‘The Jinx’: The Robert Durst trial relaunched by the documentary
The wheels of justice rarely move quickly, but the hope is that they do keep moving. Prior to the HBO documentary, The Jinx releasing in 2015, justice and Robert Durst had hit an impasse.
Accused of multiple murders, Robert Durst has maintained his Teflon-like status, no charges have ever stuck to him. It wasn’t until shortly after the six-part documentary The Jinx aired that the wheels of justice took up their slow turn again, the actor was arrested.
Robert Durst: allegedly
The first time Robert Durst was connected to a potential murder was in 1982. His wife, Kathleen, who was completing a medical degree vanished, never to be seen again. Friends of Kathleen claim that her marriage to Robert was abusive and that she was planning to leave him at the time of her disappearance.
Robert Durst didn’t report the disappearance for four days. His story regarding the last time he saw his wife changed repeatedly, but without a body, there was little for the police to do. Kathleen’s friends claim that their own investigation was stymied when the information they collected was stolen in multiple robberies.
The next murder that was connected to Robert Durst was the death of his good friend, journalist, and author, Susan Berman. It’s Susan’s death that Robert Durst’s “confession” in The Jinx, led to his arrest. More on that later.
Susan Berman was found dead in 2000 on Christmas Eve from a single gunshot wound to her head. It has long been speculated that Susan Berman’s murder was tied to the disappearance of Kathleen’s. Susan had served as Robert Durst’s alibi, his confidant, and gave a deposition in the investigation of Kathleen’s disappearance.
Susan Berman received two cash gifts of $50,000 apiece from Robert Durst in the months before her death. She was killed weeks after a re-investigation into Kathleen’s disappearance was opened by New York State Police.
In 2001, Robert Durst sparked his own multi-state manhunt when the body parts of his former neighbor, 71-year-old Morris Black washed ashore in Galveston, Texas. Durst was ultimately convicted of dismembering Morris Black but acquitted of murdering him.
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
The six-part docuseries, The Jinx is not only credited with sparking the arrest of Robert Durst, but also with inciting the deluge of true-crime documentaries produced in its wake.
The Jinx’s writer and director Andrew Jarecki had previously directed the feature fictional film All Good Things (2010), which was inspired by Durst’s biography. Durst was a fan of Jarecki’s All Good Things, and after its release, he reached out to the director, expressing his willingness to be interviewed, a conversation that made it into The Jinx.
Robert Durst had notably rejected any interviews prior to his time with Jarecki, which ultimately ended up being a 20-hour conversation that occurred over several years. Durst was arrested for Susan Berman’s death the day before the final episode aired.
The burping, and the controversial “confession”
The final scene of The Jinx was nothing short of jaw-dropping, all hinging on one piece of evidence. After Susan Berman’s 2000 death, a note was sent to the Beverly Hills Police Department with only Berman’s address and the word “cadaver” written in block letters on the page.
The Jinx producers showed Durst a letter written to Susan Berman a year before her death, with identical handwriting, and the word Beverly misspelled, just as in the cadaver note. Durst confirmed writing the first letter but denied writing the cadaver note. He did, however, confirm that he believed only Berman’s killer could have written the cadaver note.
When the two notes were presented to Durst side-by-side, he couldn’t tell them apart. Durst recognizes that he can’t tell the difference, then burps, puts his head in his hands, and denies killing Susan Berman.
The interview ends, and Durst walks into the bathroom, unknowingly still wearing his microphone. He rambles, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” The linking of Durst to the letters led to his subsequent arrest. However, The Jinx’s team had come forward to explain that Durst’s bathroom confession was edited for the documentary, with Durst’s full mutterings quoted as:
“[Unintelligible] I don’t know what you expected to get. I don’t know what’s in the house. Oh, I want this. Killed them all, of course. [Unintelligible] I want to do something new. There’s nothing new about that. [Inaudible – possibly “disaster.”] He was right. I was wrong. The burping. I’m having difficulty with the question. What the hell did I do?”
Jury selection for Robert Durst’s trial began on Wednesday, February 20th.
