Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Did millionaire real estate heir murder 'best friend' because she knew he killed his wife?
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- 1:55Speaker 1: willing crime stories with Nancy Grace. Her body was found
- 2:07Speaker 1: on December twenty fourth of two thousand. How was she killed?
- 2:11Speaker 1: While she was shot in the back of the head.
- 2:13Speaker 1: What kind of gun? It was a nine millimeter and
- 2:16Speaker 1: Gus Flank had just one shot? Not guiltily will be
- 2:20Speaker 1: answered you are I'm willing to waive my rights. I
- 2:27Speaker 1: do want to say here now row I am not guilty.
- 2:32Speaker 1: I do not killed who you are hearing the sound
- 2:36Speaker 1: of multi millionaire real estate air Robert Durst insisting he
- 2:41Speaker 1: did not kill his best friend Susan Burman execution style
- 2:44Speaker 1: in her California home. What could have been the motive?
- 2:48Speaker 1: Maybe because Susan Burman knew Durst murdered his wife, Kathy.
- 2:54Speaker 1: I was recently speaking at the Battered Women's Center named
- 2:59Speaker 1: after his wife, Kathy. Everyone in that community is convinced
- 3:04Speaker 1: that Robert Durst, the multi millionaire, kill not only his
- 3:08Speaker 1: wife Kathy, her body has never been found, but the
- 3:11Speaker 1: best friend that knew the details of that murder. And
- 3:15Speaker 1: oh yes, there's Maurice Black, the elderly next door neighbor
- 3:18Speaker 1: that was beheaded, his body washed up in Galveston Bay,
- 3:21Speaker 1: found by a little boy, and a jury acquitted his
- 3:25Speaker 1: neighbor Robert Durst. Everywhere this guy goes, he leaves behind
- 3:29Speaker 1: a trail of dead bodies. Straight to you, Raymond Judah Chay,
- 3:33Speaker 1: renowned Atlanta defense attorney. How can that be? What just
- 3:37Speaker 1: a little coinkie diink a coincidence that everywhere Durst goes
- 3:41Speaker 1: people end up dead. Yeah, don't don't go on a
- 3:44Speaker 1: long ride with him across country. You probably don't get
- 3:47Speaker 1: past the Mississippi River. He this is a difficult client.
- 3:51Speaker 1: Was I supposed to laugh at that? Was that a
- 3:53Speaker 1: kind of a Was that a defense attorney joke? Was that?
- 3:56Speaker 1: What that was? When you do what we do, you
- 3:57Speaker 1: have to have some sort of a sense of humor.
- 4:00Speaker 1: But but this gentleman is going to come to a
- 4:02Speaker 1: lawyer's office with all kinds of problems, but all kinds
- 4:05Speaker 1: of funding. That's why he has excellent legal counsel on
- 4:08Speaker 1: each of these many proceedings, all of which are death
- 4:11Speaker 1: cases and serious cases. As you pointed out. In the
- 4:14Speaker 1: current case, of course, he has pled not guilty and
- 4:16Speaker 1: he's ready for trial. He's won before, he feels he'll
- 4:19Speaker 1: win again, and he's got the bucks to the fund
- 4:23Speaker 1: the case. Joining me, Robin Ulinski, Crime Online dot Com
- 4:26Speaker 1: investigative reporter, Robin, I really don't know where to start
- 4:30Speaker 1: with Robert Durst. You all probably saw the mini series
- 4:35Speaker 1: on HBO called Jinks Okay that was about Durst, and
- 4:41Speaker 1: famously they say he actually confessed to a murder under
- 4:45Speaker 1: his voice under you know, in a low voice, whispered
- 4:48Speaker 1: I kill them all. Now, how will that change the
- 4:51Speaker 1: landscape of this trial? Take a listen to this or
- 4:53Speaker 1: maybe yeah, right to Robin Molenski explained to me what
- 5:07Speaker 1: he's saying in the bathroom. Well, here's the story, Nancy.
- 5:10Speaker 1: This HBO documentary it's called The Jinx, The Life and
- 5:13Speaker 1: Death with an s the depth of Robert Durst, and
- 5:17Speaker 1: basically it's a five or six it's a six part
- 5:20Speaker 1: series and at the very end his microphone, Durst goes
- 5:25Speaker 1: to the bathroom and he's sort of he's an eccentric guy,
- 5:29Speaker 1: and he's sort of talking to himself and mumbling and
- 5:32Speaker 1: muttering and burping, and he basically says, hmm, I just
- 5:37Speaker 1: got caught. And then he goes on to actually say,
- 5:41Speaker 1: and we have the audio of it where I killed
- 5:43Speaker 1: them all of course, let's take to listen to that term.
- 6:08Speaker 1: There you hear him saying, I kill them all of course.
- 6:11Speaker 1: In addition to Raymond, you to Chay Atlanta defense lawyer
- 6:13Speaker 1: Robin Willinski, Crime online dot Com investigative reporter, forensics expert
- 6:18Speaker 1: Karen Smith, and New York psychologist Karen Start a special
- 6:21Speaker 1: guest joining me. Co author of Sex and a Serial Killer,
- 6:24Speaker 1: My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst, Gary Greenberg. You know, Gary,
- 6:29Speaker 1: I noticed when I got your book on I say
- 6:32Speaker 1: on Kendall, but I actually got it on Amazon, that
- 6:35Speaker 1: you and your co author have dedicated the book to
- 6:39Speaker 1: the memories of several people. Very often a book will
- 6:42Speaker 1: be dedicated to the memory of X, but you have
- 6:45Speaker 1: dedicated your book to Kathleen Kathy McCormick Durst, a medical
- 6:51Speaker 1: student who misguidedly married Robert Durst. You also dedicated to
- 6:56Speaker 1: Lynn Schultz, college student missing at just eighteen years old,
- 7:01Speaker 1: Susan Burman, Durst's best friend, and Morris Black, a seventy
- 7:07Speaker 1: year old retired watch for pairman merchant seaman killed in Galveston,
- 7:11Speaker 1: who was Robert durst next door neighbor. Why Gary, do
- 7:15Speaker 1: you end it with? The book is dedicated to the
- 7:17Speaker 1: memory of how many more and you have? Which I
- 7:21Speaker 1: thought was pretty ingenious. You have a picture there with
- 7:24Speaker 1: a silhouette, explained Gary. The book is a memoir by
- 7:28Speaker 1: a man that's going by the name of William Steele.
