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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder The Most Shocking
Speaker 4: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 3: Good Evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 3: program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime
Speaker 3: History and the authors that have written about them. Growing up,
Speaker 3: Burman's childhood was idyllic. She was Las Vegas mob Royalty,
Speaker 3: the daughter of a mob boss who ran the Flamingo
Speaker 3: and furnished his only child with anything money could buy.
Speaker 3: But halfway through her childhood, her dream exploded. Susan's father
Speaker 3: died without warning during a routine surgery. Next, Susie Burman's
Speaker 3: mother died by her own hand the next year when
Speaker 3: she's overdosed on drugs. Susy was whisked away from the
Speaker 3: only home she'd ever known, parentless living with an uncle
Speaker 3: and his family, and sent away to boarding school. Now
Speaker 3: fast forward to college, where Susan met her soulmate, Robert Durst.
Speaker 3: They became best friends in each other's confidants. Durst went
Speaker 3: to work for his wealthy father at the Durst Organization
Speaker 3: in Manhattan, while Susan became a journalist, writing about women's
Speaker 3: cultural issues for newspapers and magazines. She followed Durst to
Speaker 3: New York, where he married the beautiful Kathy McCormick. Then
Speaker 3: Cathy disappeared, and Susan's did good by her best friend Robert,
Speaker 3: despite suspicions that Durst had caused the demise of his wife.
Speaker 3: Twenty years later, as police closed in on Durst and
Speaker 3: reopened the case seeking the interview as best friends, Susan
Speaker 3: was murdered. Few clues were found. Who did it? And
Speaker 3: why was it? The mob? A trusted friend murder in
Speaker 3: Beverly Hills. An updated, revised edition of Murder of a
Speaker 3: Mafia Daughter answers those questions. Exclusive information about the investigation
Speaker 3: is included in this edition, as well as new interviews
Speaker 3: of police detectives, Susan's friends, family, and colleagues, and new
Speaker 3: information about Robert Durst is revealed. The book that We're
Speaker 3: the book we're profiling this evening is Murder in Beverly Hills,
Speaker 3: the mob style execution of Susan Berman, her crime boss father,
Speaker 3: and the deadly secret she took to her grave with
Speaker 3: my special guest, journalist and author Kathy Scott. Welcome back
Speaker 3: to the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 6: Kathy Scott, You're welcome, Dan, thank you very much for
Speaker 6: a warm welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you. This is a great update of an already
Speaker 3: previously great book. So let's dive right into this. For
Speaker 3: those of us that don't know who Susan Berman is
Speaker 3: and Davy Berman in the whole connection with what Susan
Speaker 3: Berman later you claim in the book that she called
Speaker 3: it the royal family of Las Vegas, Frank Costello, Bugsy Seagull,
Speaker 3: Davy Berman and Las Vegas when it was sixteen thousand people.
Speaker 3: So tell us a little bit about who Susan Berman
Speaker 3: was first by telling us who her father was and
Speaker 3: giving us a little bit of a historical background. At
Speaker 3: that time called him a casino hotel or hotel casino pioneer.
Speaker 3: So tell us a little bit about Davey Berman, and
Speaker 3: before we talk about Susan Berman and her life point well.
Speaker 6: Her dad, Davy Berman, was a mobster. I mean he
Speaker 6: was with the Jewish mob absolutely, actually with Maya Lanski
Speaker 6: and that group, and did it in Sioux Falls, Iowa.
Speaker 6: A lot of rackets there. Then he went to Cincinnati,
Speaker 6: and from there he and then some he was working
Speaker 6: in casinos doing what I don't know what. In Minnesota,
Speaker 6: met met Susan's mother, Gladys, whose real name was Betty,
Speaker 6: but her stage name she was a dancer and her
Speaker 6: stage name was Gladys, and he whisked her and their
Speaker 6: newborn baby. He married her and whisked her to Vegas.
Speaker 6: They came by train, and that was in the forties.
