Los Angeles:
US actual estate scion Robert Durst was Friday convicted of killing his most effective pal to protect against her speaking to police about his wife’s disappearance.
Durst, a multi-millionaire who was the topic of explosive HBO documentary “The Jinx,” had generally denied that he shot Susan Berman in the back of the head in 2000 at her Beverly Hills home.
But a jury in Los Angeles took a total of just eight hours to discover the 78-year-old guilty of the execution-style slaying.
Prosecutors had mentioned he murdered crime writer Berman in December 2000 to protect against her from getting questioned by New York police more than the disappearance of his wife Kathleen two decades earlier.
Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, had acted as a spokeswoman for Durst immediately after he became a suspect in Kathleen’s disappearance.
Durst, an estranged member of one of New York’s wealthiest and most strong actual estate dynasties, was under no circumstances charged in his wife’s case.
He was arrested in March 2015 in a New Orleans hotel space in connection with Berman’s murder, hours ahead of the final episode of the HBO documentary “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” aired.
In the documentary’s beautiful finale, Durst is heard muttering to himself, “There it is, you’re caught” and “Killed them all, of course” — apparently unaware that a microphone remained switched on although he applied the restroom.
The series also delved into the 2001 death of Durst’s neighbor in Texas, Morris Black, who was located dismembered.
Durst admitted the dismemberment, but claimed the killing was self-defense. He was acquitted.
Durst testified for 14 days in a trial that gripped regional media.
He repeatedly denied any involvement in Berman’s death, but acknowledged he had written an anonymous letter to police telling them that her body lay in her Beverly Hills home.
Prosecutor John Lewin told the jury there was a “mountain of evidence” that Durst had killed all 3 men and women with whose deaths he had been connected.
He mentioned a pal of Durst had testified that the actual estate magnate had told him of Berman: “It was her or me. I had no choice.”
“He has never been held accountable for his domestic abuse of (wife) Kathie. He was never held accountable for her death. The last 20 years he’s gotten away with murdering Susan,” Lewin told the jury.
“For the last 20 years, he’s avoided responsibility for Morris Black. Durst is not jinxed. He’s a three-time killer who has managed to escape accountability until this very moment.”
Durst was not in court when the verdict was study mainly because he was isolating following an exposure to somebody with Covid-19.
He will be sentenced on October 18, and faces life in prison without the need of the possibility of parole.
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