- 7:30Speaker 1: And William Steele is a repentant jewel thief who knew
- 7:34Speaker 1: Durst for many years shortly after he met him shortly
- 7:38Speaker 1: after Kathy disappeared, and so he knew Durst personally for
- 7:44Speaker 1: about a decade and got to know him very well,
- 7:47Speaker 1: and believes that Durst is the wealthiest serial killer in
- 7:50Speaker 1: American history. He believes he not only killed Kathy Durst,
- 7:54Speaker 1: but also Susan Burman and this college student, lam Shol
- 8:00Speaker 1: as well as he believes there are several others. So
- 8:02Speaker 1: that's why there's a silhouette back at the last last
- 8:06Speaker 1: one that he dedicates it too, because nobody knows how
- 8:09Speaker 1: many people this guy has murdered. Your book just came
- 8:11Speaker 1: out in October. I got it on Amazon and am
- 8:14Speaker 1: reading it on Kendall. And that's the first thing that
- 8:17Speaker 1: struck me when I looked at it, was that silhouette
- 8:20Speaker 1: and how many murder victims this book is dedicated to.
- 8:23Speaker 1: I noticed in chapter three Getting to Know Bobby, you
- 8:28Speaker 1: right that Susan Burman was worried about the friend dealing
- 8:34Speaker 1: with Durst, and that he was worried that Durst may
- 8:38Speaker 1: kill her one day for knowing too much. Now, right
- 8:42Speaker 1: there at the beginning in your chapter three Getting to
- 8:45Speaker 1: Know Bobby, I found it very telling that even while
- 8:49Speaker 1: Susan Burman was alive, she expressed some degree of fear
- 8:53Speaker 1: about people dealing with Durst. Explain that Gary, well, actually
- 8:57Speaker 1: when they first met, they literally this guy still literally
- 9:00Speaker 1: bumped into Durst in Manhattan and spilled the soda on him.
- 9:04Speaker 1: Durst with was with Susan Burman at the time, and
- 9:07Speaker 1: they got into an altercation, and they nearly got into
- 9:10Speaker 1: a pretty serious fight, and Susan Burman helped break up
- 9:14Speaker 1: the fight with another friend of Steals, and at that
- 9:17Speaker 1: point Susan said to him, Uh, still, uh, he's you know,
- 9:21Speaker 1: explained who Robert was. He's a very rich guy, and
- 9:24Speaker 1: his wife was recently murdered, and still and there looked
- 9:27Speaker 1: at her and glared at her, because at that point
- 9:29Speaker 1: Kathy Durst was just a missing person. So right there,
- 9:32Speaker 1: from that initial blunder, she corrected herself and very quickly
- 9:36Speaker 1: and said, oh, I mean that she's missing, but we
- 9:39Speaker 1: feared that she's dead. But she always apparently feared Durst,
- 9:44Speaker 1: and eventually I think that fear was proven true. You know,
- 9:49Speaker 1: it's interesting. Don't say this to you, Ray, Ray, due
- 9:52Speaker 1: to Tay joining me, Ray, you can't really talk about
- 9:55Speaker 1: the murder of Susan Burman, Robert Durst's best friend, without
- 9:59Speaker 1: talking about the disappearance of his wife, his young wife, Kathy.
- 10:03Speaker 1: And I learned prosecuting so many murders in inter city
- 10:07Speaker 1: Atlanta that when you start, it's like a ball of yarn.
- 10:11Speaker 1: Once you start unraveling it and it finally gets all
- 10:14Speaker 1: straightened out, one murder is very often connected to another
- 10:18Speaker 1: and another and another. And what this author Gary Greenberg
- 10:23Speaker 1: of Sex and a Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with
- 10:26Speaker 1: Robert Durst, is saying is true, and I experienced it
- 10:29Speaker 1: so many times Ray in different scenarios. You know, you
- 10:34Speaker 1: remember the Red Oak triple homicide and that you know,
- 10:37Speaker 1: just nearly destroyed me prosecuting that case, and one murder
- 10:40Speaker 1: would lead to this dope ring, and that would lead
- 10:43Speaker 1: to another murder and another murder. I think he's onto something,
- 10:46Speaker 1: because once you start killing Ray, it's like in your blood,
- 10:49Speaker 1: you can't quit, and you get away with it. Well,
- 10:51Speaker 1: I think you and I both know that a majority
- 10:54Speaker 1: of the violent crime committed is actually committed by a
- 10:57Speaker 1: very small group of people, the same people who commit
- 11:01Speaker 1: one crime after another and after another. And whether it's
- 11:04Speaker 1: for the thrill or the challenge as some about you know,
- 11:07Speaker 1: some theories maybe, or the proceeds, it's a lifestyle. And
- 11:13Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think that the book, as
- 11:16Speaker 1: I understand, I have not read it, so I've confessed
- 11:18Speaker 1: to that, but gives the prosecution and the upcoming trial
- 11:23Speaker 1: a roadmap and an effort that they will make to
- 11:26Speaker 1: try to introduce what is commonly known as similar transactions
- 11:30Speaker 1: evidence under the federal rules for four be adopted by
- 11:34Speaker 1: almost all of the states or have a similar evidentiary
- 11:38Speaker 1: rule where a prosecutor will try to show a plan,
- 11:41Speaker 1: mode of scheme, opportunity. There's there's many different theories of
- 11:46Speaker 1: under which you can enter similar transaction. Now, I will
- 11:50Speaker 1: say that blood lust or thrill of the crime is
- 11:55Speaker 1: generally not an acceptable pattern under the rules of evidence,
- 11:59Speaker 1: But I think that's what the prosecution is going to
- 12:02Speaker 1: try to show. More. Really, the show this is a
- 12:05Speaker 1: series of violent acts, one of which is designed to
- 12:09Speaker 1: cover up the prior Vinyl attact. And that's the case
- 12:13Speaker 1: that we have here. Yeah, I guess to put it
- 12:15Speaker 1: in a nutshell, I don't know how they can really
- 12:18Speaker 1: try the Susan Burman case. And this is a woman
- 12:22Speaker 1: that had been Durst a long time friend he had been.
