Black sheep of one of the biggest families of New York real estate, Robert Durst was arrested on the eve of the broadcast of the last episode of a biographical documentary broadcast by HBO
Robert Durst, a wealthy and whimsical American septuagenarian made famous by an HBO documentary devoted to him, was found guilty on Friday, September 17 of the murder of his best friend by a court in Los Angeles.
The 78-year-old multimillionaire, who pleaded not guilty, was accused of killing his friend Susan Berman with a bullet to the head at the latter’s home in 2000 in Beverly Hills. The prosecution believes that Susan Berman, 55 at the time of the murder, helped Robert cover up his role in the murder of his wife Kathleen and that Robert Durst ended up killing Ms Berman to prevent him from responding to the police. -Yorkers who were investigating the disappearance of his wife in 1982.
Black sheep of one of the biggest families of New York real estate, Robert Durst was arrested in March 2015 on the eve of the broadcast of the last episode of a six-part biographical documentary, broadcast by the HBO channel. Entitled “The Jinx”, the series had revived the interest of the general public in this affair and Robert Durst appeared there himself.
“The Jinx” looked back on another bloody episode in Robert Durst’s life: the murder of a neighbor, whom he then dismembered and thrown into the sea in an attempt to make the body disappear. The sulphurous millionaire had at the time taken refuge in Texas, where he lived disguised as a woman and claimed to be silent, in a small sordid apartment.
He had been acquitted of the crime thanks to an army of prestigious lawyers who had pleaded a mixture of self-defense, an accidental gunshot and acts committed under the influence of alcohol. In “The Jinx”, Mr. Durst seemed to make an involuntary confession, whispering to himself as he was in the bathroom and his wireless mic was not turned off, “What the hell did I have?” made ? I killed them all, of course. “
In an interview with prosecutors after his arrest, Mr. Durst defended himself by claiming that he was under the influence of drugs during the filming of the documentary and that these words therefore meant nothing in particular. Robert Durst’s trial opened after lengthy proceedings in March 2020 in Los Angeles. But the hearing had to be suspended only two days later due to the coronavirus pandemic.