Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Robert Durst Pt. 2: “That’s It, You’re Caught”

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

In 2001 Robert Durst was posing as a woman, hiding from authorities in Galveston, Texas. He befriends a neighbor, Morris Black, who he later kills and dismembers. Though he avoids conviction, over a decade later, he seemingly makes a confession admitting guilt for not only Morris’s fate, but Kathie’s and Susan’s too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains discussions of gun violence, murder, and body mutilation. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. In October 2001, officers in Galveston, Texas, arrived at a small apartment building to execute a search warrant. One of the four units belonged to a 71-year-old man named Morris Black. Nothing about the quaint fourplex stood out from the other seaside. vacation homes around it. But of course, this place was different. It was probably a crime scene. That's because just a few days before, they'd found Morris Black's severed torso floating in the nearby

bay. As officers approached the building, they noticed something troubling leading up to the front steps. Drops of blood. Once police got inside, they followed the faint trail of crimson. There had to be a mix of apprehension and nerves, maybe they were wondering if there was another victim, or if this trail was leading them to their perp. The blood ended at the door of an upstairs apartment. The unit didn't belong to Morris Black. It was occupied by one of his neighbors. An officer pounded on the door. With one hand on their holstered sidearms, the rest of the group waited for it to open. Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is serial. Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast.

Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're concluding our exploration of Robert Durst and the theory that he was a serial killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Last time, we learned about Durst's privileged upbringing, then watched his first marriage devolve into an abusive nightmare.

When his wife Kathy disappeared, Durst escaped suspicion. After that, he murdered his friend Susan Berman in her Los Angeles home, before fleeing back to New York. Today, we're going to follow Durst's increasingly bizarre behavior that included disguises, a gruesome dismemberment, and an unexpected admission that stunned the world. And we'll also see how investigators across multiple states spent decades trying and failing to bring Durst to justice,

all while the world watched on. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber.

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by Rio's nude beach with cheeky bikini or caps your sun-kissed bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janito's Addit Edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. Police officers found Susan Berman's body on Christmas Eve in the year 2000.

The 55-year-old author lay in the bedroom floor of her home in Benedict Canyon, a neighborhood in Beverly Hills, California. She'd been the victim of an execution-style murder. From the outset, the crime was puzzling. When LAPD detectives arrived, they found a locked front door and no sign of forced entry. Next, they noticed that Susan's body didn't have defensive wounds. She suffered a single gunshot to the back of the head. To them, this meant that Susan had likely known her killer.

After talking with her neighbors, this seemed even more probable. They all said Susan was paranoid and wouldn't have let anyone into her home that she didn't deeply trust. The LAPD first suspected that the crime may have been a mob hit. Susan was the daughter of a well-known mobster and had published two books on the subject. And according to Friends, she'd been working on a new organized crime-related project when she died. So it wasn't hard to imagine that they had silenced her. However, that theory fell apart when the LAPD received an interesting note in the mail. Days after officers found Susan's body, a letter arrived at the Beverly Hills Police Station.

The address on the front of the envelope was misspelled. Whoever wrote it included an extra E in Beverly. Inside was a piece of paper containing Susan's address and the word cadaver. Even more peculiar was that the letter had been postmarked a day before they'd found her body. Therefore, it seemed likely that her killer had sent it. This made police discount their organized crime theory. It didn't make sense for a mob assassin to alert the authorities after a hit. So, leaning on the idea that Susan knew her attacker, investigators began to look at those closest to her.

At times, the potential suspect list included Susan's business manager and her landlady. They also likely considered people who'd loaned Susan money. As a close friend of Susan's, Robert Durst was on the list, but it's unclear if that made him a suspect in the murder. After all, most people thought he'd lived thousands of miles away in New York. What Durst was up to around this time isn't clear. Perhaps he returned home from killing Susan to be with his new wife, Deborah, who he'd only married a few weeks before.

Or maybe he wanted to be left alone. No one knows. But it seems likely that back in New York City, Durst was enjoying a certain amount of relief. If Susan really had been about to implicate him in his wife's disappearance, then he'd just solved that problem. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode.

Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Based on what we know about Durst, he might not have thought of killing Susan as a crime. To him, he was just putting everything back the way it should be. He likely wanted to keep on living his lavish life in New York, untethered from any complications over the disappearance of his wife, Kathy.

If he was thinking along these lines, it's an example of his incredible sense of entitlement. And according to a study published in the Journal of the Society for Personnel, and social psychology, a higher level of entitlement may be linked to status-seeking. In Durst's case, he spent his adult life with an enormous amount of money and enjoyed the prestige that came from the Durst family name. Perhaps this led him to expect a certain level of status, which perpetuated the idea that he could do whatever was necessary to maintain it. However, killing Susan hadn't solved Durst's problem. There was a renewed interest in

Kathy's disappearance, led by Westchester County District Attorney Janine Piro. Yes, that Janine Piro, but now Firebrand Fox News host. She seemed determined to get some answers in the decades-old case. She didn't come out and say Durst was her main suspect, but Piro openly questioned his story about sending Kathy back to the city the night she vanished. She was also confident that with recent advances in DNA technology, analyzing old evidence might lead to new information. She told Newsweek, quote, When we go back and look at these old cases, it's for the purpose of finding what kind of

physical evidence remains and what witnesses can be re-interviewed. Her comments generated fresh enthusiasm from the media about both the case and Durst's life, and as that interest grew, the pressure began to mount for Durst. For all he knew, maybe Piro would come up with the evidence that could lead to his arrest. Wanting to get away from the stress, Durst told his family he was going to disappear for a while. Then he flew to Texas and settled in the coastal city of Galveston. There, Durst did his best to blend in among the beach bums and scores of vacationing families, but he was very aware that his face had been plastered on the front pages of papers and on TV nationwide.

Sure, the Galveston community wasn't as aware of him as Manhattan was, but Durst still felt like he needed to do something to avoid recognition. So he bought a wig and a dress as a disguise and assumed the name Dorothy Siner, a moniker he took from a high school classmate. Despite his determination to hide, Durst was no actor. So he decided to make Dorothy a mute woman, which meant he didn't have to change his voice. Instead, he carried a pad and pen to communicate. Presumably, that's how it worked when he rented out a small $300,

a month apartment. Durst didn't spend much time at the place. He'd often be away for weeks on end, and when he was there, he kept his distance from his neighbors. They knew him as Dorothy, and he didn't want them to learn otherwise. But at least one of these neighbors eventually got to know the truth. According to Durst, he dropped the Dorothy Act for Morris Black, a cantankerous 71-year-old who lived in the apartment next door. Morris didn't get along with many of their other neighbors, who found him rude and aggressive, but he and Durst bonded over their shared love of target shooting. Durst would have you believe Morris was his best friend after just a few months. He said the two often hung out at home watching TV, went to dinner, or spent their days at the gun range.

But others in the buildings said they rarely saw them together, and some who lived in the area, said the pair got into frequent arguments. It's unclear what these fights were about. However, Durst later claimed that money became a sticking point. When Morris learned about the Durst family fortune, he suggested that they run away together. It seemed like Durst blew off this idea every time it was mentioned. So maybe Morris got frustrated with his affluent neighbor across the hall. To hear Durst tell it, this is what led to a falling out in September 2001,

around six months after he arrived in Galveston. It wasn't your typical shouting match. because at one point Morris discharged a gun inside Durst's apartment in anger. Durst claimed he was terrified by this and asked his friend to leave and never come back. Just over a week later, it all came to a head. We'll tell you what may have happened, but keep in mind that we only have one side of the story, Robert Durst's. On September 28th, Durst returned home to find Morris waiting for him, holding a pistol with an angry look on his face. Then in a flight,

flash, Durst leapt on him and the two wrestled over the weapon. They struggled, spiraling throughout the room, fighting for the upper hand. Then, suddenly, the gun went off. Durst stumbled back. Morris fell to the ground. Then lay still. Durst said he didn't realize what had happened until he bent down and saw blood coming from Morris's cheek, pooling under his head.

