48 Hours - Murder 90210

Episode Date: January 31, 2016

Will millionaire Robert Durst clear his name in the death of a California friend or end up spending his life in jail? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It happened here in ritzy Beverly Hills on secluded Benedict Canyon Road. Police say the killer... Infamous millionaire Robert Durst waived extradition at a court hearing. He will be taken to Los Angeles to face murder charges for the death of his friend Susan Berman. We are glad we can have Mr. Durst extradited to California, to Los Angeles, and the homicide of Susan Berman. Robert Durst has had an incredible run of getting away with murder. I'm Janine Pirro. I was the district attorney in Westchester County at the time that Susan Berman was killed.

I've been reporting on the bizarre case of Robert Durst now for nearly 10 years. He's the New York multimillionaire suspected in a series of murders. Bobby, did you kill Kathy 20 years ago? I believe that he murdered his first wife, Kathleen. Then, the crime that really put him on the map. Durst was charged with shooting and chopping up a neighbor in Galveston, Texas in 2001. What makes him think he has the right? He threw his body away like garbage.

With the jury, find the defendant, Robert Durst, not guilty. You say to yourself, why? It's about power and money. You pay a million and a half dollars, create theater in a courtroom, and everybody's like, poor Bob, he had to chop up that body. Janine Pirro was chasing him. I mean, it is the theater of the absurd. Next week, Robert Durst begins a legal journey

that will soon land him in a Los Angeles courtroom and on trial for the murder of Susan Berman. How was she killed? Well, she was shot in the back of the head. What kind of gun? It was a 9mm. And just one shot? Just one shot.

What about Susan Berman? Did you have anything to do with her murder? Susan Berman was a magazine writer and she was also a mob daughter. In a weird way, maybe that's why I became a journalist, because there was always a story that I knew someday I would have to get. And it's my own. The initial reaction was, her father was in the mafia, she was shot in the back of the head. This is like a mafia hit. And I thought, the mafia isn't after Susan.

Tonight, exclusive video of Berman and an interview with a former prosecutor who has hunted Durst for years. His attorneys say he wants to go on trial for Susan Berman because he wants to clear his name. Clear his name? This guy wants to clear his name? If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. I mean this is beating the system at the ultimate game, a game of murder. So the question is, is Durst crazy, or is he crazy like a fox? I'm Erin Moriarty. Tonight on 48 Hours, murder 90210.

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Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all.

I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C True Crime shows early and ad-free right now.

Here in New York City, there's rich, and then there's really rich. The Durst family is in that category. They control a billion-dollar real estate empire crowned by the New World Trade Center. Robert Durst is the black sheep's son of the man who built that empire. Robert Durst is the black sheep's son of the man who built that empire. And now he's at the center of one of the most sensational serial killing cases in recent years. Bobby, did you kill Kathy 20 years ago? At 72, Durst has become a bona fide true crime celebrity.

Last year, an HBO documentary about Durst aired called The Jinx. In it, on audio only, Durst appeared to have made a dramatic confession. Killed a horse. But those words were not the beginning of Durst's celebrity. A few years earlier, that same director made a Hollywood movie about him, a thinly disguised crime biography starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst.

You're going to be late. That movie suggests that the Durst-like character murdered his wife. And incredibly, Robert Durst loved the movie. The true story behind that movie begins back in April of 1973. It was then that the much younger Bobby married the love of his life,

Kathy. He was heir to a real estate fortune. She was a dental hygienist. Miss Kathy right here, she's just a stunning, beautiful gal. Jim McCormick is Kathy Durst's brother. She was quick to smile, quick to make you and whoever you were with happy. Kathy was just 19 when she left home in suburban Long Island for the bright lights of New York City. The apartment that she was living in was owned by the Durst organization, and Bob was apparently some collector of rents. Kathy and Robert got along instantly.

Spontaneous attraction, spontaneous love. You know, Cinderella and Prince Charming, and away they went. Within two years, they married. And there was his lifestyle. Bob's world-class fortune could buy nights at famous discos like Studio 54. Star-studded parties and exotic travel. They went to Europe, they went to South America, they went to Bangkok. I mean, in the 1970s, wow.

