The New York Times reports that Robert Durst, “the enigmatic real estate scion who evaded criminal suspicion for half his life only to become a national sensation after damaging admissions were aired in a 2015 documentary on HBO, was convicted on Friday in the execution-style murder of a close confidante more than 20 years ago.” For five years starting in 1995, Durst was also a resident of Trinidad.
This conviction is for the 2000 murder of Susan Berman, though prosecutors allege her death is connected to the disappearance and death of Durst’s wife and the death of another person, Morris Black. Read the Journal‘s 2015 story on Durst and his time in Humboldt here, including how Durst drove from Humboldt County to Los Angeles to shoot Berman in her Los Angeles home.
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This article appears in Otter Joy.
What about Karen Mithcell? She was also linked to Durst. Her disappearance in Humboldt County was never resolved and HBO documentary demonstrated his romantic interest in her. Have HCO detectives revisited this case since the documentaries release?
Surreal story. Crazy weird stuff surrounding all facets of this fellow’s life.
As a reader, if you get an opportunity, take a gander at the 2015 article “here” noted above in this recent article.
Excerpt from 2015 article:
Bradley, the Bay Area investigator, also believes that Durst has killed other victims. “I reasonably believe Durst was a serial killer,” he wrote in an official report in 2004. “Others believe Durst only kills people he knows and with whom he has become enraged. I counter that his comfort level with killing is so secure, he kills strangers for practice then people directly connected to him and just does not worry about discovery.”
At the end of The Jinx, in which he reportedly provided the producers 25 hours of interviews, Durst stepped into a bathroom and mutters into a hot microphone what many have taken as a rambling confession: “There it is. You’re caught. You’re right, of course. But you can’t imagine. Arrest him. … What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
Had law enforcement taken the time and resources going door-to-door checking ID’s in Trinidad, instead of harassing the homeless during those years, they would have located an actual serial killer and who knows what other great crimes being disguised behind other great fortunaire’s seaside McMansions in Trinidad?
Never a connection of romance with Karin Mitchell. Had met her at her family store in mall. Composite sketch looked a little like him. Didn’t fit his profile. He killed for personal protection and gain but not for killing fun. Although when someone steals a hoagie with thousands of dollars in his pocket you never know. I don’t think he lived in Trinidad for 6 years either. Maybe off and on for a few years but I don’t think 6.
“How did u dispose of Morris Black?” “ Well I went to the hardware store and bought some things and first I sawed his torso in half”
How much is known about Morris Black? I read he had a lot of money in South Dakota bank accounts yet was facing eviction. Money from Durst? Was from Massachusetts where a sister still. Think she tried to take out a court action. An astonishing thing I read recently is that another Robert Durst rented a house in the amr street as landlord. Is this true? Coincidence of an extraordinary kind if so