This episode may contain content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and
sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised.
Hi everyone, I'm Talia and I'm Tanya, and together we are Crimes and
Consequences, a true crime podcast. Hi Tanya, Talia. Welcome back everybody
to this week's episode of Crimes and Consequences. We are going to do a
very popular one today that I know very little about, or I knew very
little about and was always very curious. This is about Robert Allen Durst.
Yes, that that is definitely there was a bit HBO watch it. Yes,
I should have a little background. He was born in April twelve,
nineteen forty three, in Scarsdale, New York, to Seymour and Bernice.
He was the oldest of four. He had two younger brothers, Douglas and
Thomas, and one of little sister, Wendy. Robert and his siblings were
born into a very powerful and wealthy family, one whose name carried weight along
with it New York City. Robert's grandfather, Joseph Durst, he built a
prominent billion dollar real estate company, d a lot of money which was turned
into an empire. All of his wealth started with his very first building purchase,
which was back in nineteen twelve. Then the Durst family's name became notorious.
Today, the company is one of the city's largest family run real estate
organizations, and it's Robert's brother, Douglas. He's the one that is at
the of it. One night, when Robert was seven years old, his
mother either walked off or fell off the side of the roof of the mansion,
killing herself. Oh Man. Robert claimed that his father had brought him
to the window and that he witnessed her death, which is kind of strange,
yea. But his brother Douglas is like na that didn't happen. That
didn't happen. At the time of her death, when it occurred, the
newspapers had said Bernice had fallen off the roof after overdosing an asthma medication.
How Her, some family members, including Robert, claimed it was suicide.
I don't know exactly why she was on the roof. I am not usually
on my roof. You've ever been on the roof of your house me either?
Regardless of which one is actually true, her death really affected Robert.
I mean he struggled with mental health afterwards. When he was ten years old,
he was assessed by a psychiatrist who claimed he couldn't be treated because he
had personality decomposition and possibly schizophrenia. Oh no, he couldn't be treated.
No, not really. I guess you don't treat those disorders. What's metal
decomposition? I don't know. It doesn't sound that's something I want. No,
maybe I have it. I don't even know now. Maybe he attended
Scarsdale High School, so he's still functional. You know, he's still going
to school, and he was described as a loaner. He then went on
to Pennsylvania's Lehigh University, So I don't know how bad he could be if
he's in college. He ended up graduating nineteen sixty five with a bachelor's degree
in economics. Oh that's hard staff. Well, then he enrolled in a
doctoral program. Yeah, you see, all right, I mean that's some
difficult subjects, especially if you have personality decomposition. Yeah, SCHIPA. That
is where he met and became very close friends with an aspiring writer and the
daughter of a mobster, Susan Berman. The two were thick as thieves.
But I'll get back to that Later in nineteen sixty nine, he withdrew from
the doctoral program and he moved back to New York City, but he was
only there for a little bit. At some point in the early nineteen seventies,
he ended up moving to Vermont and opening a health food store called All
Good Things. I have a sense that he traveled a lot back and forth
between the two states. In the fall of nineteen seventy one, he met
eighteen year old Kathleen. She went by Kathy McCormick. She was a donal
hygienist who lived in one of the buildings owned by the Durst family or organization,
if you want to call it. They met when Robert stopped by to
pick up a run. Oh Hey, nice to meet you. Katy had
just moved to New York City from a Long Island. She was bright,
charming, It's just the kind of person everybody liked, and the two immediately
hit it off. Kathy didn't seem to mind his cool affection. As a
matter of fact, she thought of him more as a sweet, sensitive guy.
The two were smitten with each other just after two dates, and that's
when Robert asked Kathy to move into his Vermont home near his health food store.
It wasn't until January nineteen seventy two that she took him up on the
offer and moved in with them. They were undoubtedly in love, but they
had some issues. He's got a couple yeah issues. For one thing,
he was ten years older than her. Secondly, they came from two completely
different worlds. He came from a life of wealth and power, and Kathy
came from a modest, Irish Catholic household. It was easy for her to
quickly become swept up in the lifestyle that came along with being a Durst,
but they still had their differences. After being pressured from his father to move
back to New York City and work for the Durst organization, Robert eventually gave
in. Just one year after the couple had moved in together, Robert ended
up closing his health food store and moving back to the city. Both of
them did. Actually, on Robert's thirtieth birthday, Robert and Kathy got married.
While la Marins had started out as a loving one, things suddenly changed
after moving from Vermont to New York City. It was a big change,
and it was not a good change. Kathy had said that Robert's father,
Seymour, brought out the worst and Robert, and that he turned him into
a completely different person from the man she fell in love with and Vermont.
