Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder and abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
In September 2021, Robert Durst was convicted of first-degree murder of his friend Susan Berman, who is suspected to have assisted him in allegedly covering up the murder of his wife, Kathleen McCormack. He was sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole. He was also accused of conspiring the disappearance and death of his wife as well as the murder of his neighbor, Morris Black.
New York Times reported that Durst graduated with a degree in economics from Lehigh University in 1965. While he was enrolled in UCLA for a doctoral program, he met Susan Berman, who was the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster and an aspiring writer at the time. Robert Durst then opened a health-food store in Vermont. Kathleen McCormack was a medical student living in one of the Durst buildings when he invited her to move to Vermont with him. In 1973, Kathleen and Robert got married. They were 19 and 28 at that time.
According to the New York Times, Kathleen McCormack hired a divorce lawyer in 1981. In February 1982, Kathleen was reported missing. Before she went missing, she visited the hospital for bruises that had allegedly been inflicted by her husband. Moreover, Robert Durst had claimed that he saw his wife boarding a train to Manhattan, where she had a medical school appointment.
He also told authorities that he had called her from South Salem. However, Robert Durst’s statements were inconsistent with phone records. He claimed that he made calls from a public booth while walking his dog, but investigators found it unlikely that he walked to a booth miles away on a cold night. However, the case remained inconclusive for over a decade.
What happened to Robert Durst?
In 1998, authorities got hold of evidence that suggested Susan Berman’s involvement in Kathleen’s disappearance. They scheduled an interview with her in 2000. However, before the questioning, authorities received an anonymous letter that revealed an address where Berman was found dead with a gunshot wound on her head.
In 2014, Robert Durst urinated on a rack of candy at a CVS Pharmacy. He was arrested and ended up paying a $500 fee. The following year, he was arrested for a much more concerning reason—the murder of Susan Berman. Authorities suspected that Durst killed Berman, fearing she would reveal the truth about his wife’s disappearance. He remained arrested for years before the trial began in March 2020.
In September 2021, he was held guilty of Susan Berman’s murder. Prosecutors believed her death was related to Kathleen McCormack’s disappearance. Besides, they alleged that Robert Durst had murdered Morris Black, his neighbour in Texas whom he was previously accused of killing. Durst was acquitted of Black’s murder in 2003. Prosecutors believe that Robert Durst feared Susan Berman would reveal the truth about his wife’s death, so he killed her. The following month, the state police in New York charged him with the murder of Kathleen McCormack.
However, Durst suffered a cardiac arrest and died at California’s San Joaquin General Hospital on January 10, 2022. He was serving his life sentence at the California Health Care Facility after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 following his conviction. He was reportedly kept on the ventilator before he suffered the attack and died, as reported by The Guardian.
Titled ‘Justice is Green,’ episode 10 of Prosecuting Evil with Kelly Siegler season 1 follows the crimes of Robert Durst. It will be aired on Saturday, January 20, 2024, at 8 p.m. on Oxygen.
