Speaker 1: Caalarogus Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Saturday, December
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, twenty twenty five, continuing our twelve Crimes of
Speaker 1: Christmas series. Yesterday we wrapped up the John Benet Ramsey case.
Speaker 1: Today and tomorrow a billionaire heir who got away with
Speaker 1: murder for forty years because justice isn't black or white,
Speaker 1: It's green. Robert Durst born April twelfth, nineteen forty three,
Speaker 1: eldest son of Seymour Durst, whose family owned one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful real estate empires in Manhattan, the Durst
Speaker 1: Organization skyscrapers billions of dollars old money New York Royalty.
Speaker 1: Three people connected to Robert Durst ended up dead, his
Speaker 1: wife Kathy, who vanished in nineteen eighty two and was
Speaker 1: never found. His best friend Susan Berman, shot execution style
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve two thousand. His neighbor, Morris Black, dismembered
Speaker 1: and dumped in Galls Elveston Bay in two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: For decades, Durst walked free, money, bought the best lawyers, status,
Speaker 1: deflected suspicion, connections, made problems disappear. The system that's supposed
Speaker 1: to protect victims instead protected him. Then came a documentary,
Speaker 1: an HBO series called The Jinx and a hot microphone
Speaker 1: that caught Robert Durst whispering to himself in a bathroom,
Speaker 1: what the hell did I do? Killed them? All of course,
Speaker 1: killed them all of course. September twenty twenty one, Durst
Speaker 1: was finally convicted of murdering Susan Berman, sentenced to life
Speaker 1: without parole, charged with Kathy's murder. Shortly after January tenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, he died in prison at seventy eight
Speaker 1: years old. Took his secrets to the grave, never revealed
Speaker 1: where Kathy's body is buried. I'm reed, Carter, This is
Speaker 1: Celebrity Trials Today, Part one. Cormick Durst, twenty nine years old,
Speaker 1: three months from becoming a doctor, told her friends exactly
Speaker 1: what would happen if she disappeared. Then she disappeared. Someone
Speaker 1: has to say her name. Kathleen McCormick was born June fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two. Grew up in New Hyde Park, Long Island,
Speaker 1: working class family. Her father was a telephone company account
Speaker 1: representative World War II veteran. Her mother, Anne, would live
Speaker 1: to be one hundred and two years old, dying in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, still not knowing what happened to her youngest daughter.
Speaker 1: Cathy was driven, ambitious, went to nursing school first, then
Speaker 1: decided that wasn't enough. She wanted to be a doctor,
Speaker 1: a pediatrician, help babies and children. She enrolled at Albert
Speaker 1: Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, fourth year student
Speaker 1: three months from graduating when she vanished. In nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: Cathy was twenty years old, working in Manhattan, living in
Speaker 1: a walk up apartment. Met a man at a party,
Speaker 1: Robert Durst, twenty eight years old, longish hair, intense, wealthy,
Speaker 1: beyond imagination. The attraction was immediate. After two dates, Durst
Speaker 1: invited Kathy to move into his house in Vermont. She did.
Speaker 1: They opened a health food store together called All Good
Speaker 1: Things Hippy Dream, But Durst's father had other plans. Seymour
Speaker 1: Durst pressured his son to return to New York, joined
Speaker 1: the family business, stopped playing bohemian, so they moved to Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Got married on April twelfth, nineteen seventy three, Durst's thirtieth birthday.
Speaker 1: Kathy was twenty. The wedding gift was an entry into
Speaker 1: one of New York's wealthiest families, but something was wrong
Speaker 1: from the beginning. Cathy's friends and family describe a controlling,
Speaker 1: abusive husband, a man who dictated what she wore, where
Speaker 1: she went, who she saw, A man whose temper flared
Speaker 1: without warning. Eleanor Joy Schwank, Kathy's nursing school classmate, received
Speaker 1: phone calls Kathy telling her Bobby is really violent. Schwank
Speaker 1: said she never witnessed it herself, but Kathy told her
Speaker 1: it was physical. At a McCormick family gathering, Durst yanked
Speaker 1: Kathy by the hair because she wasn't ready to leave
Speaker 1: in front of her family. Didn't care who saw. Another time,
Speaker 1: he stormed into their apartment where Cathy was talking with
Speaker 1: friends and kicked an acquaintance in the face. That man
Speaker 1: later sued Durst and settled. Three weeks before Cathy disappeared,
Speaker 1: she was treated at Jacoby Medical Center in the bronx bruises,
Speaker 1: head injuries facial trauma suffered during an argument with her husband.