In the movie, as in real life, Durst had a tortured relationship with his dad. He wasn't happy in the family business, so for a time, he and Kathy left New York. But things didn't work out, and Durst came back with his tail between his legs to work for his dad. In the meantime, Kathy began medical school, a career path that seemed to bother Durst. He was using his economic power to, you know, not just control it, but almost terrorize her. What's worse, Durst did have violent tendencies. He once kicked a man in the face whom he believed was

involved with his wife. And Kathy once went to a New York hospital with bruises. The one time I saw physical violence was when he was impatient to leave my mom's house in New Hyde Park. He came in, asked to leave. She didn't jump up.

He turned around and walked over and grabbed her by the hair and pretty much yanked her out of the, off the couch. He grabbed her by the hair? By the hair and just kind of pulled her. In retrospect, I wish I had reacted and ripped his face off. More and more, Robert Dirtz found himself turning to another woman, someone he trusted deeply. It was an old college friend named Susan Berman. My father, Davey Berman, who worked for Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello in Murder Incorporated. In this exclusive interview, Susan Berman spoke about her life growing up in the mob world. All the celebrities would come, Liberace, Elvis Presley, Rosemary, Jimmy Durante, the Andrews sisters, whoever was in town was always our guest.

But Susan also experienced some of the hard edges of mob life. In the mob parlance, there's a word for having your parents die suddenly and tragically by murder, and that is they died an unfortunate death. And many of my friends do have parents that died unfortunate deaths. Author Lisa DiPaolo has written about Berman and her relationship with Robert Durst. For Susan's entire life, it was Bobby, Bobby, Wonderful Bobby. Susan Berman and Robert Durst met at UCLA when they were both students, and there was an instant connection. They became best friends.

They both had these two larger-than-life fathers and two mentally ill mothers. Bobby Durst's mother killed herself by jumping off the roof of their house in Scarsdale. Susan Berman's mother, as the story goes, killed herself in a mental hospital. So when things got tough in Durst's life, he turned to her. The dynamic between them was always brother and sister

and also really do anything for each other. Susan Berman would become an important figure in this story, but not until after the drama between Bobby and his wife escalated. In late January of 1982, Kathy suddenly disappeared. Her friends say it was after a confrontation with her husband at their suburban New York weekend home. But Durst tells a very different story. He says he dropped her off to catch a train back to New York City and that that was the last time he ever saw her.

How did you find out that Kathy was missing? February 4th, maybe 8 or 9 o'clock at night, the phone rings. Jim, this is Bob. He had that raspy kind of voice. I said, yeah, Bob, what's up? He goes, have you seen Kathy? And I said, no. Did he sound worried? No, he just, it was almost casual and almost rushed to get the phone call over with.

Durst called the New York police to report her missing. And as the media picked up on the story, Bobby turned to his confidant, Susan Berman. She became his spokesperson when the media started calling and asking him questions about his wife's disappearance. And she basically promulgated his story that he had a fight with his wife, put her on a train. She went to into the city. He talked to her that night by telephone and never heard from her again. And basically what that did was put her in the city. Berman also told the media that Kathy had called in sick to medical school. Soon after Kathy went missing, there was a call made to the dean of her medical school. The dean believed it was Kathy calling, saying,

Hi, it's Kathy Durst, I can't come in today. I have a stomach ache. Kathy's family didn't buy it. They suspected foul play. Devious, deceptive, criminally cunning, contemptuous of civility. This is the person who doesn't believe any of the rules apply to him.

In spite of efforts by police, Kathy's family, and friends, investigators never found Kathy's body. And the case went nowhere for almost 20 years. It is a cold, cold, cold case. Bobby has already gotten a divorce, and she has been legally declared dead. a divorce and she has been legally declared dead. When in 2000, the then Westchester County district attorney, acting on a tip and an open file from another cop, opens, reopens the Kathy Durst investigation. Talk to me. That fiery new district attorney was Janine Pirro, and she re-energized the case. I have no reason to believe that she isn't dead and that this wasn't a homicide.