At that moment, panic set in. It didn't seem like his neighbors had hurt anything, but he didn't know what to do. According to Durst, he didn't think anyone would believe this was an accident. He decided his only option was to get rid of the body, so he left and bought a bow saw and some trash bags. He returned, grabbed an axe from Morris's apartment, and got drunk. In a haze, Durst proceeded to cut up his friend's body piece by piece on the kitchen floor. Once he finished, Durst put the ball.

body parts into black trash bags, along with some garbage from his apartment. He knew he couldn't throw it all in the dumpster. Someone was bound to find it that way. So Durst headed to Galveston Bay and heaped the bags with Morris's remains into its waters, where he thought they'd stay hidden. But that wasn't to be. Coming up, Robert Durst makes headlines again. In a world of deep fake technology, fake news, and revisionist history,

How do we know the difference between what's official and what's just fishy? That's where we come in. Hi, it's Molly and Carter from the Spotify original from Parkast, conspiracy theories. Every Monday and Wednesday, we examine the most controversial events in history because maybe there's so much more to the truth than we've been led to believe. From the mysteries of outer space to the secrets, lies, and possible cover. cover-ups occurring right under our noses. We explore every angle in search of the actual truth.

We're not skeptics or theorists. We're curious, rigorous, and in the end, we let you decide. Catch new episodes of conspiracy theories each week. Follow and listen for free, only on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice.

Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Now back to the story. It was late September 2001. Two days after Robert Durst dumped the dismembered body of his friend Morris, black in the Galveston Bay. A fisherman and his teenage son were out on the water when they saw

something bobbing on the surface. From afar, it looked like a dead pig. But as they got closer, the fisherman realized what it was, the severed torso of a man. He immediately called the police. When investigators arrived, they found the torso and saw two black trash bags floating nearby. When they fished the bags out of the water, they found a pair of dismembered arms. arms and legs inside. With the already discovered torso, they had nearly an entire body. There was no head, though, which made identification tricky. However, it wasn't impossible.

They still had the man's hands. Within days, investigators identified Morris using his fingerprints. Afterward, they located his residence, thanks to a delivery address on a newspaper they found in one of the bags. When the police got to Moritz, apartment building, they noticed a trail of blood leading from the road up the stairs to the front door. Before going inside, they combed through the trash cans on the street, where they found a shell casing, packaging for a pairing knife, and a receipt for prescription eyeglasses ordered by one Robert Durst.

Eventually, they were led into the building's common area, where they found more blood, leading from Morris Black's apartment to the unit that Durst rented under his alias, Dorothy Siner. They knocked on the door but received no answer. The authorities needed a warrant before they forced their way inside. They got one on October 3rd and promptly knocked down the door and entered the apartment. Inside, everything appeared neat and clean at first. But in the kitchen, they noticed drop cloths covering the floor, and when they pulled those up, they found small cuts in the linoleum.

Underneath those were poorly cleaned up blood stains. When authorities asked neighbors about Dorothy Siner, they were told she traveled a lot, disappearing for months. People also mentioned seeing another man regularly enter the unit. It's unclear at this point if officers suspected Dorothy Siner was an alias. However, even if they didn't, they must have decided they could get more answers if they located Robert Durst, whose name they'd found out of receipt in Siner's trash. They pursued several leads, like looking up cars registered in his name, which turned out to be a silver Honda.

They also followed up on his recent order for eyeglasses. The cops reached out to the optometrist and found out that Durst hadn't picked up the glasses yet. So they asked to be informed when he did. On October 9th, Robert Durst arrived at the optometrist to pick up his glasses order. He was totally unaware that the police were closing in on him, so he didn't notice when the store owner went back into his office and called the authorities. Dirst didn't even know anything was wrong until he started driving. That's when a patrol car pulled him over.

