A Los Angeles prosecutor used images of the doc series "The Jinx" at the start of the trial for the murder of the eccentric New York millionaire
Robert Durst is charged with the execution-style murder of his friend Susan Berman.
Photo:
ROBYN BECK / POOL / EFE
A Los Angeles prosecutor began his opening statement on Wednesday in the murder trial against Robert Durst, accused of killing a friend in Los Angeles almost 20 years ago, to cover up the disappearance of his wife, Kathie Durst, in 1982.
Susan Berman sealed his fate when he falsely told his best friend Robert Durst that detectives had asked to speak with her about the disappearance of Durst's wife that occurred 18 years earlier, prosecutors said Thursday at the trial against the New York millionaire in Los Angeles, AP reports.
Supposedly, Durst told Berman that he should agree to be interviewed, but privately made his own plan.
"Although he said," Go talk to them, "he also decided to kill her," said John Lewin, Deputy Prosecutor of the Los Angeles District, during a second day of opening statements at the trial of the wealthy real estate heir of New York.
In March 2015, almost fifteen years after Berman's death, Robert "Bob" Durst, son of Seymour Durst, former CEO of one of the largest private real estate companies in New York, was arrested for the murder of Berman.
The arrest came just one day before the end of The Jinx, an HBO documentary series about its history of alleged crimes.
The docuserie directed by Andrew Jarecki, recounted The history of Durst's relationship with the disappearance of three people between 1982 and 2001: Durst's wife, Kathleen Durst; her best friend, Susan Berman; and his former neighbor, Morris Black. Durst was tried and acquitted of Black's death, and was never accused of his wife's disappearance.
Durst, 76, also pleaded not guilty to Berman's murder in 2000 at his home in Beverly Hills.
Lewin described the last days of Berman's life, when Durst was going around the country accumulating money and establishing the false identity of an old mute woman because authorities had reopened the investigation into his wife's disappearance in 1982.
Durst has never been charged in connection with the disappearance of his wife Kathie Durst, who was later pronounced dead, but prosecutors at the Berman murder trial said that they can present evidence that Durst killed her, why Berman helped him cover up Kathie's homicide, and many years later, Durst also killed Berman for fear of what she could say to the researchers.
The authorities were never able to locate Durst in the Los Angeles area at the time of Berman's murder, although for a long time They knew I was in California and Lewin presented to the jurors a lot of circumstantial evidence about Durst's whereabouts.
Prosecutor Lewin showed the jury the family evidence for “The Jinx” viewers: a letter sent to the police that had Berman's address and the word “CADAVER” on it.
Durst's lawyers admitted that Durst had written it but they have not yet explained it, and prosecutors reproduced a clip of a Durst interview in which he says that Only the murderer could have written it.
Prosecutors also warned that this judicial process will be lengthy.
