Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Did millionaire real estate heir murder 'best friend' because she knew he killed his wife?

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

Robert Durst, the wealthy New Yorker who was the focus of the HBO show "The Jinx," goes on trial in Los Angeles soon for the murder of a close friend he allegedly killed 18 years ago. Prosecutors theorize that Durst killed Susan Berman because she was about to be questioned by New York police in a renewed investigation into the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen "Kathie" Durst. Nancy Grace looks at the case against Durst with experts including Gary Greenberg, Co-Author of "Sex and the Serial Killer: My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst," defense lawyer Ray Guidice, psychologist Caryn Stark, forensics expert Karen Smith, and reporter Robyn Walensky,  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. No, it's not Santa. It's Nancy Grace. Are you trying to find the perfect gift for a parent or an expecting parent? Please do not give them another onesie. Don't do it. And not another plastic toy that's going to end up in the trash bin or the garage or sent

to Goodwill. This holiday season, give them something that really matters. And what matters more than protecting their child? I sat down with the smartest people in the world that I know when it comes to child safety, finding missing children, and fighting back against predators. And what I learned is so critical and the information so powerful and important. I want you to have it. I want them as parents to have it. Go to crimestopshere.com for a five-part series with action information that you can use to change your life and protect your child. Because I have done it myself based on what they have told me.

And starting right now until midnight, November 26th. You get 40% off when you sign up. 40% off. Give that as a gift. Not another onesie, please. Find out how to protect your child. Out and about. At the mall.

At the store. At the grocery store, in parking lots, in parking decks, at your home, in your neighborhood. Find out about protection regarding babysitters, nannies, daycare, even protection online. It's the very best gift you can give any parent. And 40% off Black Friday starts now. Go to crimestopshere.com and join the Justice Nation. Crimestopshere.com. God willing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Her body was found on December 24th of 2000. How was she killed? Well, she was shot in the back of the head. What kind of gun? It was a nine millimeter. And just one shot? Just one shot. Not guilty.

Not guilty. Cleave will be entered. Your Honor, I'm willing to waive my rights. I do want to say here and now, though, I am not guilty. I did not kill his best friend Susan Berman execution style in her California home. What could have been the motive? Maybe because Susan Berman knew Durst murdered his wife Kathy. I was recently speaking at the Battered Women's Center named after his wife kathy everyone in that community

is convinced that robert durst the multi-millionaire killed not only his wife kathy her body has never been found but the best friend that knew the details of that murder and oh yes there's morris black the elderly next door neighbor that was be. His body washed up in Galveston Bay, found by a little boy, and a jury acquitted his neighbor, Robert Durst. Everywhere this guy goes, he leaves behind a trail of dead bodies. Straight to you, Raymond Giudice, renowned Atlanta defense attorney. How can that be? What, just a little coinkydink?

A coincidence that everywhere Durst goes, people end up dead? Yeah, don't go on a long ride with him cross-country. You probably won't get past the Mississippi River. He, this is a difficult client. Was I supposed to laugh at that? Was that a kind of a, was that a defense attorney joke? Was that what that was? When you do what we do, you have to have some sort of a sense of humor.

But this gentleman is going to come to a lawyer's office with all kinds of problems, but all kinds of funding. That's why he has excellent legal counsel on each of these many proceedings, all of which are death cases and serious cases, as you pointed out. In the current case, of course, he has pled not guilty, and he's ready for trial. He's won before. He feels he'll win again, and he's got for trial. He's won before. He feels he'll win again and he's got the bucks to fund the case. Joining me, Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Robin, I really don't know where to start with Robert Durst. You all probably saw the miniseries on HBO called Jinx, okay, that was about Durst.

And famously, they say he actually confessed to a murder under his voice, under, you know, in a low voice, whispered, I killed them all. Now, how will that change the landscape of this trial? Take a listen to this. Or maybe this is the man. Yeah, that's...