When officers searched his vehicle, they found a bow saw, an illegal handgun, and some cannabis. With that, the police took Dursk into custody. Likely, through a combination of research, finding out Siner's identity didn't have a paper trail and interviews with neighbors. The police soon confirmed Ders and Siner were the same person. The authorities then booked Robert Dirt. under suspicion of murder for the death of Morris Black. A judge set his bail at $250,000. To many people, that's a huge sum, but Durst didn't even blink.

Once he found out how much it cost to buy his freedom, he called his wife Deborah. Presumably she had access to his millions and wired him the money overnight. The next day, Durst made bail and walked out of his cell to await trial. But Robert Durst wasn't going to take chances with his. his liberty. Within hours of making bail, he fled Galveston with no intention of returning to stand trial. Exactly what he did and where he went isn't clear, but we know at least some details. Wanting to disguise himself again, Durst shaved his head and eyebrows. At some point, he rented a car in

Alabama, likely using an alias. He used another false name to set up a bank account, presumably so he could receive money from his healthy family trust fund. Meanwhile, Durst's recent arrest made headlines, especially in New York, where his family name carried a certain amount of clout, and where Janine Piro had recently stirred up media interests in the decades-old disappearance of Durst's first wife, Kathy. This new arrest just added more fuel to the fire of speculation that followed Durst. Some of his friends were surprised by the news. Sure, he could be odd, entitled, and at times combative. But murder and dismemberment, it just didn't sound like the man they knew.

But perhaps they rethought this stance when Durst failed to show up for his arraignment in Texas on October 16th and was declared a fugitive. Suddenly, this wasn't just a murder case. It was a nationwide manhunt for someone with seemingly limitless resources. Now that they finally realized their suspect had gone on the run, local authorities in Texas noticed state and federal agencies, an alerted Interpol in case the millionaire used his vast wealth to flee the country. Beyond law enforcement, some were more concerned with what Dirst would do if he stayed in the states. By now, it seemed clear he was capable of murder. He was dangerous, and it appeared that Dirste targeted those close to him. This was something Ders' younger brother

Douglas knew well. The two had been at odds most of their lives, and at times this tension had almost turned violent. This could be why Douglas reportedly hired a bodyguard once he heard Durst was on the run. But as far as we can tell, Durst didn't go anywhere near his family members. He was trying to stay off everyone's radar, at least at first. In late November, about 45 days after he fled Galveston, Durst wandered into a grocery store in Hanover, Pennsylvania, 1,500 miles away. Apparently, he needed a few things, including a Band-Aid and something to eat. He could afford it. There was around $500 in his pocket and tens of thousands of dollars in cash in his rental car.

But for some reason, Durst decided just to take what he wanted. He slipped his hand inside a box of bandages, took one out, then put the box back on the shelf. Then he wandered over to the deli, selected a chicken salad sandwich from the display, pocketed it, and headed for the exit. All in clear view of security cameras. Durs' actions here are baffling. In later interviews, even he couldn't explain why he tempted fate after successfully evading capture for so many weeks.

However, this could be an example of something called delay discounting. This concept falls into a wide range of reasons to explain impulsive behaviors, but basically it's when a person minimizes the long-term risks associated with an immediate reward. In this case, Dirst seemed to choose the thrill of stealing and, possibly the idea of getting away with a crime over the long-term reward of staying free. In Dursk case, the outcome of his impulse was swift. His five-finger discount cost him his freedom. A store employee caught and held him until the police arrived. When they arrested him for shoplifting,

they searched his car. Inside, they found a large stash of money, some cannabis, Morris Black's driver's license and two loaded guns. What Durst had in mind when he bought the guns, we couldn't say, but he had other things to worry about. Back at the station, the police plugged his information into a database and saw his warrants. They realized he wasn't just a shoplifter. He was a fugitive, wanted for murder. So they brought him to a local Pennsylvania prison to await extradition to Texas.

