1. Robert Alan Durst was a convicted murderer and an American real estate heir.
85 Facts About Robert Durst
1. 2.
Robert Durst was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
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Robert Durst was charged with McCormack's murder shortly after his sentencing, but died in 2022 before a trial could begin.
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Robert Durst was born in New York City on April 12,1943, and grew up in Scarsdale, New York.
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Robert Durst was the eldest son of real estate magnate Seymour Durst and his wife, Bernice Herstein.
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When Robert Durst was seven, his mother died by suicide by jumping from the roof of the family's Scarsdale home.
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Robert Durst later claimed to have witnessed it, asserting that moments before her death, his father walked him to a window from which he could see her standing on the roof.
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Robert Durst attended Scarsdale High School, where classmates described him as a loner.
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Robert Durst earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1965 from Lehigh University, where he was a member of the varsity lacrosse team and the business manager of the student newspaper, The Brown and White.
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Later that year, Robert Durst enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he met Susan Berman, but eventually withdrew from the school and returned to New York in 1969.
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Robert Durst opened a small health-food store in Vermont in the early 1970s.
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Robert Durst closed the store in 1973, when his father convinced him to return to New York.
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Robert Durst claimed that Douglas had stolen what was rightfully owed to him, leading to Robert's estrangement from the rest of his family.
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Robert Durst eventually sued for his share of the fortune, and was bought out of the family trust for $65 million in 2006.
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Robert Durst was ultimately tried and acquitted for murder in the Black case, but later convicted in the Berman case.
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Robert Durst was last seen by someone other than Durst on the evening of January 31,1982, when she appeared unexpectedly at a dinner party, thrown by her friend Gilberte Najamy in Newtown, Connecticut.
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Only three weeks after Robert Durst had reported his wife missing, the superintendent on Riverside Drive found some of her possessions in the building's trash compactor.
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Robert Durst told a friend that Durst had beaten her, but did not press charges over the incident.
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At the time of McCormack's disappearance, Robert Durst had been dating Prudence Farrow for three years and was living in a separate apartment.
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Robert Durst initially offered $100,000.00 for his wife's return, then reduced the reward to $15,000.00.
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Robert Durst maintained that the last time he had seen her was at Katonah station, where she was planning to board a 9:15pm train to Manhattan.
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Robert Durst divorced McCormack eight years after her disappearance, claiming spousal abandonment.
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Robert Durst was officially charged with her murder on October 22,2021.
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Susan Berman, a longtime friend of Robert Durst's who had facilitated his public alibi after McCormack's disappearance, was the daughter of David Berman, a major Jewish-American organized crime figure who dominated illegal gambling in Depression-era Minneapolis and later took over the Flamingo Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
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Robert Durst is known to have been in northern California days before Berman's death and to have flown from San Francisco to New York the night before Berman's body was discovered.
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Robert Durst said in a 2005 deposition that Berman called him shortly before her death to say that the LAPD wanted to talk to her about McCormack's disappearance.
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Berman biographer Cathy Scott has asserted that Robert Durst killed her because she knew too much about his wife's disappearance.
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On October 9,2001, Robert Durst was arrested in Galveston shortly after body parts belonging to his elderly neighbor, 71-year-old Morris Black, were found floating in Galveston Bay.
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Robert Durst used his time on the run to stalk his brother Douglas, visiting the driveway of his home in Katonah, New York, while armed.
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Robert Durst employed defense attorney John Waldron while he was held on charges in Pennsylvania.
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In 2003, Robert Durst was tried for the murder of Morris Black.
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Robert Durst claimed that Black, a cranky and confrontational loner, grabbed his.
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On December 21,2004, Robert Durst pleaded guilty to two counts of bail jumping and one count of evidence tampering.
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Robert Durst was released again from custody on March 1,2006.
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Robert Durst's notoriety inspired the 2010 film All Good Things, the title of which is a reference to the Vermont health-food store of the same name set up by Robert Durst and McCormack.
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David Marks, the character based on Robert Durst, was portrayed by Ryan Gosling, and his wife Katie was portrayed by Kirsten Dunst.
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Shortly after its theatrical release, Durst contacted director Andrew Jarecki and expressed his approval for the film, which evolved into discussions between the two of them being included on the DVD video release, and eventually resulting in Jarecki co-writing, co-producing, directing, and appearing in the 2015 documentary miniseries The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, which was broadcast on HBO.
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Robert Durst, who had been tracked to the hotel after making two calls to check his voicemail, was observed wandering aimlessly in the lobby and mumbling to himself, having driven to New Orleans from Houston four days before.
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Robert Durst is believed to have planned to flee to Cuba after the HBO documentary aired, since the United States and Cuba have no extradition treaty.
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Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, in charge of prosecuting Robert Durst, immediately flew to New Orleans after his arrest.
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Later that same day, Louisiana State Police filed charges against Robert Durst for being a felon in possession of a firearm and for possession of a firearm with a controlled substance, forestalling his immediate return to California.
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Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro commented, in light of prior convictions that could influence Robert Durst's sentencing, "[j]ust for those gun charges here in Louisiana, [Robert Durst] could face up to life in prison".
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In failing to produce the arresting officers subpoenaed for a probable cause hearing, Robert Durst's attorneys charged that Louisiana prosecutors engaged in a "misguided attempt to conceal the facts from the court, the defendant, and the public".
