The Jinx: Robert Durst

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Discretion is advised. This is ten
minuted murder. When Robert Durst was a

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young child, his mother climbed to
the roof of their family home and jumped

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to her death. Years later,
Robert would claim that he had seen the

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entire thing, which his younger brother
Douglas denied was true. It wasn't out

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of the ordinary for the two brothers
to disagree during their childhood. They were

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even sent to a counselor in an
attempt to help the boys work through their

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extreme sibling rivalry. The Durst children
had been born into a real estate empire,

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but it didn't matter to Robert.
He spent his entire childhood and teenage

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years as a loner, getting into
fights and alienating himself from his family.

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In nineteen seventy one, Robert started
dating a woman named Kathleen McCormick. He

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was smitten and the relationship moved quickly. After only a handful of dates,

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he asked Kathleen to move in with
him, which she agreed to. They

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got married in nineteen seventy three and
lived an uneventful life together until Kathleen vanished

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in early nineteen eighty two. Kathleen
was just a few months away from finishing

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her degree and becoming a pediatrician.
She was last seen at a dinner party

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with friends, where multiple people noticed
her strange behavior. Kathleen showed up at

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the party out of the blue,
dressed extremely casually in a pair of sweatpants,

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and then excused herself after she received
a phone call from Robert. She

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had plans to meet a friend at
a pub in Manhattan, but never arrived.

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Her friend was concerned enough to call
the police several times, but Robert

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didn't seem to share those concerns.
He only reported Kathleen missing after she had

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been gone for several days. Initially, Robert claimed that he and Kathleen had

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fought that evening, so he had
taken her to the train station, where

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she boarded a train to New York
City before going back home and having a

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drink with one of his neighbors.
Later, he admitted that he had made

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all that up. It was a
lie. He'd actually gone straight home and

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gone straight to sleep. There was
plenty of reason for Robert to be the

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prime suspect in the case. He
and Kathleen had a history of fighting,

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including times where Kathleen required medical treatment
for bruising on her body. According to

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Kathleen's family, at one stage,
Kathleen became pregnant and Robert had forced her

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to abort the baby. But despite
all the suspicious circumstances surround Robert Durst,

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investigators were unable to find any strong
evidence that he had harmed Kathleen. After

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eight years with no sign of his
missing wife, Robert filed for divorce,

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claiming that she had abandoned him.
Kathleen's family felt differently. In their eyes,

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there was no doubt that she had
died. Shortly after her disappearance,

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her mother, Anne McCormick, tried
to sue Robert for her daughter's death,

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claiming that he had killed Kathleen and
deprived her family of the right to bury

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her remains. Years later, one
of Kathleen's sisters attempted defile a wrongful death

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lawsuit against Robert. Once again,
the suit was dismissed. One of Robert's

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most trusted friends was a journalist named
Susan Berman, who had tried to help

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him create an alibi for the night
of Kathleen's disappearance. For years, Susan

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was Robert's most loyal defender. She
had given statements to the press denying that

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Robert had anything to do with Kathleen's
disappearance, regardless what the missing woman's family

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believed. However, the enduring friendship
between Robert and Susan came to a sudden

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end when Susan was found dead in
her home in Los Angeles. She had

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been killed execution style, with a
door left open, allowing one of her

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dogs to escape and attract the attention
of her neighbors. The Beverly Hills Police

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Department received a letter that they believed
was connected to the case, which correctly

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listed Susan's address and seemed to be
the killer's way of telling the copse where

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to find her body. Once again, Robert Durst appeared to be the killer,

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and once again he was not arrested. Instead, he lay low,

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moving to Texas and disguising himself as
a deaf mute woman named Dorothy I wish

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I was making that up. By
two thousand and one, a collection of

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human body parts were found floating in
the waters of Galveston Bay. They belonged

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to seventy one year old Morris Black, Robert Durst's neighbor. Morris was a

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difficult man who He had been a
merchant seaman before his retirement, and he

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was prone to arguing with Robert,
whose Dorothy disguise he may or may not

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have fallen for. Robert was arrested
in connection with Morris's murder shortly afterwards,

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and confessed that he had been there
when the man died, but he had

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not killed him on purpose. According
to Robert, he had gotten into another

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argument with his neighbor and ended up
pulling a gun on the elderly man.