- 12:25Speaker 1: I think they've been exchanging money. Why is a good question?
- 12:31Speaker 1: Was it hush money? But long story short, how can
- 12:34Speaker 1: you try the Susan Burman case if your theory is
- 12:37Speaker 1: she knew too much about Kathy Durst murder without bringing
- 12:40Speaker 1: in Kathy Durst murder. If you don't believe he did it,
- 12:44Speaker 1: take a listen to this slip he made while filming
- 12:47Speaker 1: the Jenes. Why should we care about him? Well, I
- 13:12Speaker 1: think this is a kind of amazing, unique human story,
- 13:16Speaker 1: but it also is happening on a kind of operatic level.
- 13:18Speaker 1: You know, you're dealing with a family that has a
- 13:20Speaker 1: tremendous reach. They're quite a private family and yet enormously powerful.
- 13:25Speaker 1: You know, these are these are there's not a family
- 13:26Speaker 1: that's building a local apartment building. They're building the Bank
- 13:28Speaker 1: of America Tower, the Condon Nas Building, the Freedom Tower
- 13:31Speaker 1: on the side of the World Trade Center. So it's
- 13:33Speaker 1: an important family and it's an important and unusual story.
- 13:36Speaker 1: You very seldom have somebody who's been accused of this
- 13:39Speaker 1: kind of series of grizzly crimes who's also the scion
- 13:42Speaker 1: of this enormously powerful family. You are hearing from Minnie
- 13:46Speaker 1: would say, now disgraced. But a renowned interview where that's
- 13:50Speaker 1: Charlie Rose and he's talking a little bit about Robert
- 13:54Speaker 1: Durst's family, multi multi millionaires. Exactly who are they, Robin Malinsky,
- 13:59Speaker 1: they are the Durst family. You know, there's rich and
- 14:02Speaker 1: then there's you know, uber rich, really really rich billionaires
- 14:07Speaker 1: who build all these buildings in Manhattan. And he was
- 14:10Speaker 1: one of five kids, but he was the black sheep
- 14:12Speaker 1: of the family. I mean they even built that were
- 14:15Speaker 1: responsible for the Freedom Tower build on the World Trade
- 14:17Speaker 1: Center side at ground zero, and so he had tons
- 14:21Speaker 1: of money. You know, you talked about some of the money,
- 14:24Speaker 1: the banking transactions. There was fifty thousand dollars twenty five
- 14:27Speaker 1: thousand dollars, two payments, two checks that went into Susan
- 14:30Speaker 1: Burman's bank account. And there are many people that believe that,
- 14:33Speaker 1: you know that she was kind of like down on
- 14:35Speaker 1: her financial luck in later years of her life. She
- 14:38Speaker 1: was the daughter of a mob boss, grew up in
- 14:40Speaker 1: Vegas around all these mob characters, but kind of fell
- 14:43Speaker 1: on hard times, and there are many people that think
- 14:45Speaker 1: that he was giving her the money to keep her quiet. Well,
- 14:49Speaker 1: this is what we know now. Prosecutors in LA's murder
- 14:51Speaker 1: case against New York real estate millionaire Robert Durst want
- 14:56Speaker 1: the victim's words to come out in court, Susan Burman,
- 15:00Speaker 1: and they have filed about four hundred pages of documents
- 15:04Speaker 1: to argue statements Burman made to all of her friends
- 15:08Speaker 1: just before she was killed should be allowed in to
- 15:11Speaker 1: help prove Durst murdered her to silence what she knew
- 15:15Speaker 1: about Kathy's first wife disappearance. Dured so many unusual factors
- 15:21Speaker 1: surrounding Kathy's disappearance. I remember a rug went missing from
- 15:26Speaker 1: their home. He had gone out in a chartered plane.
- 15:31Speaker 1: He was a pilot. Her body is never going to
- 15:35Speaker 1: be found. I can tell you that much right now.
- 15:37Speaker 1: He was the last one known to be with her.
- 15:40Speaker 1: Someone faked a call to her medical school the following
- 15:43Speaker 1: morning saying that she wouldn't be there for classes. It's
- 15:48Speaker 1: just such a trail, and at the time he was
- 15:50Speaker 1: so rich and so well regarded that the local district
- 15:54Speaker 1: attorney neither then nor later in Westchester County ever prosecuted.
- 15:59Speaker 1: So does that leave us What are some of the
- 16:03Speaker 1: statements she made? Why does the prosecution want them to
- 16:06Speaker 1: come in to rage you, to chase really hard. I've
- 16:10Speaker 1: done it myself to get in words from a dead
- 16:14Speaker 1: murder victim. Very often you have to jump through a
- 16:17Speaker 1: lot of legal hurdles. They can either be deathbed statement
- 16:22Speaker 1: like Ray Carruth did this to me. We just heard
- 16:26Speaker 1: about that in the murder of Sharika Adams. Very often
- 16:31Speaker 1: you can get in dying declarations, but more other than
- 16:34Speaker 1: that rate, sometimes it's hard to get in what the
- 16:36Speaker 1: murder victim said. Yeah, this is a classic law school
- 16:41Speaker 1: what is hearsay discussion? Hearsay, of course, as a statement
- 16:46Speaker 1: made by somebody who's not going to come to court
- 16:49Speaker 1: and therefore can't be cross examined by in this case,
- 16:53Speaker 1: the criminal defendant, who has constitutional rights to face their
- 16:56Speaker 1: accuser and have a thorough, in sifting cross examination of
- 17:01Speaker 1: the person that made such a statement. There are many
- 17:03Speaker 1: exceptions to the hearsay rule, and you've given several of them.