At first, Robert loved nothing more than showed Kathy off because she's I mean,
she's just beautiful, and he would take her to the best and biggest
events in New York. He loved showing her this world that he knew and
grew up in. Even Seymour approved of his new daughter in law. However,
his time went on. Robert, who wasn't really as I said,
that warm before he had a cool affection, he got even colder. For
a long time. Kathy kept how miserable she was a secret. However,
there were hints drop that alluded to Robert having anger problems. What it first
started out as yelling turned into pretending to hit her. What yea, what
the fuck is that is that? And then much worse As time went on,
it went downhill. Kathy's brother Jim said he first witnessed Robert abusing Kathy
at a family Christmas party when he grabbed her by the hair. Oh my
god, does it at a family Christmas party? Right? Fuckjeez? He
don't give one shit who sees right. Kathy had kept numerous diaries filled with
details about how she'd been suffering in the marriage. For one, Believe it
or not, Robert was a cheapskate. Ah geez. He was one of
those guys, A ton of money but cheap as how, even though she
was married to a millionaire, she was still she was going to medical school.
She wanted to have a career and have her own money to do with
as she pleased. He's probably up her ass all the time, right about
her spending. Then one day Robert dropped this bomb on her. He told
her I hidden money children and that was upsetting for her. So she just
tried to focus on school, but saying that really fractured their relationship and after
that it never got repaired. Robert would tell her that he might be open
to considering adapting, which gave Kathy just like a little bit of hope,
but he squashed that every time she set up any appointment with any agency,
he wouldn't go to make up excuses. In nineteen seventy six, Kathy ended
up getting pregnant and Robert was pissed. He accuses her of doing it on
purpose. And he for started get an abortion, and he told her that
he would divorce her if she didn't. She was really reluctant to do that
because she really wanted to have a baby, but she went through it and
then she ended up suffering from depression as a result. To make matters worse,
it was also around the same time when she first found out that Robert
was a fucking knew it. I knew it having an affair, fucker,
you know how she found out how she found polaroid pictures and their medicine cabinets.
The medicine cabinet right like, like though you're not even hiding it,
right like at least tied the ship beat a great man. How insulting.
She asked him about the photos, and Robert revealed that he'd had a woman
in their home. Oh man, and that's when shit would go nuclear at
my house. Right, Not only did he have a woman in their home,
but he had moved things around their home to make it look like he
was a single man living there, Like, get rid of those photos of
anything of hers. He just outright told her this, And it's just weird.
No, this was something that no relationship can really survive. There was
no love left between the two of them and Kathy, she was just basically
suffering. In early nineteen eighty two, she was only twenty nine, Kathy
was treated for facial bruises at the Bronx Hospital. She told a friend that
Robert had beaten her up when she confronted him about another affair. She knew
he'd taken up with a woman named Prudence Farrell. And that is the same
Prudence that the Beatles sing about in their song to Your Prudence. It was
the same woman and happens to be Mia, Mia Pharaoh's sister. Yeah.
So medical school alone stressful. It was her final year and it was pretty
difficult. Yeah, and then she's daily being abused and emotionally abused. It
was too much for twenty nine year old Kathy. As a result, she
began drinking successfully and using drugs to cope with the abuse. She barely slept
or eight. Her friends couldn't help but notice this one's probably bright person,
which is like a shelf of her former self. She was detached, constantly
frayed, and nervous. Kathy wanted a divorce and began telling friends that she's
going to leave Robert. As soon as she finished medical school, she was
going to file. Robert caught wind of this, and he reacted by canceling
all of her credit cards and removing her from the joint bank account, and
he wouldn't pay for her semester of medical school. What a fuck had Yeah,
that's when she just demanded a divorce, and she was only asking for
a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars settlement, which considering he's an error to
a billion eira, I mean. Kathy told her friends they were probably married
almost like ten years at this point too. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you're running two or fifty grandsn't that much. Kathy told friends that she had
proof that Robert been embezzling money from his father made and had made fraudulent claims
on his tax returns as well as her own, and she had let Robert
know that she knew that shit girl. One time when she was at her
New York City apartment with two friends, Phil Stevenson and George Karns. Those
were the friends. Phil said that Robert showed up at the door, threw
a lot of cash at Kathy's face and said, quote, this isn't happening.
He was referring to the divorce that's not gonna happen. Kathy then told
Robert that she was just done and she was going to move to Delaware.
George, who was there witnessing this interaction, said that there was a lot
of yelling and screaming and that Robert seemed really out of control and was out
of his mind. Angry, no, how fucking awkward. Ten days later,
Kathy disappeared oh fuck yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. She was last
seen alive January thirty first, nineteen eighty two, when she went to a
dinner party without Robert at her friend Gilbert I don't know his last name in
Connecticut. Kathy had shown up unexpectedly, and according to Gilbert, she wasn't
acting like herself. She was typically wore high quality clothes. She showed up
in red sweatpants and seemed visibly upset when she got there. During the party,
Robert called that house multiple times wanting to speak to Kathy, and people
could hear him screaming through the phone for her to come home. God,
what a psycho, I mean she didn't want to. She eventually left the
party to return to the house in New York. In an interview, Gilberte
talked about the last conversation with Kathy. She said it was a very powerful
conversation. Quote. As she was leaving my house, she turned to me
and said, Gilberte promised me, if something happens to me, you'll check
it out. I'm afraid of what Bobby might do. End quote. I
guess Robert went by Bobby. That's less time anyone saw Kathy aside from Robert.