You're right. This is the bear. There it is. You're corny. To Robin Walensky, explain to me what he's saying in the bathroom. Well, here's the story, Nancy. This HBO documentary is called The Jinx, The Life and Death, with an S, The Death of Robert Durst. And basically, it's a five, six, it's a six part series. And at the very end, his microphone, Durst goes to the bathroom. And he's sort of he's an eccentric guy,

he's sort of talking to himself and mumbling and muttering and burping. And he he basically says, I just got caught. And then he goes on to actually say, and we have the audio of it, where I killed them all, of course. Let's take a listen to that. I'm having difficulty with the questions. What the hell are you doing? I killed them all. Of course. There you hear him saying, I killed them all, of course.

In addition to Raymond Giudice, Atlanta defense lawyer, Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, forensics expert Karen Smith, and New York psychologist Karen Stark, a special guest joining me, co-author of Sex and the Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with Robert Dersh, Gary Greenberg. You know, Gary, I noticed when I got your book on, I say on Kindle, but I actually got it on Amazon, that you and your co-author have dedicated the book to the memories of several people. Very often, a book will be dedicated to the memory of X. But you have dedicated your book to Kathleen, Kathy McCormick Durst, a medical student who misguidedly married Robert Durst.

You also dedicated it to Lynn Schultz, college student missing at just 18 years old, Susan Berman, Durst's best friend, and Morris Black, a 70-year-old retired watch repairman, merchant seaman killed in Galveston who was Robert Durst's next-door neighbor. Why, Gary, do you end it with the book is dedicated to the memory of how many more? And you have, which I thought was pretty ingenious, you have a picture there with a silhouette. Explain, Gary. The book is a memoir by a man that's going by the name of William Steele. And William Steele is a repentant jewel thief who knew Durst for many years shortly after he met him, shortly after Kathy disappeared. And so he knew Durst personally for about a decade and got to know him very well

and believes that Durst is the wealthiest serial killer in American history. He believes he not only killed Kathy Durst, but also Susan Berman and this college student Lynn Schultz, as well as he believes there are several others. So that's why there's a silhouette at the back at the last one that he dedicates it to, because nobody knows how many people this guy has murdered. Your book just came out in October. I got it on Amazon and am reading it on Kindle. And that's the first thing that struck me when I looked at it was that silhouette and how many murder victims this book is dedicated to. I noticed in chapter three, getting to know Bobby, you write that Susan Berman was worried about the friend dealing with Durst and that he was worried

that Durst may kill her one day for knowing too much. Now, right there at the beginning, in your Chapter 3, Getting to Know Bobby, I found it very telling that even while Susan Berman was alive, she expressed some degree of fear about people dealing with Durst. Explain that, Gary. Well, actually, when they first met, they literally, this guy stilleele literally bumped into Durst in Manhattan and spilled the soda on him. Durst was with Susan Berman at the time,

and they got into an altercation, and they nearly got into a pretty serious fight, and Susan Berman helped break up the fight with another friend of Steele's. And at that point, Susan said to him, Steele, he explained who Robert was, he's a very rich guy and his wife was recently murdered. And Steele looked at her and glared at her, because at that point, Kathy Durst was just a missing person. So right there from that initial blunder, she corrected herself very quickly and said, oh, I mean that she's missing, but we fear that she's dead. But she always apparently feared Durst, and eventually I think that fear was proven true.

You know, it's interesting. I'm going to throw this to you, Ray. Ray Giudice joining me. Ray, you can't really talk about the murder of Susan Berman, Robert Durst's best friend, without talking about the disappearance of his wife, his young wife, Kathy. And I learned prosecuting so many murders in inner city Atlanta that when you start, it's like a ball of yarn. Once you start unraveling it and it finally gets all straightened out, one murder is very often connected to another and another and another. And what this author, Gary Greenberg, of Sex and the Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst, is saying is true. And I experienced it so many times, Ray, in different scenarios. You know,

you remember the Red Oak triple homicide that, you know, just nearly destroyed me prosecuting that case. And one murder would lead to this dopering, and that would you know, just nearly destroyed me prosecuting that case. And one murder would lead to this dopering and that would lead to another murder and another murder. I think he's onto something because once you start killing Ray, it's like in your blood, you can't quit and you get away with it. Well, I think you and I both know that a majority of the violent crime committed is actually committed by a very small group of people, the same people who commit one crime after another and after another. And whether it's for the thrill or the challenge, as some theories may be, or the proceeds, it's a lifestyle. And I agree with you. I think that the book,

