Robert Durst dies at age 78
Millionaire and convicted murderer was the subject of HBO's docuseries The Jinx
Wealthy real estate heir Robert Durst, a convicted murderer who was the subject of HBO’s 2015 docuseries The Jinx: The Life And Deaths Of Robert Durst, has died at the age of 78.
Per The New York Times, Durst died at San Joaquin General Hospital in Stockton, California, where he had been taken for COVID testing. While at the hospital, Durst went into cardiac arrest. His lawyer, Chip Lewis, confirmed Durst’s passing.
As detailed in The Jinx, Durst was suspected of killing three people: his wife Kathleen McCormack, who disappeared in 1982; his longtime friend Susan Berman, who was murdered execution-style in her home December 2000; and his neighbor Morris Black, whose dismembered body was found in 2001.
Durst went to trial for Black’s murder in 2003, but was acquitted by a jury due to lack of forensic evidence. He pleaded guilty in December 2004 to bail jumping and evidence tampering, and received five years in prison as part of a plea deal.
Andrew Jarecki directed the 2010 movie All Good Things, which was loosely based on the mystery behind Durst’s suspected killings and starred Ryan Gosling. Durst took a liking to the film, and offered Jarecki the opportunity to interview him—access that Durst had not previously granted to any journalist or filmmaker.
Jarecki recorded more than 20 hours of interviews over several years with Durst, who eventually confessed to the murders of McCormack, Berman, and Black.
The HBO series premiered on February 8, 2015. At first, Durst denied that he had killed his victims. But off-camera, while still mic’d, he was heard rambling to himself, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
The day before the final episode of the series aired, Durst was arrested by the FBI on first-degree murder charges for killing Berman. He was convicted in September 17, 2021, sentence to life in prison with no parole.