Robert and Kathie Durst Part II

 

2020 trial

Durst's trial concerning the Berman killing 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.

A conditional hearing was convened in February 2017, where Nick Chavin, a close friend of Durst's and at whose wedding Durst served as best man, testified that Durst had personally confessed to him to having murdered Berman. A preliminary hearing was initially scheduled for October 2017, 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.

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

At the same time, Judge Windham ruled that prosecutors could present evidence involving the Black murder. Prosecutors would try to connect Berman's death with McCormack's disappearance, which they argued was the foundation for the motive for the murder. 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 included the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and killing a witness to a crime. Also an allegation was made that he used a handgun to carry out the murder.

In May 2019, a motion filed by Durst's attorneys claimed two handwriting samples (the anonymous "cadaver note" from 2000 informing the Beverly Hills Police Department that a body could be found at Berman's house, and a letter in 1999 from Durst to Berman), along with other evidence from his 2015 arrests, were illegally obtained. Durst's lawyers also claimed there was a Fourth Amendment violation that would exclude the New Orleans evidence and the search of his hotel room was unlawful. On May 8, 2019, Los Angeles County prosecutors filed an affidavit replying to the motion. Prosecutor John Lewin charged that Durst was creating an elaborate conspiracy theory between the producers of the HBO documentary, law enforcement officers, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office to make Durst "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".

On May 17, 2019, 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.

On September 3, 2019, 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. Lewin set another hearing on discovery and other matters for October 28. 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.

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". 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, "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".

On March 2, 2020, Durst appeared in court to begin his trial, which was expected to take several months. However, the proceedings were postponed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, a motion by the defense for a mistrial because of the delay was denied. In July 2020, Windham ruled that a further delay until April 2021 was necessary due to the pandemic, but he would allow the trial to proceed if Durst agreed to a bench trial, without a jury. Durst declined this option and the trial was scheduled to resume on April 12, 2021. It was then postponed until May 17, 2021.

On May 13, 2021, Durst's lawyers filed a motion with the court saying Durst had developed bladder cancer, and moved that the court postpone the trial indefinitely and to release him on bail to receive medical treatment that was currently being provided. The motion was denied by the court and the trial resumed on May 17, with Windham questioning jurors about whether they could still remain neutral in the case after a fourteen-month break. One of the jurors was dismissed for ignoring court instructions to not follow the trial in the news during the pandemic break. While discussing opening statement content, DeGuerin and Lewin engaged in a shouting match and were separated by defense attorney David Chesnoff, and were subsequently admonished by Judge Windham.

On June 10, 2021, Durst was hospitalized after being found "down and not in his wheelchair". Windham sent the jury home with plans to resume on June 14. Lewin expressed suspicion that the defendant was faking a medical crisis to force a mistrial because he was "on record" in his calls from county jail saying he intended to feign dementia or seek a mistrial due to COVID-19. "I have no idea whether this is legitimate or not, but obviously, given his history, it's certainly suspect as to what his actual condition is", Lewin said. Noting that Durst's lawyers had twice sought mistrials during the previous day's testimony, the prosecutor added, "It's very clear the defense and the defendant want this trial to go away". Jail doctors determined Durst was able to appear in court after the emergency hospitalization, which was for a urinary tract infection and sepsis, and Judge Windham reconvened the trial on June 14. Durst was unable to dress himself and was in court in his wheelchair, jail uniform, with catheter bag, and covered in a large blanket.

As testimony continued, Durst's brother Douglas appeared as a prosecution witness on June 28, 2021. Saying he was reluctant to appear at the trial and was doing so under threat of subpoena, Douglas was asked about his relationship with his brother: "He'd like to murder me, I hired security today. I have fear that my brother has threatened to kill me, and I have fear that he may have the means to do so".

On July 29, 2021, Durst's defense team asked again for an emergency halt to the case based on his poor medical condition, saying he was not able to testify on his own behalf, but was again rejected on August 2, with Judge Windham giving numerous examples of Durst's competency. The prosecution closed its case against Durst after 11 weeks of presenting evidence primarily consisting of friends and associates of Susan Berman's saying she told them she was the alibi for Durst when his wife Kathie disappeared, and that he had done something and she needed to do something and was going to. Perhaps most importantly, one of Durst's long-time friends, Nick Chavin, testified that Durst told him, "I had to. It was her or me. I had no choice."

The defense opened up its case with extensive testimony from "false memory" expert Elizabeth Loftus, questioning the decades-ago recollections of prosecution witnesses. Although highly unusual for a murder case, Durst himself was expected to testify on his own behalf on August 5, 2021, but court was adjourned until August 9, 2021, due to a positive COVID-19 test of a relative of Durst's legal team who had been attending the trial. Durst appeared on the stand for 14 days, under questioning from LA County Deputy DA John Lewin, who gave seemingly endless examples of Durst's propensity to lie. Lewin cornered Durst to the point he admitted lying while under oath in the Morris Black trial in Texas, and that he lied five times while on the stand in this trial. Durst and Loftus were the only witnesses the defense called. On September 14, 2021, the jury was charged with reaching a verdict by Judge Mark Windham.