as I understand, I have not read it, so I confess to that, but gives the prosecution in the upcoming trial a roadmap and an effort that they will make to try to introduce what is commonly known as similar transactions evidence under the federal rules 404B, adopted by almost all of the states or have a similar evidentiary rule where a prosecutor will try to show a plan, motive, scheme, opportunity. There's many different theories under which you can enter similar transactions. Now, I will say that bloodlust or thrill of the crime is generally not an acceptable pattern under the rules of evidence. But I think that's what the prosecution is going to try to show more, really to show this is a series of violent acts, one of which is designed to cover up the prior violent act. And that's the case that we have here. Yeah, I guess to put it in a nutshell, I don't know how they can really try the Susan Berman case. And this is a woman that had been Durst's longtime friend.

He had been, I think, they'd been exchanging money. Why is a good question. Was it hush money? But long story short, how can you try the Susan Berman case if your theory is she knew too much about Kathy Durst's murder? Without bringing in Kathy Durst's murder. If you don't believe he did it, take a listen to this slip he made while filming the jinx. I killed Rachel. Killed them all. Of course.

Why should we care about him? Well, I think this is a kind of amazing, unique human story, but it also is happening on a kind of operatic level. You know, you're dealing with a family that has a tremendous reach. They're quite a private family and yet enormously powerful. You know, there's not a family that's building a local apartment building. They're building the Bank of America Tower, the Condé Nast Building, the Freedom Tower on the side of the World Trade Center. So it's an important family and it's an important and unusual story. You very seldom have somebody who's been accused of this kind of series of grisly crimes, who's also the scion of this enormously powerful family. You are hearing from many would say now disgraced, but a renowned interviewer,

that's Charlie Rose. And he's talking a little bit about Robert Durst's family, multi, multimillionaires. Exactly who are they, Robin Malinsky? They are the Durst family. You know, there's rich and then there's, you know, uber rich, really, really rich billionaires who build all these buildings in Manhattan. And he was one of five kids, but he was the black sheep of the family. I mean, they even built, were responsible for the Freedom Tower build on the World Trade Center site at Ground Zero. And so he had tons of money. You know, you talked about some of the money, the banking transactions. There was $50,000, $25,000, two payments, two checks that went into Susan Berman's bank account. And there are many

people that believe that, you know, that she was kind of like down on her financial luck in later years of her life. She was the daughter of a mob boss, grew up in Vegas around all these mob characters, but kind of fell on hard times. And there are many people that think that he was giving her the money to keep her quiet. Well, this is what we know now. Prosecutors in L.A.'s murder case against New York real estate millionaire Robert Durst want the victim's words to come out in court. Susan Berman. And they have filed about 400 pages of documents to argue statements Berman made to all of her friends just before she was killed should be allowed in to help prove Durst murdered her to silence what she knew about Kathy, his first wife's disappearance. There are so many unusual factors surrounding Kathy's disappearance. I remember a rug went missing from their home. He had gone out in a chartered plane. He was a pilot. Her body is never going to be found. I can tell you that much right now. He was

the last one known to be with her. Someone faked a call to her medical school the following morning saying that she wouldn't be there for classes. It's just such a trail. And at the time, he was so rich and so well regarded that the local district attorney, neither then nor later in Westchester County, ever prosecuted. So where does that leave us? What are some of the statements she made? Why does the prosecution want them to come in to rage you to chase really hard? I've done it myself to get in words from a dead murder victim. Very often you have to jump through a lot of legal hurdles. They can either be a deathbed statement like Ray Carruth did this to me. We just heard about that in the murder of Sharika Adams.

