Photograph Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Every day Beast/Getty
New York actual property inheritor and convicted assassin Robert Durst has died on the age of 78 simply months after being despatched to jail for the remainder of his life—an abrupt finish for a person who spent the higher a part of his life steeped in controversy and intrigue.
“Mr. Durst handed away early this morning whereas within the custody of the California Division of Corrections,” his lawyer Chip Lewis confirmed to The Every day Beast. “We perceive that his demise was because of pure causes related to the litany of medical points we had repeatedly reported to the courtroom during the last couple of years. We'll situation no additional statements and won't entertain any questions out of respect.”
Durst died of cardiac arrest at San Joaquin Normal Hospital in Stockton, Calif., The New York Occasionsfirst reported. He was serving his life sentence on the California Well being Care Facility.
“Bob lived a tragic, painful, and tragic life. We hope his demise brings some closure to these he damage,” Douglas Durst, who testified in opposition to his brother throughout his homicide trial, mentioned in an announcement to The Every day Beast.
The disgraced mogul started his life in 1943 with all the advantages and luxurious of being born with a silver spoon. The eldest son of New York Metropolis real-estate tycoon Seymour Durst, he was at one level in line to take the throne on the Durst Group. However he veered off on a really totally different course, one that will finally see him accused in three totally different murders.
By the point he reached 40, he was below scrutiny within the disappearance of his spouse, Kathleen. Lower than twenty years later, he was arrested in reference to the homicide and dismemberment of a neighbor. And in 2015, investigators pointed the finger at him within the homicide that will finally see him despatched to the slammer for all times: the killing of his greatest good friend Susan Berman, who was discovered slain in her residence in December 2000, simply days earlier than she was because of communicate with New York investigators in regards to the disappearance of Kathleen.
“Though Robert Durst has died, the continuing investigation into those that helped him cowl up her homicide continues,” Robert Adams, an lawyer for Kathie’s household, mentioned in an announcement. “On January 31, 2022, the fortieth anniversary of Kathie’s homicide, we'll present an extra replace.”
Durst’s demise on Monday got here simply a few months after he acquired a life sentence after being convicted of Berman’s homicide in mid-September. Berman was slated to confess to authorities that she had offered Durst a false alibi within the 1982 disappearance of his first spouse Kathie. Durst shot Berman point-blank at the back of her head in her residence in 2000. He later penned an nameless letter to police with the phrase “cadaver” and Berman’s handle on it. Kathie’s physique has by no means been discovered, and her case stays open, although she has been declared legally lifeless.
In October, Durst was admitted to LAC+USC Medical Middle and positioned on a ventilator. He had examined constructive for COVID-19, based on his lawyer, regardless of being totally vaccinated in opposition to the virus.
Durst had battled quite a lot of well being issues throughout his trial, which was already delayed greater than a 12 months because of the coronavirus pandemic, and his legal professionals repeatedly argued he was too sick to face for the proceedings within the first place. A decide disagreed, and Durst himself ended up giving hours of testimony, together with the outstanding admission that he would have lied if he had taken Berman’s life. He was in quarantine after a COVID-19 publicity when the jury reached its verdict, and he confronted his sentencing listening to from a wheelchair.
“The physician we had look at him twice mentioned the trial can be very harmful to his well being, and now he’s obtained COVID,” his lawyer Dick DeGuerin mentioned on the time of his consumer’s hospitalization.
Durst’s life, stuffed with weird and darkish turns, was the topic of the 2015 HBO documentary The Jinx. Throughout filming, Durst mentioned right into a scorching mic, “killed all of them, after all.” He was serving a seven-year sentence on a firearms cost as he was arrested and tried for Berman’s homicide. He was acquitted of murdering a neighbor, Morris Black, in 2003, whom Durst mentioned he killed in self-defense. The inheritor had absconded from New York Metropolis to Texas after Kathie’s disappearance and was residing in disguise when Black found his identification. Durst diced up Black’s physique and dumped it into the ocean.