WILL MURDERER’S LUCK FINALLY RUN OUT?

Robert Durst, son of a New York real estate mogul, got away with murder in New York and Galveston but may not be as lucky in Los Angeles

Robert Durst, 71, is a member of the family that owns the Durst Organization, a $4-billion New York real estate development company. New York authorities suspect him of killing his wife who disappeared in 1982, and Los Angeles authorities suspect him of the execution-style killing of a woman who was believed to have known something about his wife’s disappearance.

Durst has been a very lucky man because up until now he has gotten away with murder even though he admitted killing and dismembering a neighbor in a Galveston rooming house in 2001. Lucky Bobby's luck may have finally run out as he was arrested Saturday in New Orleans by the FBI on a warrant out of Los Angeles charging him with first degree murder. Durst had been staying there under a false name at the Marriott hotel on Canal Street. When arrested, he was carrying a .38 cal. S&W revolver.

Here is a look at Durst’s run-ins with the law:

Kathleen McCormack

In 1973, Durst married Kathleen McCormack, a dental hygienist. In 1982 he was working for the Durst Organization in New York when his wife suddenly disappeared. At the time he was having an affair with Prudence Farrow, the younger sister of actress Mia Farrow. Kathleen’s disappearance has never been solved. Durst is suspected of murdering Kathleen and disposing of her body.

Susan Berman

Susan Berman, a journalist and author, was a longtime friend of Robert Durst. On Christmas Eve, 2000, Berman was murdered in her Benedict Canyon home in Los Angeles. She had been shot execution-style in the back of the head. LAPD investigators thought there was the possibility she was killed because she was the daughter of Las Vegas mobster Dave Berman, a former associate of Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. However, Durst has always been the primary suspect in her death. It is believed that Susan was snuffed to keep her from telling anyone what she knew of Kathleen McCormack’s disappearance.

Morris Black

In 2001, Durst was living in a Galveston, Texas rooming house. He admittedly had been walking around Galveston smoking marijuana and dressed as a woman. Prosecutors believe he killed his 71-year-old neighbor Morris Black in order to assume the victim’s identity because New York authorities had begun to reinvestigate the disappearance of his wife. That’s also why Durst dresses as a woman. The day after he shot Black, the victim’s arms, legs and torso washed upon the shore of Galveston Bay. Durst admitted using a paring knife, two saws and an axe to dismember Black's body before dumping the body parts into the bay. Black’s head has never been found. The pot smoking cross-dresser claimed he shot Black in self-defense after they got into a scuffle.

Durst was released on bail after he had been arrested for Black’s murder. A warrant was issued for Durst’s arrest when he failed to show up for a court hearing. He was captured in a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania super market where he got caught trying to shoplift a chicken sandwich, Band-Aids, and a newspaper. He had $500 cash in his pocket and the Bethlehem cops found $37,000 in cash, two guns, marijuana and Black's driver's license in his rented car.

Durst hired Dick DeGuerin, one of the nation’s most prominent defense attorneys. In 2003, a Galveston jury acquitted him of the murder charge. However, Durst remained in jail because he also faced charges of bail jumping and evidence tampering (for dismembering and disposing Black’s body parts). Durst accepted a plea bargain of five years in prison with credit for time already served. He was paroled in 2005, but was returned to prison on a parole violation. Durst was released again in March 2006.

Family fears

In 2012 and 2013, Durst’s family in New York obtained several restraining orders against him because they feared he would harm them. In 2013, he was arrested for violating one of those orders, but a jury acquitted him in 2014 and the judge vacated all 13 of the protective orders his family had obtained.

Drugstore peeing caper

In 2014, Durst walked into a Houston CVS pharmacy store, picked up a prescription, then whipped out his dick and peed on a cash register, soaking some candy displayed nearby. On the following day, having learned that he had been identified as the perpetrator, he turned himself into the police. Durst pled ‘no contest’ to misdemeanor criminal mischief and was fined $500. Lucky Bobby could have been jailed for up to a year and fined up to $2,000 on the criminal mischief charge.

His attorney claimed that a medical problem caused Durst to pee in the store. Yeah, right. If there was any medical problem in this particular instance, it was his addiction to pot.
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“The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” a six-part documentary about him on HBO, wound up Sunday. Near the end of the series’ final episode a microphone he was wearing picked up Durst uttering to himself while in a bathroom, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

That ‘confession’ came right after he was shown copies of two letters, one which he wrote to Berman a year before her death and the other one an anonymous letter to the Beverly Hills police pointing them to "a cadaver" in her home and saying "only the killer could have written" it. The handwriting on both letters was the same and in both letters he misspelled "Beverly" as "Beverley." He admitted writing the letter to Berman but denied writing the one to the police. He then rushed to the bath room where, before making his ‘confession,’ he uttered "There it is. You're caught!"

The producers of “The Jinx” sent the two letters to LAPD along with the recording of the ‘confession’ and other information they thought linked Durst to the murder of Berman. That led Los Angeles authorities to issue the first degree murder warrant in the death of Susan Berman for which he was arrested Saturday.

Chip Lewis, Dick DeGuerin’s partner, accused the documentary makers of being "duplicitous" because they did not make it clear to Durst that they would inform the police of anything he said. Lewis also said that the timing of the arrest just one day before the airing of the final episode was designed for maximum impact on Sunday’s final episode. "It's all about Hollywood now," he said.

Douglas Durst, Robert’s brother, said in a statement Sunday, “We are relieved and also grateful to everyone who assisted in the arrest of Robert Durst. We hope he will finally be held accountable for all he has done.”

During a court appearance Monday, Durst waived his extradition rights. However, there may be a tug of war between California and Louisiana because the Louisiana State Police have charged Durst with being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm with a controlled substance, both felonies. The controlled substance was marijuana. A judge has ordered Durst to appear in court next week for a hearing on the firearms charges.

Personally, I would rather see Durst doing time in Louisiana first because there he will find the prisons not nearly as accommodating as that cushy California death row. I think a few years in Angola, that infamous Louisiana prison, would be just the right place for Durst to roost before being shipped off to California.

DeGuerin intends to fight both the murder and firearms charges, arguing that the Los Angeles arrest warrant has no legal standing as it was “issued because of a television show and not because of facts.”

Attorneys contacted in Houston believe Los Angeles prosecutors will have a hard time getting a conviction on the evidence they obtained from the HBO documentary. Law professor Gerald Treece says the defense will argue that the producers of “The Jinx” were ‘complicit’ with the police and therefore anything Durst said during the filmmaking and the two letters cannot be used as evidence against him. Let’s hope they are wrong and that Durst’s luck will have finally run out.
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Since I have been tilting at windmills in my opposition to marijuana, I can’t help myself, but I’ve got to take this shot at the pot advocates and their harping about the harmlessness of that funny tobacco.

Durst was a pothead and marijuana made him stupid. Here are a couple of examples. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania he got caught trying to shoplift a chicken sandwich, Band-Aids, and a newspaper even though He had $500 cash in his pocket and $30,000 in his car. And, while wearing a microphone he uttered, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” Stupid is as stupid does, especially if you’re smoking pot!

I am sure that Durst’s use of marijuana played a big part in the murders of Kathleen McCormack, Susan Berman and Morris Black, and in his dismembering of Black’s body. And they keep saying that smoking pot is harmless. Yeah, right. And pigs can fly.