Speaker 6: And Susan grew up as basically mob royalty and it
Speaker 6: was spoiled little girl and happy, and her dad took
Speaker 6: her to work a lot, and she had the run
Speaker 6: of the casino and all the casino workers to please Davy,
Speaker 6: her dad. They would give her anything she wanted. And
Speaker 6: she'd got a hotel room and watched TV and order
Speaker 6: you know, room service and everything else. She swam a
Speaker 6: lot her mom in the flim Mingo swimming pool. Used
Speaker 6: to go out there with her with some of the
Speaker 6: other mothers and then her mother her father died when
Speaker 6: she was twelve years old during surgery and it was
Speaker 6: a poll up or something in his intestines, and they
Speaker 6: sent her away to boarding school. Her mother had had
Speaker 6: nervous breakdowns off and on, and she was sort of
Speaker 6: absent that last year. She was in la and in
Speaker 6: an assisted living or whatever they used to do back then,
Speaker 6: and for nervous breakdowns or whatever they called them. And
Speaker 6: then Susan was there part of the time, but going
Speaker 6: to boarding school. And then her mother died. Susan was
Speaker 6: convinced that she was murdered, and her cousin, Susan's cousin,
Speaker 6: her mother's first cousin, is absolutely convinced, and he worked
Speaker 6: for Davy Berman at the time. And she died and
Speaker 6: Susan was, you know, sent away to boarding school another
Speaker 6: a different boarding school, and then to Idaho to live
Speaker 6: with her uncle. And nobody ever talked about her dad
Speaker 6: or anything. And she no one. That's from her cousin
Speaker 6: who lived with her, and no one. She never was
Speaker 6: like it never happened that part of her life, and
Speaker 6: all of a sudden she was planted elsewhere and she
Speaker 6: never got over. It was almost like her feet were
Speaker 6: firmly planted in Las Vegas. She went on to college
Speaker 6: and all of that. So that's who she was. And
Speaker 6: her dad took over this Flamingo. He was working there
Speaker 6: as a co He was part owner. Dougsy Siegel was
Speaker 6: murdered and Davy Berman took over fifteen minutes after Bugsy
Speaker 6: was murdered and ran it, ran the Flamingo until he died.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that was a long journey. You write in
Speaker 3: the book though, that she had this idyllic life, but
Speaker 3: she stayed almost matter of factly, that the mother was
Speaker 3: receiving shock treatments three times a week. So her mother
Speaker 3: was really not so involved with her upbringing. She adored
Speaker 3: her father.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but she really did.
Speaker 3: You no go ahead, no go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 6: Well, her first cousin, Tom or her first cousin once
Speaker 6: removed her her HER's first cousin, Tom Patten, who happens
Speaker 6: to live in Las Vegas. He's in his nineties, very
Speaker 6: you know, doing very well. And I met with him
Speaker 6: and his son several times. And he worked for Davy
Speaker 6: and so he used to drive with Susan to work,
Speaker 6: and he told me she used to get mad at him.
Speaker 6: And kick him because she wanted to go somewhere and
Speaker 6: he'd say no, and she'd start kicking him while he
Speaker 6: was driving. But because she was kind of very, very
Speaker 6: spoiled and just a kid, but her mother was absent.
Speaker 6: I asked the cousin, how was how was you know
Speaker 6: her mother toward her? Was she affectionate? And then another
Speaker 6: friend who grew up with her and lived in the
Speaker 6: neighborhood and spent a lot of time. Her only friend
Speaker 6: really in the neighborhood was allowed to go to her house,
Speaker 6: but they wantn't let Susie go to his house. His
Speaker 6: name was Pat, because the parents were afraid that something
Speaker 6: could happen if Susan was there, you know, mob unrest
Speaker 6: and that sort of thing. He said. You know, her
Speaker 6: childhood friend Pat told me, and Tom did too, that
Speaker 6: glad that some her mother wasn't real affectionate, but she
Speaker 6: she would always offer him cookies when he'd come over
Speaker 6: and that sort of thing, but always dressed up, and
Speaker 6: he thought she was kind of affected. It sounds to
Speaker 6: me like she was a little distant, But I think
Speaker 6: her dad made up for that because he was very
Speaker 6: affectionate with her, and he would come he would leave
Speaker 6: work so early so he could tuck her in and
Speaker 6: then he would go back to work. So I think
Speaker 6: she got her affection and that nurturing mostly from her father.
Speaker 6: She was more broken up over his death than she
Speaker 6: was her mother's. And she was, you know, thirteen years
Speaker 6: old and she was an orphan. It's very sad, you know,
Speaker 6: never got over it, never got over her leaving, you know,
Speaker 6: the idyllic you know, to her, it was idyllic, And
Speaker 6: you have to she wrote the book Easy Street, you
Speaker 6: had to consider Susan was writing it, you know, sort
Speaker 6: of with her memoir, sort of with rose colored glasses
Speaker 6: from a child's perspective, and she never got passed a
Speaker 6: sort of twelve thirteen year old mentality, at least when
Speaker 6: it came to her childhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talked about sort of this innocence. She didn't realize
Speaker 3: what her father did till that there was this certain
Speaker 3: mob hit and then she saw overlooked someone over the
Speaker 3: shoulder and saw that the headlines and the photos and
Speaker 3: the stories. So gradually, it seemed, especially after her family,
Speaker 3: her parents were dead, that she started to slowly realize
Speaker 3: who her father was and his importance and and sort
Speaker 3: of the scary world that he inhabited. And he was
Speaker 3: a killer.
