Edited by: TJV News
Controversial real estate tycoon Robert Durst is back in the news. According to his attorney, Durst is the author of the anonymous note that alerted police to the location of the body of a close friend he is accused of killing almost 20 years ago, according to a CBS News report.
Next month, Durst, 76, is scheduled to stand trial for the murder of Susan Berman on December 23, 2000 at her Beverly Hills home. Durst has pleaded not guilty to the alleged shooting, as was reported by CBS News.
Prosecutors charge that Durst killed his friend to prevent her from meeting with Westchester County officials who had re-opened an investigation into the suspected murder of Kathie Durst. After Kathie Durst mysteriously disappeared, Berman served as Durst’s unofficial spokeswoman but to her friends she related that Durst had acknowledged murdering his wife and said that she helped cover his tracks.
In addition to confirming that Durst did indeed write the note in question, his attorneys continue to maintain his innocence.
CBS reported that in 2018, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled admissible statements Berman made about allegedly helping Durst build an alibi for the death of his wife, according to prosecutors.
Durst has gone on record on numerous occasions saying that he was not culpable in his wife’s disappearance. CBS reported that she was declared legally dead in 2017. Her body has never been found and no one has been charged in that case.
Durst participated in an HBO documentary about the case several years ago. Later, Durst admitted that his participation in the documentary was “stupid” which seemed to have implicated him. “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Hurst,” is what landed him in jail in 2015. The documentary not only included the death of his wife but also that of a neighbor in Texas, Morris Black. In 2001, a jury found that he acted in self-defense in his killing of Black. One day before the finale of the HBO documentary, Durst was arrested in New Orleans while allegedly trying to escape to Cuba.
Durst has been held without bail since his arrest in 2015. He’s had some health issue including hydrocephalus, or otherwise known as “water on the brain.”
In a court filing in Los Angeles last week, Durst’s attorney Dick DeGuerin acknowledged that the real estate magnate penned an anonymous note leading police to Berman’s home, where his longtime friend’s body was found, as was reported by CBS.
“I can confirm the stipulations in the filing are true,” said DeGuerin, referring to the joint filing by prosecutors and defense lawyers of stipulations agreed to by both sides before trial.
“This does not change the fact that Bob Durst did not kill Susan Berman and he does not know who did.”
In the filing, made on Christmas Eve and first reported by The New York Times, Durst’s attorneys said their client authored a cryptic note with Berman’s address and the word “cadaver” — which led police to her body.
Durst would face life in prison without parole if convicted of murder with special circumstances of witness killing and lying in wait. There is also an accusation that he personally used a handgun to carry out the murder.