- 17:07Speaker 1: The dying declaration. Why because on a dying declaration the
- 17:11Speaker 1: theory of law is on your deathbed, you're not really
- 17:14Speaker 1: thinking about lying. Well the last you're right? What about
- 17:18Speaker 1: this statement? Ray? What about this? Susan Burman allegedly told
- 17:22Speaker 1: a lot of her friends I just won that the
- 17:25Speaker 1: real estate tycoon Robert Durst had admitted to her he
- 17:28Speaker 1: killed Kathleen Kathy Durst, who was, as you know, a
- 17:32Speaker 1: medical student when she just vanished into thin air. She's
- 17:34Speaker 1: never been seen again. Her body has never been found.
- 17:37Speaker 1: She was officially declared dead. Just recently. She told other friends,
- 17:42Speaker 1: including a Saturday Night Live cast member Lorraine Newman, that
- 17:47Speaker 1: she was the one that provided alibis for her good
- 17:51Speaker 1: friend Robert Durst. You don't think he wanted her a dead.
- 17:57Speaker 1: What can you tell me to you, Robin will Lensky
- 18:00Speaker 1: about matching handwriting in green ink? Well, to me, the
- 18:05Speaker 1: most compelling evidence in the Susan Burman case, the most
- 18:08Speaker 1: interesting nugget to me is after her murder, there was
- 18:12Speaker 1: a letter they call it the cadaver letter, that was
- 18:15Speaker 1: sent to the police department in Beverly Hills. And the
- 18:18Speaker 1: word Beverly is spelled incorrectly e V E R L
- 18:25Speaker 1: E y on the envelope. And then investigators found in
- 18:31Speaker 1: Burman's house letters that Durst also used to send to
- 18:35Speaker 1: Susan where where from wherever he was from, and Beverly
- 18:40Speaker 1: is also spelled incorrectly. The handwriting is identical. Nancy, Okay,
- 18:46Speaker 1: hold on, this reminds me Karen Smith. You're the forensics
- 18:49Speaker 1: expert of a bank robbery. I tried many years ago,
- 18:53Speaker 1: my first bank robbery prosecution. And Karen Smith, the perp wrote,
- 18:59Speaker 1: and my children that love to hear this story, don't
- 19:02Speaker 1: touch the alama apostrophe. This is a Roby translation. Don't
- 19:08Speaker 1: touch the alarm. This is a robbery. And he had
- 19:11Speaker 1: obviously heard about punctuation, but didn't really know what it was,
- 19:15Speaker 1: so throughout the don't touch the alram this is a roby.
- 19:18Speaker 1: There were apostrophes and commas and periods just all through it.
- 19:22Speaker 1: And it's a long story, but I found a witness
- 19:25Speaker 1: in the Fulton County Jail that had been his roommate.
- 19:28Speaker 1: By the time I got him to give a handwriting sample,
- 19:32Speaker 1: he did the same thing. He was dyslexic. Don't touch
- 19:34Speaker 1: the al ram. This is a roby. He would reverse
- 19:37Speaker 1: letters and he sprinkled punctuation marks all the way through
- 19:42Speaker 1: his handwriting sample, even writing my name is X. So
- 19:46Speaker 1: what she's saying about repeatedly misspelling the same word in
- 19:50Speaker 1: the same way and handwriting analysis, that is a science now,
- 19:55Speaker 1: not just an art. Karen Smith, Absolutely, it's a science
- 19:59Speaker 1: question documented palysis is going to be really important in
- 20:01Speaker 1: this trial. And it's not just the misspelling, although that
- 20:04Speaker 1: is very compelling, especially putting an E before the yon, Beverly.
- 20:09Speaker 1: It's also going to deal with the type of ink,
- 20:12Speaker 1: as you've indicated, it's green ink that's really super unusual.
- 20:16Speaker 1: Also the pressure, the slant, the size, the way the
- 20:20Speaker 1: letters are shaped. They can do comparisons almost like a fingerprint,
- 20:23Speaker 1: and they can show that the handwriting is either included, excluded,
- 20:28Speaker 1: or cannot be determined. Those are the three determinations that
- 20:31Speaker 1: question document examiners make. And in this case, if it's included,
- 20:35Speaker 1: he's going to have to explain that, Oh no, it's
- 20:47Speaker 1: not Santa, it's Nancy Grace. Are you trying to find
- 20:50Speaker 1: the perfect gift for a parent or an expecting parent,
- 20:53Speaker 1: Please do not give them another one. Sie. Don't do it,
- 20:56Speaker 1: and not another plastic toy is going to end up
- 21:00Speaker 1: in the trash being or the garage or sent to
- 21:02Speaker 1: Goodwill this holiday season. Give them something that really matters,
- 21:06Speaker 1: and what matters more than protecting their child. I sat
- 21:11Speaker 1: down with the smartest people in the world that I
- 21:14Speaker 1: know when it comes to child safety, finding missing children,
- 21:18Speaker 1: and fighting back against predators, and what I learned is
- 21:24Speaker 1: so critical and the information so powerful and important. I
- 21:29Speaker 1: want you to have it. I want them, as parents
- 21:32Speaker 1: to have it. Go to crimestops here dot com for
- 21:36Speaker 1: a five part series with action information that you can
- 21:40Speaker 1: use to change your life and protect your child. Because
- 21:44Speaker 1: I have done it myself based on what they have
- 21:47Speaker 1: told me, and starting right now until midnight November twenty six,
- 21:52Speaker 1: you get forty percent off when you sign up forty
- 21:55Speaker 1: percent off. Give that as a gift, not another onesie.