Very often you can get in dying declarations. But other than that, Ray, sometimes it's hard to get in what the murder victim said. Yeah, this is a classic law school what is hearsay discussion. Hearsay, of course, is a statement made by somebody who's not going to come to court and therefore can't be cross-examined by, in this case, the criminal defendant who has constitutional rights to face their accuser and have a thorough and sifting cross-examination of the person that made such a statement. There are many exceptions to the hearsay rule, and you've given several of them the dying declaration. Why? Because on a dying declaration, the theory of law is on your deathbed, you're not really thinking about lying. Well, you're right. What about this statement ray what about this susan

berman allegedly told a lot of her friends not just one that the real estate tycoon robert durst had admitted to her he killed kathleen kathy durst who was as you know a medical student when she just vanished into thin air she's never been seen again her body has never been found she was officially declared dead just recently. She told other friends, including a Saturday Night Live cast member, Lorraine Newman, that she was the one that provided alibis for her good friend, Robert Durst. You don't think he wanted her dead? What can you tell me to you, Robin Walensky, about matching handwriting in green ink?

Well, to me, the most compelling evidence in the Susan Berman case, the most interesting nugget to me, is after her murder, there was a letter. They call it the cadaver letter that was sent to the police department in Beverly Hills. And the word Beverly is spelled incorrectly, B-E-V-E-R-L-E-Y, on the envelope. And then investigators found in Berman's house letters that Durst also used to send to Susan from wherever he was from. And Beverly is also spelled incorrectly. The handwriting is identical, Nancy. Okay, hold on. This reminds me, Karen Smith, you're the forensics expert of a bank robbery I tried many years ago, my first bank robbery prosecution. And Karen Smith, the perp, wrote, and my children would love to hear this story,

don't touch the L-Ram, comma, comma, apostrophe. This is a Robey translation. Don't touch the alarm. This is a robbery. And he had obviously heard about punctuation but didn't really know what it was. So throughout the don't touch the L-Ram, this is a Robey, there were apostrophes and commas and periods just all through it. And it's a long story, but I found a witness in the Fulton County jail that had been his roommate. By the time I got him to give a handwriting sample, he did the

same thing. He was dyslexic. Don't touch the L-Ram, this is a Robie. He would reverse letters and he sprinkled punctuation marks all the way through his handwriting sample, even writing my name is X. So what she's saying about repeatedly misspelling the same word in the same way and handwriting analysis, that is a science now, not just an art, Karen Smith. Absolutely, it's a science. Question document analysis is going to be really important in this trial, and it's not just the misspelling, although that is very compelling, especially putting an E before the Y in Beverly. It's also going to deal with the type of ink. As you indicated, it's green ink. That's really super unusual. Also, the pressure, the slant,

the size, the way the letters are shaped. They can do comparisons, almost like a fingerprint, and they can show that the handwriting is either included, excluded, or cannot be determined. Those are the three determinations that question document examiners make. And in this case, if it's included, he's going to have to explain that. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. No, it's not Santa. It's Nancy Grace. Are you trying to find the perfect gift for a parent or an expecting parent?

Please do not give them another onesie. Don't do it. And not another plastic toy that's going to end up in the trash bin or the garage or sent to Goodwill. This holiday season, give them something that really matters. And what matters more than protecting their child? I sat down with the smartest people in the world that I know when it comes to child safety, finding missing children, and fighting back against predators. And what I learned is so critical. And the information is so powerful and important. I want you to have it.

I want them as parents to have it. Go to crimestopshere.com for a five-part series with action information that you can use to change your life and protect your child because I have done it myself based on what they have told me and starting right now until midnight November 26 you get 40% off when you sign up 40% off give that as a gift, not another onesie, please. Find out how to protect your child out and about at the mall, at the store, at the grocery store, in parking lots, in parking decks, at your home, in your neighborhood. Find out about protection regarding babysitters, nannies, daycare, even protection online. It's the very best gift you can give any parent. And 40% off Black Friday starts now. Go to crimestopshere.com and join the Justice Nation. Crimestopshere.com. God willing.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Durst was already serving a seven-year prison term for a weapons charge out of Louisiana when he was moved to L.A. to face the Berman murder charge. Years earlier, he paid a fine in Harris County for urinating on candy at a CVS in Rice Village. Okay, let's just stop right there to Gary Greenberg, co-author of Sex and the Serial Killer,

My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst. What did I just hear? This is a guy, an heir to a real estate fortune, millions and millions of dollars at his disposal. Gary Greenberg, how did he end up dressed like a woman in a convenience store? Did I just hear urinating on candy? I don't know. The guy is very strange and has done a lot of strange things in his time.