Speaker 1: She refused to file charges. Kathy wanted children, Durst didn't.
Speaker 1: According to friends, He pressured her into having an abortion
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies, Durst later claimed the child
Speaker 1: wasn't his anyway. By nineteen eighty two, the marriage was
Speaker 1: over in everything but paperwork. Kathy was preparing divorce documents.
Speaker 1: She was about to become a doctor, would be able
Speaker 1: to support herself, wouldn't need Durst's money anymore, and Robert
Speaker 1: Durst was losing control. Cathy told her friends something chilling,
Speaker 1: something specific, something that would haunt investigators for forty years.
Speaker 1: If anything happens to me, don't let Bob get away
Speaker 1: with it. She knew. She knew exactly what her husband
Speaker 1: was capable of, knew exactly what might happen, told the
Speaker 1: people closest to her to watch out, to not let
Speaker 1: him escape consequences, and then, on January thirty first, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, Kathy McCormick Durst vanished from the face of
Speaker 1: the earth. January thirty first, nineteen eighty two, Sunday evening,
Speaker 1: Kathy attended a dinner party at the home of her
Speaker 1: closest friend, Gilbert Najami, in Newtown, Connecticut. Najami noticed something
Speaker 1: strange immediately. Kathy was wearing sweatpants, casual clothes that wasn't
Speaker 1: like her. Kathy usually dressed up took care of her appearance,
Speaker 1: but that night she looked disheveled, upset. Around seven pm,
Speaker 1: Kathy received a phone call from her husband. They argued.
Speaker 1: Whatever Robert said on that call, it rattled her. The
Speaker 1: rest of the evening, Kathy talked to Najami about her
Speaker 1: failing marriage, about the abuse, about her fears. Then Kathy
Speaker 1: said something to her best friend that Najami never forgot,
Speaker 1: asked her to investigate if anything happened to her. If
Speaker 1: anything happened to her, investigate. Kathy left the party, said
Speaker 1: she was returning to the couple's cottage on Hoyt Street
Speaker 1: in South Salem, New York, a small town about an
Speaker 1: hour north of Manhattan. According to Robert Durst, here's what
Speaker 1: happened next. He drove Kathy to the Katona train station,
Speaker 1: boarded a train to Manhattan, headed for their penthouse apartment.
Speaker 1: He spoke to her on a payphone later that night.
Speaker 1: She confirmed she'd arrived safely. That was the last time
Speaker 1: anyone ever saw Kathy McCormick Durst. But here's the problem
Speaker 1: with Robert Durst's story. It was a lie, all of it.
Speaker 1: Kathy never arrived in Manhattan, never got on that train.
Speaker 1: The doorman at their building never saw her. Nobody saw
Speaker 1: her after she left Gilbert Njami's house. The next day,
Speaker 1: February first, someone called Albert Einstein College of Medicine. A
Speaker 1: woman's voice claimed to be Kathy Durst said she was
Speaker 1: sick and wouldn't be attending classes that week. That call
Speaker 1: was critical. It made investigators believe Kathy had made it
Speaker 1: back to Manhattan was alive on February first, directed the
Speaker 1: entire investigation toward the city instead of where Kathy was
Speaker 1: actually last seen. South Salem. Prosecutors would later argue that
Speaker 1: call was made by Susan Berman, Durst's best friend from UCLA,
Speaker 1: posing as Kathy, creating an alibi for Robert eighteen years
Speaker 1: before Berman herself would be murdered. Robert Durst didn't report
Speaker 1: his wife missing until February fifth, five days after she vanished,
Speaker 1: only called police after the medical school dean contacted him
Speaker 1: wondering why Kathy hadn't been to class all week. When
Speaker 1: police asked Durst about the delay, he said he figured
Speaker 1: she was out someplace having fun, suggested maybe drug use
Speaker 1: was to blame. It hadn't occurred to me that anything
Speaker 1: had happened to her. His wife of nine years disappears
Speaker 1: for five days, doesn't show up to the medical school.