On September 17, 2021, the jury convicted Durst for the first degree murder of Susan Berman, thus facing the possibility of a life sentence. He was also found guilty of multiple special charges. Durst's lawyers said they were disappointed and would pursue "all avenues of appeal".

On September 24, 2021, Durst's lawyers filed a motion with Judge Mark Windham to request a new trial. The reasoning was basically the same as they gave in Durst's trial defense: no physical evidence was presented, witnesses for the prosecution were not to be believed, and the entire prosecution case was nothing but an unproven theory. The court would rule on the motion on the same day scheduled for sentencing, October 14, 2021.

On October 14, 2021, Durst was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for Berman's murder. The request from Durst for a new trial was denied by the court in view of the abundance of evidence of Durst's guilt.

Following the murder conviction, Durst's legal team immediately filed appeals in the California legal system. As such, Durst's appeals may be dismissed by the California Court of Appeal, and the murder conviction set aside, as his death prevented the appeals from being heard.

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, and 16-year-old Karen Mitchell from Eureka, California. Investigators were also considering possible connection between Durst and the disappearance of 18-year-old Kristen Modafferi, who was last seen in San Francisco in 1997.

Lynne Schulze

Schulze, a Middlebury College freshman, visited Durst's health-food store on December 10, 1971, the day she disappeared, and was last seen that afternoon near a bus stop across from the store. DeGuerin characterized the Schulze investigation as "opportunistic" and said he would not permit his client to be questioned by Vermont police. 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. Mitchell may have volunteered in a homeless shelter that Durst frequented; Durst, dressed in women's clothing, had visited the Eureka shoe store owned by Mitchell's aunt. Mitchell was last seen walking to work from her aunt's store and possibly speaking to someone in a stopped car; a witness sketch of Mitchell's presumed abductor resembles Durst.

Although the F.B.I. 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. In the wake of his recent arrest, the F.B.I. encouraged such localities to reexamine cold cases. Texas private investigator Bobbi Bacha has also traced Durst operating under stolen identities in Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Virginia.

Personal life

On December 11, 2000, shortly before the Berman killing, Durst married Debrah Lee Charatan. 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." Durst once told his sister Wendy that it was "a marriage of convenience"; "I wanted Debbie to be able to receive my inheritance, and I intended to kill myself," Durst said in a 2005 deposition. When arrested for the Morris Black killing in 2001, Charatan wired Durst the $250,000 bail the court required. She also visited Durst in jail and spoke with him on the phone on a regular basis, discussing his legal strategy and other personal and business issues. Following the Black trial, Charatan reportedly distanced herself from Durst and his affairs, legal and otherwise. In particular, Charatan specifically told Durst not to get involved with the HBO documentary, to which he disagreed at the time. Charatan's friends said that, after Durst's arrest in March 2015, she had not spoken with him since the documentary had begun airing in February.

In spite of still being married to Durst, Charatan was reported to be living with Stephen I. Holm in 2015. Holm was a real-estate attorney in the New York City area, and public records show Holm handled transactions for both Durst and Charatan. It was reported in Real Estate Weekly that Stephen I. Holm died on October 17, 2019, and Charatan was his wife. After years of being referred to as Holm's wife in public, Charatan was called Holm's wife at his funeral, in his obituary online, and in the obituary in The New York Times. Shortly after, Charatan sent the Times a letter saying she and Holm were not married and asked them to print a retraction. Charatan and Holm were involved with several philanthropic ventures together.

Shortly after Durst was convicted of murdering his friend Susan Berman in September 2021, a lawyer for the family of Kathie McCormack Durst sent Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. a letter claiming the marriage between Durst and Charatan was a sham solely to aid Durst's criminal acts of financial crimes and two murders, and to conceal those acts and frustrate investigation into same. The letter wanted Vance's office to investigate these claims, and also the issue of Durst being a bigamist because of Charatan's publicly claimed marriage to Stephen I. Holm. The letter was the second time the McCormack family asked for the Manhattan District Attorney's office to look into these issues, the first time being March 2020.

Durst traveled and lived under dozens of aliases over the years, using different identities to buy cars, rent apartments, and open credit-card accounts. "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." Durst was "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.

In the early 1980s, Durst owned a series of seven Alaskan Malamutes, all of which were named Igor and all of which died in mysterious circumstances, according to his brother Douglas. In December 2014, prior to the airing of The Jinx, Douglas told The New York Times, "In retrospect, I now believe he was practicing killing and disposing [of] his wife with those dogs." Durst was once recorded saying he wanted to "Igor" Douglas. 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."

From 2015 on Durst had a number of significant medical issues, including major surgeries for esophageal cancer, having a shunt installed in his brain for hydrocephalus, and cervical spinal fusion. When arrested in New Orleans in 2015, he was found to be in possession of a variety of drugs, including the sleep aid melatonin, a muscle relaxant, and medications for high blood pressure, blood flow, and acid reflux. Most recently, during the Susan Berman murder trial in May 2021, Durst's lawyers told the court he had bladder cancer.

