In a California court this week, multimillionaire Robert Durst denied killing his acquaintance Susan Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster and casino owner.
Susan Berman was killed in cold blood, and her body was discovered at her home on Christmas Eve in 2000. She was shot in the back of the head once, and there was no evidence of a struggle, adding to the mystery surrounding her death. This week in Los Angeles, the murder trial of multimillionaire Robert Durst continued.
Durst, a descendant of a New York real estate mogul, is suspected of murdering his friend Susan Berman at her home in the Benedict Canyon region. Durst and David Berman were close friends, and authorities believe Berman knew her killer, but Durst maintains that he did not murder her. Durst admitted to being in California at the time of Susan’s murder but claimed he had nothing to do with her death because he was hundreds of miles away. It’s also been suggested that it was a mob hit because she was a mafia princess and the daughter of Las Vegas gangster David Berman, as well as being hopelessly in debt.
This narrative became so well-known that HBO produced a documentary about it in 2015 called “The Jinx,” which reignited interest in the unsolved Los Angeles murder case.
Durst, 78, pled not guilty in this murder case. After a 15-month hiatus, the case resumed in July. Durst’s lawyers have requested that the trial be postponed indefinitely, claiming that he is suffering from a variety of health difficulties as he grows older, the most serious of which is bladder cancer.
According to prosecutors, Durst killed Susan, a 55-year-old writer, because she was about to inform authorities that she assisted him in covering up the 1982 disappearance of Durst’s wife, Kathie, and Durst was furious when he found out what she was planning. Berman had welcomed Durst into her house two days before Christmas in 2000 because he was a dear friend and, more crucially, because she trusted him, but it didn’t turn out to be a good decision for Susan, according to Deputy District Attorney John Lewin.
He literally blasted her brains out after she turned around and went a couple of steps, according to Lewin.
He also told the court that his upbringing was unhappy since his mother died after falling from the roof, and it made him even sadder when his father refused to leave the house despite the fact that it was causing him a lot of suffering. Durst’s lawyers claim he has no idea who killed Berman. He panicked and fled after discovering her body, according to his counsel.
There are numerous questions that have yet to be answered. It will be fascinating to see how this case settles a variety of decades-old riddles surrounding Durst’s wife’s death.
