Defense Rests, Testimony Ends In Robert Durst’s L.A. Murder Trial
LAPPL News Watch
September 2, 2021
Robert
Durst’s marathon testimony over three weeks — in which the ailing
millionaire denied killing his wife and best friend but also said he’d
lied if he had done so — concluded Wednesday and lawyers rested their
cases in the murder trial.
The New York real estate heir tried to
counter or explain incriminating evidence in three killings that have
shadowed him for decades, but was crippled by a cross-examination that
the judge said was “devastating” to Durst’s believability.
It will be up
to jurors to weigh his fate. Closing arguments are scheduled Sept. 8
and deliberations are expected to begin a week later.
Durst, 78, has
pleaded not guilty to murder in the point-blank shooting of his friend,
Susan Berman, in her Los Angeles home in December 2000. On the witness
stand, he repeatedly denied killing her and said he doesn’t know who
did.
Prosecutors said he silenced Berman because she planned to tell New
York authorities that she provided a false motive for Durst after his
wife vanished in 1982. They were able to introduce evidence that he
killed Kathie Durst, who has never been found, as well as evidence that
he intentionally killed a Texas neighbor in 2001.
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