that song goes fucking hard. It goes hard. And the actual documentary is...
Sorry, I'm already getting us off course, but like that's my role in life. I am rewatching The Staircase right now. Oh, yeah. I remember that one. Which I actually never finished. I like started it a long, long, long time ago. That's a crazy one. It's interesting. Yeah. It's on Netflix right now. I don't think I've watched the whole thing. It's long. I think it's like 13 episodes or something. And it's a very differently done documentary. Like you're seeing step by step. Yeah, you're seeing a lot. So I watched like the first four or five episodes last weekend. Wow.
I want to finish that one. Like I'm into it. And I don't know what happens in that case. So maybe afterwards I'll cover it. Yeah, it's definitely a good one to cover. Yeah. I would say. Yeah. For sure.
Anyway. When we last left you guys with part one, Robert Durst's wife, Kathy, has disappeared. Yeah, and he's not being normal about it. He doesn't seem like he... Like, after a few months, he kind of, like, retreated out of the spotlight. He wouldn't give another interview. And he also stopped returning the detectives' calls, which...
Definitely made the detective suspicious for sure. Yeah, usually when you want to find your wife, you return all the police's phone calls. Yeah, and we have like certain witnesses were now coming back and saying, actually, I don't know if I saw her when I said I thought I saw her because I saw her from the back. I just saw a lady with brown hair from behind. Things are crumbling a little bit.
So while Robert Durst seemed pretty uninterested in trying to find his wife, which in and of itself is very concerning, Kathy's friends, Gilbert Najimy and Eleanor Schwenk, had gone into...
way higher gear. He's retreating back. They're going into higher gear trying to find Kathy because this is their friend. So Najimy and Schwenk, more than anyone else, knew the extent of the abuse that was happening in this relationship at Robert's hands. And they felt they knew the fear that Kathy had felt a lot. Yeah. And neither of them had trusted Robert Durst's timeline of events or explanation of what happened. They just both were like, no, it doesn't
Doesn't add up. Which when your friends are already thinking that your husband is the reason you're missing, there was a problem. Yeah. Like there was a problem and that we should take these people seriously. So the problem was though, they couldn't find any actual like solid evidence to prove he was lying or that he had anything to do with the disappearance. It was just kind of like...
We know what was happening and we think this is suspicious. In that way, they were like detective struck. All of them were hitting dead ends. At the same time, Robert had dropped off the map completely at this point. He stopped going to work.
stopped returning phone calls, and stopped talking to friends. What the fuck? Where'd he go? Apparently, his friend Doug Oliver said he retreated into himself, and any messages he had for the outside world were conveyed only through his closest friend, Susan Berman. Hmm.
Durst finally returned to work the following year and continued making... The following year? Yeah, the next year. And continued... This is when he continued making like major real estate deals. So he just like jumped right back in all around the city. And they were both on behalf of the Durst organization and himself as an individual. Oh, wow. Okay. So detectives struck in the NYPD. They continued following any new leads on Kathy's case. But...
Again, they were getting few and far between. And soon the case just went cold. Yeah. Now, in the years that followed Kathy's disappearance, because it's so sad, she just disappeared. Robert Durst settled into, you know, being a single guy, a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer. Really tough role to fall back into, I suppose. So hard, I bet. But behind the scenes, things were anything but good.
Robert's lack of enthusiasm for the business, because remember, he never really wanted to enter that business. Yeah, he wanted like a health food store. He wanted to like open a shop. Yeah, it's his workshop. So like he never really wanted to do this, but it's just like that was the family business and it paid a lot of money. Yeah. So he just went with it.
So his lack of enthusiasm for the business and his reckless and very scandalous personal life led his father to skip over Robert and leave the company to his younger brother, Douglas. Oh, that's a bad hit. Douglas had shown like a lot of enthusiasm for the business, a lot of passion for this world. So he was the obvious choice. Yeah. It's very succession. Very fair.
It is. It is. Douglas and Robert had always had a very difficult relationship, and Douglas's promotion to the head of the Durst organization only made things worse. That's... Which I can imagine. That would be a tense family dinner. Yeah, I feel like it's very like Connor and Kendall Roy. Yeah. You know, in Succession. Go watch Succession. If you haven't watched that yet, you're missing out on fucking great television.
Six Sessions, one of the best shows I've ever seen in my life. I can say that with full confidence. It is in my top three shows of all time. And I love Roman more than life. Yeah, the characters are... And Shiv. So good. Yeah. But you hate them all too at the same time. Yeah, you hate them, but they're wonderful. Just to be clear. Yeah, they're the worst. But by the end of the 1980s,
Robert stopped going to work at the Durst organization and cut off communication with his family. Again. Again. Okay. Not long after, he stopped communicating again with his friends altogether. Okay. One friend said he separated from everyone in New York. It was a loss of face in his mind. So him losing that was like a big reputation blow. Yeah. An ego blow.
But everybody knew that you didn't give a shit about it anyway. Yeah, that's the thing. Work a little harder. Hard work, my friends. But so this is the thing. It's like he, Kathy disappears, he retreats. He retreats even further. Then he just suddenly reappears again, tries to go hard at everything, gets this blow to his eagle, retreats back again. Like he can't handle any disruption in the path. Yeah.
So Durst spent most of the 1990s drifting back and forth between Connecticut, Texas, and Manhattan. Random. In 1995, he showed up at his father's hospital at his bedside when Seymour Durst was dying, but only after his brother and sister agreed to leave the hospital so he wouldn't have to see or talk to either of them. When your dad is dying, you gotta put your petty differences aside. Well, it's like, I just, like... I would be fucking pissed. If the differences are that, like, which, like...
Obviously, no one knows what goes on in any one family. Yeah, the interpersonal relationships. It's difficult to tell what was happening.
If the issue, the beef is just that you got skipped over for the. That's what I mean. The business, then like you got to put it aside. You know what I mean? Like that's just what are you doing? Right. You know, like that's petty. That's trivial at a time when someone's dying. It is. It's just one of those things. Obviously, there are other scenarios where. Well, you just you just never know. Like it's hard to tell. But he also refused to go to the funeral.
Wow. Which is like, whoa. That's really shitty. I mean, it's gnarly. I mean, there are funerals I might skip. Yeah. So I mean, like, I can't, again, I didn't live his life in his house. Thank goodness. So through all of his, you know, tumult, essentially, like he just couldn't get it together. The only constant in Darth's life has been who?