We'll get to the bottom of what happened to Kathleen Durst one way or the other. When D.A. Pirro went public with news she was going to track him down, Durst disappeared. Has Bob Durst been cooperative in this investigation? Absolutely not. We want to talk to Bob Durst. cooperative in this investigation? Absolutely not. We want to talk to Bob Durst. He won't talk to us. There's no one who knows more about what happened to Kathleen, about what her last actions were, than Robert Durst, and he won't talk to us.

Jeanine Pirro is no longer district attorney, but she's still hounding Robert Durst. With Robert Durst, you're dealing with money and power. That doesn't scare me. That doesn't in any way intimidate me. I would try this case full steam, no holes barred. I would convict him. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy

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It's just the best idea yet. We'll get to the bottom of what happened to Kathleen Durst one way or the other. In November 2000, Robert Durst fled a dogged Janine Pirro and the media of New York City to go hide out in Galveston, Texas, in the process taking on a bizarre new identity, a woman, a mute woman. Is it fair to call Bob Durst a cross-dresser, or do you think that was simply as a disguise? Simply a disguise. Galveston Detective Sergeant Cody Casalas says that Durst rented an apartment in this modest complex

under the alias Dorothy Siner. After he set the place up as Dorothy Siner, he never returned as Dorothy Siner. He returned as a friend of hers, Robert Durst. He was so afraid that he picked up and ran off to Galveston dressed like a woman. Now, can you imagine the fear that must have been in his mind? Longtime close friends of Robert Durst, Emily and Stuart Altman, defended his strange behavior in this 2003 interview. He really thought Jeanine Perreault was trying to make her political life on Bob's back. And he actually believed that an indictment was imminent for something that he didn't do.

imminent for something that he didn't do. While Durst was under the radar in Galveston, investigators in New York were re-interviewing witnesses in his wife Kathy's disappearance, a task that led them to Durst's close friend Susan Berman, now living in Los Angeles, California. She was driving an old clunker car. She was behind in some of the bills. Retired L.A. detective Paul Colter says the life of the one-time mafia princess now played more like down and out in Beverly Hills. She was behind in her rent payments. She'd had run-ins with her landlady over the conditions of the residence. She was pretty much living destitute. She was embarrassed by those living conditions. Investigators believe Berman could provide valuable insight into Kathy Durst's murder, but before they could get to her, someone else did.

On December 24, 2000, police discovered the body of Susan Berman, murdered in her home. How was she killed? Well, she was shot in the back of the head. One shot? One shot in the back of the head. To me, you're shooting them in the back of the head so you don't have to face them when you kill them. I mean, that's just it. There was no forced entry to the residence.

There was no ransacking to the residence. And it's just the way that the body is laying there, like somebody just left her there and got out of Dodge. Paul Coulter, who was in charge of Berman's case, has always believed that Susan Berman knew her killer. First, because of the way Berman's body was left. Somebody rolled her over or placed her in that position. Why would you do something like that? Because you care for that person. Because you care for that person. You maybe kneel down with them. You're not just leaving them slumped like that. And then there was this letter postmarked the day before Berman's body was discovered. And it's addressed Beverly Hills Police Department with her address and the word cadaver.

And again, to me, that means it's somebody that knows her, cares for her, doesn't want her laying there and rotting away or decomposing. They want her body found in a timely manner. Some believe that Berman was so broke in 2000, she may have been blackmailing Durst. Why did you want to talk to Bobby Durst after Berman's death? Well, one, he's a close friend of hers, and he had recently sent her money. We were hearing that he was coming to visit. How much money had Durst sent her, and how did you find that out?

Well, through her bank records, there was a deposit of a large sum of money. How much? $25,000. There were two separate payments. Within the months before she died, he had sent her $50,000? $50,000, yes. But previously, there had been checks. But previously there had been checks.

So obviously the big question was, you know, was she shaking him down for more? Lisa DiPaolo doesn't think Susan Berman was that kind of person, but wonders about Durst. I do think it's part of Bobby's character to perceive that she was shaking him down. Did you get a chance to ask Bob Durst why he had sent her that kind of money? We've never been able to interview Bobby Durst. Durst's attorney, Chip Lewis, says his client had nothing to do with Susan Berman's murder, that it was a clear and simple mob hit. The fact of the matter is Susan Berman had cried out soon before her murder that she was about to expose the mob and really writing something, a tell-all book about what she knew.

