N.Y. DA’s case report reveals Durst details
Prosecutor discusses evidence that led to indictment in wife’s homicide
The Westchester District Attorney on Wednesday released a comprehensive report into the murder case against New York real estate tycoon Robert Durst, who died last week, in the decades-old disappearance of his first wife.
The report provides the first in-depth look into law enforcement’s 40-year investigation into Kathie Durst’s disappearance. Robert Durst, who divorced his wife while she was still reported as missing, has long been suspected of killing her and hiding her remains. But much of the evidence remains shrouded in secrecy because it was part of a grand jury investigation.
Among the evidence highlighted in the report were references to notes that Kathie Durst’s friends found in the garbage of the couple’s home in South Salem, N.Y. One of which, referred to as the “dig note” in the report, contained the words: “town dump, bridge, dig, boat, other, shovel, car or truck rent
al.”
Kathie Durst, a graduate of what was then Western Connecticut State College, disappeared in 1982. She was later declared legally dead.
Robert Durst, 78, died Jan. 10 while serving a life sentence for another murder, the killing of his friend and confidant Susan Berman. During the Los Angeles trial, prosecutors claimed Berman helped cover up Durst’s role in his wife’s disappearance.
After being convicted in Berman’s homicide, Durst was indicted in November for his wife’s death.
District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah said the report, which summarized law enforcement's investigation into Kathie Durst's disappearance, was released Wednesday in "an effort to provide as much transparency as possible," because "a public trial is no longer possible due to Mr. Durst's death.”
The 12-page report does not include material subject to grand jury secrecy.
As for why the report was being released at this time, Rocah said her office has a "window" now that Durst has died to issue it before the case is dismissed and sealed once the office receives his death certificate.
Durst’s alleged crimes garnered renewed notoriety in 2015 when he was the central focus of “The Jinx,” an HBO documentary series. During an interview for the series, Durst was caught on a live mic seemingly admitting to the killings when he was in the bathroom.
He was arrested by law enforcement before the final episode of the series aired.
The conviction in Berman’s homicide provided Westchester County authorities with a legal theory to get statements made by Durst into evidence and charge him in his wife’s killing, Rocah said.
She cited two key pieces of evidence: Durst directed Berman to pretend to be his wife in a phone call to her medical school after the disappearance and his admission “to Susan Berman that he had killed Kathleen,” Rocah said.
To date, Kathie Durst’s remains have never been located, though officials said Wednesday they have ideas as to where her body may be found.
“We have theories based on some of the evidence,” Laura Murphy, bureau chief of the district attorney’s cold case unit, said during the news conference. “We can’t really comment on what the evidence is,” because of the grand jury investigation, she added.
Despite Durst dying before he could be brought to trial in his wife’s death, Rocah said she hoped the fact that he was charged brought the family “some closure.”
Joseph Beccera, a retired New York State Police investigator who reopened the case in 1999, said he got to know Kathie Durst’s family during that time.
“You could tell the heartbreak they had after all those years not knowing what happened to Kathie,” he said, adding that he made the family a promise that he would see the case through.
“I’m a little disappointed in the end that we couldn’t bring him to trial, and the fact that we don’t know where Kathie is, but I’m hoping they appreciate all the work that went into this case and it will bring them some closure,” he added.
An attorney for the surviving members of Kathie Durst’s family said they were not invited to attend Rocah’s news conference.
“Had the McCormack family been invited to today’s press conference, they would have explained not only the impact that Kathie’s murder has had on their lives, but also the damage that has resulted from law enforcement's failure to treat the victims of this crime as equal before the law,” attorney Robert Abrams, the family’s lawyer, said in a statement.
Abrams has claimed members of the Durst family were involved in a criminal conspiracy to keep him from facing charges in connection with his wife’s disappearance.
“Today, the Westchester County District Attorney has sanctioned those illegal acts and attempted to explain away how money, power and influence allowed a killer to escape justice,” he said, calling for her resignation.
Rocah said Wednesday her office had “no evidence to start an investigation” into members of the Durst organization.
Kathie Durst’s disappearance
Kathie Durst disappeared the night of Jan. 31, 1982, after attending a party in Newtown.
Five days later, Robert Durst reported his wife as missing to the New York City Police Department, claiming he had driven her from their home in South Salem to the train station in Katonah, where she boarded a train bound for the city.
Durst, the scion of an immensely wealthy New York real estate family, told investigators that he called his wife from a pay phone to confirm she had arrived at their Riverside Drive apartment.
Rocah said the day Kathie Durst disappeared, her husband made "a number of statements" that were contradicted by evidence. “This evidence included multiple reports of domestic violence by Durst against Kathleen, including with a gun,” Rocah said.
A neighbor to the couple’s Riverside Drive apartment told investigators that Kathie Durst had at one point climbed across to her neighbor’s balcony “scared and hysterical,” knocking on the window to get in, according to the report. She told the neighbor Durst “had beaten her, that he had a gun, and that she was afraid that he would shoot her,” the report reads.
Police found "physical evidence" in Durst’s South Salem home and collected statements by witnesses, the report stated. Rocah said the witnesses cast doubt on Durst's supposed whereabouts after his wife's disappearance.
A cleaning woman at the South Salem home showed police “what she described as a small amount of blood on the dishwasher,” when police visited in the days after Kathie Durst was reported missing, the report reads.
“The cleaning woman also recalled telling police that she noticed a wood panel askew in the dining room, as well as the presence of grimy fingerprints in that area,” the report reads. “She also recalled telling police that Durst instructed her to dispose of many of Kathleen's belongings soon after her disappearance.”
A worker at one of the Durst apartments on East 86th street encountered a clogged trash compactor that contained Kathie Durst’s “personal items, including medical books marked with Kathleen Durst's name,” the report states.
Despite that evidence, investigators’ efforts focused on the possibility that Kathie Durst was in New York City, because workers at the Riverside Drive building claimed to have seen her in the building the night she disappeared. The report references a phone call to the medical school in the Bronx allegedly made by Kathie Durst after she disappeared.
But prosecutors now claim that the phone call was made by Berman.
Berman, Robert Durst’s “close friend and unofficial spokesperson,” was a well-known author who issued statements suggesting Kathie Durst had run off with another man, the report states.
“After the Manhattancentric investigation failed to locate Kathleen or her body, the investigation went cold,” the report states.
The investigation reopened in 1999
Becerra, the New York State Police investigator, reopened the case in 1999 after a tip came in from a person facing charges in another case about the location of Kathie Durst’s remains, the report stated.
The tip turned out to not be credible, but it inspired Becerra to reinterview witnesses who spoke to police around the time of the disappearance nearly 20 years earlier. The renewed investigation included a search of the couple’s former home, which was no longer owned by Durst.
“Shortly thereafter, Robert Durst fled to Galveston, Texas, where he disguised himself as a mute woman,” the report read.
Becerra planned to interview Berman, but before he could do so, she was shot and killed in her Los Angeles home, the report stated.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles said Durst carried out that killing to preserve Berman’s silence in his wife’s homicide.
Durst was also implicated in a third killing — the shooting death of a neighbor, Morris Black. Durst admitted to killing Black during a fight at an apartment in Texas, before dismembering him and discarding his body. Durst was later acquitted of the killing after pleading selfdefense.