Susan. Susan Berman. Susan. However, Berman's life in the 80s and 90s hadn't been the easiest. Oh, okay. She had written a few novels and even optioned some of them for films, but they all kind of fell through. Oh. And the novels she did publish didn't sell nearly as well as she had expected them to. Oh. Despite the financial disappointments, Berman had purchased a large house in Brentwood, one of California's wealthiest neighborhoods. Yeah. At the time, she'd grown really, really paranoid of the world around her.
Like she was just retreating. Okay. She nailed the windows of her house shut and bolted all the doors whenever she was at home. Oh, fuck. Which is like really sad. Yeah, that's like straight up agoraphobia. By the late 1990s, Berman had moved to a much smaller house in Benedict Canyon, just north of Beverly Hills.
Again, she hadn't seen much financial success, but she managed to make enough money to get by selling a few novels, producing a series for cable TV. She was doing some things. By that time, her marriage had fallen apart and she divorced her husband. So she was living alone. She was driving a 1984 car that would occasionally catch fire. Oh. You know, and constantly borrowing money from friends. So she was struggling.
I'm just a little stuck on her car occasionally catching fire. Yeah, you know? You gotta end with that. You can't really stuff that in the middle. Yeah, I really liked putting that in the middle, to be honest. I'm sorry for Susan for everything she was experiencing, but specifically her car occasionally catching fire. Yeah. Like, just from time to time. Every once in a while, you know? What? Yeah. Yeah.
She's going through it. Yeah, she is going through it. She's got a lot going on. The divorce, the move, the not selling the novels like she was hoping to. She's borrowing money from friends. The car is catching on fire. Like there's a lot. That's a lot on your mental health. The one thing Susan did have and knew she always would have was Robert Durst. Which I don't know if that's a prize. Yeah, I would say no. In the late 90s, Durst had been difficult to get a hold of and the two hadn't spoken in months. Okay. So that must have been tough.
Finally, in August 2000, Susan sent a letter to Robert, care of the Durst organization, asking him to get in touch. She had needed to borrow $7,000 to buy a new car. Because it caught on fire way too many times. Her 1984 one is catching on fire. But more than that, she missed her best friend and needed some support. Yeah. She was just like, I miss you. I just like need somebody who I think cares about me. Yeah, or at least did at some point. Months passed and no word came.
Oh, that must have really hurt. Yeah. Then in November, a check for $25,000 arrived in the mail. That's a little more than she asked for. With a note that read, it's not a loan, it's a gift, and you can always count on me. Oh.
I want a friend like that. Which like, damn. Not in this scenario, but damn. Yeah. $25,000. It's not a loan. It's a gift. Yeah. It was literally a miracle for her. Yeah, of course it was. It allowed her to pay off some debt, buy a car. Wow. It allowed her to climb out of a little bit of the hole she was in. Yeah. But less than two weeks later, Susan Berman was dead. Oh. Yeah. Shit.
Don't let allergy season slow you down. Get common allergy meds for as little as $15 with GoodRx so you and your family, even pets too, can stop allergy symptoms before they start. GoodRx is free and it's easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or the app, compare prices, and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist.
Save at over 70,000 local pharmacies nationwide, including all the big ones. Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publix, Kroger, and many more. Check GoodRx before every trip to the pharmacy to save up to 80% on both brand and generic medications. And did you know that GoodRx actually rewards you for saving money too? Join GoodRx Rewards today and earn points every day.
every time you use a coupon. Remember, GoToRx is not insurance, but it does work whether you have insurance or not, and it could beat your insurance copay price. I actually just ran into that. I was at the pharmacy, and they gave me a crazy number for one of the meds that I needed to get. I said,
Give me just one second, please. I pulled up GoodRx, and honey, I found me a good coupon. Stop allergies before they start and save big on allergy medications this season with GoodRx. Go to GoodRx.com slash morbid. That's GoodRx.com slash morbid.
We all have bad, bad habits, but there's always a turning point with those bad habits. You can find something else to make up for the crappy thing you're doing. Meet Fume, the flavored air device designed to help you ditch the bad habits and feel good about what you're reaching for. Let me tell you about this new alternative to smoking and vaping called flavored air. Our sponsor, Fume.
have created an award-winning flavored air device that helps people ditch the bad habit of smoking. Fume has lots of delicious flavors to choose from. There's crisp mint. There's also orange vanilla and new peach blush. I need to try orange vanilla because I bet that tastes like a creamsicle, and that's my favorite flavor. With flavored air, you can satisfy your oral fixation through a passive diffusion system that utilizes no electronics, vapor, or combustion. And there's no nicotine, so it's not addictive.
It's also non-toxic flavors. It is a guilt-free alternative. And no batteries, so you never need to charge it. That's a win-win-win. Fume has already helped over 400,000 people take steps toward better habits, and now it's your turn. Use our code MORBID to get a free gift with your Journey Pack. Head to tryfume.com. That's tryfume.com. And use code MORBID to claim this limited-time offer today.
On December 24th, Berman's next-door neighbors noticed that the back door to her house had been slightly open for some time and one of her dogs had gotten loose. Given how paranoid Susan had been about safety, the situation seemed very unusual to this couple.
So they called the police. Yeah. When officers arrived at Susan Berman's home, they found Susan inside on the floor lying in a pool of dried blood, a single bullet hole to the back of her head. Oh, geez. To investigators, the murder appeared to be a professional execution. Yeah. Like one might expect to see out of like a mafia hit. Yeah. Essentially. And given Susan's family background, because remember, remember where Susan comes from from part one. Yes. Yes.
A mob hit wouldn't have been completely out of the question. And she just came into this, like, money as well. A little bit of money here. Oh, wow. Also, there didn't appear to be any sign of struggle in the house, and Berman's purse was lying in plain view with nothing missing. Oh.
So it wasn't like it was a robbery. Right. It's so funny. I have seen this documentary, but I forgot a lot of this. It's been a while since that came out. Yeah, I mean, I think I saw that like 10 years ago. The idea that Susan Berman had been killed by a member of an organized crime family may not have been entirely unrealistic, but it also wasn't very likely. Yeah, because like... Like mob hits are happening like...
Well, and a lot of times, like, women aren't involved. Yeah. So after all, you know, by 2000, the U.S. government had almost completely eradicated the original crime families.
And it seemed kind of impossible that her murder could have anything to do with her father's criminal activity. Yeah. Because he had died decades earlier. Right. So it's not like he was like out and about doing some shady shit. Yeah. But as investigators soon learned, Susan's father wasn't the only connection she had to criminal activity. Okay. In fact, nearly 20 years earlier, the wife of Susan's best friend, Robert Durst...
had gone missing and he had been the prime suspect in her disappearance. This is true. Connection. There it is. So based on the crime scene, investigators theorized that Berman had known her attacker. There was no sign of struggle, no sign of forced entry. Not a robbery. And remember, she's like Fort Knox. Yeah. She's locked in there. She would have let somebody in there that she trusted. She had to let somebody in if somebody came in.