That's why she was murdered. It was a hit style murder. And in fact, that's exactly what police first believed. But if you realistically look at it, what would be the motive for the mob to kill her? Plus all the old mobsters from her dad's era are probably 100 years old or dead. Robert Durst seems to have been a person of interest in Berman's murder, but not a main suspect. That is, until nine months later, when something shocking happened back in Galveston, Texas, that made police in three cities believe

that Robert Durst could be a serial killer. There's no doubt in my mind he's a serial killer. It was late 2001, nine months after Susan Berman's murder. While detectives in Los Angeles were still looking for her killer, and Jeanine Pirro was still trying to solve Kathleen Durst's disappearance in New York, Robert Durst was about to make headlines again in Galveston. I was the one that arrested him. Durst was accused of killing his neighbor, Morris Black.

Cody Casalas, Galveston major crimes detective at that time, told me that he had rarely seen a more clear-cut case of murder. He probably walked up behind him and shot him in the back of the head. But Durst said that's not how it happened at all. He claimed that on the night of the shooting, he arrived home to find Morris Black sitting in his living room with his gun. Good morning. You may all be seated. Durst was charged with first-degree murder. At his trial, he testified that he and Black had an argument. had an argument. According to this defense animation,

it was during a struggle that the gun went off, killing 71-year-old Black accidentally. But Detective Casalas was unconvinced. There was nothing to suggest self-defense. He never said self-defense until after the defense attorneys got the case. Durst's claim of self-defense was even harder to believe because of what he did after the defense attorneys got the case. Durst's claim of self-defense was even harder to believe because of what he did after the shooting. Instead of calling 911, he carved up Black's body,

shoved the parts into plastic bags, and dumped them into the Galveston Bay. What kind of person would you say would be capable of cutting up another person's body? Someone he says was a friend of his. A psychopath, someone with no conscience. Casalas believed that Durst used a bow saw like this to cut off Morris Black's arms, legs, and head. So we're talking about a very bloody process here.

Extremely bloody. There was body parts in different bags. There was like a leg in one bag, another leg in another bag. I think he assumed that the tide would take the bags on out to sea, but instead the tide was coming in, and so the bags just stayed right there by the pier. But Black's head, where he had been shot, was never found. So the police could not determine forensically how he died. According to Durst's lawyers, the reason why he cut up this body was just to try to hide it.

That he panicked. He didn't panic. Everything he did was cold and calculating. I have him on videotape. He didn't panic. Everything he did was cold and calculating. I have him on videotape four to five hours after the murder, calmly buying a money order to pay Morris Black's rent so that it would appear that Morris Black just paid his October rent and sometime within October moved away. And this guy's in the video just as calm as a cucumber.

He's not a danger to anybody. The public doesn't know what we know. Durst had the best defense team money could buy in Texas, including Dick DeGaran and Mike Ramsey. One of the first things they did was hire well-known Houston psychiatrist Milton Altshuler to help figure Durst out. I met with him almost on a weekly basis, over 70 hours. Do you think Robert Durst is a dangerous man?

No, ma'am. Dr. Altshuler says that Durst suffers from a form of autism that used to be called Asperger's syndrome, a disorder that can limit a person's ability to interact socially. Emotion is very difficult to him. He doesn't know what happy is. Are you saying that Robert Durst can't feel any emotion? He can feel it, but almost as if he were feeling it as we would feel fingers through a glove. It's very dulled at best to him. at best to him.

Dr. Altshuler asserts that because Durst can't feel strong emotion, he can't get angry enough to kill. Some people, though, will listen to you and say, oh, come on, this was just a diagnosis set up for trial to, you know, help get him off the hook of this murder case. I understand that. case. I understand that, but his whole life's history is so compatible with the diagnosis of Asperger's disorder. While Dr. Altshuler never testified about his findings, his diagnosis was used at trial. It would have been an explanation for some of the inappropriate, and obviously it was inappropriate, to dismember a corpse behavior that Bob went through.