Speaker 6: Actually, yeah, he'd got an accused of killing and he
Speaker 6: did some time he was in sing sing and she,
Speaker 6: you know, I mean, when her book came out in
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty one, she went on Jane Polly, I think
Speaker 6: it was the Today Show back then, and she just
Speaker 6: sort of and you can still view it if you
Speaker 6: search hard online. You can find the interview and she
Speaker 6: very matter of factly and almost proudly says, you know,
Speaker 6: my dad was a killer who could kill a man
Speaker 6: with one arm. You know, she did a lot of research,
Speaker 6: went to the library, found any book, you know, with
Speaker 6: her dad's name in it. She didn't think it was
Speaker 6: mentioned enough, and she was trying to make him famous.
Speaker 6: But you know, that was typical of the Las Vegas mobsters.
Speaker 6: And you know, the Jewish mob was here before the
Speaker 6: Italian mob in Las Vegas, and it was typical of
Speaker 6: them to try to legitimize themselves. And they were very
Speaker 6: respected here in Las Vegas. And you know, there was
Speaker 6: a rule hear that if you were going to kill
Speaker 6: you couldn't do it. You'd have to do it over
Speaker 6: the state line. Don't don't do any murders in Las Vegas,
Speaker 6: And they didn't, none that we know of. No. Victoria
Speaker 6: Study kept a low profile, and she she she idolized
Speaker 6: him and kind of put him up on a pedestal
Speaker 6: and sort of I thought, I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 6: did you get the feeling when you read it that
Speaker 6: she thought it was okay that he was a monster,
Speaker 6: and he was notorious and a killer and all of that.
Speaker 6: She was almost proud of it.
Speaker 3: Well, she came I think she came around to accepting
Speaker 3: it and like a neighbors, like a neighbor had said,
Speaker 3: and you capturing the book as well, that a lot
Speaker 3: of friends thought she was, you know, the life of
Speaker 3: the party, and she was quite outrageous and sort of
Speaker 3: hilarious and very dramatic. So with a with her ability
Speaker 3: to be a writer, and you know, you know, you
Speaker 3: write about what you know. I think often that there's
Speaker 3: a certain of dramaticism in it. But then again, she
Speaker 3: certainly loved her father, So I think I think later
Speaker 3: when she came to the realization of who he actually
Speaker 3: was in the crime, some of the crimes he was
Speaker 3: accused of, and so I think she came to the
Speaker 3: realization obviously before thirteen, she didn't know anything. And then
Speaker 3: there was that you captured the book, that uncomfortable period
Speaker 3: of time where her innocence was shattered basically. And and
Speaker 3: so I think with the idea that she became a writer,
Speaker 3: she wanted to be a journalist and she was successful.
Speaker 3: I think that she came around to accepting again she
Speaker 3: wasn't investigating maybe forgiving.
Speaker 6: Him to maybe forgiving him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think that.
Speaker 6: That her.
Speaker 3: Missing him so much, you know, and missing that life
Speaker 3: that she was deprived, that she came to at least
Speaker 3: justify it under whatever pretense want. You know, that's the
Speaker 3: way things were. But her father did love her and
Speaker 3: she did have what she considered a wonderful life up
Speaker 3: to that time before her father died when she was thirteen.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I mean she had Elvis Presley seeing Happy Birthday,
Speaker 6: Jimmy Randy, you know, gave her birthday presents, and you know,
Speaker 6: he would She didn't have a lot of friends, so
Speaker 6: her dad would invite all of the casino executives and
Speaker 6: their children to go and they would have this incredible
Speaker 6: birthday parties at the casino. And you know, she had
Speaker 6: her own flop machine at the casino. So for her,
Speaker 6: you know, she could swim anytime she wanted in the pool.
Speaker 6: She could do anything she wanted there. And then they
Speaker 6: wrote and they held Dorado Parade. It's a very big
Speaker 6: the deal here. Year after year the held Dorado Parade
Speaker 6: and she was on a float every year. So she
Speaker 6: truly was you know, treated differently and knew and lost that,
Speaker 6: and I think she was trying to get it back.
Speaker 6: In some ways. It's sad because she had a great
Speaker 6: deal of wealth and lost it, got some back and
Speaker 6: then lost it again. And she wasn't good with money.
Speaker 6: It's like she wasn't prepared. She wasn't prepared for life,
Speaker 6: I don't think.