According to Robert, he and Kathy argued that night. He said Kathy
wanted to go to their apartment in the city instead of saying the house,
because they were actually at a house they had in South Salam hamlet of Westchester
County, New York. Okay, okay, and she wanted to go to
the apartment in New York City, so she dropped her off at the train
station so she could catch the nine fifteen train to Manhattan. Afterwards, he
told the New York City Police Department that he went for a walk. You
know, I don't have an alibi. I'm just screaming my fucking head off
at her when she's at a party. He had a drink in a neighbor's
house, spoke with Kathy on a pay phone when she returned to Manhattan apartment,
and then he went to bed at the other house, so she called
him on a payphone, or he called her on the most called her when
he thought she returned. Sure the neighbors Robert had allegedly seen that night that
was Bill and Ruth. Mayor later testified that Robert this is gonna be surprised
live to police and he actually never visited him that night the night she disappeared
surprise. Moreover, Ruth also testified that Kathy had told her in private that
Robert was abusing her, and Ruth encouraged her to report it, but Kathy
said she just was too afraid. Before her disappearance, Kathy had made plans
to meet Gilberte at a pub in Manhattan. I don't know exactly what day
it was, but Kathy never showed. Gilberte was worried, and that's when
the police got called several times over the next few days after Gilberte didn't hear
from her or see her. On February fourth, Kathy's college, someone from
the college administration called Robert and said that Kathy had called in sick on February
first and had missed a full week of classes. So on February fifth,
I mean basically, like we're really concerned, Robert reported his wife missing.
Detectives wondered why Robert had waited so long to report his wife missing, and
he was very calm when he explained that they just spent lots of days apart.
She was always working and studying and at the hospital, and he was
too busy with his girlfriend, and yeah, he had your prudence. Yeah.
Police described Robert as completely calm and unmoved, as if he was on
phase that his wife had been missing for several days. Something else that was
weird was when he reached out to the press soon afterwards, and he offered
a thousand dollars reward for information leading to her safe return. However, he
then reduced the amount, stating that the original article had made a mistake.
What a cheap fucker what right? Wait? Wait wait wait wait wait in
a wrong amount? What a thousand? Fuck? Is that it's only five
hundred? Yeah, forget that one hundred thousand. And it's obvious his wife
didn't mean much to him if he was willing to reduce the reward, right,
and he never reached out to her family, oh man, Instead,
Cathy's family, who had no idea who she was missing, found out about
her disappearance in the newspaper. That's terrible. Due to his high profile status,
Kathy's disappearance and Robert himself game a lot of media attention. Yeah,
Luckily for him, his longtime friend Susan Burman stepped in as basically an unofficial
spokeswoman and made statements and answered questions on his behalf. Because he's Koku.
I mean, he would have said something stupid like that. Rewards reduced even
more. Oh yeah, he's so stupid. Yeah yeah. After the article
was mistake, yeah, oh yeah, it gets better. Oh yeah,
you know the story better than I can do. Three weeks after Robert reported
Kathy missing, who was already trying to basically eraser in their Manhattan apartment,
he threw out almost all her belongings into the garbage shoot because that's not suspicious
that and it led to the buildings incinerator and the building manager had to ask
him to stop because he was clogging it off. Oh my god. He
was throwing so much stuff throughout her clothes, medical school books, jewelry,
pretty much everything that belonged to her. Oh yeah, She's not with us
anymore, for sure, and he knows it exactly. Kathy's friends they ended
up taking her disappearance into their own hands, and they broke into Kathy and
Robert's South Salem home and the hopes they might find maybe her or find clues
to her whereabouts. When they arrived, they found that the house had been
turned upside down, Kathy's mail had been ripped open, her belongings were stuffed
into garbage bags, and interestingly enough, they found an itinerary of everything Robert
had done on the night of Kathy's disappearance, as well as the day's prior.
When they turned it into the police, they said, this isn't normal
behavior for an innocent man, but rather for someone that was guilty of something
who wanted to keep track of his lies. Oh yes, shady, shady.
While the New York Police explored leads in questioned Robert, it didn't go
unnoticed that higher ups were not really pushing to solve this case. The investigation
only been going on for a few weeks when it already began winding down.