And she'd obviously turned her back on them long enough for the killer to aim and fire the gun. Something she wasn't going to do for most people. Right. There was also the unusual letter Beverly Hills Police received a few days after Berman's body was found. It was dated December 23rd, the day before she was discovered. And the letter was addressed to the Beverly Hills Police. It was also spelled wrong. It had an extra E in Beverly. Like L-E-Y. Yep.
And contained an anonymous note with Berman's address and the word cadaver. Oh. Yeah. That's chilling. Yeah. And just like. I hate that. Ugh. Not long after the note was received, someone pointed out that the misspelling of the word Beverly on the envelope was a typo that Durst was known to commonly make. Oh, shit. He commonly spelled Beverly wrong this way.
However, when he was confronted with the letter, he of course vehemently denied having written or sent it. But that is a strange coincidence that he just happens to misspell this word. Yeah, that's real specific. Yeah. It's worth noting that this was Durst's position on the matter for nearly 20 years. Damn. Until 2019 when his legal team acknowledged that Durst had in fact sent the letter. But that quote didn't change the fact that Bob Durst did not kill Susan Berman.
Oh, so he just sent the letter and knew that there was a dead body in her home? That's his cadaver? Like, come on. What? He just sent that? Sometimes with shit like that, I'm like, like, I know you gotta, you gotta do what you gotta do, but like, are you guys fucking for real right now? Are you really arguing that? Like...
I mean, like, you gotta do it, I guess. I don't know how judges just don't say, are you fucking for real right now? Yeah, like, I would be so for real right now. Like, be so fucking for real. Let's be straight up here. Like, come on. So when friends learned of Berman's death, some thought of her father and his connection to the mob.
Because for much of her young life, Susan had known very little about her father's business. And it was only when she was an adult and he was long dead that she kind of started learning about his brutal, murderous past. Oh, so maybe people are thinking like she's diving into this. She's going too close. Yeah. Others, though, thought of Robert Durst.
Yeah, I can see why. Berman's friend Christian Clark said, it has bothered me and haunted me virtually every day for 20 years. Oh, I can't imagine that. Yeah. When Clark learned of Morris Black's death and Durst's arrest, she immediately thought of Susan and was more convinced than ever that he was involved. Absolutely. It turned out that Christian Clark wasn't the only one who suspected Durst could have been responsible for Susan Berman's murder.
Detectives in California also found his connection to the victim to be very suspicious. It turned out that just weeks before she was discovered, investigators in New York had been trying to get in touch with Susan Berman to discuss the recently reopened case in the disappearance of Kathy Durst. Oh, shit. Isn't that strange? Yup. That they were going to be contacting her and now she's murdered. Oh, man. And like...
That's your best friend. That's your best friend. Like, obviously, you don't have feelings, clearly. But like, damn. Yeah. Gilbert Najimy told a reporter, I find it hard to believe there's not a connection between the Durst and Berman cases. Yet as far as the LAPD was concerned. The LAPD? They were unwilling to publicly declare Robert Durst a suspect. Strange stance. At least until they had more information and evidence connecting him to the crime.
In the meantime, Robert was free to move about the country, which is when he chose to relocate to Galveston, Texas, where he met Morris Black. Uh-huh. While he was in custody for the murder of Morris Black. So in the future of it. Yeah. So we had a little future trip. Now he's off to Texas. That's when the Morris Black bit happened. That's also when he was impersonating someone else. Yes. Which tells you like a little bit about the headspace he's in.
While he was in custody for the murder of Morris Black, Robert Durst said nothing to police and was freed on $250,000 bond pending arraignment, which was scheduled for the following week on October 16th. It's like, obviously that's a high number, but also he's a rich person.
person. Exactly. He can do that in a second. That's not great. Unfortunately for investigators, October 16th arrived and Robert Durst was nowhere to be found. Yeah, are you guys shocked? Yeah. When he failed to show up for his hearing, he was labeled a fugitive and law enforcement agents were dispatched from Texas to hunt him down. Yeah. At the same time, the judge revoked Durst's bail and tripled it to $750,000. I feel like
if you're being held in question of a murder like that, like that should be a mill. That was a brutal murder. It should be a mill. Morris Black was dismembered. Yeah. It should be a mill. Or it should just be baseline. None. Yeah. No, but no option. Yeah. Like obviously I don't know how all of that, like the intricacies of that, but still.
Doesn't feel right. No. Now, when asked about Durst fleeing Texas, authorities speculated that Robert Durst knew his chances with a jury were not going to be very good. Yeah, probably not. Lieutenant Mike Putnell said, as much as there is about this case, we still do not know. The one thing we're really confident in is the strength of the evidence. Yeah. While Durst's flight from Galveston wasn't necessarily evidence of his guilt...
The evidence against him definitely didn't look good. Uh-uh. And when they continued looking into his background, things only got stranger. It turned out that the woman who paid Durst's bond a few weeks earlier, Deborah Lee Sheraton, wasn't just an acquaintance, but his wife.
who he'd married a few weeks before moving to Galveston. The fuck? For 45 days, investigators fielded calls with tips about potential Durst sightings. So he's married now, by the way. His wife has now paid his bond. But she didn't live in the apartment where he lived? It's so messy. There were rumors about his having fled to Mexico or other parts of Texas and reports of sightings up and down the East Coast from New Orleans to New York.
Lead detective Cody Cazales told reporters with his money, he could be anywhere. If investigators were expecting to find Robert Durst in some far off country or tropical island somewhere, they were surely shocked when Durst was finally arrested on November 30th after being caught stealing a sandwich from a Wegmans grocery store in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. That is one detail of this story that I will never forget.
motherfucker as I live has endless amounts of cash and steals a Sammy he stole a goddamn sandwich you stole it from a Weggies what's wrong with you don't be stealing from what don't you steal from away it's a great family I think we love Wegmans I so heavy with Wegmans Wegmans for life and the fact that you are a fugitive on the run with endless cash and you choose to commit the stupidest crime dumb
Or just make your own goddamn sandwich. You don't even have to buy one. A man like that doesn't make his own sandwich. Goddamn. More bizarre than the shoplifting itself... Oh, the Sammy. ...was the fact that when he was taken into custody, Durst had several hundred dollars in cash on him and could have paid for that sandwich. Or anything else he wanted in that store. He probably could have paid for the store. Also, what's the... I understand that, like, uh...
people who steal get some kind of thrill. What the fuck kind of thrill do you get from stealing a sandwich? It's going to be gone in a minute. That thrill is not worth, you're a fugitive, babe. I mean, I'm glad that you made that choice. That's not good. But still, like, a sandwich that you're just going to eat? Yeah, it's like, what do you get out of that? What's the thrill there? Now, when asked about Durst's demeanor following his arrest, store manager Kevin Strickles described Durst as nervous from the standpoint that he got caught stealing.
