Robert Durst Charged With Susan Berman Murder; Extradited to Los Angeles

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Category: Crime

Published on Tuesday, 17 March 2015 17:18

Written by Janet Walker

Robert Alan Durst, the son of the New York millionaire real estate mogul Seymour Durst, was arrested in New Orleans and extradited to Los Angeles in the execution style murder of Susan Berman, a Beverly Hills writer and friend.

Durst, 71, who is currently the subject of the HBO series titled The Jinx, was always considered the main suspect in the Christmas Eve murder that was intended to silence the petite brunette.

Once considered his confident and friend, Breman, who lived along in Benedict Canyon at the time of the murder was an author and journalist who allegedly had enough information to provide detectives with incriminating evidence regarding the disappearance of Durst's first wife, Kathleen.

The Los Angeles Police Department issued an arrest warrant on March 14, 2015, the morning after a bizarre and barely audible off camera confession aired on the final episode of The Jinx where Durst said "I killed them all."

Durst has been the main suspect in three other murders including his first wife, Kathleen McCormack, Berman who the NYPD had contacted after renewed interest in the Durst-McCormack missing person case, and an elderly male, Morris Black of Galveston, Texas.

Kathleen McCormack married the then heir to the Durst Real Estate fortune when she was 19 and Durst 27. Nine years later, with pressures from family closing in Durst became involved with Prudence Farrow, the sister of actress Mia Farrow. McCormack complained to friends over the state of the marriage.

Power and privileged apparently clashed and Kathie McCormack disappeared on February 1, 1982. The case remains open.

Berman, the daughter of Las Vegas Mobster Davie Berman, met Durst while studying at UCLA. They shared tragedy as both lost their mothers to suicide a bond that remained strong long after collegiate life ended.

Berman, an author, and journalist wrote across many veins and had authored two memoirs. Her life rights sold and at the time there had been talk of several well-known producers interested in picking up the project. It remains unproduced to this day. She was murdered December 24, 2000.

Morris Black, an elderly man and neighbor of Durst in Galveston, Texas, had the bad luck of crossing the path of a sociopath. Durst was arrested for the murder, plead not guilty, never denied dismembering Black but did deny murdering him claiming self-defense. Black was dismembered and his body parts washed ashore in Galveston. The medical examiner ruled Black died of a heart attack brought on by the assault.

The 12 person jury found Durst "Not Guilty" indicting the prosecutors provided two stories to choose from asking jurors to find the multi-millionaire Durst guilty of something by his own admission.

If Durst is finally convicted he would spend the remainder of his life, long or short, behind bars.