- 21:59Speaker 1: Please find out how to protect your child out and
- 22:03Speaker 1: about at the mall, at the store, at the grocery store,
- 22:07Speaker 1: in parking lots, in parking decks, at your home, in
- 22:12Speaker 1: your neighborhood. Find out about protection regarding babysitters, nanny's daycare,
- 22:20Speaker 1: even protection online. It's the very best gift you can
- 22:24Speaker 1: give any parent and forty percent off Black Friday starts now.
- 22:32Speaker 1: Go to crimestops here dot com and join the Justice
- 22:36Speaker 1: Nation crime stops here dot com. God Willing Crime Stories
- 22:46Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Durst was already serving a seven year
- 22:52Speaker 1: prison term for a weapon's charge out of Louisiana when
- 22:55Speaker 1: he was moved to La to face the Burman murder.
- 22:58Speaker 1: Chart years earlier, he to fine in Harris County for
- 23:01Speaker 1: urinating on candy at a CBS in Rice Village. Okay,
- 23:05Speaker 1: let's just stop right there. To Gary Greenberg, co author
- 23:08Speaker 1: of Sex and the Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with
- 23:11Speaker 1: Robert Durst, What did I just hear? This is a guy,
- 23:15Speaker 1: an heir to a real estate fortune, millions and millions
- 23:21Speaker 1: of dollars at his disposal, Gary Greenberg, How did he
- 23:25Speaker 1: end up dressed like a woman in a convenience store?
- 23:30Speaker 1: Did I just hear urinating on candy? I don't know.
- 23:33Speaker 1: You know, the guy is very strange and has done
- 23:35Speaker 1: a lot of strange things in his time. I think
- 23:38Speaker 1: it's pretty remarkable that he actually confessed to shooting and
- 23:42Speaker 1: dismembering his neighbor Mars Black and got off basically on
- 23:46Speaker 1: a tampering with evidence charge. So it's hard to believe
- 23:49Speaker 1: that he'll be convicted for Berman's murder too. I hope
- 23:54Speaker 1: he is, because I believe he's guilty, And in fact,
- 23:58Speaker 1: William Steele says at one point they had a meeting
- 24:00Speaker 1: in Manalapan where Durst tried to get still to either
- 24:04Speaker 1: kill Burman or to arrange the habit killed. Isn't it
- 24:07Speaker 1: another coincidence? To Gary Greenberg, who author of Sex and
- 24:11Speaker 1: the Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with the Robert Durst.
- 24:14Speaker 1: I got it on Amazon and read it through Kendall.
- 24:18Speaker 1: It's just so much easier for me to do that
- 24:20Speaker 1: than carrying around a book, Gary, Your book is largely
- 24:26Speaker 1: dedicated to the recollections and the memoir of a friend
- 24:31Speaker 1: of yours who spent a lot of time with Robert Durst.
- 24:34Speaker 1: Based on what you've learned, why do you believe he
- 24:38Speaker 1: is guilty in the murder of Susan berman Well. I
- 24:40Speaker 1: like I was just explaining he had a relationship with Durst.
- 24:45Speaker 1: Would pay this guy Steal to use his apartment in
- 24:49Speaker 1: Brooklyn in the nineteen eighties and early nineties to bring
- 24:53Speaker 1: prostitutes over to have fetish and drug fueled sex with them.
- 24:58Speaker 1: And some of those prostitutes, he later found out he
- 25:03Speaker 1: saw pictures, still saw pictures that Durst had shown him.
- 25:06Speaker 1: Some of these prostitutes bound and gagged, potentially some of
- 25:10Speaker 1: them even looked dead. This guy Steell wasn't sure whether
- 25:15Speaker 1: Durst was actually doing these things or just an eccentric
- 25:18Speaker 1: multi millionaire who could afford to states and stuff to
- 25:20Speaker 1: shock people. But all along Durst was trying to pull
- 25:24Speaker 1: this guy Steel into his demented world, and probably fortunately
- 25:28Speaker 1: for Steel, he ended up in prison. He's a jewel
- 25:31Speaker 1: thief or was a jewel thief and ended up in prison.
- 25:35Speaker 1: But he had a lot of evidence that he had
- 25:38Speaker 1: collected over the years. It was times with Durst, including
- 25:41Speaker 1: tapes and including a satchel that Durst left with him
- 25:43Speaker 1: that had tools of a serial killer trade. It had
- 25:46Speaker 1: handcuffs that had restraints, duct tape, even had luminol in
- 25:50Speaker 1: a black light, which is used for cleaning up blood
- 25:53Speaker 1: in these satchels. Unfortunately, the satchels while Steel was incarcerated
- 26:00Speaker 1: or lost and nobody knows where they are, he still
- 26:03Speaker 1: believes he might have some tapes. So there might be
- 26:05Speaker 1: some tapes around, but whether they would be admissible in
- 26:08Speaker 1: quarter or not as nobody knows. Let me ask you
- 26:11Speaker 1: about your chapter eleven called an outing with Kathy an
- 26:16Speaker 1: outing with Kathy. Explain the title to chapter eleven. Why
- 26:20Speaker 1: do you call it an outing with Kathy? Oh? One day,
- 26:23Speaker 1: Durst comes over to Steele's place with an old, beat
- 26:26Speaker 1: up suitcase and he's claiming that Kathy's remains are in
- 26:29Speaker 1: the suitcase. Steele was so horrified for this whole thing,
- 26:35Speaker 1: he didn't want anything to do with it. He told
- 26:37Speaker 1: him to put the case away. But Durst had told Steel, yeah,
- 26:43Speaker 1: sometimes I like to take her out. So that's that's
- 26:46Speaker 1: the story behind that. You know, what is disturbing on
- 26:50Speaker 1: so many levels with what Gary Greenberg is saying, Ray
- 26:53Speaker 1: Ju to Chay almost everything that Gary just told us
- 26:57Speaker 1: about while I completely believe it that will never come
- 27:00Speaker 1: into court. The rules of evidence will stop all of
- 27:03Speaker 1: that from coming into court. You know it, I know it,
- 27:05Speaker 1: and I hate it, but it's true. The jury will
- 27:08Speaker 1: never hear all that. And that's why I'm sure mister
- 27:11Speaker 1: Durst is going to trial. His lawyers have gone through
- 27:15Speaker 1: this methodically with them about what evidence they believe will
- 27:18Speaker 1: come in and what will not come in. And they're good,
- 27:21Speaker 1: real good lawyers, and they've got real good assets and researchers.
