Durst defense rests; testimony ends in murder case
LOS ANGELES >> Robert Durst’s marathon testimony over three weeks — in which the ailing millionaire denied killing his wife and best friend but also said he’d lied if he had done so — concluded Wednesday and lawyers rested their cases in the murder trial.
The New York real estate heir tried to counter or explain incriminating evidence in three killings that have shadowed him for decades, but was crippled by a cross-examination that the judge said was “devastating” to Durst’s believability.
It will be up to jurors to weigh his fate. Closing arguments are scheduled Sept. 8 and deliberations are expected to begin a week later.
Durst, 78, has pleaded not guilty to murder in the point-blank shooting of his friend, Susan Berman, in
her Los Angeles home in December 2000. On the witness stand, he repeatedly denied killing her and said he doesn’t know who did.
Prosecutors said he silenced Berman because she planned to tell New York authorities that she provided a false motive for Durst after his wife vanished in 1982.
They were able to introduce evidence that he killed Kathie Durst, who has never been found, as well as evidence that he intentionally killed a Texas neighbor in 2001.
Durst was acquitted of murder in the death of Morris Black after testifying that the Galveston neighbor pulled a gun on him and was shot during a struggle for the weapon.
If Durst’s testimony in that case saved him, his decision to speak publicly about his life afterwards may have come back to haunt him.
Durst said he deeply regretted speaking with filmmakers for a documentary on his life that unearthed key evidence in the Berman killing and revealed an off-camera moment that many viewers interpreted as a confession. His performance in front of jurors has already earned a bad review from the judge in the case.
“On day one, it appeared that you really effectively destroyed any possible credibility of this witness,” Judge Mark Windham told the prosecutor last week after jurors were excused. “By day three, I think you had very, very serious — I would even say profound — admissions.”