Which this is a whole high profile case, and you would think somebody from
the Dirt's family being missing would be continue to be a priority, but it
seemed like the Dirt's family didn't really care about it, and the police didn't
either. The Dirt's family wasn't cooperating with the police either. By the way,
Robert refused interviews, polygraph tests, and even answering like the most basic
questions. But he did give several interviews to reporters. Yeah, but don't
talk to the police. To the press. No, he claimed that Kathy
just ran off with another man, took nothing with her, No, nothing,
not a dollar and yeah, he's so dramatical. School didn't decide to
finish yet didn't finish it, just just laughed. Since there was really no
evidence about Kathy's disappearance, there wasn't any leads. The police actually did speak
to some psychics, oh okay, and they did have suspicions that Robert might
be involved. I mean he lured up right away, which is what you
do. That's what you do. Look guilty, No, protect yourself.
Got the best criminal attorneys in New York. But eventually this case, when
cold solely Cathy's disappearance turned into nothing more than a cold case file. After
a period of morning, Robert returned to work in the family business. The
following year lazy ass, this time in New York City, He took a
big stop from the social scene he once dominated. He ended up only keeping
very close circle of friends, including Susan Burman. In the next ten years
to follow it, or roughly around that amount of time, he tried to
reinvent himself and he got a new girlfriend. Her name was Deborah Lee Sheraton.
She was an ambitious New York City real estate broker. He sold at
South Salem home that he and Cathy shared an unbeknownst to Kathy's family, he
filed for divorce from his still missing wife, claiming spousal abandonment. Wow,
but before I tell you more about this story and the murders to come,
We're going to take a quick break. Robert allegedly started behaving oddly at work.
No, okay, this includes urinating and trash cans. That's fucking odd.
Like you and I are in this office and you piss in a trash
can. I'm going to be upset. I'm going to be concerned. Learned
about you. Come on now, Really, he was next in line to
take over the family's company. I mean I had to go bad. I
know, but I've never seen you do that yet. No, not yet,
and I never will. Okay good. Robert was supposed to be next
in line to take over his family's company, but his father ended up appointing
his younger brother, Douglas in that position. In nineteen ninety four, Robert
accused his brother of stealing the company from him, which caused a big riff
between Robert and the rest of his family. He would then spend the next
decade traveling as a vaga behind He's like, fuck it, fuck it.
I'm sure he still had access to money. In nineteen ninety nine, after
the New York Police Department received a bogus tip about the location of Cathy's body,
police in Westchester reopened Kathy Durst case. This time they were looking at
as a homicide. Police search the Durst's home in South Salem. It was
nearby a lake, but I mean they didn't find anything. I mean,
twenty years later or something. In two thousand, the investigation became public.
People knew about it. A month later, Robert married Debrah, his longtime
girlfriend. It was kind of a quick ceremony, officiated by a single rabbi
picked out of the phone book. It's reported that they never lived together over
the course of their marriage, and that they've went years without speaking, which
might sound weird. I mean, why I get married to begin with,
right? According to Robert, Susan Burman called him in December of two thousand
to tell him the police wanted to interview her about Kathy's disappearance. At that
time, Susan was living alone at her home in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles,
and she was working as a journalist and an author. A sop called
Mafia Princess. Susan wrote about her family's ties to gangsters, specifically her father,
David Davey Burman. I guess he was some Las Vegas mob boss.
Okay, I'm gonna give you a little background on Susan and Robert. They
became friends after meeting as students at UCLA. They bonded over their trauma.
When Susan was twelve, her father died on the operating table. Oh damn,
and her mother died of a drug overdose a year later. Oh that's
terrible. Robert talked about how he believed his mom committed suicide, and Susan
McCall Robert, her little brother the little brother she never had. She was
really protective of him. When she got married in nineteen eighty four, it
was Robert who walked her down the aisle. Oh that's cute. No,
it's not cute. Okay. The two had been nearly inseparable for decades when
Kathy disappeared. However, she and Robert ended up drifting apart. After Kathy's
disappearance, Susan ended up leaving New York and settled in California, where she
wrote two books. And I told you about her life is a mob boss's
daughter. She acted like she had a really glamorous life and led people to
believe that, but that really wasn't accurate. In August of two thousand,
Susan was really short on money and facing in fiction. In a desperate attempt,
that's when she reached out to Robert asking for money. She didn't know
how to get a hold of him, so she left a voicemail on a
phone he kept in New York without even speaking together. He gifted her fifty
thousand, and she used that to pay her debts and get herself back on
track. Wow, that was nice. Oh, I would have called him
a long time ago. Yeah, no shit, Robert chucking in this obviously
helped Susan a lot. Yeah. The two eventually talked on the phone,
and Susan started her life started getting better. She got hired to do a
couple of new projects, and now Robert was back in her life. Everything
was good until she got contacted by the Westchester DA, who informed her Cathy's
case was being reopened as a homicide and they wanted to talk to her.
