Millionaire fugitive Robert Durst: I killed them all

Eccentric linked to three killings made admission in HBO show.

The arrest of Robert Durst, a wealthy eccentric linked to two killings and his wife’s disappearance, came just before the finale in an HBO show about his life in which he said he “killed them all”.

Durst was arrested on a murder warrant just before Sunday evening’s showing of an HBO serial documentary about his links to three sensational killings.

In the finale, Durst was asked about similarities in handwriting in a letter he wrote and another linked to one of the killings.

Later, filmmakers said Durst wore his microphone into the bathroom. What followed was a bizarre rambling in which Durst said, apparently to himself, “There it is. You’re caught” and “What the hell did I do? Killed them all of course.”

The show ended, and it was not clear whether producers confronted Durst about the secretly-recorded words, or what Durst meant by them.

Durst was arrested by FBI agents on Saturday at a New Orleans hotel, on a warrant from Los Angeles for the murder of a mobster’s daughter 15 years ago. His lawyer, Chip Lewis, said Durst will agree to be taken to Los Angeles to face the first-degree murder charge.

Durst gave an extensive interview to filmmaker Andrew Jarecki for The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. Lewis said nothing his client revealed changes his innocence. “It’s all about Hollywood now,” Lewis said.

Durst’s estranged and fearful relatives thanked authorities for tracking him down. “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,” said his brother, Douglas Durst, in a statement.

Durst, 71, has always maintained his innocence in the 2000 murder of Susan Berman, whose father was an associate of Las Vegas mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky.

Berman, 55, a writer who became Durst’s spokeswoman, was killed at her home near Beverly Hills with a bullet to the back of her head as New York investigators prepared to question her in the unsolved 1982 disappearance of Durst’s wife, Kathleen.

“The jig is up,” said former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who had hoped Berman would help solve the disappearance. The documentary uncovered “evidence that law enforcement in three states wasn’t able to unearth”, added Pirro, who now hosts Justice with Judge Jeanine on Fox News.

Lewis said he has no doubt the timing of the arrest was orchestrated in co-ordination with HBO’s broadcast of the final episode. Neither LAPD nor the movie’s producers would comment on that claim.

After Berman’s death, Durst moved to Texas, where he lived as a mute woman in a boarding house until his arrest in 2001 after dismembered parts of the body of his elderly neighbour, Morris Black, were found floating in Galveston Bay.

He then became a fugitive, until he turned up shoplifting a chicken sandwich, Band-Aids, and a newspaper in Pennsylvania, even though he had $500 (€472) cash in his pocket and $37,000 in his rental car, along with two guns and marijuana.

Lewis told the jury Durst shot Black in self-defence and suffered from Asperger’s syndrome. Despite admitting he used a paring knife, two saws and an axe to dismember Black’s body before dumping the remains, Durst was acquitted of murder.

Durst still faced some consequences in Texas — in 2004 he pleaded guilty to jumping bail and evidence tampering, but with time served, he was paroled in 2005. Then, violating the terms of his parole, he returned to the boarding house where Black was killed, and had to serve another four months in jail.

Lewis defended Durst again in Texas after he inexplicably urinated on the candy display at the cash register of a pharmacy in Houston last year. Durst paid a fine and compensated the store for what Lewis called an “unfortunate medical mishap”.

Durst left his Houston town house for New Orleans to escape unwanted attention since the documentary’s second-to-last episode aired, Lewis said.

The Durst family is worth at least $4bn, according to Forbes.