On October 16, 2021, Durst tested positive for COVID-19 and was placed on a ventilator. At his sentencing two days prior, his defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said Durst was in "very bad condition", having a hard time breathing and speaking. It was unknown how Durst contracted the virus and whether anyone else at the sentencing had been infected.

Financial status and residences

In mid-2002, Durst signed over a power of attorney to Charatan, and their holdings are thought to have remained closely intermingled. In 2006, Durst gave Charatan around $20 million of his $65 million trust settlement.

In 2011, Durst purchased a $1.75 million townhouse on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. A source close to the Durst family confirmed that he was living there at least some of the time, and they were keeping him under surveillance. Durst also owned three condominiums in a multistory complex in Houston, 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. At the time of Berman's murder in Los Angeles, Durst had just sold a home in Trinidad, California, but maintained an office in Eureka while renting in nearby Big Lagoon.

Media outlets variously reported Durst's financial status as "real-estate baron", "rich scion", "millionaire", "multimillionaire", and "billionaire". As of 2021, the Durst family's real estate holdings are worth more than $8 billion, but Durst's brother Douglas has been in control of the Durst Organization since the early 1990s. From about 1994 to 2006, Durst 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. How much of that went to legal fees and taxes is unknown. 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. At the time of his 2015 arrest, the FBI estimated Durst's net worth at approximately $100 million; The New York Times estimated his net worth at $110 million.

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 whether Jarecki confirmed Durst as his source was unclear—The New York Times reported in March 2015 that Jarecki was given "unrestricted access" to Durst's personal records, including the videotaped material—the settlement paved 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 Durst'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", but as of 2021, no legal action had been taken.

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. If successful, the lawsuit could relieve Robert Durst's estate of most or all of the fortune he inherited. 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. DeGuerin said, "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." 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 of assets while civil lawsuits are pending. 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. The court granted the request and Kathleen was declared dead, in absentia in 2017.

In 2021, Durst was among those listed in the Pandora Papers revelation, exposing the offshore sheltering of financial assets by hundreds of political, business, and celebrity people.

Other legal issues

In 2012 and 2013, Durst's family members sought and received restraining orders against him, saying they were afraid of him. Durst was charged with trespassing in New York City 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 13 orders of protection his family members had taken out on him.

In July 2014, Durst was arrested after turning himself in to police following an incident at a Houston CVS drug store in which he allegedly exposed his genitalia 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. In December 2014, he pleaded "no contest" and was fined $500. His lawyer described the incident as an "unfortunate medical mishap". A recording of the incident was released on videotape in 2015.

Death

Durst died of cardiac arrest at the San Joaquin General Hospital in Stockton, California, on January 10, 2022, at age 78. He had been undergoing testing at the time. At the time of his death, Durst still remained in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In January 2022 the family of Robert Durst's first wife Kathleen McCormack Durst, filed a wrongful death suit against Durst's estate. This was the fourth similar civil suit filed by the McCormack family since 2015, attempting to claim all or part of Robert Durst's assets. In response, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York has ruled his heir Debrah Lee Charatan, Durst's second wife, can not do anything with his $100 million estate. The court documents say Charatan and/or her attorney must appear in court on March 25, 2022 and show cause why the order should not be issued.

In popular culture

Three episodes in the Law & Order television franchise gave different takes on the murders: The Law & Order episode "Hands Free"; the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Maledictus"; and the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Devil's Dissections".

Fred Armisen played Robert Durst in a 2003 sketch on Saturday Night Live and again in 2016 on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Kate McKinnon played Robert Durst in a 2015 SNL sketch.

The American Court TV television series Mugshots released an episode covering Durst, titled Robert Durst—Mogul in Murder Mystery.

A&E and Lifetime announced in August 2016 that they were developing a movie based on the book A Deadly Secret. The television movie, titled The Lost Wife of Robert Durst, originally aired on November 11, 2017.

Investigation Discovery network released a special miniseries titled Robert Durst: An ID Murder Mystery, containing new interviews with friends and family of Durst's alleged victims, along with his defense attorney Dick DeGuerin. Legal experts and crime reporters offer insights on evidence leading to Durst's arrest and originally scheduled for 2019 but delayed until 2021 murder trial. The series originally aired on January 21 and 22, 2019.

The Jury Speaks dedicated an episode to his trial in Galveston, Texas.

The progressive metal band Intronaut wrote the song "Fast Worms" from their 2015 album The Direction of Last Things about Durst and his crimes.

ABC aired a two hour episode of their 20/20 TV news-magazine on March 18, 2022, about Durst and his bizarre life titled "The Devil You Know". It includes interviews and comments from friends, relatives, reporters, journalists, law enforcement, lawyers, prosecutors, all involved with Durst and his legal issues. Available on ABC.com and Hulu.