Speaker 1: She was three months from graduating, and it didn't occur
Speaker 1: to him that anything had happened. Make it make sense,
Speaker 1: Gilbert Najami started calling police immediately after Kathy missed their
Speaker 1: scheduled meeting. She knew something was wrong. She'd heard Cathy
Speaker 1: say to investigate if anything happened, and now something had happened.
Speaker 1: But police focused on Manhattan because that's where Durst said
Speaker 1: Kathy was headed. That's where the phone call to the
Speaker 1: medical school came from. The investigation was derailed from day
Speaker 1: one by durst'slies. The cottage in South Salem. Police didn't
Speaker 1: conduct a thorough search, didn't treat it like a crime scene,
Speaker 1: just accepted Durst's word that Kathy had left for the
Speaker 1: train station. Najami took matters into her own hands. Every week,
Speaker 1: she drove to the Durst's cottage, went through their garbage,
Speaker 1: found some of Kathy's belongings that had been discarded, found
Speaker 1: handwritten notes from Robert. She collected everything, built her own file.
Speaker 1: Then something strange happened. Najami's home was burglarized another friend
Speaker 1: of Kathy's was also burglarized. The files they'd been keeping
Speaker 1: about Kathy's case were among the items stolen. Those burglaries
Speaker 1: remain unsolved. The files were never recovered. Robert Durst sold
Speaker 1: the South Salem cottage in nineteen ninety Whatever evidence might
Speaker 1: have been there, whatever might have explained what ha happened
Speaker 1: to Cathy, was gone. For seventeen years, the case went cold.
Speaker 1: Kathy McCormick Durst was simply missing, presumed dead but never proven,
Speaker 1: never found, never explained, and Robert Durst went on living
Speaker 1: his life inheriting millions when his father died in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, drifting across the country using aliases disguises, living
Speaker 1: among the homeless, sometimes wealthy beyond measure, but hiding from
Speaker 1: the world until nineteen ninety nine, when a state police
Speaker 1: investigator named Joseph Bessera received a tip and decided to
Speaker 1: take another look at the twenty year old disappearance of
Speaker 1: a medical student who'd warned her friends exactly what would happen.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with what happened when investigators reopened
Speaker 1: the case in nineteen ninety nine, and the Christmas Eve
Speaker 1: murder that followed. Just one year later, nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: New York State Police investigator Joseph Bessera received a tip
Speaker 1: about Kathy Durst's nineteen eighty two disappearance. Someone claimed to
Speaker 1: know what had happened. Bessara started digging. He discovered what
Speaker 1: Gilbert Najami and Cathy's family had known for seventeen years.
Speaker 1: The original investigation was botched. Police accepted Durst's story at
Speaker 1: face value, never properly searched the South Salem cottage, never
Speaker 1: treated Robert as the obvious suspect he was. Bessarah interviewed
Speaker 1: witnesses again, found that stories had changed over the years.
Speaker 1: Some people were willing to talk now who hadn't been before.
Speaker 1: The case needed another look. In November two thousand, the
Speaker 1: investigation became public. Media attention returned to Robert Durst. The
Speaker 1: name that had faded from headlines was suddenly everywhere again.
Speaker 1: The wealthy heir, the missing wife, the questions that never
Speaker 1: got answered, and Robert Durst panicked. The same month the
Speaker 1: investigation went public, Durst rented a three hundred dollar a
Speaker 1: month apartment in Galveston, Texas, a crummy fourplex in a
Speaker 1: run down neighborhood halfway between the Gulf of Mexico and
Speaker 1: Galveston Bay, a place where nobody would recognize a Manhattan
Speaker 1: real estate air But Durst didn't rent the apartment as himself.
Speaker 1: He assumed the identity of Dorothy Sinner, a real woman,
Speaker 1: his former classmate from Scarsdale High School class of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one. She hadn't seen him in forty years, had
Speaker 1: no idea he was using her name. Dorothy Sinner was
Speaker 1: a mute woman. That's what Durst told his landlord, communicated
Speaker 1: through handwritten notes. Wore women's clothing, a wig, dresses, high heels,
Speaker 1: complete disguise. The wealthy heir to a billion dollar real
Speaker 1: estate empire was living in a three hundred dollar apartment
Speaker 1: dressed as a mute woman because investigators were finally asking
Speaker 1: questions about his missing wife. On December eleventh, two thousand,
Speaker 1: while hiding in Galveston, Durst secretly married New York real
Speaker 1: estate broker Deborah Cheriton. They'd been dating on and off
Speaker 1: for years. The marriage was kept quiet, no announcement, no celebration,
Speaker 1: just paperwork. Two weeks later, investigators wanted to interview Susan Berman,
Speaker 1: Durst's best friend from UCLA, the mobster's daughter who'd served
Speaker 1: as his unofficial spokesperson after Cathy disappeared in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: the woman prosecutors believe made that fake phone call to
Speaker 1: the medical school. Berman was going to talk to police. Finally,
Speaker 1: after eighteen years, she knew something. Everyone was sure of it.