- 27:24Speaker 1: And of course the state is not going to give
- 27:26Speaker 1: him a plea bargain that lets him go out at
- 27:30Speaker 1: age seventy five back on probation. So this is a
- 27:32Speaker 1: case where it's going to trial. I think it's gonna
- 27:36Speaker 1: be an exciting trial. I think for want to be
- 27:38Speaker 1: lawyers or would be young lawyers to watch good prosecutors
- 27:42Speaker 1: and good criminal defense lawyers battle out these various issues
- 27:46Speaker 1: of evidence. I think it's fascinating. I'm fascinated by it. Well,
- 27:49Speaker 1: you know, I hear you, but you sound like you're
- 27:51Speaker 1: examining a bug or a dead frog in biology class,
- 27:55Speaker 1: and you're just fascinated by the ins and outcing the
- 27:57Speaker 1: evidentiary twist. And turns. I hear you, but I don't
- 28:01Speaker 1: see it like that. I see it as Kathy Durst
- 28:03Speaker 1: was murdered by Robert Durst. He was rich, influential, and
- 28:07Speaker 1: Westchester County District attorneys never prosecuted him. Number one Maurice Black,
- 28:12Speaker 1: seventy year old neighbor was murdered and decapitated. He admitted
- 28:16Speaker 1: he did it and still walked free. All right, now
- 28:19Speaker 1: we've got Susan Burman dead. Susan Burman was murdered just
- 28:24Speaker 1: before she spoke to police. And I noticed in your
- 28:28Speaker 1: chapter thirteen that you titled Gary Greenberg a normal conversation.
- 28:34Speaker 1: You start off talking about your friend burying with Durst,
- 28:37Speaker 1: burying a dog's body parts. But what fascinated me in
- 28:43Speaker 1: that you talk about bleach in the apartment and the
- 28:47Speaker 1: black light and luminol being hidden away for Durst, and
- 28:53Speaker 1: about how he has come up Durst with a perfect plan.
- 28:57Speaker 1: You talk about a girl that had quote too much
- 29:01Speaker 1: dirt on Durst. She knew about the girl he Durst
- 29:05Speaker 1: had killed in Vermont and was making financial demands that
- 29:09Speaker 1: kept increasing, that there was no end to it. It
- 29:12Speaker 1: was infuriating Robert Durst that he had made a quote
- 29:16Speaker 1: as you write, Gary Greenberg, and I'm quoting from your
- 29:19Speaker 1: chapter thirteen, the perfect plan because she had been cheating
- 29:23Speaker 1: on him and using coke. I assume we're talking about Kathy.
- 29:28Speaker 1: It would look like someone else may have done it,
- 29:30Speaker 1: or she ran off with another man. And Durst was
- 29:33Speaker 1: very proud of himself that his plan had worked out
- 29:37Speaker 1: so well for so long that she Kathy just vanished
- 29:41Speaker 1: into thin air, another one of a million unsolved murder mysteries.
- 29:46Speaker 1: And Durst also explained how Susan Burman helped him with
- 29:52Speaker 1: cover stories, even posing as Cathy to call in sick
- 29:55Speaker 1: to medical school. As a matter of fact, what is
- 29:59Speaker 1: written in Sex and the Serial Killer talking about Robert
- 30:02Speaker 1: Durst is exactly what California prosecutors are arguing at trial.
- 30:07Speaker 1: Joining me Robin Willinski, Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter
- 30:11Speaker 1: Gary Greenberg, author Raymond Judiche, defense attorney, renown forensics expert
- 30:15Speaker 1: Karen Smith. Karen Smith, the difficulty is right now we're
- 30:19Speaker 1: trying to go forward to the state is in the
- 30:22Speaker 1: prosecution for the murder of Susan Burman. Karen, You have
- 30:27Speaker 1: studied and examined the case so carefully. What evidence do
- 30:32Speaker 1: they have that Durst murdered his friend Susan Burman because
- 30:37Speaker 1: she was his cover, and the Kathy Durst murder his wife.
- 30:41Speaker 1: The forensics is lacking. I'm not gonna lie. You're dealing
- 30:44Speaker 1: with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head,
- 30:46Speaker 1: execution execution style. You know, if you have a projectile.
- 30:50Speaker 1: There may be some stipplings, some powder stippling on her
- 30:53Speaker 1: head depending on how far the muzzle was away when
- 30:54Speaker 1: the bullet was fired. And that's it. Defense attorneys have
- 30:58Speaker 1: said there's no DNA and no finger instant link Robert
- 31:01Speaker 1: Durst to this crime scene. It's not to say that
- 31:03Speaker 1: there wasn't forensics, but at this point there's really not
- 31:08Speaker 1: a lot. They're gonna have to go back and look
- 31:10Speaker 1: at his movements. They're gonna have to find out where
- 31:13Speaker 1: he was on what date. I don't know if there
- 31:15Speaker 1: were any witnesses that may have saw him coming or going,
- 31:17Speaker 1: maybe in a taxi cab. Who knows at this point,
- 31:20Speaker 1: but the forensics are going to be difficult for the prosecution,
- 31:23Speaker 1: that's for sure. Well, we know that there have been
- 31:25Speaker 1: a series of pre trial hearings Ray Ray jut Chay
- 31:29Speaker 1: and witnesses are stating that despite her being close friends
- 31:34Speaker 1: with Durst, it's like being having a tiger by the tail.