Speaker 3: Now, tell us a little bit about obviously we skipped
Speaker 3: over this, her yearning to become a journalist. She becomes
Speaker 3: a journalist, she becomes a good writer, she gets a
Speaker 3: lot of attention. So tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: some of the books that she's written in terms of content,
Speaker 3: in terms of what did she write about, even though
Speaker 3: you know, again we're you know, publishers are notorious for
Speaker 3: being a little overly dramatic too, you know, the inside
Speaker 3: on the mob and meanwhile, is it inside of the mob.
Speaker 3: What did Susan Berman know? But of course her cache
Speaker 3: is that she was connected to the mob mob princess
Speaker 3: as they called her. So what were her books really about?
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Speaker 3: Really was the content? Despite all the hoopla? What was
Speaker 3: the content about? And how did she write? Tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about that?
Speaker 6: Well, Easy Street was a good but she was a
Speaker 6: feature writer. She she was straight out of college. I
Speaker 6: had interviewed her her dean he's now passed. But she
Speaker 6: went straight from college master's degree in journalism to the
Speaker 6: San Francisco Examiner. And she was working in the women's section,
Speaker 6: which you know, back then in the sixties, that's what
Speaker 6: women would do. You know. She wasn't ambitious in that respect.
Speaker 6: Things seemed to come easy to her. School seemed to
Speaker 6: come easy. And she didn't like working at the Examiner.
Speaker 6: But she made a name for herself there because she
Speaker 6: wrote She wrote an article in a in a weekly
Speaker 6: newspaper that was actually on by Francis Ford Coppola, and
Speaker 6: it was how to get laid in San Francisco. And
Speaker 6: that just became I mean, it just went off the
Speaker 6: top and became viral, as viral will be back there.
Speaker 6: And she was the talk of the Town, and she
Speaker 6: decided then to move to New York. And after she
Speaker 6: moved to New York, she landed a book deal with
Speaker 6: Dial Press for Easy Street and it was her life
Speaker 6: and her parents and it is an excellent read. And
Speaker 6: there was a movie deal and she got something like
Speaker 6: three hundred and eighty five thousand dollars is something which
Speaker 6: was a lot of money back then for a movie deal.
Speaker 6: But she insisted on writing the screenplay. She was difficult
Speaker 6: to work with sometimes and she insisted on doing the
Speaker 6: screenplay and they said no, and the deal got killed
Speaker 6: and she didn't have to return the money, so she
Speaker 6: but she hung out with all these paparazzi types, you know,
Speaker 6: Loraene Newman from UH from Saturday Night Live, and a
Speaker 6: bunch of a bunch of writers, including Robert Durst, who
Speaker 6: she met at U C l A. You know, he's
Speaker 6: the son of a big, big real estate logo in
Speaker 6: New York. And he was her best friend and she
Speaker 6: followed him out there, so she his friends became her friends.
Speaker 6: So she hung out with rich people, lived on Beekman Place,
Speaker 6: which is real Tony. And and then her she had
Speaker 6: gone after after college. She went in between college and
Speaker 6: high school for a summer. Her uncle Santer with you know,
Speaker 6: mob money, because he was given a stipend for Susan
Speaker 6: quite a bit. She went to Israel for a summer
Speaker 6: and she came back and after she wrote Easy Street,
Speaker 6: she wrote two novels and one was Driver Give a Soldier,
Speaker 6: and it was a love story in Israel, based in Israel,
Speaker 6: and she kind of got back to her roots and
Speaker 6: in Judaism. Her dad was from Russia Minx Russia. I
Speaker 6: believe her grandfather was a rabbi in Russia, and so
Speaker 6: she kind of was going back to her Russian roots.
Speaker 6: Her dad didn't take her to the synagogue very often,
Speaker 6: but he did take her in Las Vegas, and up
Speaker 6: until she died, she was going to the synagogue in Hollywood.
Speaker 6: So she wrote that book. And then there was another novel,
Speaker 6: I forget the name. It didn't do very well. Easy
Speaker 6: Street did very very well. It's been a long long
Speaker 6: out of print. Someone should put it back in print.
Speaker 6: And then a high note she had lows and then
Speaker 6: a high note is she wrote Lady Las Vegas to company.
Speaker 6: It was a It was released at the time that
Speaker 6: an A and E special three part A and E
Speaker 6: special was released, the best, really the best piece of
Speaker 6: that's ever been done on Las Vegas, and Susan was
Speaker 6: a producer on that and a writer, an instrumental in
Speaker 6: landing a lot of the interviews for it. But as
Speaker 6: a historian here in town told me, a state historian
Speaker 6: when I interviewed him, the Lady Las Vegas was such
Speaker 6: a disappointment because Easy Street was so good. Maybe it
Speaker 6: was the edit and I don't know, but she just it.
