Robert Durst, a wealthy and whimsical American septuagenarian made famous by an HBO documentary devoted to him, was convicted on Friday of the murder of his best friend by a court in Los Angeles. The 78-year-old multimillionaire, who pleaded not guilty, was accused of killing his friend Susan Berman with a bullet to the head at the latter’s home in 2000 in Beverly Hills.
The prosecution believes that Susan Berman, 55 at the time of the murder, had helped Robert cover up his role in the murder of his wife Kathleen and that Robert Durst ended up killing Susan Berman to prevent him from responding to the police. -Yorkers who were investigating the disappearance of his wife in 1982. Black sheep of one of the largest families in New York real estate, Robert Durst was arrested in March 2015 on the eve of the broadcast of the last episode of a Six-part biographical documentary, broadcast by HBO. Entitled The Jinx, the series had revived the interest of the general public in this affair and Robert Durst appeared there himself.
Refugee in Texas disguised as a woman
The Jinx looked back on another bloody episode in Robert Durst’s life: the murder of a neighbor, Morris Black, whom he then dismembered and thrown into the sea in an attempt to make the body disappear. The sulphurous millionaire had at the time taken refuge in Texas, where he lived disguised as a woman and claimed to be silent, in a small sordid apartment. He had been acquitted of the crime thanks to an army of prestigious lawyers who had pleaded a mixture of self-defense, an accidental gunshot and acts committed under the influence of alcohol.
In The JinxRobert Durst seemed to be making an involuntary admission, whispering to himself as he was in the bathroom and his wireless microphone was not turned off: “What have I done?” I killed them all, obviously. In an interview with prosecutors after his arrest, Durst defended himself by asserting that he was under the influence of drugs during the filming of the documentary and that these words therefore meant nothing in particular.
A “mountain of evidence”
During the trial, prosecutor John Lewin, however, assured the jury that a “mountain of evidence” weighed on Durst, responsible according to him for three deaths, all linked to each other. “He has never been held responsible for the violence on [son épouse] Kathie. He never had to answer for his death. For the past twenty years, he has gotten away with the murder of Susan, ”just like that of his neighbor Morris Black, he said. “He is a triple murderer who has managed to escape all responsibility so far,” lamented the prosecutor at the bar.
“Bob did not kill Kathie Durst, so there was no secret” to protect in the case of Susan Berman, pleaded for his part a lawyer for the millionaire, David Chesnoff. “They have not proven that he killed Susan Berman beyond a reasonable doubt,” he insisted.
Robert Durst was not present in the court when the verdict was read because he was placed in solitary confinement after having been in contact with a Covid-19 patient. His trial opened after a long procedure in March 2020 in Los Angeles. But the hearing had to be suspended only two days later due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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