[h=1]Robert Durst, featured on HBO's 'The Jinx,' charged with first-degree murder[/h]By Holly Yan and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
Updated 12:59 PM ET, Tue March 17, 2015
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Murder charges filed against real estate heir 00:10
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[h=3]Story highlights[/h]
<cite class="el-editorial-source"> (CNN)</cite>Millionaire real estate heir Robert Durst was "lying in wait" when he shot and killed his longtime friend because she "was a witness to a crime," prosecutors alleged Monday.
The evidence behind that accusation wasn't revealed in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's court filing, which charged Durst with first-degree murder. If he's convicted in the December 2000 killing of Susan Berman, prosecutors said, he could face the death penalty.
The charges, filed two days after FBI agents arrested Durst in New Orleans, set the stage for a new courtroom battle for a man who's no stranger to run-ins with the law.
Durst's alleged connections with Berman's death and two others became the focus of HBO's true crime documentary, "The Jinx."
He admitted to shooting and dismembering his neighbor but was acquitted of murder.
He was suspected in his first wife's disappearance, but no one could pin him to it.
And just before Berman, his longtime confidante, was going to speak to investigators about his wife's case, she was killed.
He's long denied any connection to her death or his wife's disappearance. But some say his mutterings picked up on a live microphone and broadcast in the HBO documentary make it sound like Durst could be changing his tune.
"What the hell did I do?" Durst says from a bathroom at the end of the documentary. "Killed them all, of course."
His attorney says not to read too much into those comments. But more on that later.
To understand the complexities of Durst's life -- and the deaths linked to it -- we have to start at the beginning:
[h=3]His wife's disappearance[/h]What we know: Durst amassed his fortune from his family's real estate business, the Durst Organization, which owns a number of high-profile buildings in Manhattan.
His first wife, Kathie McCormack, was on her way to medical school in New York when she vanished in 1982.
"I put her on the train in Westchester to go into the city that evening. That was the last time I ever saw her," Durst testified in a separate case over a decade later.
McCormack had told her close relatives and friends that her husband had begun to abuse her physically. Sworn affidavits by her sister, an attorney and a family friend said that McCormack had told them that she was physically assaulted by Durst during their marriage.
Despite a cloud of suspicion over the years, Durst has never been arrested in the disappearance.
The case inspired the 2010 movie "All Good Things," which starred Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. Though Durst disputed the film's implication that he'd killed his wife, he praised the movie to The New York Times and said parts of it made him cry.
What we don't know: What actually happened to McCormack. The New York Times said she has been declared legally dead.
Real estate heir arrested in New Orleans 02:55
PLAY VIDEO
[h=3]His friend's shooting death[/h]What we know: Crime writer Susan Berman was a longtime friend of Durst's.
She'd helped handle his public relations after his wife's disappearance and also had plenty of troubles of her own. She'd written books about her family's mafia ties and was facing financial troubles.
In 2000, when investigators reopened the 1982 disappearance case of Durst's first wife, they made plans to visit Berman in Los Angeles.
"She was a confidante of Robert Durst. She knew him well," CNN's Jean Casarez said. "And it was just days before investigators were to fly out to California to talk with her about what she may have known about the disappearance of Kathleen Durst that she was shot execution-style in her living room."
Fast forward 15 years, to this past weekend: Durst's arrest was in connection with Berman's death. (See below.)
What we don't know: We don't know whether Durst was the person who sent an anonymous letter to police telling them there was a body in Berman's home.
A police handwriting analysis said the writing on that card looked like Durst's, author Miles Corwin told CNN in 2004. But even with that, at the time, Corwin said police didn't have enough evidence to arrest Durst. So what's changed?
In "The Jinx," Berman's stepson reveals a letter from Durst he found among her possessions.
"You look at the letter, and the handwriting is astonishingly similar," said Michael Daly, a special correspondent for The Daily Beast.
[h=3]His neighbor's dismemberment[/h]What we know: In 2001 -- almost two decades after his wife's disappearance and after Berman's killing in late December 2000 -- millionaire Durst was living in the coastal Texas city of Galveston.
Durst testified that he hid out in Galveston and posed as a mute woman because he was afraid as he faced increasing scrutiny, Court TV reported at the time.
He got into a scuffle with his neighbor, Morris Black, and admitted to shooting and killing him.
Prosecutors said Durst planned Black's killing to steal his identity. Defense attorneys said Black sneaked into Durst's apartment, and Durst accidentally shot him as both men struggled for a gun.
Durst testified he panicked and decided to cut up Black's body and throw away the pieces.
"I could understand Durst's panic," juror Joanne Gongora said after Durst's acquittal in 2003.
What we don't know: Why Durst chose Pennsylvania to escape to after shooting and dismembering his neighbor.
He had jumped bond and almost got away -- if not for a sandwich that the heir stole from a store. He was captured in Pennsylvania for shoplifting, even though he had hundreds of dollars in his pocket.
