ROBERT Durst was convicted in the murder of his best friend Susan Berman months before he died in prison.
The pair had been best friends since the 1960s, when they met while studying at UCLA.
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Their relationship, and accusations against Durst in two other murders, were the center of a 20/20 special report that premiered on Friday.
The report includes new interviews with Nick Chavin, a friend of Berman and Durst, and with Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, lead prosecutor in the trial.
The episode also included the first TV interview with Marc Smerling, the producer and cinematographer behind docuseries The Jinx.
When The Jinx came to HBO in 2015, viewers were shocked when Durst apparently admitted to his murders on a live microphone.
Durst, a New York real estate heir, was recorded saying: “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
The shocking revelation was replayed in open court before Durst, 78, was convicted of the first-degree murder for shooting Berman at point-blank range.
She was shot in the back of the head inside her Los Angeles home in December 2000 as prosecutors said she was about to tell cops how she helped cover up the slaying of his wife Kathy Durst.
BEFORE SUSAN BERMAN’S DEATH
Kathie Durst vanished in 1982 from New York, where she’d lived with her husband Robert.
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He’d grown up in the city as the heir to one of the wealthiest and most powerful real estate dynasties in the country.
Although Kathie’s relatives claim Durst killed and butchered her, Kathie’s body has never been found.
Durst was the last person to see his first wife, a trainee pediatrician, alive.
Earlier in the evening of January 31, 1982, she’d been at a dinner party with friends when she got a call from Durst and suddenly had to leave.
No one ever saw her again. She was 38 years old.
Years later, Durst was found guilty of dismembering another person, Morris Black; however, he wasn’t found guilty of murder, claiming self-defense.
Durst was living in hiding at the time of Black’s death and had even disguised himself as a woman when cops found Black’s body parts floating in the waters of Galveston Bay, Texas.
Durst claimed self-defense and was given five years for destroying evidence for discarding the body parts.
He also faced two counts of bail jumping – but he was given credit for time served and was paroled in 2005.
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WHY SUSAN BERMAN WAS TARGETED
Berman was believed to be targeted because of her knowledge of the events surrounding Kathie Durst’s death.
Berman was the daughter of Davie Berman, a Jewish-American organized crime figure who operated for notorious gangster Meyer Lanksy and the Genovese crime family in Minneapolis and Las Vegas.
In 1981, she wrote East Street, which depicted her life as a mobster’s daughter and was paid $350,000 for movie rights, though no film was ever made.
In 1984, she married Christopher Marguiles and was walked down the aisle by longtime friend Robert Durst.
Berman met Durst while studying at UCLA in the late 1960s and the two kicked it off as friends.
Berman acted as his unofficial spokesperson during the media storm when Kathie went missing.
But some have since claimed that Berman was more than just a friend, acting as the accomplice in the disappearance and apparent killing of Kathie, providing Durst’s public alibi.
Berman’s killing came just days before she was due to meet with investigators, who’d recently reopened the case into Kathie’s disappearance.
Just as with Kathie, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Durst with Berman’s death, although he was in the same state as her around the time of her death and had sent her thousands of dollars shortly before she was killed.
DETAILS OF THE GRISLY SCENE
Durst told a courtroom in August 2021 that he entered Susan Berman’s house in December 2000 with a key she had mailed to him and found her bleeding on the floor.
He said: “I did a double-take. I saw Susan lying on the floor.
“I shouted ‘Susan!’ a couple of times, then I quickly ran to the bedroom where she was. Her eyes were closed.”
Durst said he checked Berman’s pulse and lifted her off the floor before running to another room to call 911 but found the phone line wasn’t working.
He then left and tried to contact authorities from a payphone on Sunset Boulevard, which is about two miles away.
When an operator answered, Durst said he started to have reservations.
He said: “I decided I did not want to give them my name.
“I was aware that my voice is very recognizable even without a name.”
He said he instead opted to write what has come to be known as the cadaver note – a scrap of paper with Berman’s address and the word “cadaver” that was mailed to the Beverly Hills Police Department.
Under questioning, Durst admitted he had lied about authoring the note over the years, including during an interview for the HBO documentary The Jinx.
“It’s a very difficult thing to believe,” Durst said.
“I mean, I have difficulty believing it myself, that I would write the letter if I had not killed Susan Berman.”
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DURST INSISTED ON INNOCENCE
Durst was found guilty in fall of 2021 for Berman’s killing, despite Durst’s repeated claims of innocence.
“Did you kill Susan Berman?” Durst’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, directly asked the frail real estate heir in the courtroom.
“No,” Durst answered.
“Do you know who did?” DeGuerin then asked Durst.
“No, I do not,” Durst replied.
During the trial, Durst claimed he knew Berman was cooperating with a fresh police inquiry into Kathie’s disappearance but she was not blackmailing him.
He testified: “Someone must have had a reason, a motive, whatever, to kill Susan Berman. I had no reason to kill Susan Berman.”
Also in 2021, Durst was indicted in the 1982 murder of his wife Kathie.
Investigators said a warrant was issued for Durst’s arrest in the New York case before his death.
A California court posthumously vacated his conviction for Berman’s murder on what some officials labeled a technicality.
In February 2022, LA Superior Court Judge Kathryn Solorzano announced all proceedings in Durst’s case would be “permanently abated.”
Per California law, the conviction was dropped because the higher court did not get the chance to confirm Durst’s conviction before his death on January 10.
However, John Lewin, Deputy District Attorney, said that Durst “killed three people” and “has been held accountable for his horrific crimes.”
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