The killer who convicted himself

Chilling true-crime documentary The Jinx, about a murderous New York property heir, is back with a gripping conclusion

The true story of Robert Durst, a wealthy New York real estate heir convicted of one murder and due to stand trial for another, has been playing out on the screen for almost 15 years. Now American filmmaker Andrew Jarecki has finally provided a conclusion.

Jarecki first encountered Durst in 2010 after the release of All Good Things, his film inspired by Durst and the accusations of murder that swirled around him after the disappearance of his first wife Kathleen and the deaths of his friend Susan Berman and neighbour Morris Black. Durst was tried for Morris’s murder in 2003 but acquitted. The film starred Ryan Gosling as a thinly disguised version of Durst with Kirsten Dunst as his wife. Durst was so impressed by the film that he contacted Jarecki, ‘and that was the start of The Jinx’.

That was the title of Jarecki’s 2015 six-part documentary, which probed the mysterious disappearances. Now The Jinx Part Two focuses on Durst in his prison overalls after his evil past has caught up with him.

‘We feature footage of Durst in LA County Jail and recordings of phone calls he made from there,’ explains Jarecki.

‘In the first series there was uncertainty as to whether Durst had done the murders. But he was then convicted of the first-degree murder of Susan Berman in 2021 and was due to be tried for killing Kathleen when he died in custody in early 2022, aged 78. In the new series we ask how he got away with murder for so long.’

The original series probed every aspect of Durst’s life and provided its title. ‘I didn’t want to raise children, I knew I wouldn’t be a good father,’ Durst told Jarecki. ‘I thought it would be a jinx.’

The new series features an audio recording Jarecki says is gamechanging. ‘It’s a phone interview with a woman that altered my perception of the whole story.

The details were mind-blowing.’

Durst spent most of the original series denying any involvement in the disappearance of his first wife Kathleen and the murders of Susan and Morris. But in the dramatic finale he made a terrible mistake. After being interviewed by Jarecki, Durst forgot the microphone attached to him was still live. He was heard saying to himself, ‘What the hell did I do? I killed them all.’

‘Bob liked being the centre of attention,’ explains Jarecki. ‘He was endlessly interesting. You could describe him as a monster but, like all of us, he started out with hopes and dreams. Tragically those hopes and dreams turned to violence, murder and misery.’

Tim Oglethorpe The Jinx Part Two, Monday, 9pm, Sky Documentaries. The original series is on Sky/now.

Robert Durst with first wife Kathleen and (top) in prison