Prison living was far from the lavish lifestyle, Durst's. had enjoyed growing up. There was no freedom, and he hated the cold. In these conditions, his anger seemed to fester and grow. And for some reason, he focused at least part of this rage on his brother. In a letter to his wife, Deborah, he wrote that he wanted to, quote, Igor Douglas. Remember that in the 1970s, Durst owned a series of Alaskan Malamutes, all named Igor, and all of which died under supposedly mysterious circumstances. Douglas always thought his brother killed them. Of course, there's nothing to prove that Durst did such a thing

or that he ever planned to hurt his brother. But Douglas certainly believed Durst was expressing a desire to kill him when he was mentioned in the same breath as the dogs. After being held in Pennsylvania for a few months, authorities moved Durst to Texas in early 2002 to face a murder charge in the case of Morris Black. Despite everything Durst had done, family begrudgingly stood by him. He was clearly the group's black sheep, but he still legally

had a stake in the family trust. And it's possible they wanted to clear their prestigious name. Regardless of why, it appeared as though they were willing to do whatever they could to help Durst. Initially, the trust hired Michael Kennedy as Durst's attorney, but Deborah convinced Durst that the lawyer's allegiance was to Douglas, so he wasn't to be trusted. Durst followed his wife's advice and spent nearly $2 million on a team of his own defense attorneys. While this may have served Durst, it furthered the rift between him and his family, which would only continue to grow. We're not sure why exactly, but Durst's new attorneys found it difficult communicating with their client. Their solution was to hire a psychiatrist to meet with him.

Dr. Milton Altschuler spent over 70 hours examining Durst and concluded that he had aspirin, These days, this is an outdated term, so Durst would likely be categorized under the umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Altschuler concluded that emotion was difficult for Durst, suggesting that he would experience certain feelings as clumsy or dulled. Durst legal team leaned on ASD as part of their defense. They planned to argue that Durst difficulty with emotion meant his judgment was affected in stressful situations. After conducting mock trials and coaching sessions with Durst. They were ready. In the fall of 2003, news cameras from all over the country waited outside the Galveston

Courthouse. They wanted to know the fate of the former heir to a New York real estate empire, a man who'd previously been rumored to have had a hand in the disappearance of his first wife and possibly Susan Berman's death in Los Angeles. We should clarify that even to the most casual viewers, it seemed clear, Durst, was guilty. Early on in the trial, the defense made a bold move. They requested the jury not consider lesser charges. Durst was either guilty of murder or must be set free.

This meant the prosecution couldn't settle for manslaughter or unintentional killing. Instead, they had to prove that Durst intended to kill Morris Black. For whatever reason, the prosecution agreed. Maybe because they were confident in their argument that Durst killed Morris in cold blood because he'd known about Durst's true identity. At the time, investigators on both coasts were eager to talk to Durst about Kathy's disappearance and Susan's murder. So a lot was riding on his ability to stay hidden in Texas.

That's why Durst shot Morris in the back of the head. Except they couldn't prove that. Remember, they'd never found Morris a severed head. And the events used that uncertainty as a key part of their strategy. They presented Durst as a victim, pointing to the New York District Attorney Janine Piro as a source of trauma for their client. Piro was an ambitious woman, they said, who'd chased Durst from his home in 2001 to further her career. And then Durst lawyer played a video animation that they said portrayed the incident. It was a harrowing account, showing Durst struggling with Morris before the gun went off, leaving the man dead on the ground.

In the second week of November 2003, after weeks of testimony, both sides rested their cases, and a judge sent the jury out of the courtroom for deliberation. After 26 hours, over five days, the jury finally told the judge. They had reached a verdict. Coming up, Robert Durst's world comes crashing down. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt. today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of

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Durst seemed relieved, but bewildered. He wasn't the only one who was surprised. The decision shocked those who were certain Durst was guilty. After all, he'd admitted to killing Morris and dismembering his body. But the jury couldn't find that Durst intentionally committed murder beyond a reasonable doubt. The not guilty verdict didn't mean Durst was getting away without serving jail time. While he'd been cleared of murdering Morris, he'd broken several other laws in the run-up to the

trial. So he faced minor charges that a new jury would have to consider, including two for fleeing Galveston. To ensure Durst wouldn't run while awaiting this trial, the judge set bail at a ludicrous $3 billion. You heard that right, billion with a B. Even the wealthy Dirst would have to stay in jail until the case went to trial. Of course, his high-priced attorney pushed back and eventually got the amount reduced to a more manageable $450,000 the following August. The next month, Dirst pleaded guilty to bail jumping, receiving a sentence of five years. Because of his plea, he received time served, meaning he had only two years left. He wouldn't spend all that time behind bars.