When he was asked why he'd risk shoplifting at a time like that, because, like, everybody wanted to know what I want to know. Yeah. Durst replied, I don't know why I did it. I guess I'm just an asshole. Self-aware.
Self-aware, period. The most valid statement. To say, I guess I'm just an asshole. He is just an asshole. I mean, he's fully upfront about it. Just like, yeah, I guess I just suck. I guess I'm just, but it's also kind of annoying because it's like self-flagellating. Oh, it's totally swarmy and like shitty. No, not flagellating. What is it? I always say self-flagellating. You love to say farting.
It's flagellating. It's so self-flagellating. Well, it's very like, I guess I'm just an asshole and you all have to deal with it. Whatever. Like the world has to accept that I'm an asshole. Yeah, I shouldn't work on that or anything. Yeah. I shouldn't stop farting all over myself. Stop farting all over yourself. Robert. Robert.
A few months later, investigators released the details of the manhunt for Robert Durst, which included tracking the millionaire across several states. According to those closest to the case, during his six weeks on the run, he, quote, used at least six aliases, many of them names drawn from his past.
Like those of former classmates or a handyman he employed. So weird. Very strange. I couldn't keep track of all that. That's what I don't understand about like pathological liars. Oh, I could absolutely not. I can't lie like that. No, I just get too confused. I'd be overwhelmed. Yeah.
He also posed as a woman at least twice, and he would dress as a woman and wore a wig to really, like, sell it. I mean, he was doing that for, like, years in that apartment. Yep. During the manhunt, Mike Putnam told reporters, we really don't have any idea where he was. He wasn't accessing the bank accounts or using the credit cards we know of. He took elaborate measures to avoid capture. But then he makes mistakes, like stealing a hoagie. Not a hoagie. Not a hoagie.
We don't have those here. We call them subs. Oh, is that what that is? Yeah. I never really knew what a hoagie was. Yeah, a hoagie is not over here. Oh, what? It's a sub. That's a sub. Durst's wife. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because everyone remember, he's married. She attempted to withdraw a cool $1.8 million from the bank before investigators froze the account.
I mean, she probably knew that shit was coming. Just a quick yoink. You need some spending money. They're going to freeze your assets. A quick, casual $1.8 million. Take two. Yeah. It's not great. So the investigators froze the account. Durst had also rented a car using Morris Black's identification. Oh. But otherwise, his trip was a series of motels and truck stops as he made his way from Texas to the Northeast. But I'd call that a smoking gun. I would say so.
In September 2003, Robert Durst finally went on trial for the murder of Morris Black after several failed attempts by his lawyer to get the trial delayed even further. So they could come up with a fucking reason. Try to come up with something. Several times, Durst's defense attorney, Chip Lewis...
argued that investigators had violated his clients' rights when they went through the trash cans outside the apartment building in Galveston, where much of the evidence linking Durst to the murder was found. Isn't that like once your trash is outside, it's done. Well, what are you talking about? Lewis argued the police officer tried to gain what he could not do by legal means. He used the landlord as a pawn.
The judge disagreed, noting that the trash cans were the property of the city, not Durst. Yeah, exactly. And the full scope of the evidence was admitted. Right. I always thought trash was fair game. Yeah, those trash cans belong to the city, man. Yeah, you're just renting them. Described by the press as a, quote, eccentric, and this is by the press, this is not me. He was described as a eccentric, cross-dressing New York real estate heir. Woof. Yeah. Woof.
That's the press. Wolf press. Yeah, wolf press indeed.
Also, stop. Describe him as a murderer. Yeah, he's a murderer. Exactly. Robert Durst's trial drew considerable attention from news outlets around the country. In his opening statement, the prosecutor, Kurt Sistrunk, told the jury the case was a straightforward murder. He said, this was no killing in self-defense. There was no justified action in killing Morris Black. It was nothing but a cold-blooded murder, all done without hesitation.
The prosecutor theorized that Durst, who was clearly hiding out in Texas, had killed Black in order to assume his identity. Oh, shit. Which makes a lot of sense. Yeah. He's been on the run, basically, from everybody. The defense, on the other hand, argued that Black's death was the result of an accidental shooting that occurred when, in self-defense, Robert Durst grappled with Black over the gun.
Defense attorney Dick DeGaran said how he died will not be an issue. Morris Black died as a result of a life and death struggle over a gun that Morris Black had threatened Bob Durst with. So how do you explain the dismemberment? That's what I'm wondering.
Are you ready to rock big savings? Rakuten's Big Give Week is a festival of savings with 15% cash back at hundreds of stores. We're talking 15% cash back at Expedia, Ray-Ban, Stanley, and more. Shoppers in the know get the best savings when they use Rakuten. They shop the brands they love and earn cash back on top of deals. Big Give Week is only once a year,
And the cashback rates are through the roof. I'll be shopping for some new beauty products and home essentials while getting 15% cashback on it all. I get my cashback sent directly to my PayPal, and it feels so good whenever I see it hit my account. Join for free today and get a $20 welcome bonus. Hurry! Big Give Week ends May 12th, and there won't be an encore. Go to Rakuten.com or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, Rakuten.com. ♪
Lamont Jones' world is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. From Wondery comes Death County, PA, a chilling true story of corruption and cover-ups that begins as one man's search for answers, but soon reveals a disturbing pattern.
Lamont's cousin's death is just one of many, and powerful forces are working to keep the truth buried. With never-before-heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County PA pulls back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets. This isn't just another true crime story. It's happening right now.
Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. The defense acknowledged that there were sensational and, like you just stated, grotesque aspects to the case, but reminded the jury that while Durst may have been involved, the prosecution had no evidence to support the claim that he had intentionally murdered Moll.
Morris Black. Okay, but he definitely very intentionally dismembered his body with a paring knife. And they're not arguing that. They're saying it was self-defense and he had to, you know, as, yeah. We cross certain lines and we get to different places. As for Durst's behavior after Black's death, like you are discussing, de Guerin said Durst was susceptible to panic and has a personality that, quote, runs from trouble.