- 31:38Speaker 1: You can't hold on and you can't let go. Either way,
- 31:41Speaker 1: you're gonna get bit. That she feared him and told
- 31:45Speaker 1: many of them that if anything ever happened to her,
- 31:48Speaker 1: he would be responsible. I remember in a murder trial,
- 31:53Speaker 1: a particular murder trial I tried, and you well remember this, Ray,
- 31:58Speaker 1: The victim was a piano teacher like my mother, and
- 32:02Speaker 1: the husband was a millionaire like Durst. And she told
- 32:07Speaker 1: her friends that she had an emergency key that she
- 32:11Speaker 1: carried in her pocketbook, and she gave a key to
- 32:15Speaker 1: cars and homes to her friends in case her husband
- 32:19Speaker 1: tried to kill her. That I was precluded from bringing
- 32:23Speaker 1: that into evidence. The jury never heard that, Ray. That's
- 32:26Speaker 1: what I'm worried about in Susan Burman murder case, that
- 32:29Speaker 1: the jury will never end that she told here that
- 32:31Speaker 1: she told so many friends if I end up dead,
- 32:33Speaker 1: he did it, and sure enough there's no alibi for him.
- 32:37Speaker 1: At the time of her murder on Christmas Eve, she
- 32:39Speaker 1: ends up shot execution style in the back of the head.
- 32:43Speaker 1: Somebody crept up on her she was sitting at her
- 32:45Speaker 1: home just before she's supposed to speak to the authorities
- 32:48Speaker 1: about Kathy's murder. I think your fingers on the pulse
- 32:53Speaker 1: of what the prostitution must do to get a conviction
- 32:56Speaker 1: in this case, which is to set up the all
- 33:00Speaker 1: of this quote unquote evidence. Some's going to come in,
- 33:03Speaker 1: some's not going to come in, to set up how
- 33:06Speaker 1: Durst had boxed her in, as you said, tiger by
- 33:10Speaker 1: the tail, where she felt that she had to both
- 33:13Speaker 1: comply with his needs and his demands, and yet she
- 33:18Speaker 1: feared for her life. To set that up. So that
- 33:21Speaker 1: is the motive, that is the plan, the scheme. It's
- 33:24Speaker 1: going to be swinging for the fences for the prosecution.
- 33:27Speaker 1: If this case had happened in the last few years,
- 33:30Speaker 1: we would have cell phone pings and luminoll and blood
- 33:34Speaker 1: splatter and so much more DNA evidence, where as was
- 33:38Speaker 1: just pointed out, you know, the science has just become
- 33:40Speaker 1: so Nancy. I think about some of the cases that
- 33:43Speaker 1: you tried back in the nineties where it was all
- 33:46Speaker 1: he said, she said, you were putting. I think actually
- 33:48Speaker 1: was a little more trial lawyer, and that goes on
- 33:50Speaker 1: now because now we all rely so much on the
- 33:53Speaker 1: experts and the science and the folks from the crime lab,
- 33:56Speaker 1: and a little less personal persuasion by the lawyers. But nonetheless,
- 34:01Speaker 1: if you those cases have been prosecuted today, they would
- 34:03Speaker 1: end up in Many of those would end up in
- 34:05Speaker 1: plea bargains before trial because you would have so much
- 34:08Speaker 1: evidence that the text messages and the trail of emails
- 34:12Speaker 1: and videotape from where you can follow a person as
- 34:15Speaker 1: they literally walked from the tip of Manhattan all the
- 34:18Speaker 1: way up the Central Park on a thousand different video cameras,
- 34:22Speaker 1: and I can vouch for that. It's not really high
- 34:25Speaker 1: tech ray. I will never forget I had taken the
- 34:27Speaker 1: children to go skating at Rockefeller Center. Okay, when I
- 34:31Speaker 1: got out of the cab, I immediately realized my cell
- 34:35Speaker 1: phone with all the Christmas photos were on it, and
- 34:39Speaker 1: I could track the darn thing. And I'm not paying it.
- 34:42Speaker 1: I don't have a sting ray from the NYPD. And
- 34:45Speaker 1: I could see it driving away and we called it,
- 34:48Speaker 1: and we called it, and we called it. I could
- 34:49Speaker 1: see exactly where it went all over Manhattan until bam,
- 34:53Speaker 1: it disappeared, and I nearly died because you know how
- 34:58Speaker 1: I am about my photo albums of the t ends.
- 35:00Speaker 1: All right, so yes, and it's not even hard to do.
- 35:03Speaker 1: Oh what, I would give him my eye teeth to
- 35:05Speaker 1: have that technology when I was just begging juries to
- 35:08Speaker 1: blaze getting vicked. You're right, we don't have that. What
- 35:12Speaker 1: we have, like you said, swinging for the fences are people. Now.
- 35:16Speaker 1: There's one guy, Ray. His name is Nathan Nick Chavin,
- 35:20Speaker 1: and he was a friend of Durst and Burman and man,
- 35:22Speaker 1: did he drop a stink bomb in the courtroom for
- 35:25Speaker 1: the defense anyway? And a preach while hearing he testifies
- 35:28Speaker 1: under oath, Durst admitted to him after a booze soaked
- 35:33Speaker 1: dinner in New York that he Durst killed Burman, and
- 35:36Speaker 1: he said Durst stated, I had to. It was her
- 35:40Speaker 1: and me. I had no choice, all right. So that's
- 35:44Speaker 1: the way he saw it. But the evidence, man, if
- 35:48Speaker 1: he really he really covered it up, Ray, it's gonna
- 35:51Speaker 1: be hard. And what's the cross of that witness, sir?