After all, she had never been interviewed in the initial investigation. She never
been interviewed, so the interview had been arranged to take place sometime early in
the new year, And of course this interaction between the DA and Susan made
front page in the news because you've got the Durst family. On December nineteenth,
Susan spoke with her friend. This was an actress named Kim Langford,
telling her that she had the story of a lifetime and had information that was
going to blow the top off of things. Oh, Kim just assumed that
this information one was related to I don't know, another mob story something like
that in Vegas. Susan also told Kim she had recently spoken to a psychic
who told her that she was destined to die a violent death. Oh my
god, what a horrible thing to find out. What excuse me? Usually
psychics only tell you good things, like why would you tell me that I
know here to die of very violent? Deftly? Okay, well shit,
I'm just gonna go figure out a way to go peacefully if that's my future,
And the psychic said it would involve a gun. On Christmas even two
thousand, police were called to Susan's home after neighbors reported that her dogs were
running loose on the street and barking wildly. Police arrived at Susan's home and
they found the back door was a little bit open. In the doorway of
one of her bedrooms was fifty five year old Susan. She'd been shot execution
style with one bullet to the back of the head. There's no signs in
fourth century, and nothing was stolen. Police determined she'd been dead a day
or two before the body was discovered, so maybe the dogs eventually just ran
out. Some people speculated was a mob hit in retaliation for all that information.
She was writing in books of people on her upcoming project. But when
police learned she was supposed to talk with the dam that seems suspicion seems awfully
suspicious. It didn't help matters that Robert flew out from New York City to
San Francisco, California, on December nineteenth, which is near where she lived,
and then flew back to New York City from San Francisco on the twenty
third, the day before Susan's body was found. After Susan's body was found,
the LAPD received an anonymous letter postmarked December twenty third. The letter was
addressed to the Beverly Hills Police with Beverly misspelled. Inside. The letter had
Susan's address with one word cadaver. What's crazy? What is this? It
was obviously a letter letting the police know there was a body there. Yeah,
what the fire? I didn't know this, Yeah, this is crazy.
As it turns out, Susan did have some information to share about Kathy.
According to her friend Linda Opps, Susan had told her that she was
the one that called Kathy's college on February first, and allegedly said she was
sick. She pretended to be Kathy. According to the prosecuting attorney, Robert
asked Susan to cover for him. When Kathy had first disappeared by posing as
Kathy and then calling in sick Oh. They theorized that Robert had killed Susan
after discovering because it's in the paper. Yeah, she's going to meet with
the DA and he was really afraid that she turned them in. A woman
named Miriam Barnes that's one of Susan's close friends, ended up testifying later that
Susan called her and told her that she'd done a favorite for Robert, but
was nervous about sharing it. She told Miriam that anything happened to her,
Robert did it. Robert was questioned about her murder, but he was never
charged. Robert didn't even end up attending the funeral, and this is supposedly
his close, oldest, dearest friend. In April of two thousand, Robert
escaped the city to avoid police inquiries, and he started renting a three hundred
dollars a month apartment in Galston, Texas, where no one knew where he
was. This isn't like a billionaire's son and three hundred dollars a month because
he's trying to just escape, you know, they had to be a shithole,
right, Yes, I mean three hundred dollars a month. Well,
yes, okay, I mean he had to be right. While living in
Galveston, he pretended to be a mute woman named Dorothy's Signer, a name
he took from a high school friend. Likely Yeah, okay, mute,
what is this shit? Yeah? I can't with people. Sometimes. He
was spotted wearing women's wigs around town, visiting the library to look up articles
on himself. God, I would a narcissist. He posed as a mute
woman because he had a really distinctive voice, and he thought that it would
be very easily identifiable by someone which is mute. He's not gonna say anything.
That'd be hard. It would be hard. On September thirtieth, two
thousand and one, a man fishing with his son in Galveston Bay discovered a
human torso floating in the water. They called the police and searched the area,
and they found some garbage bags. Each bag had a total of twelve
dismembered body parts in the bags. They also found an outer packaging for a
bow saw, a receipt for garbage bags, cloths, and a newspaper that
contained a handwritten note with an address two two one three Avenue UK, Gross
Yeah at the address. Officers searched the garbage cans around the area and they
found more black garbage bag similar to the ones that they were covered inside some
dumpsters and they found an empty trash bag box, a four inch pairing knife,
and a twenty two caliber shellcasing and of in fiction notice addressed to of
someone named Morris Black. Morris was one of the tenants in the shared home
on Avenue K. He'd been a veteran with a kind of a murky past.
