Life for killing of friend
LOS ANGELES: US real estate scion Robert Durst has been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for the killing of his best friend.
Durst, a multi-millionaire who was the subject of an HBO documentary entitled The Jinx, has always denied he shot friend Susan Berman in the back of the head in 2000 at her Beverly Hills home to keep her from talking to police about the disappearance of his wife two decades earlier.
But last month, a jury in Los Angeles took only eight hours to find the 78-year-old guilty of the execution-style slaying.
“This crime was a witness killing,” Judge Mark Windham said before reading out the life sentence. “That circumstance . . . tremendously aggravated this awful, disturbing crime.”
Judge Windham rejected the defence’s request for a new trial, saying: “There is sufficient, in fact, overwhelming evidence of guilt.”
The court also heard from Berman’s son, Sareb Kaufman, who said he had wondered what his life would have been like had Durst not killed his mother.
“Every plan was completely swept away,” a crying Mr Kaufman said. “You also murdered me, the person I was.”
Durst sat motionless in a wheelchair in Thursday’s court session. Prosecutors say he murdered crime writer Berman to prevent her being questioned by New York police over the disappearance of his wife Kathleen.
Berman had acted as a spokeswoman for him after he became a suspect in the wife’s disappearance.
Durst, an estranged member of a New York’s real estate dynasties, was never charged in his wife’s case.
He was arrested in March 2015 in New Orleans in connection with Berman’s murder, hours before the final episode aired in the HBO documentary The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.
In its finale, Durst is heard muttering to himself, “There it is, you’re caught” and “Killed them all, of course” – apparently unaware a microphone he was wearing remained on while he used the rest room during a break in the session.
The series also delved into the 2001 death of Durst’s neighbour in Texas, Morris Black, who was found dismembered.
Durst admitted the dismemberment but claimed the killing was self-defence. He was acquitted.
He denied involvement in Berman’s death, but acknowledged he had written an anonymous letter telling police her body lay in her home.
Last month, prosecutor John Lewin told the jury there was a “mountain of evidence” Durst had killed all three.
Mr Lewin said a friend of Durst had testified the magnate had told him of Berman, “It was her or me. I had no choice”. “He has never been held accountable for his domestic abuse of (wife) Kathie. He was never held accountable for her death. The last 20 years, he’s gotten away with murdering Susan,” he told the jury.
“Durst is not jinxed. He’s a three-time killer who has managed to escape accountability until this very moment.”