Robert Durst, subject of the HBO documentary The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, has been arrested in New Orleans in connection with a Los Angeles murder.
Durst, 71, is a member of a prominent New York City family that owns a multibillion-dollar real-estate company. He was taken into custody in a hotel lobby Saturday night and was being held Sunday on a first-degree murder warrant, Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office documents said.
The Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement Sunday that it has been investigating the slaying of writer and Durst confidant Susan Berman since her body was discovered in her West Los Angeles home on Christmas Eve 2000.
Durst discussed the case in the HBO documentary series, which wraps up Sunday night.
“As a result of investigative leads and additional evidence that has come to light in the past year, investigators have identified Robert Durst as the person responsible for Ms. Berman’s death,” the Los Angeles Police statement said. “Investigator’s in concert with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Major Crimes Section secured an Arrest warrant for Robert Durst for the murder of Susan Berman and arrested Mr. Durst on Saturday, March 14, 2015, in New Orleans, Louisiana.”
Los Angeles authorities said they were seeking Durst’s extradition from Louisiana. Durst’s lawyer, Chip Lewis, told KTRK-TV in Houston that Durst, a suspect in a series of unsolved crimes, will not fight extradition but will fight the charges.
His brother Douglas, expressed “relief” and gratitude in a written statement.
“We hope he will finally be held accountable for all he has done,” Douglas Durst said.
In 1982, Durst was the only named suspect in the disappearance of his first wife, medical student Kathleen McCormack, who vanished after Durst maintained he dropped her off at a train station near their home north of New York City in Westchester County.
On Chistmas Eve 2000, after investigators looking into the McCormack disappearance contacted Berman, she was found murdered with a gunshot wound to the back of her head. Durst was never charged.
Last week’s HBO episode hinted that Los Angeles detectives were closing in on Durst, showing an apparent match between a Dec. 23, 2000, anonymous letter alerting police to a body at Berman’s address and the handwriting on a letter Durst sent Berman the previous year. Both letters misspelled Beverly Hills as “Beverley.”
New York state police Investigator Joseph Becerra was the first to take a fresh look at McCormack’s disappearance in 2000 and has worked closely with Los Angeles detectives and FBI agents in recent months.
“We’re going to monitor the Los Angeles case closely, and hopefully it will lead to some resolution of our case,” Becerra said Sunday.
Months after Berman’s death, Durst was arrested in the murder of Texas neighbor, Morris Black. Durst admitted cutting up Black’s body and dumping the remains in Galveston Bay. Aided by a trio of famed Houston defense lawyers, Durst won an acquittal based on self-defense.
Durst’s family’s business, the Durst Organization, owns more than 15 skyscrapers, including the Bank of America Tower in the heart of Manhattan, and has a large investment in One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the U.S. and the replacement for the Twin Towers. Douglas Durst serves as president; Robert Durst is not involved in the family business.
In July, Durst had a more quirky run-in with the law. He was accused of urinating on a Texas CVS cash register and candy rack. Lewis at that time said Durst suffers from a form of Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism.
“He wasn’t arguing with anybody and he didn’t seem agitated,” Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva told The New York Post. “He just peed on the candy. Skittles, I think.”
Attorney Ellen Strauss, a friend of Durst’s first wife Kathleen from their days as students at Western Connecticut State University, said she was relieved by the arrest. “I feel extremely vindicated after 33 years,” she said.
“It’s not going to bring Kathie back,” Strauss added. “He may never be arrested for that case. But he will remain behind bars, where he belongs. It’s finally come full circle.”
See the official HBO trailer: “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst”
In the blockbuster HBO documentary produced by Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling, Durst seemingly admitted his guilt and blew off the notion that investigators would be interested in coming after him after all of these years later:
“What the hell did I do?” Mr. Durst whispers to himself in an unguarded moment caught on a microphone he wore during filming. “Killed them all, of course.”
According to the New York Times, investigators in the case of Robert Durst credit filmmakers for helping crack the code in this bizarre and complex investigation.
“These two producers did what law enforcement in three states could not do in 30 years,” said Jeanine F. Pirro, the former Westchester County district attorney, whose office investigated Kathleen Durst’s disappearance for six years. “Kudos to them. They were meticulous. They were focused. They were clear.”
The filmmakers spent nearly 10 years researching Mr. Durst’s story: his upbringing as the eldest son of a family that controls 11 major skyscrapers in New York; his marriage to Ms. Durst, a medical student who lived in one of his family’s buildings, and its unraveling; his estrangement from his family after his father chose his younger brother, Douglas Durst, to run the business in 1994.
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The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli 
hope this is finally closure for Kathie’s family and for Susan Berman’s step-children.
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If Durst were to be found guilty and was given the death sentence, is it possible that the ultimate in reality TV would allow for our first public execution
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I finally caught the film. An extraordinary testament to the power of documentary filmmaking that should be spread wider than stories about rich people made by rich people. I cant wait to see your upcoming projects! Keep up the good work!
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