New York real estate scion Robert Durst is scheduled to appear Monday in a Los Angeles courtroom, where prosecutors will continue laying out evidence they say proves he killed his best friend nearly 20 years ago.
Durst, 75, is accused of shooting Susan Berman, an author and the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, in the back of the head inside her Benedict Canyon home a few days before Christmas in 2000. Prosecutors contend that he killed Berman, 55, his close friend since their time as students at UCLA, to keep her from telling police what she knew about his wife’s disappearance decades earlier.
His first wife, Kathleen, disappeared in 1982. Her body has never been recovered, but many of her family members, as well as prosecutors, say they believe Durst murdered her. At a hearing last year, Berman’s longtime friend Nick Chavin testified that she once told him that Durst — their mutual friend — had admitted to killing Kathleen.
The mogul, who has denied killing either woman, was arrested at a New Orleans hotel in connection with Berman’s slaying on March 14, 2015, the day before the finale of a six-part HBO documentary about his life aired. In the final episode of the series, “The Jinx,” Durst is caught muttering to himself on a hot microphone during a bathroom break — “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course,” he says.
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