Durst to dust: Millionaire killer dies in jail
LOS ANGELES: Real estate heir and convicted murderer Robert Durst, who was jailed for life for killing his best friend, has died in a California prison.
Multi-millionaire Durst was the subject of an explosive HBO documentary entitled The Jinx, which ultimately led to his conviction for one of the three gruesome murders for which he was believed to be responsible.
Durst, 78, was convicted last year of the December 2000 shooting of Susan Berman in her Beverly Hills home. He was known to have been unwell for some time.
Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, had taken on the role of Durst’s spokeswoman after he became a suspect in the disappearance of his wife, Kathleen, 18 years earlier. Prosecutors said he had murdered Berman to prevent her from incriminating him in a renewed police investigation into the disappearance of Kathleen Durst.
Durst’s wife, a medical student, was just 29 when she vanished as the couple’s marriage was disintegrating.
He told investigators she had boarded a train to Manhattan bound for the couple’s apartment there – one of a number of homes they shared – but had never arrived.
A woman claiming to be Kathleen called the medical school the next morning to say she was sick and would not be in class. Prosecutors said they believed that woman had been Berman.
The investigation into Kathleen’s disappearance petered out but was reignited in 2000 when Durst said in The Jinx police got in touch with Berman. On Christmas Eve of that year, Berman’s bloodied body was found in her home.