I think it's pretty remarkable that he actually confessed to shooting and dismembering his neighbor, Mars Black, and got off basically on a tampering with evidence charge. So it's hard to believe that he'll be convicted for Berman's murder, too. I hope he is, because I believe he's guilty. And in fact, William Steele says at one point they had a meeting in Manalapan where Durst tried to get Steele to either kill Berman or to arrange to have her killed. Isn't it another coincidence to Gary Greenberg, co-author of Sex and the Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst? I got it on Amazon and read it through Kindle. It's just so much easier for me to do that than carry around a book. Gary, your book is largely dedicated to the recollections

and the memoir of a friend of yours who spent a lot of time with Robert Durst. Based on what you've learned, why do you believe he is guilty in the murder of Susan Berman? Well, like I was just explaining, he had a relationship with Durst. Durst would pay this guy Steele to use his apartment in Brooklyn in the 1980s and early 90s to bring prostitutes over to have fetish and drug-fueled sex with them. And some of those prostitutes, later found out he saw pictures, still saw pictures that Durst had shown him of some of these prostitutes bound and gagged.

Potentially some of them even looked dead. This guy still wasn't sure whether Durst was actually doing these things or just an eccentric multimillionaire who could afford to stage this stuff to shock people. But all along, Durst was trying to pull this guy Steele into his demented world. And probably fortunately for Steele, he ended up in prison. He's a jewel thief, or was a jewel thief, and ended up in prison. And he had a lot of evidence that he had collected over the years of his times with Durst, including tapes and including a satchel that Durst left with him that had tools of the serial killer traded at handcuffs.

It had restraints, duct tape, even had luminol in a black light, which is used for cleaning up blood in these satchels. Unfortunately, the satchels, while Steele was incarcerated, were lost, and nobody knows where they are. He still believes he might have some tapes, so there might be some tapes around, but whether they would be admissible in court or not is nobody knows. Let me ask you about your Chapter 11 called An Outing with Kathy. An Outing with Kathy. Explain the title to Chapter 11.

Why do you call it An Outing with Kathy. Explain the title to Chapter 11. Why do you call it An Outing with Kathy? Well, one day Durst comes over to Steele's place with an old beat-up suitcase, and he's claiming that Kathy's remains are in the suitcase. Steele was so horrified by this whole thing, he didn't want anything to do with it. He told him to put the case away. But Durst had told Steele, yeah, sometimes I like to take her out. So that's the story behind that. You know what is disturbing on so many levels with what Gary Greenberg is saying?

Ray Giudice, almost everything that Gary just told us about, while I completely believe it, that'll never come into court. The rules of evidence will stop all of that from coming into court. You know it, I know it, and I hate it. But it's true. The jury will never hear all that. And that's why I'm sure Mr. Durst is going to trial. His lawyers have gone through this methodically with him about what evidence they believe will come in and what will not come in. And they're good, real good lawyers, and they've got real good assets and researchers. And of course, the state is not going to give him a plea bargain that lets him go out at age 75 back on probation. So this is a case where it's going to trial. I think it's going to be an

exciting trial, I think, for wannabe lawyers or would-be young lawyers to watch good prosecutors and good criminal defense lawyers battle out these various issues of evidence. I think it's fascinating. I'm fascinated by it. Well, you know, I hear you, but you sound like you're examining a bug or a dead frog in biology class, and you're just fascinated by the ins and outs and the evidentiary twists and turns. I hear you, Ray, but I don't see it like that. I see it as Kathy Durst was murdered by Robert Durst. He was rich, influential, and Westchester County District Attorneys never prosecuted him. Number one, Morris Black, a 70-year-old neighbor, was murdered and decapitated.