He was a strange from his family and his ex wife. He lived
a nomadic life and he occasionally reached out to someone, but he was just
pretty what's the word I'm thinking of? He kept to himself. Ended up
landing in Texas sometime in the mid nineties and he was arrested nine eight for
threatening to blow up a utility company. Oh wow. Because he was upset
about his lifestyle. Made up really hard for them to track the timeline of
him and what he'd done in the past. There was just decades without any
documentation. Those in Galveston who had met Morris described with miss a grumpy old
man who was suspicious of everyone, paranoid you know, I'm prone to screaming
outburst. He used to live in New York City but seemed to have gone
off the grid. In eighty two, it was discovered that this Morris guy
had one hundred and thirty thousand dollars in an out of state bank account,
despite not having a job at least on record for decades. He'd been living
on this money and all his friends and he didn't have many had no idea
he had any money. And now he was missing. Oh, he's gone,
he's gone, He's gone. Police were able to execute a search warrant
for Morris's home based on the fact the address was found yes with a torso.
Once inside, they discovered blood everywhere in the bathroom, sink, the
kitchen, and the drains. When they sprayed lumin all throughout the apartment,
it lit up like Christmas walls, floors, drag marks man that led from
Morris's apartment to the apartment across the hall, whoops, across the law and
that's where well, we don't know the mute woman lives. How did you
know that belonged to Dorothy Signer, a mute old woman whose neighbors didn't know
very much about this woman, except she probably looked like an ugly man.
She looked like an old man. She was rarely seen, had been known
to travel frequently, always kept her shades drawn, and always kept to herself.
Investigators got a court order to enter, and then they found blood everywhere
or there too, shit in Dorothy's kitchen. There had been several cuts in
the linoleum floor, and when officers pulled the linoleum bag, they discovered pools
or dry blood. I don't mean, what, what a fucking mess?
What is this? Yeah? Like Morris Guy's got one hundred and thirty thousand
dollars, But you know I was living in a probably three hundred dollars a
month apartment. I got a mute woman and blood going between the apartments everywhere
everywhere. They've so crazy. This apartment hadn't been cleaned as thoroughly as Morris's.
There was dry blood splatter all over the place. There was a pairing
knife, a cleaver, a handsaw, oh geez god, a pistol.
What are the bigs they recovered from the water. It was empty and it
had this large rip in it. Officers concluded that that was the one that
contained missing Morris's head man because the body was headless was Morris's and headless and
that was the only part not recovered geez, and to them that likely contained
the key evidence in this case because they believed that Morris was probably shot and
had based on the rest of the body parts. They compared the fingerprints from
Morris's time in the military to those body and that's how they ended up identifying
them. A medical examiner determined that the body parts were covered were from seventy
one year old Morris Black. The medical examiner would later testify that the person
who cut his body up knew what kind of instrument to use on what bone
and what muscle and what part of the body, and it was a work
of someone that had done this before. Oh shit, Oh man, it's
fucking disgusting. Dorothy's signer was now missing too, and police turned their attention
to finding Dorothy. They had been able to determine that Morris was likely killed
in his apartment, but then dismembered in Dorothy's. But why, why is
this happening? It all started to make sense when they to receipt in the
buildings trash. It was from a local optometrist and it had Robert's name on
it. Well, now that's weird. Yeah, without information, they thought,
okay, perhaps this mute woman, mute, older woman might be Robert
Durst. Yeah, how strange, very weird. Look what the hell?
I would just be like, what the fuck is this? Yeah? Fuck
is this? Neighbors couldn't recall seeing Dorothy around the time that Morris disappeared,
although they did recall seeing a man floating garbage bags into a Honda CRV he
left his way at home. It's like what They hadn't recognized him, but
noticed that he did make several trips in and out of Dorothy's apartment. Police
took down a description the vehicle and they put a bulow out. They also
looked in the national database to try to get any information they could about miss
Signer. Thankfully, they found Miss Signer alive and well. But she said,
I don't live in Galveston, Texas, and I'm not mute. When
they asked if she knew Robert Durst, she replied that she she did.
They attended high school together back in the fifties, and she was very confused.
I mean, she hadn't spoken to him in decades and had no idea
why there was an apartment runned using her name in social security number? Wow,
her kid? Yet the hell is this? And by the way,
there's a body in the apartment you've been running, or there's a blood in
the apartment you've been running? What what I know? I'd be like,
somebody needs to sit me down, and I'm very confused. Seven days later,
a vehicle that was matching the description for the Bolo was found and they
pulled up the driver and they searched the car. Inside they saw a bosaw
and blood in the trunk of the vehicle, and that's when they arrested fifty
eight year old driver Robert Durst October ninth, two thousand and one, and
they charged him with the murder of Morris Black. He paid three thousand dollars
bail and then he left Texas and went on the run. He failed to
appear to his court date and he was declared fugitive. He ended up renting
a car in Mobile, Alabama under the name Morris Black. What what this
guy is? Too much? Too much? Then, in another really strange
twist, he was found and arrested in a Wagman's grocery store in Bath,
Pennsylvania, he was accused of shoplifting a six dollar chicken sandwich. Really dude,
some bandages in a newspaper, even though he had thirty eight thousand dollars
in cash on him on hill on him. What the hell? He had
two loaded guns, a Medicaid card, and a driver's license belonging to Morris
Black. But this time he cheaved off all his hair and his eyebrows because
that's not his all. I mean, at first they didn't really recognize him.