I would say that's like a little bit different than running from trouble. They're not arguing that he did that. They're just like, well, he got upset. Yeah. You know, he kind of freaked out, panicked. He panics.
He has a panic thing. Bitch, I panic all the time. I'm like, bitch, we're all panicking. We can't be saying that that's okay when you panic. This entire country is in a state of panic. You can't be telling me that that's okay after you panic. That's not the response. All of this, they argued, was the result of Durst's fears that Black was a violent man and had targeted Durst in the weeks before his death. Okay.
Going into the trial, investigators in the prosecutor's office felt pretty confident that they had everything they needed to secure an easy conviction for murder. Yeah. After all, Durst didn't just shoot Morris Black to death. He also skillfully dismembered and disposed of his body. Uh-huh. Then, when he was arrested for the crime, he skipped bail and fled the state. While using Morris Black's identification. Still, they couldn't get around the fact that the defense was right. The only thing they didn't have was direct evidence to prove that the shooting was intentional. Damn.
When he was cross-examined by the defense, Cody Casales was asked directly whether they had anything to disprove Durst's claim of self-defense. And the detective simply answered, no, sir.
Because they didn't. Yeah. On November 5th, 2003, the jury entered the deliberation phase, which dragged into the following day and then into the next day. On the third day of the deliberation, the jury requested the court reporter read back Durst's statement about the fight over the gun, which is like not great. Like you're just like, oh, why are you asking for that? Finally, after nearly a full week of deliberations, the jury emerged and they returned an acquittal.
stating they didn't feel the prosecution had offered enough evidence to prove the shooting had been intentional and thus left room for our favorite thing, reasonable doubt. I think I would struggle so much on a journey. This would be a...
Hard one. I would struggle immensely. Because you know, but you are also being told you need to look at the evidence. Right. Did they prove, do you have any reasonable doubt that this is not an intentional? Yeah. And it's like, ugh. Ugh. So the verdict came as a shock to the prosecution who, despite lacking irrefutable evidence of an intentional shooting-
I love that answer.
The acquittal may have resolved the question of murder, but Durst was still on the hook for two counts of bail jumping and one count of tampering with evidence, the latter for the dismemberment of Black's body. In December 2004, Durst accepted an offer from the DA's office...
in which he would plead guilty to both in exchange for a five-year sentence. That's bullshit. With two years credit for time served. For dismembering an entire man. Yeah. That's so fucked up. Robert Durst was paroled on July 15th, 2005, with the understanding that he would remain in the area and avoid certain locations, like the apartment building where Morris Black's death had occurred.
However, less than two weeks after being paroled, Durst visited the apartment building, thus violating his parole. Why? Why the fuck did he have to go back there? Yeah, just to be a dick. Because he's an asshole. Yeah, and as a result, he was sent back to jail to finish out his sentence and was released from prison unlawfully.
in a year in March 2006. What the fuck? He was out free. Why would you go back there? And they were like, don't go to the place where you murdered that guy that you have no business going to and that you literally have no reason to go back to. And he was like, got it. And at that point, it's like, is that even your apartment anymore? No. Right. It's not. He has no reason to go back there. That's wild. Literally none.
He's so like... Stupid? Stupid and like... Indeed. What is the... He's self-sabotaging and he's reckless. He's all of these things. He's so... And he's an asshole. And he's an asshole. It's like he has to. He's compulsive. Compulsive, yeah. That's the word. Thank you, Jesus. So for months before, during, and after the trial, the news about Robert Durst and the murder of Morris Black spread around the country. And those reports almost always referenced...
The disappearance of Kathy Durst. Right. And the recent murder of Susan Berman. And given how sensational those stories were, and Durst's life in general was pretty sensational and wild. I'd say so. It was only a matter of time before the Robert Durst story became the subject of a film. Now, in 2008, documentarians and screenwriters Marcus Hinchy and Mark Smerling began working on a screenplay based loosely on Durst's earlier years and Kathy's disappearance.
A few years earlier, Smerling and his filmmaking partner, Andrew Jarecki, had scored a big indie hit with Capturing the Freedmen. It was a documentary about a child sex abuse scandal in Great Neck, New York, and how the trial affected the family of the perpetrator.
Hoping to parlay that success into the world of dramatic feature films, Hinchy and Smerling wrote a dramatization of Kathy's disappearance with Jarecki attached to direct. The script was quickly bought by the Weinstein Company.
Shutters. And in 2010, the company released All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling, who was playing David Marks in the film that was supposed to be Robert Durst. Okay. And then Kirsten Dunst was playing this, that David Marks character's wife, Katie McCarthy. Who's supposed to be Kathy Durst.
I haven't seen that. The title was a reference to the health food store that Robert opened in Vermont in the 70s, and the store traced the couple's relationship from their meeting in the early 70s to her disappearance in 1982. However, the fictional version of the story fills in the ending, where the real account remained unresolved.
including the Manhattan DA's reopening of the case after reading a novel from David Mark's best friend. That's like in that film. The film stopped short of implying that the fictional Durst killed his wife, leaving that for the audience to decide. Hmm. Which is probably the best way to go about it. Yes, smart. All Good Things received mixed reviews from critics. It did pretty poorly at the box office, with most critics noting the film's inspiration offered considerably more drama than the fictional account actually did. Ah.
They were like, the real thing is way more interesting to watch. That's got to be tough, though, with legalities. And you don't want to be sensational while retelling it. Yeah. You know, that's a hard one. Yeah, that's a tough line to toe. But there was one viewer who was particularly impressed with the movie and called Andrew Jarecki to tell him as much. Don't even tell me. According to Jarecki, after seeing the film, Robert Durst called the director to share his appreciation of what he believed was an even-handed account of his life.
Christ almighty. Also, Durst, who had famously avoided the press for decades, offered to participate in the commentary for the DVD release of All Good Things. Throughout the commentary, Durst can be heard verifying the accuracy of some of the film's more violent scenes, including one in which he dismembers the fictional version of Morris Black. He says in the flattest, eeriest tone while watching that, this is more or less accurate.
What the fuck? We, the fact that we have this man on audio so many times basically admitting to everything he did in those horrific ways.
In the process of recording the commentary, Jarecki and Durst spent a lot of hours together, talking, getting to know each other. At the time, Durst was still being investigated by authorities in L.A. for the murder of Susan Berman and by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for the disappearance of Kathy, who had been declared legally dead by a New York court several years earlier. Okay.
