‘BTW, Mr. Durst killed his wife’
A woman allegedly gunned down by Robert Durst once casually mentioned that the New York real-estate heir had “killed” his first wife, a former boyfriend testified Monday.
Paul Kaufman said Susan Berman dropped the bombshell while they were on a plane ride to New York years ago, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“She said, ‘By the way, you know, Mr. Durst killed his wife,’ ” Kaufman testified during a Los Angeles Superior Court hearing tied to Durst’s upcoming trial in Berman’s execution-style slaying.
Durst, 74, is charged with murdering Berman, a professional writer, to keep her quiet about his alleged role in the unsolved 1982 disappearance of his thenwife, Kathie Durst.
Kaufman said he wasn’t sure if what Berman said was true because they were “talking about imaginary circumstances” while discussing script ideas involving mobsters and murder.
When pressed by the prosecutor on whether he had asked Berman how she knew what she had claimed, Kaufman replied, “No, I did not at the time.”
“I did not particularly believe it or disbelieve it,” he added, according to the LA Times.
Kaufman, 74, is among several now-elderly witnesses whose testimony regarding Berman’s fatal shooting is being recorded on video before Durst goes on trial, due to fears they could die or be killed before then.
Cops found Berman’s body in her Beverly Hills home on Christmas Eve 2000 after getting an anonymous letter alerting them to a “cadaver” there.
He was busted in March 2015, a day before the finale of the HBO documentary “The Jinx,” in which Durst is heard talking to himself in a bathroom, saying, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
At the time of his arrest, authorities said, he was staying in a New Orleans hotel under an assumed name, with a loaded gun, wads of cash, a stash of pot, an elaborate human mask and a map that suggested he was planning to flee to Cuba.
Also testifying Monday was a friend of Berman’s who said he had suspected her manager was behind her death, the LA Times reported.
Richard Markey said that Berman had a “turbulent” relationship with the manager, Nyle Brenner, and that after her murder, Brenner said he didn’t plan to cooperate with authorities.
Markey also said Berman never would have unlocked her door for a stranger, noting, “She had a phobia about things like that.”
Brenner didn’t return a request for comment.