Robert Durst: Convicted US murderer dies in prison
January 10, 2022
Convicted murderer Robert Durst died on Monday at the age of 78, his lawyer said.
He died at a state prison hospital facility in Stockton, California, where he was serving a life sentence for the murder of his best friend.
His lawyer, Chip Lewis, said Durst died of natural causes after several illnesses.
Months before his death, he was also charged with murdering his wife, Kathie Durst, who went missing in 1982.
In the United States, Durst was a figure of both horror and fascination — as he managed to evade being convicted of the murders and disappearances of those around him. He also made an infamous confession during an HBO documentary that he agreed to participate in.
Why was he in prison?
The multimillionaire was found guilty of shooting and killing his best friend, Susan Berman, at her home in Los Angeles in 2000.
Durst was also suspected of two other murders that have taken place over the past 39 years — including his wife and a former neighbor.
Prosecutors said he shot Berman in order to keep her from talking to police about the disappearance of his wife two decades earlier. He always denied the charges.
Who was Robert Durst?
Durst became famous in 2015, when he agreed to sit down with a documentarian and be interviewed about suspicions tying him to Berman's death and his wife's disappearance.
At the end of the resulting HBO documentary series, The Jinx, Durst, apparently unaware that his microphone was still on when he went into the bathroom, made what sounded like a confession to murdering both women.
He was the son of real estate magnate Seymour Durst and the brother of Douglas Durst, who is still the head of the Durst Organization.
In 1972, he married Kathleen Durst, who was 29 years old and just shy of completing her medical degree when she vanished on January 31, 1982.
She was last seen at a friend's dinner party, where the host said she appeared distressed and was wearing strange clothing. Kathleen Durst left after receiving a phone call from her husband and was never seen again.
In 2003, Robert Durst was charged with the murder of his neighbor Morris Black, whose remains were found floating in a body of water in Texas. Durst argued that he had killed Black in self-defense. He was acquitted of the murder.
Suspicions had long surrounded Durst in the case of his wife and his friend Berman, but he was never arrested until making the confession on The Jinx.
rs/wmr (AP, dpa)