Under the circumstances, it would seem odd that Durst would want to attract any attention or scrutiny, but that's exactly what he did. In fact, Durst was downright enthusiastic in his acceptance of Durecki's offer to work on a project together about his life and legal troubles. The jinx. He's in the middle of this shit and he was like, let's go, girls. Attention. Yeah.
The result of their collab was 2015's The Jinx, the life and deaths of Robert Durst. It was a six-episode miniseries on HBO, and it covered, among other things, the disappearance of Kathy Durst, the murder of Susan Berman, the death of Morris Black. Assembled from more than 25 hours of interview footage, The Jinx also tells the story of Durst's troubled relationship with his own family and includes extensive and mostly unflattering interviews with his brother Douglas.
who offers a counter-narrative to that of Durst himself. Jarecki said, certainly the things he's been accused of are tabloid worthy. But what's clear about Bob, if you spend five minutes with him, is that he's a deeply complicated person who cannot be summarized in a simple way. Huh. I guess you could say that. Yeah.
When The Jinx premiered in February 2015, it was an immediate hit. I was one of those viewers. Same. Not only because of the sensational story, but also because of Durst being so fucking bizarre. He's a weird guy. There was never any question as to whether Durst was directly involved in the making of the series. He was. Yeah. Which is why his comments throughout the film are surprising and at times even suspicious. Because it's almost like he forgets that he's directly involved. Yeah.
In fact, throughout the six episodes, Durst seems both aware of how his quirks and personality tics are perceived and yet completely oblivious to the fact that much of what comes out of his mouth could be interpreted as thinly veiled admissions of guilt. Like, you're just like, what's going on? Some of them not even veiled at all. Throughout the series, Robert Durst maintains that he didn't kill his wife or Susan Berman, despite what people think. And Jarecki does little to question or challenge him on it. Mm-hmm.
Then the series concludes with what appears to be nothing short of a fucking bombshell admission. A full-blown confession. I remember watching this on my couch in our apartment. And John and I were like, what the fuck? I watched it right after you because I'm pretty sure you texted me and you were like, you need to watch this.
Like, see, this is before we started the podcast. And that's the kind of shit we used to be like, holy shit. I was like, you got to see this. So in the sixth episode's final moments, Jarecki and Durst finish an interview during which Durst seemed to have trouble controlling his burping. Yeah. He's burping a lot. And Durst excuses himself to go to the bathroom.
alone in the bathroom. Still miked. Seemingly unaware that he is still miked and he's still being recorded. Durst begins talking to himself. He was known to do that since childhood. This was not something new. It's so unsettling though. The sum of what he says you can't understand. It's unintelligible. He can very clearly be heard saying, what the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course. And that's where my of course comes from. Of course. Every time Ash says of course, I just think of of course. It's just the way he says it.
He says, what the hell did I do? Killed them all. Of course. Of course. This is similar to the motherfucking sandwich that he didn't need to go steal. Yeah. In the apartment that he didn't need to go back to. Yep. Why the fuck are you saying this out loud to yourself?
During filming of a fucking documentary. He just can't help himself. He literally is compulsive. He is. Like, he has to do these things. It's insane. It's like he can't fight it. It's the same kind of... He has a pattern of this shit. Yeah, he does. It's a pathology. That he has every reason to not do that thing. Yeah. And that there's no...
Nothing compelling him to do it. Like you do not need to do that. That's just, yes. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Don't say that. To not go to a Wegmans and steal that sandwich. Just pay for it. To not go back to that apartment. You don't live there. To not say out loud, I killed them all, of course. And also, how do you defend that? I'm glad he did. Yeah. I'm glad he did. Of course. But I'm just saying like, whoa. I'm like, also, like, how do you get a lawyer after that?
So this confession shocked all of us. Sure did. In part because just one day before the episode aired, Robert Durst was arrested in connection with Susan Berman's death. The arrest seemed to confirm what viewers heard on the tape, that Robert Durst killed Kathy Durst and Susan Berman. However, the timing raised more than a few questions. More importantly, the interview footage for the series had been recorded over a period of years leading up to the release of the movie.
Or the series. In that case, Andrew Jarecki and the producers of The Jinx would have known about the confession and had said nothing to investigators. Oh. Yeah. There was also the matter of some evidence that Jarecki had been given by Susan Berman's friend, including a letter to Susan from Durst in which the handwriting appears identical to that of a cadaver letter sent to the police right down to the misspelling of Beverly.
So it got a little messy. I didn't realize that was a part of this all. Yeah, like this whole thing didn't just make the team behind the Jinx look bad. It made them look slightly complicit, which is like not good at all. Yeah. Like you can't.
hold that stuff just to get audience reactions. And you would have gotten it either way. That's what it made it look like. So the truth was a little more complicated, to be fair. According to Smerling, Jarecki and the producers were seriously conflicted when they received the evidence. For one thing, their lawyers informed them if they turned the evidence over too soon, its validity could easily be challenged in court and jeopardize any trial.
Okay, so they didn't want to fuck anything up. It was also the matter of their journalistic integrity, which is a thing. Yes, that is. If they went directly to the police, they would not only be disclosing several sources, which is really bad, but they would also be very likely be called to testify in court, which would surely affect their reputations as trusted journalists. That's really tough. In the end, humanity did win out.
uh smerling told a reporter we had a moral obligation and an obligation to the families of the dead to see that justice was done okay in fact it turned out that the producers behind the miniseries had been cooperated with investigators since 2013 two years before the jinx premiered okay so it was like a whole it was a whole thing at first i remember it being a thing where everyone was like oh my god like you held this shit but in the end
They not really. They did what they could do. Yeah. You know, within their parameters. Last year, law and crime brought you the trial that captivated the nation. She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe with her car. Karen Reed is arrested and charged with second degree murder. The six week trial resulted in anything but resolution. We continue to find ourselves at an impasse.
I'm declaring a mistrial in this case. But now the case is back in the spotlight, and one question still lingers. Did Karen Reid kill John O'Keefe? The evidence is overwhelming that Karen Reid is innocent. How does it feel to be a cop killer, Karen? I'm Kristen Thorne, investigative reporter with Law & Crime and host of the podcast, Karen, The Retrials.
This isn't just a retrial. It's a second chance at the truth. I have nothing to hide. My life is in the balance and it shouldn't be. I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this. It's not her. Listen to episodes of Karen, the retrial, exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. ♪♪
There was also the matter of the supposed confession, like the whole matter of the confession itself, which it turned out was also a little more complicated than it appeared. Like many aspects of filmmaking in real life, things weren't exactly as they appeared to be on screen. Their statement about having killed them all was real.