He's not a robot. There is no psychiatric disorder that's a get-out-of-jail-free card. Dr. Lawson Bernstein is a forensic psychiatrist who studied Bob Durst's trial testimony at 48 hours request. He believes Durst suffers from only a very mild form of Asperger's syndrome. We're talking about somebody with Asperger's who nonetheless forms close human relationships. In fact, Durst remarried just a month after Janine Pirro reopened the investigation into Kathy Durst's disappearance. Robert Durst wed real estate broker Deborah Cheriton. If he's capable of normal human

interaction, he's capable of feeling emotions. And if he's capable of feeling emotions, he's capable of doing things that human beings do, including committing murder. Contain your emotion in the courtroom until you have left. Will the defendant please rise? But after a seven-week trial and five days of deliberation, the verdict shocked everyone, even the defendant himself. Will the jury find the defendant, Robert Durst, not guilty? Not guilty. That was the most emotional three days of my life. We cried. I broke down a

couple of times. The jurors were widely criticized for the acquittal, but say they felt they had no choice. While they knew Durst had cut up Black's body, they weren't convinced he was guilty of premeditated murder. I felt one way, but I knew I had to go the other, and I'll put it that way. So you thought he might be guilty, but you just hadn't been convinced by the prosecution? Robert Durst was on the stand himself for three or four days. The prosecution had an opportunity to trip him up and put holes in his story. They couldn't do it. He was on trial for the murder of Morris

Black and there was no evidence to prove that that happened. For Detective Casalas, the verdict is still a haunting disappointment. Do you think Bob Durst got away with the murder? There's not a doubt in my mind. There isn't a doubt in my mind. What do you say, though, to people who have accused you of just letting your common sense go out the window? That you knew that earlier his wife disappeared and now this guy disappears. I mean, what's the chance that one guy has two people disappear out of his life? There's a possibility. There is a possibility that Robert Durst is the most unlucky man in America. You believe that? I said there's a possibility, there is a possibility that Robert Durst is the most unlucky man in America.

You believe that? I said there's a possibility. But Durst's luck was about to run out, and he would only have himself to blame. How you doing? Nice to see you again. He agreed to be interviewed for a six-part documentary series about his life and said things that would eventually help him get charged with Susan Berman's murder. Excuse me.

Ryan Gosling clearly got something right in his thinly-veiled portrayal of Robert Durst in Andrew Jarecki's All Good Things, a movie that caught the attention of Durst himself. He voluntarily called me around the time that my film was coming out and said, I've heard about this movie, I'd like to see it. And then he volunteered to come and sit for an interview. Sitting down with a filmmaker who directed a movie about you killing your wife may seem strange to us, but to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sasha Bardet, who admits he has never spoken to Robert Durst, it makes perfect sense. His motivation is, I want to be in front of the camera. I want to tell it my way. I don't want the press to tell the story.

I want to control the press. I want to control this movie. So I'm going to make you make this movie about me. But Durst's lead attorney, Dick DeGaran, who won an acquittal in the Morris Black case, told me he has a different take on his client's motivation. Bob doesn't want to be Bob. He's been hounded most of his adult life and he just doesn't want to be that person. But he could have just gone on with his life. He knew he was the suspect in a murder and a disappearance of

his wife and yet he chose to do a documentary. It's hard to understand why somebody would do this unless he wants the attention. Oh, he doesn't want the attention, and I'm sure he's regretful that he ever decided to put his trust in such a person. Durst's interview with Jarecki became the foundation for the six-part HBO documentary series The Jinx, The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. I will be able to tell it my way. But that's not what happened, says DeGaran. Do you feel these filmmakers took advantage of him? Yes, no question.

He's a smart guy, he's very naive, he's slightly autistic, and he trusted Jarecki. and Jarecki broke that trust. In Jarecki's documentary, Robert Durst seems to incriminate himself. Some of his admissions about the disappearance of his wife Kathy back in 1982 were especially shocking, says Lisa DiPaolo, who has written extensively about the case. There were a lot of things that I went, holy crap. He admitted in this docuseries that his story

about the night Kathy disappeared was a lie. His story was that he had walked three miles to a pay phone to call her. Did you end up speaking to her that night? No. His story was that he had walked three miles to a pay phone to call her. Did you end up speaking to her that night? No. That was his alibi all those years ago. Durst also admitted he never went for drinks at his neighbor's house that night, as he had claimed. That's what I told the police. I was hoping that would just make everything go away. Everyone now is asking, why did he admit that all those things were lies?