It was only after he was arrested and they ran a social Security number
when he's arrested for the chicken sandwich that they realized who they had arrested.
In January of two thousand and two, he returned to Texas to see on
trial for Morris Black's murder. According to Robert's testimony, he came home on
September twenty eight, two thousand and one, to find Morris in his apartment,
angry because Morris had a key to his apartment, Robert hadn't been expecting
him. He said he immediately suspected Morris of taking a gun that he'd stored
in his oven. That's a fantastic place for a gun. What is this
shit. When Robert asked him, where's my gun, Morris reportedly stood and
pointed it at Robert. Robert clean that he grabbed the gun and the two
men fell to the ground, and that's when the gun went off. He
said. He never even touched the trigger, and that's when Morris got shot
in the hut. So what do you do? I mean, you dismember
him? And he tried to help his neighbor, okay by going to another
neighbor's apartment, but no one answered, so he went back to his apartment.
I mean, and then you kind of just like, what do you
do? You gotta take matters into your own hands. So he grabbed a
bottle of Jack Daniels and, you know, dismembered Morris's body because that's what
I would do before dumping in in the Galveston Bay. I mean, you
wouldn't do the tried. He knocked on the neighbor's door. No one answered
answer. He's like, well, fun, what am I gonna have to
cut the body? I guess somebody have to dispose of it, like mean,
it was an accident, but no one's gonna believe me. Well,
he said, because of you know, the suspicions of the past. Yeah,
no one would believe him. And the other bodies I cut up private
investigator, ended up Pie's and together a connection between Robert and Morris that went
way back, because remember Morris had all that money that's right on his account,
but had no job. That's right. Morris Black had a brother named
Harry, and the two of them owned a construction business in New York back
in the eighties. According to family members, it had been funded by the
Durst organization, specifically Roberts. There you go. Harry had passed in two
thousand and three, but his wife had said that when he learned that Morris
had been murdered, he was really concerned he would be next. You can
see why because you got this freak on the run too. When that's why
his wife said, well, he had dark secrets. I'm wondering, like,
if he's got a construction company, what about her way to dispose of
a body? Right? Why? And then yeah, why didn't Morris have
all that cash exactly? I mean, I don't know, I don't know.
I'm I'm not saying anything. He got bribed to do something with the
body. But anyway, his wife told the private investor that she believed the
brothers knew something about Cathy's disappearance. Prosecutors believe that Robert murdered Morris when he
found out his true identity, and he killed him out of fear let he'd
be charged with Cathy's murder. They believed that Robert had specifically chosen Galveston and
he arrived concealing his identity as an old mute woman in a lowcome area next
to the man that he used to fund work for him. Like it was
intentional that he did. Yeah, it was intentional for Robert. Why,
I know, it's so weird, Like why would you give an apartment across
the hall from someone you possibly allegedly bribe because he's nuts. Yeah. In
his trial, because he did have a trial, Robert hired the best criminal
defense attorneys the money could buy. Lasted two months, and despite amount of
evidence, he was acquitted. I love the American justice system sometimes sometimes you
know, sometimes it works, sometimes it sometimes it doesn't. Needless to say,
him being acquitted was pretty shocked. I don't know if I told you.
After his original bail jumping, he was put on a three billion dollars
bail, but that was found to be unconstitutional. It was a little excessive,
I guess. He did get found guilty of tampering with evidence and bail
jumping, and he got sixty months for it's a felony. In October of
two thousand and four, just as he was about to be paroled, Pennsylvania
authorities charged Robert with weapon possession stemming from his time when he was on the
run. In July of two thousand and five, he was released from federal
prison and sent to Texas to serve parole. I don't really even know.
I can't even keep track evolve all this shit, but Robert couldn't stay in
one place. In December of two thousand and five, he was arrested for
a parole violation for making unauthorized trips to Galveston. He got caught after visiting
a Texas mall where he happened to run into the judge who was presiding over
the murder Trialous, what are the odds of? What are the odds?
I've never run into a judge in my right, And yeah, that's crazy.
In February two thousand and six, he was released from prison and his
paroles supervision ended. Nine months later, and he was a freeman. Four
years later, Robert's infamous deeds were made into a movie. It was called
All Good Things. It was kind of loosely about his life. After the
movie was released, he contacted the director praising him about the movie, and
they kept in contact for two years. They did they were baby kame friends.