Speaker 1: She'd helped Durst cover up Cathy's disappearance, and now she
Speaker 1: was going to tell investigators what really happened. Susan Berman
Speaker 1: never made it to that interview. December twenty third, two thousand,
Speaker 1: the day before Christmas Eve, someone walked into Susan Berman's
Speaker 1: home in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles. Found her in the
Speaker 1: living room, raised a gun, put it to the back
Speaker 1: of her head, pulled the trigger, execution style, close range
Speaker 1: single gunshot professional clean. The next day, Christmas Eve two thousand,
Speaker 1: Berman's neighbors noticed her three dogs running loose. Her back
Speaker 1: door was wide open. They called police. Officers found Susan
Speaker 1: Berman's body inside. She was fifty five years old, author,
Speaker 1: crime writer, ironically daughter of David Berman, a major organized
Speaker 1: crime figure who dominated illegal gambling in depression era Minneapolis
Speaker 1: and later ran the Flamingo Hotel. And Casino in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: Susan Berman had been killed just days before she was
Speaker 1: scheduled to talk to investigators about Kathy Durst's disappearance. Coincidence.
Speaker 1: Robert Durst expected people to believe it was, But a
Speaker 1: few days after the body was discovered, the Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: Police Department received a letter block letters, single word cadaver
Speaker 1: and an address Susan Berman's address, with one notable error.
Speaker 1: The sender misspelled Beverly Hills as Beverly Hills with an
Speaker 1: extra E. That misspelling would prove critical fifteen years later.
Speaker 1: Investigators suspected Durst immediately. The timing was too convenient. His
Speaker 1: best friend murdered right before she was going to talk
Speaker 1: the woman who helped him cover up his wife's disappearance.
Speaker 1: But they couldn't prove it. No witnesses, no DNA at
Speaker 1: the scene, just a dead woman and an anonymous letter.
Speaker 1: Robert Durst remained free, remained hiding in Galveston, remained dressed
Speaker 1: as Dorothy Sinner, and nine months later he would kill again.
Speaker 1: That's part one of our Robert Durst Special. Kathy McCormick Durst,
Speaker 1: twenty nine years old, met a student three months from
Speaker 1: becoming a pediatrician, told her friends, if anything happens to me,
Speaker 1: don't let Bob get away with it. January thirty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, she disappeared. Her body has never been found.
Speaker 1: Susan Berman, fifty five years old, crime writer, daughter of
Speaker 1: a mobster, best friend to Robert Durst since their UCLA
Speaker 1: days helped cover up Kathy's disappearance. Was about to talk
Speaker 1: to investigators. December twenty third, two thousand, shot execution style
Speaker 1: in her home the day before Christmas Eve. Two women
Speaker 1: connected to one man, both dead or missing, and Robert
Speaker 1: Durst walking free hiding in Texas, dressed as a mute
Speaker 1: woman named Dorothy Senner living in a three hundred dollars
Speaker 1: apartment while owning properties worth millions. Tomorrow, Part two, Morris Black,
Speaker 1: The Jinx, The Bathroom Confession, and the Verdict that took
Speaker 1: forty years to deliver. Kathy mcmick Durst would be seventy
Speaker 1: three years old today. Should have been a doctor for
Speaker 1: forty years, should have helped thousands of children, should have
Speaker 1: had a career, a family, a life. Instead, she's been
Speaker 1: missing for forty three years. Her mother died at one
Speaker 1: hundred and two. Never knowing what happened. Her brother Jim
Speaker 1: has spent decades fighting for justice. Her body has never
Speaker 1: been recovered. Robert Durst never told anyone where she is.
Speaker 1: Died with that secret. Rest in peace, Cathy. Someone has
Speaker 1: to say your name. I'm reed, Carter. See you tomorrow
Speaker 1: for part two. This is Celebrity Trials.