The psychology of Bobby Durst is like the eighth wonder of the world. He definitely kind of gets a perverse pleasure out of getting away with stuff. Mr. Foreman, I understand you have a verdict. His wealth, his intelligence, his slyness has enabled him to maybe get away with murder. With the jury, find the defendant, Robert Durst, not guilty.

The look of surprise on his face when the verdict is reached in Galveston, I read that as, oh my God, I just got away with it. Because I think that's the game that he was playing. Some, like Detective Coulter, think Durst has left a trail of clues taunting the police, like the so-called cadaver note, that anonymous letter sent to the police at the time of the Susan Berman murder, telling them there was a body in the house. The envelope is addressed to the Beverly Hills Police, and inside is just a note with her address, 1527 Benedict Canyon,

and the word cadaver. The envelope held an important clue the detective hoped would help solve the case. The word Beverly was misspelled. Whoever wrote that had to be her killer, correct? I would say so. In the docu-series, they unearthed a letter that is identical. Berman's stepson gave the filmmakers a letter written to Susan Berman from Robert Durst. Just like in the so-called cadaver letter, the word Beverly is misspelled. Can you read me the spelling of Beverly Hills?

The filmmakers confronted Durst with the second letter in another interview. And can you tell me which one you didn't write? No. The most explosive moment in that HBO documentary wasn't the comparison of the curious handwriting on the letters. It was a controversial moment of audio recorded without Robert Durst's knowledge while he was in the bathroom.

Durst began muttering to himself, as he often does. There it is. You're caught. Killed more. Of course. What was your reaction when you heard that? My first reaction was, what in the world are these guys doing to send somebody into the bathroom? There's not a more private place, and they know that Bob talks to himself,

and that's just one of his quirks. When you listen to that, didn't Bob Durst confess to murder? No. How else could you interpret that? Oh, there's a hundred ways of interpreting it. Last March, as The Jinx was about to air its final episode with that controversial audio, Durst vanished. Officials believed he was about to air its final episode with that controversial audio, Durst vanished. Officials believed he was about to cut and run. When they finally caught up with him at a New Orleans hotel, he was staying under a false name. In his room, a latex mask, a passport, over $42,000 in cash, and a.38 revolver. Durst was arrested on gun possession charges.

And next week in New Orleans, he is expected to plead guilty to that gun charge. As part of the deal, he'll be locked up in Los Angeles and ultimately go on trial for murder. I don't believe that he killed Susan Berman. I don't believe he knew who did. He wants to prove his innocence. It happened here in Ritzy, Beverly Hills. Bobby, did you kill Kathy 20 years ago? What about Susan Berman? Did you have anything to do with her murder? There was body parts and different bags.

You know, this guy is a murderer. He cuts up bodies like your local butcher. He is no ordinary, regular guy with just a string of bad luck. He is a serial murderer and he needs to be in jail. And if it's a death penalty, so be it. Because you know he's going to cross the line. The former DA of Westchester County, Janine Pirro, describes her long and tangled history with Robert Durst in a new book, He Killed Them All, published by a division of CBS. If Durst goes on trial in L.A., she'll be there. How important is the information, the interviews,

the evidence that showed up in the jinx? I think it's crucial. Isn't it possible that if he goes on trial for Susan Berman, he'll get away with it again? I hate to say, yes, it's possible. But I believe in justice. I believe in truth. How about this? I believe in karma. Sooner or later, it's got to happen. This man has committed too much evil. He's used his money and power, and he's gotten away with it. But, you know, sooner or later, I believe the jig is up. But Durst, worth an estimated $100 million, will be defended by the same hotshot lawyers that got him acquitted in Galveston, Texas. Why does Robert Durst want to go to California? It sounds crazy that he would actually want to face a murder trial.