- 35:54Speaker 1: Let me get this straight. You were both drunk from
- 35:57Speaker 1: a booze vest is that right? When you think you
- 36:00Speaker 1: heard this statement twenty odd years and yeah, it's a
- 36:05Speaker 1: good case to go to trial on for the defense
- 36:08Speaker 1: for so many reasons. Now, as our author has pointed out,
- 36:12Speaker 1: you know, if I was on the defense team, I
- 36:14Speaker 1: just might give mister Steele a subpoena and bring him
- 36:18Speaker 1: the court and let him ramble on about these the
- 36:22Speaker 1: body in the suitcase and we did you ever see it? No?
- 36:25Speaker 1: And you're an author and you made money off of
- 36:27Speaker 1: this book. I don't know. I don't know if that
- 36:30Speaker 1: helps the prosecution or might hinder it. And one last thing, Nancy,
- 36:35Speaker 1: jurors today, in two thousand and eighteen, we used to
- 36:39Speaker 1: play well, where's the fingerprint game? And you know that
- 36:41Speaker 1: criminal defense lawyers, and you might get a juror says,
- 36:44Speaker 1: how come there're no fingerprints in a DUI case? But
- 36:46Speaker 1: nowadays the jurors expect the prosecution to bring forth scientific
- 36:53Speaker 1: technological evidence. They expect that PowerPoint presentation, and the prosecution
- 36:58Speaker 1: is going to have to really pick a good jury
- 37:00Speaker 1: that can focus on, Hey, we don't have all this
- 37:03Speaker 1: stuff because it wasn't available way back when, and I
- 37:06Speaker 1: think that's going to be a real challenge. You know what,
- 37:08Speaker 1: then let's find out what the evidence is, because you're right,
- 37:10Speaker 1: they want that CSI moment that they see on TV.
- 37:13Speaker 1: They think that that's real, Robin Willinski, it ain't real,
- 37:17Speaker 1: all right, That's not the real world what you see
- 37:19Speaker 1: on TV. But that's what gerrars are expecting. So in
- 37:21Speaker 1: a nutshell, Robin, what is the evidence in the Susan
- 37:24Speaker 1: Burman case? To me, it's I think it's very easy
- 37:26Speaker 1: to connect to Dotson. I do agree that the CSI
- 37:29Speaker 1: factor is definitely a factor at these trials. We saw
- 37:31Speaker 1: it in the Casey Anthony trial, where you know, they
- 37:33Speaker 1: wanted to hear how Casey killed her daughter. In this case, though,
- 37:37Speaker 1: I think there's a few things that The first is
- 37:40Speaker 1: the Westchester County District Attorney Janine Pierro had reopened the
- 37:45Speaker 1: Durst case the disappearance when she first became the DA,
- 37:49Speaker 1: and she sends her investigators out to California and they
- 37:53Speaker 1: find Susan Burman. Yeah, and they find her dead. So
- 37:57Speaker 1: I think that Durst knew about it. The timing is
- 37:59Speaker 1: very suspicious, and he gets rid of her before she
- 38:04Speaker 1: tells the whole story. Then you have the cadaver letter. Again,
- 38:08Speaker 1: this is a letter that the Beverly is spelled incorrectly.
- 38:13Speaker 1: Letters that Durst sent to Susan over the years also said,
- 38:16Speaker 1: Beverly spelled incorrectly to me, the smoking gun the CSI
- 38:20Speaker 1: moment is the green ink. He was very eccentric, Durst.
- 38:23Speaker 1: He used green ink in this note to the police.
- 38:26Speaker 1: There were green pens found at all his residences over
- 38:29Speaker 1: the years. Everyone knew he always wrote in green ink.
- 38:33Speaker 1: In the Jinks show, the producers show him that the
- 38:36Speaker 1: copies of the two letters, and he can't even tell
- 38:39Speaker 1: the difference in his own words, Oh is this one?
- 38:42Speaker 1: Did you write this one? Did you write that one? No?
- 38:45Speaker 1: He can't even differentiate because the handwriting is the same.
- 38:48Speaker 1: So I think that there's there's a lot there's a
- 38:51Speaker 1: lot of grapes on the vine here, and I think
- 38:53Speaker 1: that they can't if they connect the dots properly. I mean,
- 38:56Speaker 1: he definitely, I think did it. Oh and one last thing,
- 38:59Speaker 1: man say when the police come in, when you shoot
- 39:02Speaker 1: someone in the back of the head and the body
- 39:05Speaker 1: slumps over, Well, somebody who cared for this woman took
- 39:10Speaker 1: the body and put it in a different way, because
- 39:14Speaker 1: you could see that. You know, when someone touches the
- 39:17Speaker 1: body afterward and moves it, it's almost like a loving gesture.
- 39:21Speaker 1: And I think that that's very suspicious If someone was
- 39:24Speaker 1: coming in there just to kill Susan, bam, steal her watch,
- 39:28Speaker 1: steal her money, steal her purse and leave. Who's rearranging
- 39:31Speaker 1: the body in a loving gentle manner? Yeah, you know what,
- 39:35Speaker 1: A random burglar or robber would not take time to
- 39:37Speaker 1: stage the scene. That's like statistically proven. Robert Durst, the
- 39:42Speaker 1: multi millionaire real estate air is accused of shooting Susan
- 39:46Speaker 1: Burman in the head at her Beverly Hills home Christmas Eve,
- 39:50Speaker 1: just hours before she was scheduled to speak with the
- 39:53Speaker 1: police about the disappearance of Durst's first wife, Kathy. We
- 40:00Speaker 1: wait for justice to unfold. Fancy Grace crime story signing
- 40:05Speaker 1: off goodbye friend,