But the audio recording of him captured in the bathroom was actually a lot longer and like a little stranger. The full recording of Durst smuttering is this. Oh, there it is. You're caught.
You're right, of course, but you can't imagine. They want to talk to him. That's good. I find them very frightening, and I do not want to talk to them. I don't know. The washer. Well, I don't know what you expected to get, but... And then it says the rest of, and you can't hear. Don't know what's in the house. Oh, I want this.
Killed them all, of course. I want to do something new. There's nothing new about that. What a disaster. He was right. I was wrong. And the burping. I'm having difficulty with the questions. What the hell did I do? The burping. And the burping. Sorry. I'm a child. He's a strange fellow. What the fuck? And the burping.
So to me, that's a man who knows he's caught, knows what he's done. And he's like, fuck. Knows he's pretty much given himself, like he's like, fuck. To me, that literally translates into fuck. That's fuck. Period. Yeah. So the producers of The Jinx had used some slightly deceptive editing to present an incoherent and...
you know, kind of unintelligible statement as though it were just a very clear-cut confession of murder. I mean, you're making a film. Well, that's it. So it's like, I understand. So when the dust had settled and Jarecki was able to address viewers' and critics' concerns and accusations of complicity,
Things look far less damning than they had previously appeared. It's still pretty damning. I think he's still pretty damning, but luckily it didn't look as damning on the filmmakers. Oh, yeah, and that's what I mean. Yeah, you mean Robert Durst. Yeah, just to be clear. That said, Robert Durst had been arrested for Berman's murder, and as it turned out, that arrest wasn't entirely unconnected to his appearance in The Jinx. Yeah.
So based on the information provided to them by the producers of The Jinx, investigators were able to get an arrest warrant for Darce's arrest. And he was picked up a few days later at a hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he'd registered under the name Everett Ward. Huh.
Around this time, local authorities had received complaints about Durst after he was seen confusedly wandering around the hotel lobby and talking to himself. Oh. Turned out that was only the latest in a series of very strange incidents involving Robert Durst. That checks. A few years earlier, he was tried and acquitted of violating restraining orders taken out by his family members. Oh, shit. Just a few months after the acquittal, he was arrested at a drugstore in Houston after he was witnessed urinating on a candy rack.
That's a dick move. Real dick move. A charge to which he pleaded no contest and an incident his lawyer successfully argued was a medical incident. Nothing's medical about that, babe. I'm just confused how you whip your dick out during a medical emergency. I don't know. And on the candy. Yeah. That's fucked up. At the time of his arrest in New Orleans on the murder charge, federal agents found a large amount of circumstantial evidence suggesting he was planning to flee the country.
Among other things, items found in his possession included a loaded .38 caliber pistol. Jesus Christ. Robert's passport and birth certificate, a fake driver's license, maps of the southern U.S. and Cuba. Oh, fuck. A large amount of cash and flesh-colored latex masks. At the time of the arrest, the cash had been divided up into smaller quantities and placed in envelopes.
which investigators believe were going to be sent to whichever location Durst planned to flee to, a belief that Robert didn't deny. What a life. Yeah. Given the confused state he was in at the time, Robert was transferred to a secure facility where he would be treated for mental health issues before being processed by the courts.
Though following that announcement, Durst's lawyer refuted the claims that his client had mental health issues, stating, quote, he is not suicidal. And it's like, yeah, I don't think that's what we're really worried about here. I think there's a few other things on the list. There's some other stuff going on. Robert Durst had always been a peculiar, quirky man. Yep. But at the time of his arrest in 2015, questions about his mental health had become common whenever his name came up. Yeah. Just a few months earlier, Douglas Durst, his brother, gave an interview to the New York Post.
in which he detailed some of his brother's bizarre behavior over the years. He said, What the fuck? That's so fucked up and scary.
On so many different levels. He had a series, seven of them. Seven Alaskan Malamutes, beautiful Huskies, all named Igor.
I'm really stuck on that piece. I'm really stuck on that. I'm really stuck on that piece. And they all died within six months of him having them, and they were never seen again. You don't know what happened to them. What the fuck did he do to those dogs? That's horrifying. It's so scary. And why were they all named Igor? And Douglas Durst made it clear in that interview and others that he believed Robert killed the dogs as practice for when he eventually killed Kathy. Oh my god. His brother said that.
Oh, my God. While Robert was awaiting trial for the murder of Susan Berman, investigators in New York were ramping up their reopened investigation into Kathy's disappearance, based in part on the statements and evidence collected during the making of the jinx. Yeah. In addition to working cooperatively with the FBI and detectives in L.A., detectives in New York received a warrant for Durst's apartment, where they confiscated a large number of documents and other items. Uh-oh.
Ultimately, it took two years before Durst was deemed healthy and stable enough to participate in a trial. In that time, he had been treated for cancerous tumors in his throat, as well as several other health and mental health-related issues.
investigators use the delay to gather more evidence against him and round up witnesses for the prosecution, many of whom, many of whom, many of whom, at least the wealthier among them, put up serious legal battles to keep themselves out of the courtroom, though none were able to successfully avoid subpoena. When Durst's trial finally began in 2020...
Damn. Yeah. It was only, wow, that's crazy. For some reason, it feels like that was like way longer. I know. The prosecution presented a very simple theory as to the motive for Berman's murder. According to Deputy DA John Lewin, Durst eliminated Berman because she'd agreed to cooperate with investigators reexamining the Kathy Durst case.
Yeah. Pretty simple. I hate that. Eliminated. Yeah. It's so real. But so scary. That is what people do, but it is so scary. The prosecution believed that Berman had known Durst killed Kathy in 1982 and had even helped him cover up the crime.
That's what the prosecution stated. Berman's friend, Nick Chavin, told the jury in a pretrial hearing, Susan said to me specifically that Bob killed Kathy. Oh. According to Chavin, Susan loved Durst and had wanted to protect him, so she agreed to help him cover up the crime, specifically by, among other things, calling the school and pretending to be Kathy.
Oh, that's so fucked up, dude. And that's something Susan had disclosed to friends in the years after Kathy disappeared. So that one lingering thing that we were talking about, like who called? Yeah, who was that? Susan. That's really fucked up. The problem, according to Lewin, was that while Susan Berman may have been an incredibly loyal friend to Durst, she had a reputation as someone who wasn't very good at keeping secrets.
Also revealed in pretrial hearings was Berman's statement to friends that, quote, if anything ever happens to me, Bobby did it. Another person saying that? Yep.