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During a scuffle for the weapon,
they fell to the floor together and the

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gun was accidentally fired, causing Morris
to be shot in the face. After

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realizing that Morris was dead, Robert
dismembered his body in order to dispose of

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it, placing the pieces in plastic
bags. He was then released on bail.

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Quick backtrack, he confessed to shooting
a man in the face, chopping

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up his body, putting it in
plastic bags, and he was released on

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bail. After that, he skipped
out on his court hearings and went on

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the run. He was apprehended on
the thirtieth of November after he was caught

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tempting to steal the chicken salad sandwich
from a supermarket, but because of his

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claims that he killed Morris in self
defense, he was acquitted. Several members

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of Robert's family ended up getting restraining
orders against him, claiming that they were

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afraid that he would harm them.
Robert continued to show up outside their homes

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despite those restraining orders, resulting in
trespassing charges. Although he harassed the rest

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of the family members, his main
target was his childhood rival, his younger

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brother Douglas. In twenty fourteen,
Robert was arrested yet again after he unzipped

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his pants and peed on a shelf
in a CVS drug store in Houston.

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After urinating and exposing his genitals to
the customers and staff, he calmly walked

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out of the store. He was
only fined five hundred dollars for the incident,

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which his lawyer simply described as an
unfortunate medical mishap. After the investigation

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into Susan Berman's death was reopened,
Robert was charged with her murder. The

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trial was delayed for several years while
Robert was treated for esophageal cancer. Finally,

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in twenty twenty, he was well
enough to stand trial, just in

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time for the COVID nineteen pandemic to
delay things further. The trial began in

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mid twenty twenty one, more than
two decades after Susan was killed. The

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prosecution argued that Robert had a clear
motive for shooting Susan she knew too much

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about Kathleen's disappearance. They asserted that
Susan had told Robert that she would go

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to the authorities and tell them that
he murdered Kathleen, and in a state

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of desperation, Robert had shot her
to prevent her from talking. Robert's brother

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Douglas, acted as a witness for
the prosecution. So did Robert's trusted friend,

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Nick Chaven, who told the court
that Robert had confessed to the murder.

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According to Nick, during a conversation
in New York, Robert had said

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that he had no choice but to
murder Susan, saying it was her or

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me. Out of the eighty witnesses
who testified, the most damaging one was

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Robert Durst himself. In twenty fifteen, he had been the subject of an

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HBO series about his alleged crimes called
The Jinks The Life and Deaths of Robert

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Durst. Although Robert had a history
of refusing to cooperate with the media.

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He had warmed up to Andrew Joureki, who directed the series. During the

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filming of The Jinks, Robert had
taken part in more than twenty hours of

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interviews with Andrew. In the final
one, Andrew had shown Robert two envelopes.

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One of them was a letter that
Robert had sent to Susan Berman a

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year before her death. The other
was the letter that had been sent to

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the LAPD indicating where Susan's body could
be found. Andrew told Roberts that a

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handwriting expert had concluded that both letters
had the same author. Although Robert still

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didn't admit to the killings, he
was visibly shaken up. He went to

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the bathroom after the interview finished,
forgetting that his microphone was clipped to his

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clothing and it had not been turned
off, and he muttered to himself.

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His final statement was, what the
hell did I do? Killed them all?

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Of course, or maybe this is
the you're a right there, It

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is your court right, of course, but can't imagine first murm more?

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Of course. After deliberating for almost
eight hours, the jury found Robert guilty

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of Susan's murder. He received a
life sentence without parole, and two days

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later a New York State Police investigator
filed a complaint against him. This time,

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the complaint accused Robert of another murder, his missing wife, Kathleen.

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Finally, forty years after Kathleen vanished, her killer was charged with her murder,

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but Kathleen's family never received the closure. They spent decades searching for.

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At seventy eight years old, Robert
Durst died of natural causes. To this

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day, Kathleen's remains have never been
found. That's ten Minute Murder for today

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brief and bingeable true crime. I'm
Joe, I'm the host, and I

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to see the pictures of what we
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never gross and graphic stuff though,
and the reason is because I don't personally

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want to look at the crime scene
photos that are disgusting, because I get

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you can very easily yourself find all
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see gross and graphic stuff. I
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you out there do like to get
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that's up to you, but I
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