He admitted he did it and still walked free. All right, now we've got Susan Berman dead. Susan Berman was murdered just before she spoke to police. And I noticed in your Chapter 13 that you title Gary Greenberg a normal conversation. You start off talking about your friend with Dursying a dog's body parts. But what fascinated me in that, you talk about bleach in the apartment and the black light and luminol being hidden away for Durst and about how he has come up, Durst, with a perfect plan. You talk about a girl that had, quote, too much dirt on Durst. She knew about the girl Durst had killed in Vermont and was making financial demands that kept increasing,

that there was no end to it. It was infuriating Robert Durst, that he had made a, quote, as you write, Gary Greenberg, and I'm quoting from your chapter 13, the perfect plan, because she had been cheating on him and using coke. I assume we're talking about Kathy. It would look like someone else may have done it, or she ran off with another man, and Durst was very proud of himself that his plan had worked out so well for so long that she, Kathy, just vanished into thin air. Another one of a million unsolved murder mysteries. And Durst also explained how Susan Berman helped him with cover stories, even posing as Kathy to call in sick to medical school.

As a matter of fact, what is written in Sex and the Serial Killer, talking about Robert Durst, is exactly what California prosecutors are arguing at trial. Joining me, Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Gary Greenberg, author, Raymond Giudice, defense attorney, renowned forensics expert, Karen Smith. Karen Smith, the difficulty is right now we're trying to go forward, the state is, in the prosecution for the murder of Susan Berman. Karen, you have studied and examined the case so carefully. What evidence do they have that Durst murdered his friend Susan Berman because she was his cover in the Kathy Durst murder, his wife.

The forensics is lacking. I'm not going to lie. You're dealing with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head execution style. You know, if you have a projectile, there may be some stippling, some powder stippling on her head, depending on how far the muzzle was away when the bullet was fired. And that's it. Defense attorneys have said there's no DNA and no fingerprints that link Robert Durst to this crime scene. It's not to say that there wasn't forensics, but at this point, there's really not a lot. They're going to have to go back and look at his movement. They're going to have to find out where he was on what date. I don't know if there were any witnesses that may have saw him coming or going, maybe in a taxi cab. Who knows at this

point? But the forensics are going to be difficult for the prosecution, that's for sure. Well, we know that there have been a series of pretrial hearings, Ray Giudice, and witnesses are stating that despite her being close friends with Durst, it's like having a tiger by the tail. You can't hold on and you can't let go. Either way, you're going to get bit. That she feared him and told many of them that if anything ever happened to her, he would be responsible. I remember in a murder trial, a particular murder trial I tried, and you will remember this, Ray. The victim was a piano teacher like my mother. and the husband was a millionaire like Durst.

And she told her friends that she had an emergency key that she carried in her pocketbook, and she gave a key to cars and homes to her friends in case her husband tried to kill her. I was precluded from bringing that into evidence. The jury never heard that, Ray. That's what I'm worried about in the Susan Berman murder case, that the jury will never hear that she told so many friends, if I end up dead, he did it. And sure enough, there's no alibi for him. At the time of her murder on Christmas Eve, she ends up shot execution style in the back of the head. Somebody crept up on her. She was sitting in her home just before she's supposed to speak to the authorities about Kathy's murder.

I think your finger is on the pulse of what the prosecution must do to get a conviction in this case, which is to set up all of this quote-unquote evidence, some's going to come in, some is not going to come in, to set up how Durst had boxed her in, as you said, tiger by the tail, where she felt that she had to both comply with his needs and his demands, and yet she feared for her life, to set that up. So that is the motive, that is the plan, the scheme. It's going to be swinging for the fences for the prosecution. If this case had happened in the last few years, we would have cell phone pings and luminol and blood splatter and so much more DNA evidence where, as was just pointed out,

you know, the science has just become so, Nancy, I think about some of the cases that you tried back in the 90s, where it was all he said, she said, you were putting, I think actually there's a little more trial lawyer and it goes on now because now we all rely so much on the experts and the science and the folks from the crime lab and a little less personal persuasion by the lawyers. But nonetheless, if those cases had been prosecuted today, they would end up in, many of those would end up in plea bargains before trial because you would have so much evidence, the text messages and the trail of emails and videotape from where you can follow a person as they literally walk from the tip of Manhattan all the way up to Central Park on a thousand

different video cameras. And I can vouch for that. It's not really high tech, Ray. I will never forget, I had taken the children to go skating at Rockefeller Center. Okay, when I got out of the cab, I immediately realized my cell phone with all the Christmas photos were on it. And I could track the darn thing and I'm not pinging it I'm not I don't have a stingray from the NYPD and I could see it driving away and we called it and we called it and we called it I could see exactly where it went all over Manhattan until bam it disappeared and I nearly died okay because you know how I am about my photo albums of the