He was made eligible for parole in October 2004 and then released. The conditions were that he had to stay in Texas under electronic monitoring and had to alert officials any time he planned a trip away from his home that wasn't for work. But just days before his release, officials in Pennsylvania charged him with breaking fugitive gun laws. That's because of the gun they'd found in his car when he was arrested at the grocery. tour. So authorities in Texas extradited him. In February 2005, Durst pleaded guilty to those additional charges and served a sentence of five months. After leaving prison, he returned to Texas to serve the remainder of his parole.

According to his lawyer, Durst wanted to spend this time flying under the radar. He'd endured four years under an intense media spotlight and simply wanted to blend in, not stand out. But it seems like the lawyer was off base. Durst did the opposite of this. In December 2005, he left his home somewhere in Texas and returned to Galveston without telling his parole officer. There, out of all the places he could have gone, he went back to where he killed Morris Black.

He did this in full view of his former neighbors. It's unclear what he was doing there. Perhaps it was the same reckless compulsion that had caused Durst to shoplift years. before, or maybe he was there to reflect on what had happened that night. Regardless, he clearly didn't think the rules applied to him. After that, Durst traveled an hour away to a Houston shopping mall, where he had a serendipitous moment. There, amongst giggles of teens and kiosks, he ran into none other than the judge who presided over his murder trial, the same one who'd placed the $3 billion

bail. Durst seemed nervous, so much so that he dropped his foot. own. But they exchanged awkward pleasantries, each asking how the other was doing. Durst didn't say much, only mentioned what his high-priced lawyer was up to, working on another case for another wealthy client. Throughout this interaction, the judge was unaware that Durst had violated his probation. It wasn't until later when she told the proper authorities about her interaction that she realized anything had been wrong. Shortly after that, officials determined that Durst had broken the rules of his parole and arrested him. He spent a few weeks incarcerated before being sent to a sort of halfway facility for those

who'd violated parole. By spring 2006, he was out and back home in New York, but he didn't exactly receive a warm welcome. After decades of reputation damaging behavior, Durst and his family were locked in a legal battle over his access to the trust. After much back and forth, Durst finally severed ties with. with his estranged family. His parting gift, a $65 million payout.

It was probably a fraction of what he felt that he deserved. But now it was his money and his alone. No one in his family could take it away, no matter what trouble he caused. From there, Dirst disappeared from public life. It's unclear where he spent his time or what he was up to. We do know that he remained married to Deborah. Beyond that, Dirst didn't seem to resurface.

again until 2010. That's when he saw a movie starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst called All Good Things. It wasn't a big hit with audiences or critics, but Durst enjoyed it immensely. Maybe because, according to rumors, the story it told was loosely based on Durst's life. At some point, he reached out to the film's director to say how much he liked it. When the two began corresponding, they talked all about Durst's life. Eventually, they got her on to discussing making a documentary. Dirst hadn't made a public statement since he'd finished parole in 2005, and though he stayed in touch with the filmmakers over the next several years,

he seemed to have little desire to be on camera or to attract attention. At least, at first, within a few years of seeing the movie and talking with the director, Dirst's behavior appeared to spiral. Despite his desire to stay hidden, he couldn't seem to shake his tendency toward entitled Reckless. In August 2013, Durst showed up unannounced outside his brother Douglas' New York apartment. No one knew what his intentions were, but given their contentious relationship, it didn't seem like he was there to make nice. The police were called, and they arrested Durst for trespassing.

