Robert Durst of 'The Jinx' faces hearing into murder charges

[April 16, 2018]  By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Real estate scion Robert Durst was due in court in Los Angeles on Monday as a judge seeks to determine if he should stand trial for the 18-year-old murder of a friend who prosecutors say could tie him to the presumed killing of his wife.

Durst, 75, the enigmatic subject of the popular HBO documentary "The Jinx," was charged with the murder of Susan Berman in 2015, a day after that broadcast aired its final episode.

The six-part miniseries investigated Durst's ties to Berman's slaying, his wife's unsolved 1982 disappearance and his 2003 acquittal in the slaying and dismemberment of a Texas neighbor.

In the closing minutes of "The Jinx", Durst, the heir to a New York real estate fortune, is heard muttering to himself off-camera, "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course." The documentary has provided grist for prosecutors even as defense attorneys have sought to keep the footage out of court and discredit the production as biased against their client.

Prosecutors say Durst fatally shot Berman, a 55-year-old writer and the daughter of an organized crime figure, in Los Angeles in 2000 because of what she knew about the death of his wife.

Berman was found shot to death execution-style in her home a few months after it was revealed that police in New York had reopened an investigation into the disappearance and presumed slaying of Kathleen Durst, who was a medical student in New York when she vanished.

Durst has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges stemming from Berman’s death. He also has denied having anything to do with the disappearance of his wife, whose body was never found. He has never been arrested or charged in that case.

New York real estate scion Robert Durst appears in the Los Angeles Superior Court Airport Branch for a pre-trial motions hearing in Los Angeles, California, January 6, 2017 REUTERS/Mark Boster /Los Angeles Times/Pool/File Photo

In 2001, Durst, who was living at the time disguised as a mute woman, was arrested on suspicion of killing and dismembering his elderly neighbor, Morris Black.

Durst admitted during trial that he killed and carved up Black, but a jury acquitted him of homicide after he argued it was an accidental shooting in self-defense. He spent about three years in jail for related minor charges.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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