twins all right so yes and it's not even hard to do oh what I am about my photo albums of the twins, all right, so yes, and it's not even hard to do, oh, what I would give my eye teeth to have that technology when I was just begging juries to please convict, you're right, we don't have that, what we have, like you said, swinging from the fences, are people, now there's one guy, Ray, His name is Nathan Nick Chavin, and he was a friend of Durst and Berman. And, man, did he drop a stink bomb in the courtroom, for the defense anyway. In a pre-trial hearing, he testifies under oath. Durst admitted to him after a booze-soaked dinner in New York that he, Durst, killed Berman. And he said, Durst stated, I had to.

It was her or me. I had no choice. All right. So that's the way he saw it. But the evidence, man, he really, he really covered it up, Ray. It's going to be hard. And what's the cross of that witness? Sir, let me get this straight. You were both drunk from a booze vest. Is that right? When you think you heard this statement 20 odd years ago? Yeah, I know that. I mean, this is, you know, it's a good case to go to trial on for the defense for so many reasons. Now, as our author has pointed out, you know, if I was on the defense team, I just might

give Mr. Steele a subpoena and bring him to court and let him ramble on about these, the body in the suitcase. And did you ever see it? No. And you're an author and you made money off of this book. I don't know. I don't know if that helps the prosecution or might hinder it. And one last thing, Nancy, jurors today in 2018, we used to play, well, where's the fingerprint game? And you know that. We criminal defense lawyers, and you might get a juror that says, how come there are no fingerprints in a DUI case? But nowadays, the jurors expect the prosecution to bring forth scientific, technological evidence. They expect that PowerPoint presentation.

And the prosecution is going to have to really pick a good jury that can focus on, hey, we don't have all this stuff because it wasn't available way back when. And I think that's going to be a real challenge. You know what? Then let's find out what the evidence is, because you're right. They want that CSI moment that they see on TV. They think that that's real. Robin Walensky, it ain't real. All right. That's not the real world what you see on TV, but that's what jurors are expecting. So in a nutshell, Robin, what is the evidence in the Susan Berman case? To me, I think it's very easy to connect the dots. And I do agree that the CSI factor is definitely a factor at these trials. We saw it in the Casey Anthony trial where, you know,

they wanted to hear how Casey killed her daughter. In this case, though, I think there's a few things. The first is the Westchester County District Attorney, Janine Pirro, had reopened the Durst case, the disappearance, when she first became the DA. And she sends her investigators out to California, and they find Susan Berman. Yeah, and they find her dead. So I think that Durst knew about it. The timing is very suspicious and he gets rid of her before she tells the whole story. Then you have the cadaver letter. Again, this is a letter that Beverly spelled incorrectly. Letters that Durst sent to Susan over the years also said Beverly spelled incorrectly. To me, the smoking gun, the CSI moment is the green ink. He was very eccentric. He used green ink in this note to the police. There were green pens found at all his residences over the years. Everyone knew he always wrote in green ink. In the jinx

show, the producers show him the copies of the two letters and he can't even tell the difference in his own words. Oh, is this one? Did you write this one? Did you write that one? No, he can't even differentiate because the handwriting is the same. So I think that there's a lot of grapes on the vine here, and I think that if they connect the dots properly, I mean, he definitely, I think, did it. Oh, and one last thing, Nancy, when the police come in, when you shoot someone in the back of the head and the body slumps over, well, somebody who cared for this woman took the body and put it in a different way because you could see that, you know, when someone touches the body afterward and moves it, it's almost like a loving gesture.

And I think that that's very suspicious. If someone was coming in there just to kill Susan, bam, steal her watch, steal her money, steal her purse and leave. Who's rearranging the body in a loving, gentle manner? Yeah, you know what? A random burglar or robber would not take time to stage the scene. That's like statistically proven. Robert Durst, the multimillionaire real estate heir, is accused of shooting Susan Berman in the head at her Beverly Hills home Christmas Eve, just hours before she was scheduled to speak with the police

about the disappearance of Durst's first wife, Kathy. We wait for justice to unfold. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.