Lewin didn't provide details into what exactly they believe prompted Durst to kill Berman at the time, but it's not incumbent upon the prosecution to provide motive. Instead, they offered the evidence and that's it. Durst was known to be in California at the time of the death. Based on the testimony of Berman's friends, he had a reason to kill Susan and they had the cadaver slash Beverly Hills letter that an independent analyst believed was a match for Durst's handwriting. Right.
Given the extent of the evidence and the fact that the story was so well-known by then because of the miniseries, Durst's lawyers encouraged him to own up to having written the letter to the LAPD a few years before, a few days before Berman's death. Because at this point, he hadn't admitted it yet. Yeah, yeah. This was a big turnaround for the man who so long had denied having anything to do with that note, which he claimed was an indication of something that only the killer could have known.
He himself said that. Still, while Durst's lawyers were willing to admit he was in the area and even in Berman's home around the time of her death...
And he wrote the note. They steadfastly denied that he had anything to do with the murder. They said, sure. He was in the area. He was in her home. And he wrote that note. He wrote a note that said cadaver at this address, but he did not do it. Totally didn't kill her. Nick DeGaran told the court, what the note demonstrates is that the person who mailed it was aware there was a body at the house, not that the individual murdered Susan Berman.
That's a wild-ass argument. That's a wild-ass argument. I hope he stretched before he made that. For real. Durst's trial dragged on for nearly seven months, during which jurors and spectators heard a thorough overview of his personal history and the full extent of his criminal activities. The defense claimed that he...
had nothing to do with the Berman murder and that the prosecution was simply trying to capitalize on the popularity of an HBO miniseries. Defense attorney David Chesnoff said, we believe the absence of evidence is evidence that Bob is not guilty.
I don't think there's an absence of evidence. The prosecutor, John Lewin, acknowledged the lack of conclusive physical evidence, but stressed that while the evidence may have been largely circumstantial, there was a lot of it. And from very reputable sources, including the defendant himself.
Well, like, circumstantial evidence is evidence nonetheless. Yeah. In his opening statement, he said, it's a long and complicated story because Mr. Durst committed a lot of crimes. As you're listening, some of the most damaging aspects of this case are going to come from him. Yeah. Lewin reminded the jury, Durst wasn't just in the area when Berman died. He was in her house, which he admitted.
He somehow also appeared to know there would be a body in Susan Berman's home before she was even dead. She wasn't dead yet. Which they knew because he had confessed to writing and sending the note, which was post-dated before her death.
Medically, they found that out. In the end, the jury sided with the DA and on September 18th, 2021, after more than seven hours of deliberation, Robert Durst was found guilty of the murder of his best friend, Susan Berman, more than two decades earlier.
Additionally, the jury found that the prosecution had successfully proved the claim of special circumstances, specifically that Durst had been, quote, lying in wait for Berman and that killing her effectively amounted to, quote, killing a witness. Yeah. Which is a pretty big deal.
The following month, on October 15th, Durst was back in court for sentencing and victim impact statements. Denny Marcus, one of Berman's cousins, said, "...I was robbed and my beautiful son was robbed of an absolutely extraordinary, brilliant person whose life was tragically and savagely taken."
Before passing sentencing, Judge Mark Windham had his own statement he wanted to make, calling the murder a, quote, witness killing and a horrific crime, as well as a, quote, denial of justice. Also, Judge Windham strongly rejected the defense's request for a new trial, citing the, quote, overwhelming evidence of guilt as one of the reasons. So he's like, I don't need the physical evidence. Like, there's enough. Yeah. Yeah.
Finally, with all the statements out of the way, Judge Windham handed down his sentence, life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bye. So the case against Robert Durst had been built on the theory that he killed Susan Berman in order to prevent her from sharing what she knew about the disappearance of Kathy Durst. Given that it had been a successful strategy, police in New York filed second-degree murder charges against Durst, alleging he murdered his wife in 1982. I wonder why second-degree.
I don't know. It's always confusing. They might be claiming it was during like a fight. Oh, okay. According to the lead detective on the case, Joseph Becerra, the verdict in the Berman case was only one of the factors that prompted this new filing. In addition to Becerra's discussions with the LA district attorney, he also cited, quote, conversations with numerous witnesses and observations of defendants recorded interviews and court testimony and related proceedings. So basically he bucked himself over it.
Unfortunately, Robert Durst would never see a trial for the murder of Kathy Durst. On January 10th, 2022...
He died from cardiac arrest at San Joaquin Hospital in California at the age of 78. Oh, it's so frustrating. His death in 2022 brought an end to the story of one of New York's wealthiest and most bizarre criminals. But after decades of public interest in the saga, Andrew Jarecki felt the public was entitled to their own kind of closure.
In late April 2024, nine years after The Jinx aired on HBO, the cable channel aired the sixth episode's second season of the show, which focused on Durst's life after the original series aired until his death. Oh. In his assessment of the second season, New York Times critic Mike Hale concluded, "'Everyone has seen The Jinx. Everyone knows how it contributed to Durst's downfall. Everyone is in on the joke.'"
And the wholesale intrusion of the show into its own narrative is not in these episodes dramatic or moving. Not a great end. Oof. But that is the story. It's such an interesting case. So fucking bizarre. Such a weird guy. It is such a twisty, turny. It is. He is bizarre. Well, because it goes on for so many decades, too. It took forever. Forever.
Yeah, and so many places and just, I didn't realize that there was a follow-up though. Have you watched any of it? I haven't watched the follow-up. I'd like to now. I was thinking, well, when you first started covering this, I want to re-watch the first season. But I'll definitely check out the second now. Yeah, definitely check out that first season. Yeah, if you haven't seen the first, you've got to see it. Because it did contribute to getting him finally where they needed him to be. It bums me out that
There was never true justice for Kathy's murder. I know. That's the thing that kills me. Because also. That's his wife. Where is Kathy? I know. That's the thing that bothers me the most is like, where is she? And he just died never telling anyone. It's really fucked up. And killed the only other person that might know. Like that sucks. It's really sad. All I can think of those is, I mean, people said Susan Berman was not a good secret keeper. She might have sold someone. Does someone know?
If someone knows, you gotta say it, man. You gotta tell someone. You can't let Kathy Durst just go into... No, she has family, you know? Not finding out where she is. Yeah, that's awful. Or what happened. That's a thing. Everybody deserves to be found. Like actually laid to real rest. Yeah, exactly. What an interesting case, though. It is. And go check out The Jinx. Yeah. And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you... Keep it weird. But not so weird that...
as Robert Durst because he's an asshole. Yeah, don't be that weird. Don't be that weird. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.