Case File: Robert Durst

Robert Durst was the eldest son of Seymour Durst, the scion of one of New York City’s wealthiest and most prominent real estate families. He and his siblings grew up surrounded by comfort, but the family was troubled. Robert quarreled frequently with his siblings and father, and when he was seven, his mother, Bernice, died after falling from the roof of the family’s home in a New York City suburb, in what was determined to be death by suicide. Robert would later claim his father had forced him to watch his mother as she stood on the roof shortly before her death. Robert’s brother Douglas stated the claim was fabricated. 

Robert began showing increasing signs of emotional instability, with family psychiatrists diagnosing potentially severe mental illness. Robert attended a number of prestigious schools but relations with his family worsened when Seymour Durst decided to bypass his eldest son and selected Douglas as his heir to run the family company, leaving a furious Robert increasingly estranged from his family.

His first wife, Kathleen McCormack, hailed from a very different background. The youngest child in a warm, loving, working-class family, she’d modeled in high school and was working a series of jobs to fund her education when she met Robert in 1971. Just 19 at the time, she later enrolled in nursing school and later medical school. The couple married in 1973, and while many considered them a happy couple, within a few years, Kathleen began confiding in friends and family that she felt isolated by Robert’s controlling and abusive behavior and often feared for her safety.

On January 31, 1982, Kathleen attended a dinner party near the couple’s suburban N.Y.C. home, leaving after she received a troubling call from her husband. Robert would later admit the couple argued that evening, but he had driven Kathleen to the train station to return to New York City for medical class the following day. She was never seen alive again. 

The next day, a woman claiming to be Kathleen called the medical school dean, stating she was ill and unable to attend class. Five days after she vanished, Robert reported Kathleen missing. Robert gave conflicting statements to law enforcement and when police did search the homes, they were shocked to see that he had already begun discarding Kathleen’s belongings—unusual behavior if someone anticipated a beloved spouse’s return. And the case quickly went cold. Kathleen’s body was never discovered, and she was declared legally dead in 2017.

In late 1999, New York investigators reopened Kathleen’s case and began plans to interrogate a series of witnesses, including Susan Berman. Berman was Robert’s closest friend, having met as students at UCLA in the 1960s. Berman had acted as Robert’s spokesperson during the initial media frenzy surrounding Kathleen’s disappearance, and some suspected it was she who had made the phone call to Kathleen’s teachers the day after she disappeared. 

But just as investigators were preparing to fly to Los Angeles to interview Berman, she was killed: Shot in the head inside her home on December 23, 2000. Berman suffered from several phobias that made her deeply suspicious of outsiders, and the fact that there were no signs of forced entry led investigators to believe Berman knew her killer. A handwritten note sent to police simply reading "CADAVER" along with Berman’s address, would later become a crucial piece of evidence.

In September 2001, Durst was arrested in Galveston, Texas, after the dismembered body parts of his elderly neighbor, Morris Black, were found floating in Galveston Bay. Robert was charged with murder after he admitted to killing Black in what he claimed was self-defense. Reports later emerged that Robert had moved to Texas while disguised as a mute, elderly woman named “Dorothy Ciner.”

Robert jumped bail and was captured several months later while shoplifting in a Pennsylvania grocery store. He was then extradited to Texas to stand trial for the Black murder.

Robert’s trial began in 2003, and his fortune afforded him a high-powered defense team that successfully chipped away at the prosecution’s case that he had premeditated Black’s death, possibly because Black had become aware of Robert’s potential role in the deaths of Kathleen and Berman. Robert testified in his own defense, claiming that he and Black had gotten into a fight during which Black drew a gun that went off as the two men fought over it. He claimed he’d then entered a sort of fugue state in which he dismembered Black’s body. In a surprising twist, the jury acquitted him of murder. He served minimal jail time for bail jumping and evidence tampering.

He was released in 2005 but was unable to stay out of public view for long. In 2010, he was approached by Andrew Jarecki, the director of All Good Things, a fictionalized movie inspired by Durst’s life, about doing a documentary. The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst premiered in February 2015. 

The series reignited interest in the cases, with filmmakers presenting potentially damning evidence, including handwriting and spelling comparisons that seemed to link Robert to the “Cadaver” letter sent to police following Berman’s death. In the series finale, Robert, apparently unaware that his microphone was still recording him offscreen, said, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."

Investigators had also been closely following the show, and the night before the finale aired, Robert was arrested in New Orleans for Berman’s murder. Robert finally went on trial in May 2021 after Covid-related delays. Prosecutors argued that he had killed Berman to prevent her from revealing what she knew about Kathleen's disappearance. Robert once again testified in his defense, claiming he had gone to visit Berman’s home, discovered she had been killed and fled, fearful that his dubious past would make him a suspect. He admitted to sending the “Cadaver” letter to police so they would find her body.

In September 2021, Robert was found guilty of Berman’s murder. The conviction marked the first time he had been held legally responsible for any of the three suspicious deaths linked to him. A month later, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Just weeks after his conviction, Robert was finally indicted for Kathleen’s murder, almost 40 years after her disappearance. But in January 2022, he died in custody from cardiac arrest, ending any chance at justice for Kathleen’s family and friends. 

Robert's life was a chilling modern crime story that spanned nearly half a century. The peculiarities of his personality—odd behavior, disguises—combined with the horrific nature of the crimes, made the story irresistible to the media. The Jinx was widely credited with obtaining some semblance of justice for Robert’s victims, and its success contributed to interest in true crime documentaries, podcasts and books.

The case also raised uncomfortable questions about how wealth and privilege can shield individuals from accountability. His ability to post bail, flee jurisdictions and access elite legal counsel played a significant role in delaying the consequences of his actions.

Though Robert died before all questions could be answered, his story remains one of the most notorious and unsettling crime sagas in modern American history.