Well, it's not for the weather. It's because he's innocent. He did not kill Susan Berman. We have seen lawyers come in from out of town that think they're pretty hot, and then they soon learn that they're not. Steve Cooley was DA in Los Angeles when Susan Berman was murdered. You can't predict the outcome in a case like Durst's, which he says defies the laws of physics. The rules of gravity sometimes don't apply to cases like this. Still, Cooley is convinced the

case against Durst is solid. Based upon my limited understanding of the evidence, I think it's very strong. It's multifaceted. It comes from different arenas. It's a strong circumstantial evidence case. I would predict that they'll be successful. Some of the strongest evidence, says Cooley, comes from Durst himself in the documentary. Strongest evidence, says Cooley, comes from Durst himself in the documentary. I think it suggests that maybe he thought he was smarter than everybody else out there, and I think it backfired.

Kill them all. Of course. He's got a hole to dig himself out of, that's for sure. Yet Durst's attorney says he's not worried. The jury's not going to see the jinx. The jinx is entertainment. You don't go to trial by showing a movie to the jury. Let's go upstairs. But jurors are likely to see portions, says Cooley, including the bathroom soliloquy.

That bit of evidence, especially since it's memorialized on videotape and audio tape, is significant. It is hearsay, but it's admissible hearsay on multiple grounds. There's also the cadaver letter. Prosecutors could face a serious obstacle when they try to prove Durst wrote it. That's a problem. I anticipate the defense will spend a lot of time on that. the defense will spend a lot of time on that. Turns out that back in 2001, a police handwriting expert initially matched the letter to another suspect.

In your book, you wrote, if there ever was a hurdle to overcome in proving Robert Durst's guilt, this one expert's opinion would make it almost impossible to scale it. Do you believe it, that that's going to hurt at this trial? I knew that would be a problem, but with the jinx and with the comparison of the note, where even Robert Durst couldn't tell the difference between the note the killer wrote, as he admitted, and his own handwriting. And can you

tell me which one you didn't write? No. I don't need an expert to tell me that is or isn't. Look at it with your own eyes. You tell me if that isn't the same handwriting. What about the letter, the cadaver letter? I ain't going to answer that because I'm not going to talk about the specific evidence in the case. But isn't that likely to get in, though, that letter? I'm not going to discuss what our strategy is about it or really what our expectations are about it. If, in fact, that letter did get in, wouldn't that be highly damaging?

REP. JOHN DURST You are persistent, aren't you? JUDY WOODRUFF I mean, wouldn't that be damaging? REP. JOHN DURST Well, I'm just going to have to say again, I'm not going to discuss the effect of evidence that we don't even know whether it's going to get in. JUDY WOODRUFF Ampiro says Durst could be linked to the cadaver letter by another intriguing piece of evidence. It's written with green ink. The green ink cinched it for me.

Robert Durst only writes in green ink. Green, the color of money that he loved so much. When he was arrested in Galveston, there were green pens, green ink. The man loves green. And the cadaver note's in green ink? It's in green ink. Yes, it is. The green ink is just a tiny bit of circumstantial evidence, which by itself doesn't mean much. Prosecutors will have to take all the pieces and complete a picture of murder that leaves no room for reasonable doubt. a picture of murder that leaves no room for reasonable doubt. The basic question is, can the prosecution prove that he killed Susan Berman?

We don't believe that they can. So you're saying Robert Durst is just this misunderstood man who just happens to have all this circumstantial evidence? As one of the jurors in our Galveston case said, I think Bob Durst is one of the unluckiest people on the face of the earth. My response is, I believe that Bob Durst has been misunderstood all his life, and I believe he's innocent. Like O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, and the man who called himself Clark Rockefeller,

Durst's trial will likely cause a sensation. Tonight, Durst remains in custody in Louisiana, awaiting his move to Los Angeles. He will soon turn 73 and is reportedly in poor health. He will spend nearly a decade in prison for the gun charge, begging the question, is it really worth it to put him on trial again? Why does it matter? It's about crime victims and their families. It's about the ripple effect of a murder so yes it does matter it's not just about punishing him it's about healing them

family members of Durst's first wife Kathy have filed a 100 million dollar lawsuit against him the lawsuit claims the family has a right to Kathy's body for burial. With all this publicity, can Robert Durst get a fair trial in Los Angeles? Chat now with correspondent Aaron Moriarty on Twitter. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.