Updated 12:59 PM ET, Tue March 17, 2015
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Murder charges filed against real estate heir 00:10
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[h=3]Story highlights[/h]
- Robert Durst faces felony firearm and drug charges in New Orleans
- In California, he's accused of killing of his longtime friend Susan Berman in 2000
- A live microphone for a documentary catches Durst saying he "killed them all"
<cite class="el-editorial-source"> (CNN)</cite>Millionaire real estate heir Robert Durst was "lying in wait" when he shot and killed his longtime friend because she "was a witness to a crime," prosecutors alleged Monday.
The evidence behind that accusation wasn't revealed in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's court filing, which charged Durst with first-degree murder. If he's convicted in the December 2000 killing of Susan Berman, prosecutors said, he could face the death penalty.
The charges, filed two days after FBI agents arrested Durst in New Orleans, set the stage for a new courtroom battle for a man who's no stranger to run-ins with the law.
Durst's alleged connections with Berman's death and two others became the focus of HBO's true crime documentary, "The Jinx."
He admitted to shooting and dismembering his neighbor but was acquitted of murder.
He was suspected in his first wife's disappearance, but no one could pin him to it.
And just before Berman, his longtime confidante, was going to speak to investigators about his wife's case, she was killed.
He's long denied any connection to her death or his wife's disappearance. But some say his mutterings picked up on a live microphone and broadcast in the HBO documentary make it sound like Durst could be changing his tune.
"What the hell did I do?" Durst says from a bathroom at the end of the documentary. "Killed them all, of course."
His attorney says not to read too much into those comments. But more on that later.
To understand the complexities of Durst's life -- and the deaths linked to it -- we have to start at the beginning:
[h=3]His wife's disappearance[/h]What we know: Durst amassed his fortune from his family's real estate business, the Durst Organization, which owns a number of high-profile buildings in Manhattan.
His first wife, Kathie McCormack, was on her way to medical school in New York when she vanished in 1982.
"I put her on the train in Westchester to go into the city that evening. That was the last time I ever saw her," Durst testified in a separate case over a decade later.
McCormack had told her close relatives and friends that her husband had begun to abuse her physically. Sworn affidavits by her sister, an attorney and a family friend said that McCormack had told them that she was physically assaulted by Durst during their marriage.
Despite a cloud of suspicion over the years, Durst has never been arrested in the disappearance.
The case inspired the 2010 movie "All Good Things," which starred Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. Though Durst disputed the film's implication that he'd killed his wife, he praised the movie to The New York Times and said parts of it made him cry.
What we don't know: What actually happened to McCormack. The New York Times said she has been declared legally dead.
- [h=2][/h]
Real estate heir arrested in New Orleans 02:55
PLAY VIDEO
[h=3]His friend's shooting death[/h]What we know: Crime writer Susan Berman was a longtime friend of Durst's.
She'd helped handle his public relations after his wife's disappearance and also had plenty of troubles of her own. She'd written books about her family's mafia ties and was facing financial troubles.
In 2000, when investigators reopened the 1982 disappearance case of Durst's first wife, they made plans to visit Berman in Los Angeles.
"She was a confidante of Robert Durst. She knew him well," CNN's Jean Casarez said. "And it was just days before investigators were to fly out to California to talk with her about what she may have known about the disappearance of Kathleen Durst that she was shot execution-style in her living room."
Fast forward 15 years, to this past weekend: Durst's arrest was in connection with Berman's death. (See below.)
What we don't know: We don't know whether Durst was the person who sent an anonymous letter to police telling them there was a body in Berman's home.
A police handwriting analysis said the writing on that card looked like Durst's, author Miles Corwin told CNN in 2004. But even with that, at the time, Corwin said police didn't have enough evidence to arrest Durst. So what's changed?
In "The Jinx," Berman's stepson reveals a letter from Durst he found among her possessions.
"You look at the letter, and the handwriting is astonishingly similar," said Michael Daly, a special correspondent for The Daily Beast.
[h=3]His neighbor's dismemberment[/h]What we know: In 2001 -- almost two decades after his wife's disappearance and after Berman's killing in late December 2000 -- millionaire Durst was living in the coastal Texas city of Galveston.
Durst testified that he hid out in Galveston and posed as a mute woman because he was afraid as he faced increasing scrutiny, Court TV reported at the time.
He got into a scuffle with his neighbor, Morris Black, and admitted to shooting and killing him.
Prosecutors said Durst planned Black's killing to steal his identity. Defense attorneys said Black sneaked into Durst's apartment, and Durst accidentally shot him as both men struggled for a gun.
Durst testified he panicked and decided to cut up Black's body and throw away the pieces.
"I could understand Durst's panic," juror Joanne Gongora said after Durst's acquittal in 2003.
What we don't know: Why Durst chose Pennsylvania to escape to after shooting and dismembering his neighbor.
He had jumped bond and almost got away -- if not for a sandwich that the heir stole from a store. He was captured in Pennsylvania for shoplifting, even though he had hundreds of dollars in his pocket.