A California jury on Friday (Sept 17) found multimillionaire real estate heir Robert Durst guilty of murdering his best friend Susan Berman in 2000, the first homicide conviction for a man suspected of killing three people in three states over the past 39 years.
Durst, who was the subject of explosive HBO documentary “The Jinx,” had always denied that he shot Susan Berman in the back of the head in 2000 at her Beverly Hills home. Berman, aged 55 when she died, was found shot in the head in her Beverly Hills home.
But a jury in Los Angeles took just a short time to deliberate before finding him guilty of the slaying.
Durst is an estranged member of one of New York’s wealthiest and most powerful real estate dynasties.
Prosecutors said he murdered crime writer Berman in December 2000 to prevent her from being questioned by New York police over the disappearance of his wife Kathleen two decades earlier. Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, had acted as a spokeswoman for Durst after he became a suspect in Kathleen’s disappearance.
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Durst’s first wife Kathleen McCormack went missing in 1982 and is presumed dead.
Durst was acquitted of murdering his elderly neighbour Morris Black in 2001, successfully arguing he had killed him on the grounds of self-defence before cutting up the body.
Durst was not in court when the verdict was read because he was isolating following an exposure to someone with Covid-19. He will be sentenced on October 18, and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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