Eventually, Robert agreed to be interviewed for an HBO documentary series about his
life, even though his lawyer was like, don't do that. It was
called The Jinks, which I didn't see, The Life and Deaths of Robert
Durst. It was good. I recommend it. I recommended for anybody who
hasn't seen it. He denied all responsibility for Susan and Cathy's deaths, disappearances.
They do know during the interview, the interviewer, I think the interviewer's
name was Jarecki or something like that, has to take a break. Yes,
this is at the very end, and he's just what mumbling underneath this
breath, the assholes still Mike. I think he goes to the bathroom.
You can barely hear him. But that didn't mean no one hurt him because
he had a hot Mike and as lawyer promptly walked out to him and told
him, you're you know, they just started everything you said, and Robert
starts to say something like what he said was harmless, and he said,
did not tell the whole truth. Nobody tells the whole truth. And that
same interview, Robert was asked the following do you have anything to do with
the death of your wife? He said, I don't know that she's dead,
Okay, yeah, and then he was asked, do you think that
it's possible she's alive now? And he said it's possible, but not likely.
With the help of Susan's stepson, Jarecki, was able to produce a
letter written by Robert had the exact same misspelling of Beverly like the Beverly Hills
letter from like the cadaver letter. Not to mention the handwriting was uncanny ly
similar to that tip. So Direcki said, Hey, do you want to
have another interview Robert? And He's like, yes, absolutely, of course
I would, because I'm a narcissist. So Direci brought out both the letters
and confronted Robert with the similarities. Robert had a hard time himself, started
having some problems start burping uncontrollably as he answers answers the question. Once it's
evident that he had no excuse for the similarities in the letter. They took
an break. During the break, Robert then goes to the bathroom and he's
got a hot mike once again. Yes, stuff, he's an idiot,
and he says the following. There it is, you're caught. You're right,
of course, but you can't imagine arrest him. I don't know it's
in the house. Oh I want this. What a disaster. He was
right, I was wrong. And the burping. I'm having difficulty with a
question. What the hell did I do? Killed them all? Of course?
What the fuck is that, Tanya? He killed them all of course.
In the interview, he admits he's lied to the police about the night
Kathy went missing. He said that he told the police he dropped her off
the train station and you know, went to the neighbors. But you know
that wasn't true. That was all. It was all bullshit. The day
before the final documentary episode aired March fourteenth, twenty fifteen, Robert was arrested
on a warrant charging him with the first degree murder of Susan Berman. He
was charged in Louisiana with phony weapon possession and he was denied bail because he's
a flight risk. He accepted a plea deal on the charges and was sentenced
to seven years in prison. Then in November of twenty sixteen, he got
transferred to Los Angeles County Dale to await trial for the murder of Susan.
During questioning, he tells the prosecutor he was high on math when he was
a host and agreed to the interview for the James Really the next year,
Cathy was declared legally dead at the request for a family. The trial for
Susan's murder began on March for twenty twenty, but, as we know,
because of COVID, it got halted for fourteen months in May of twenty twenty
one. The case resumed on September seventeenth. It took the jury three days
and they found him guilty the first degree murder of Susan, as well as
lying in wait and killing a witness. Less than a month later, the
Los Angeles judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parl That
same month, the Westchester County, New York DA's office announced that a grand
jury would be impaneled to hear witness testimony and evidence in Cathy's disappearance. In
late October, Robert Tessapasit for COVID name his hospitalized. They didn't think he'd
lived through the indictment, so the state investigator, believing Robert may not live
enough to be indicted long enough to be indicted, fouled a criminal complaint charging
him with Kathy's death. On November first, twenty twenty one, Robert was
indicted. He was by the Westchester County Grand jury on second green murder charges
of Kathy, and he was a waiting trial, that is until he went
into cardiac rest in California, San Joaquin General Hospital and died on January tenth.
That's a shame. Twenty twenty two. Wow, this story is.
It's so crazy. That's why everybody tells it because it's fucking nuts. It's
nuts. He was nuts, clearly, clearly. Well, thanks to Leah,
thanks Tanya, and thanks Tara for helping us with this one. And
if you'd like to take over, Tan, you go ahead. If you
would like to see more and I see our sources, you can go to
our website Crimes and Consequences dot com. You can find that information there about
becoming a Patreon member. And becoming a Patreon member you get our weekly episodes,
add free and early release. You can go to patreon dot com slash
t nt crimes also to sign up, and if you listen to us on
your Apple podcast app, you can sign up there as well. They're the
same episodes, and what you get by becoming a patren member or an Apple
subscriber is you get another weekly episode besides the ones week release and the weekly
one. Like I said, ad free an early release. Yeah. You
can find us on social media at Hardcore True Crime on Instagram and Facebook.
And I think that's it all right until our next episode. Don't kill each
other and do please don't do this weird shit. Yeah, thank you,
you're welcome. Bye,