A year later, Durst's behavior got more erratic. This time in Houston, decades before, Durst had reportedly privately urinated in his brother's trash can in a petty feud. This time, police arrested him for publicly urinating on a candy rack at a pharmacy. For the trespassing charges in New York, the courts acquitted Durst. In Houston, he only paid a $500 fine. In both cases, Durst made headlines. It was the exact scenario Durst said he wanted to avoid when he got off parole all those years before. Each incident brought negative attention and ridicule.

Perhaps it was these two experiences that convinced Durst to do what he did next. In 2014, the filmmakers and Durst finally agreed to an on-camera interview for a documentary about Durst life. Durst said he wanted to help with the project so he could get his side of the events out there and fix his reputation. He knew they'd talk about all aspects of his life, from his troubled relationship with his family, to the disappearance of his first wife, Kathy, and the murder of Susan Berman. However, he didn't know that the filmmakers had already done extensive digging. They'd talked to plenty of people who'd known Dirst. One of those people was Susan Berman's stepson.

He got access to some of Susan's belongings after her death. At some point, he'd come across a letter Dirst had written to Susan just months before she died. On the envelope was Susan's address to her home, in the Beverly Hills neighborhood, Benedict Canyon. It was written in big, blocky letters, and the word Beverly was spelled incorrectly, with one extra E. The exact same spelling and style

as the cadaver notes sent to the police after Susan's murder. And when the filmmakers saw this, they knew they had the smoking gun that concretely proved Dirst's involvement in Susan Berman's death. So, as Dirst arrived at hotel in New Orleans, ready to sit down on camera,

He didn't realize he was walking into an ambush. During the 20 hours of interviews, Durst divulged aspects of his life that he'd spent decades avoiding. He answered tough questions and deflected others. But then the filmmakers confronted Durst with copies of the two envelopes. The one Durst wrote to Susan and the one that was mailed to the Beverly Hills Police Department. When asked if he could tell which he'd written, Durst sat there, dumbfounded. His face didn't betray his shock, but his mind must have been racing. They looked identical, and after a moment, Durst admitted that he couldn't.

It was gotcha journalism at its finest. The moment flustered Durst and he immediately called for a break in filming. You went into the bathroom to relieve himself. There, he was alone with his thoughts, but his microphone was still on. Durst mumbled to himself and the eventual viewers of the documentary, The Jinks, quote, That's it, you're caught. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.

With that, Durst sealed his fate. When the Jinks debuted in early 2015 on HBO, it was a sensation. And a day before the final episode, in which Durst confessed, police in New Orleans arrested him, acting on a warrant filed in California concerning Susan Berman's murder. Their main piece of new evidence was the envelope per stepsonnet found. A few months later, Durst stood before a judge in a California courtroom, hearing the charges against him. He had all of the high-priced lawyers he could afford, but this time the results would be much different because the prosecution had concrete evidence.

Things still moved incredibly slowly. The proceedings dragged on for years before the trial was set to begin in spring of 2020. But with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a jury didn't find Durs guilty of Susan Berman's murder until October 2021. By that time, the 78-year-old was already in waning health. Even so, a judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. With the conviction and new evidence, authorities in New York thought it was time. to strike. So they were quick to indict Dirst in connection with the disappearance of his first wife, Kathy. The case never made it to trial. Durs didn't even get extradited to New York.

On January 20, 2022, Robert Dirst died in prison from natural causes and a series of health issues. The end had arrived for the man who'd lived the last 40 years running from punishment. Today, most experts agree that Durst more than likely had a hand in Kathy's disappearance, but the case hasn't been decided in court and likely never will. Durst reminds us just how much those with access to money can get away with. High-priced lawyers can go a long way in cleaning a slate that constantly seems covered in blood. Hubris, however, can ruin everything, even if life has dealt you a pat-hand. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers.

We'll be back soon with another episode. For more information on Robert Durst, we found the HBO documentary series, The Jinks, extremely helpful to our research. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time.

Stay safe out there. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast, executive produced by Max Cutler. Our head of programming is Julian Boireau, Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash, with Nick Johnson as our head of production, and Quality Control by Spencer Howard. Stacey Nemick is our supervising editor, and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Joel Callan and Robert Tyler Walker,

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