Durst ‘caught’ in his own words at trial

Nab Jets DT at LGA with pistol: cops

Jurors heard a lot from Robert Durst at his murder trial Thursday, including how he dismembered a body “like you do a chicken” and the notorious alleged confession he “killed them all, of course.”

The millionaire murder suspect didn’t testify, but his voice repeatedly filled a Los Angeles courtroom as prosecutors played audio from his 2015 jail interview with authorities and his recorded chats with the makers of the HBO true crime series “The Jinx.”

When asked during the jail interview how he managed to handily hack up the body of his Texas neighbor Morris Black in 2001, Durst didn’t hesitate.

“I’ve been told, um, that a surgeon would cut up a body the same way you do a chicken. You go into the joint. And you, you cut around the joint. You get rid of all the ligaments. And then, the thing comes out,” Durst said.

In the “Jinx” audio that’s a centerpiece of his current trial, Durst was heard muttering to himself during a bathroom break, apparently unaware he was still wearing a hot mic.

“There it is, you’re caught,” he whispered to himself.

“Killed them all, of course,” he muttered a few seconds later.

“What a disaster,” he continued. “What the hell did I do?”

Deputy District Attorney John Lewin stressed to jurors Thursday that they were hearing the raw, unedited audio recorded during Durst’s restroom recess, which ended with the flush of a toilet.

He said the audio was “edited” before it appeared in the dramatic finale of “The Jinx,” but the original version was no less damaging.

Lewin spent the first two days of Durst’s long-awaited trial piecing together a complex case with three bodies total, even though Durst is only facing charges involving his alleged murder of his best friend, Susan Berman.

Prosecutors claim Durst murdered Berman in December 2000 to keep her from telling New York authorities what she knew about the mysterious disappearance of Durst’s first wife, Kathie McCormack Durst, in 1982.

They claim Durst killed Kathie at their home in South Salem, Westchester County, to avoid a messy divorce, then murdered Berman when he thought she was about to flip on him, and finally killed Black to maintain his cover living on the lam as a mute woman named Dorothy Ciner.

Durst was acquitted of Black’s murder at trial after claiming self-defense. Lewin said Thursday he plans to prove Black’s death was “not an accident.”

He gave a rare warning to the jury to brace themselves before he published graphic photos of Black’s headless torso and dismembered body parts on two large screens in the courtroom Thursday.

One juror covered her mouth in horror.

He later used a smiling photo of Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling when he introduced them as the “Jinx” filmmakers Durst would proactively pursue for a series of sitdown interviews in December 2010.

“The evidence is going to show that Bob Durst loves media attention,” Lewin said.

He said Durst reached out to the men because he liked their fictionalized movie about his life, “All Good Things,” which starred Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Gosling.

Even though the film portrayed Durst as responsible for the three deaths, Durst loved the movie, Lewin said.

He said Jarecki and Smerling, who are due to testify at the trial, worked hard on their new Durst project and eventually convinced Los Angeles authorities to share a copy of the so-called “cadaver note” allegedly sent by Berman’s killer to police.

The filmmakers were the reason Berman’s adoptive son Sareb Kaufman eventually dug up a different letter sent by Durst to Berman that matched the “cadaver note” in terms of having the same distinctive block lettering and “Beverley” misspelling, Lewin said.

“They knew what they had,” Lewin said. “The goal was to confront Bob with the Sareb letter and the cadaver note and see what they could get.”

Lewin showed jurors video of Jarecki’s “ambush” interview with Durst in April 2012 and then segued into the recordings captured in the bathroom.

The prosecutor claimed the alleged confession was one of three in the case, including one Durst allegedly made to him during the 2015 jail interview.

Lewin further told jurors Los Angeles Police Detective Gevork Shamlyan received an FBI request to exhume Berman’s body at some point, and that he personally advised against it.

He recalled telling Shamlyan that exhumation was “not a route you should pursue” because her body probably was contaminated “over the years,” so any recovered DNA likely “wouldn’t be something from the crime.”

After the jury left for the day, Judge Mark Windham admonished Lewin for repeatedly invoking his personal role in the investigation.

Two of Durst’s lawyers, David Chesnoff and Donald Re, argued Lewin’s comments were grounds for a mistrial.

New York Jets defensive tackle Quinnen Williams tried to board a flight at LaGuardia Airport with a gun Thursday night, police said.

Williams, 22, who just finished his rookie year with the Jets after playing at the University of Alabama, was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon at about 9:15 p.m., Port Authority police said.

He had a permit for his Glock 19 pistol in Alabama, but not in New York, police said.

His case will be handled by the Queens District Attorney’s office, police said.

Williams (inset) was the third overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. In June, he signed a four-year, $32.5 million deal with the Jets.