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Later that month, Robert Durst's lawyers requested that more than $193,000 seized by authorities during their searches be returned, saying the cash "is not needed as evidence, is not contraband, and is not subject to forfeiture".
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DeGuerin confirmed rumors Robert Durst was in poor health, stating he suffered from hydrocephalus and had a shunt put into his skull two years before, as well as spinal surgery and a cancerous mass removed from his esophagus.
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Robert Durst's attorneys requested a later date for the federal weapons trial, saying they would need more time to prepare after rulings on pending motions.
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On November 16,2015, a New Orleans federal judge ordered Robert Durst rearraigned on the weapons charges and scheduled a hearing for December 17.
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Berrigan ultimately rescheduled the trial for February 3,2016, and Robert Durst changed his plea to guilty to the federal gun charge and received an 85-month prison sentence.
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Robert Durst's trial concerning the Berman killing was scheduled to begin in Los Angeles after Robert Durst was arraigned in California, but his transfer was delayed by the US Bureau of Prisons due to "serious surgery," according to DeGuerin.
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In May 2019, a motion filed by Robert Durst's attorneys claimed two handwriting samples, along with other evidence from his 2015 arrests, were obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, thus moving for their exclusion.
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Additional evidential hearings were held in December 2019 regarding the admissibility of statements Robert Durst made in March 2015 just after his arrest in New Orleans, in an interview with Lewin.
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Robert Durst told his godson, Howard Altman, "The person who wrote the note killed her".
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However, in August 2019, Robert Durst's attorneys argued, "What the note demonstrates is that the person who mailed it was aware that there was a body at the house, not that the individual murdered Susan Berman".
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On March 2,2020, Robert Durst appeared in court to begin his trial, which was expected to take several months.
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Robert Durst declined this option and the trial was scheduled to resume on April 12,2021.
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On May 13,2021, Robert Durst's lawyers filed a motion with the court saying Robert Durst had developed bladder cancer, and moved that the court postpone the trial indefinitely and to release him on bail to receive medical treatment that was currently being provided.
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On June 10,2021, Robert Durst was hospitalized after being found "down and not in his wheelchair".
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Robert Durst was unable to dress himself and was in court in his wheelchair, jail uniform, with catheter bag and covered in a large blanket.
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Robert Durst appeared on the stand for fourteen days, under questioning from Lewin, who gave seemingly endless examples of Robert Durst's propensity to lie.
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Robert Durst's lawyers said they were disappointed and would pursue "all avenues of appeal".
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On October 14,2021, Robert Durst was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for Berman's murder.
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Texas private investigator Bobbi Bacha has traced Robert Durst operating under stolen identities in Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Virginia.
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On December 11,2000, shortly before the Berman killing, Robert Durst married Debrah Lee Charatan.
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When Robert Durst was arrested for the Black killing in 2001, Charatan wired him the $250,000 bail the court required.
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Robert Durst visited Durst in jail and spoke with him on the phone on a regular basis, discussing his legal strategy and other personal and business issues.
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Shortly after Robert Durst was convicted of murdering Berman in September 2021, a lawyer for the family of Kathleen McCormack sent Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
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The letter asked Vance's office to investigate these claims, and the issue of Robert Durst's being a bigamist because of Charatan's publicly claimed marriage to Holm.
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Robert Durst traveled and lived under dozens of aliases over the years, using different identities to buy cars, rent apartments, and open credit card accounts.
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From 2015 on, Robert Durst had a number of significant medical issues, including major surgeries for esophageal cancer, having a shunt installed in his brain for hydrocephalus, and cervical spinal fusion.
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On October 16,2021, Robert Durst tested positive for COVID-19 and was placed on a ventilator.
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In mid-2002, Robert Durst signed over a power of attorney to Charatan, and their holdings are thought to have remained closely intermingled.
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Robert Durst owned three condominia in a multistory complex in Houston, and after filing suit, received a $200,000 settlement in 2006 from a Houston developer who refused to let him move into a unit newly purchased by his wife, which she had then immediately resold to Robert Durst for $10.
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At the time of Berman's murder in Los Angeles, Robert Durst had just sold a home in Trinidad, California, but maintained an office in Eureka while renting in nearby Big Lagoon.
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From about 1994 to 2006, Robert Durst waged a legal campaign to gain greater control of the family trust and fortune.
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On May 1,2015, the New York Post reported that Douglas Durst had settled litigation against Andrew Jarecki, having confirmed that Robert Durst was the source of videotaped depositions that appeared in The Jinx.
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The McCormack family's attorney, Robert Abrams, called Durst the "poster child" for why courts block defendants from disposing of assets while civil lawsuits are pending.
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In 2021, Robert Durst was among those listed in the Pandora Papers leak, exposing the offshore sheltering of financial assets by hundreds of political, business, and celebrity people.
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Robert Durst was charged with trespassing in New York City for walking in front of townhouses owned by his brother Douglas and other family members.
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Robert Durst went on trial and was acquitted in December 2014.
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In July 2014, Robert Durst was arrested after turning himself in to police following an incident at a Houston CVS drug store in which he allegedly exposed his genitalia without provocation and urinated on a rack of candy.
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Robert Durst then left the store and casually walked down the street.
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Robert Durst's lawyer described the incident as an "unfortunate medical mishap".
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Robert Durst died of cardiac arrest at the San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp, California, on January 10,2022, at age 78.
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Robert Durst had been undergoing medical tests when he went into cardiac arrest and did not respond to resuscitation.
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At the time of his death, Robert Durst remained in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.