Speaker 6: It was almost like she was trying to be It
Speaker 6: was sort of the adult Susan riding Easy Street, you know,
Speaker 6: to accompany the release of the A and E specials,
Speaker 6: and it just didn't come off, and it didn't do
Speaker 6: very well, and that was a big disappointment to her.
Speaker 6: They got an award, all the producers, including Susan, for
Speaker 6: the A and E Special, and that was in ninety six,
Speaker 6: so that was for years before she died right now,
Speaker 6: So there was not a lot of money involved in
Speaker 6: an any special, but a lot of notoriety.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Now, there was nothing in these books though that
Speaker 3: Susan knew or told. There was a tell all or
Speaker 3: embarrassing or humiliating or out of bounds for mobsters, no
Speaker 3: present or past. So there was nothing like that at all,
Speaker 3: was there. No?
Speaker 6: In fact, the cops, you know, when she died in
Speaker 6: a Beverly Hills home, you know, it was just very sparse,
Speaker 6: sparsely furnished, and the cops locked in. And it was
Speaker 6: the first mistake and many that they made in the
Speaker 6: murder case. But this is the LAPD. They didn't call homicide.
Speaker 6: It was new It was Christmas Eve morning, early afternoon,
Speaker 6: and they were greeted as they opened the door and
Speaker 6: went into the house, and she was she was in
Speaker 6: a side room with a poster, a wanted poster of
Speaker 6: her dad, wanted for murder that she probably had on
Speaker 6: above her fireplace. And so their their deal was, oh,
Speaker 6: she was shot in the back of the head, it
Speaker 6: must be a mob hit. So but no, Sue, I'm
Speaker 6: the joke. Was I mean, even Oscar Goodman, you know,
Speaker 6: a former mob attorney here in Las Vegas and was
Speaker 6: a mayor at one time, even he said, you know,
Speaker 6: they all those monsters from that era back then, most
Speaker 6: of them are dead or you know, senile, and there's
Speaker 6: nothing going on that Susan would have known, although she did.
Speaker 6: She did confide in a couple of friends said that
Speaker 6: she had some information that she was going to blow
Speaker 6: the lid off of some things.
Speaker 3: But that same friend said that her she had a
Speaker 3: real flair for over dramatizing things, so didn't take that
Speaker 3: particular statement which other contacts would be, Oh wow, she
Speaker 3: didn't think it was well, she didn't think it was right.
Speaker 6: Oh, Susan, she's just being dramatic again.
Speaker 3: And so let's go back just a little bit.
Speaker 6: Here.
Speaker 3: She's living in a in a place, she's renting the place,
Speaker 3: and she's renting the place from a woman named Dee Baskin.
Speaker 3: And despite her appetite for opulence and wealth and the
Speaker 3: good life, this place is not the greatest place among
Speaker 3: the affluent surrounding her, is it?
Speaker 6: And well, no, it's a nice it's a nice neighborhood.
Speaker 6: I went there. But she was Susan was down on
Speaker 6: her luck. She had a show time series that was
Speaker 6: being accepted by about women, the wives and the mothers,
Speaker 6: and of the casino owners and the women of Las Vegas.
Speaker 6: And because of who her dad was, she had entree
Speaker 6: to all of those people on access and she had landed.
Speaker 6: It was about to happen, and so she'd been struggling
Speaker 6: and was down on money and had to borrow it,
Speaker 6: as you know, and and she wasn't paying a rent,
Speaker 6: so she was behind three months rent and d Baskin
Speaker 6: was very very upset with her and actually threatened Susan said,
Speaker 6: you know, in a note, threatened to kill her dog
Speaker 6: and kill her if she didn't pay the rent. So
Speaker 6: it actually was in a note. But she police looked
Speaker 6: at her, and you know, she was eighty something, I think,
Speaker 6: and she was a person of interest for a very
Speaker 6: short time.
Speaker 3: What complicated, though, you you put in your book to
Speaker 3: at a little at least intrigued. Anyway, it was that
Speaker 3: she sent her this threatening very specific I'll kill you
Speaker 3: at her. And then right after the Susan was found,
Speaker 3: she went on vacation and was driving a rented vehicle.
Speaker 6: If far, yes, I find it very interesting. And at
Speaker 6: that point I can tell you the homicide unit didn't
Speaker 6: get on the case for about two and a half
Speaker 6: to three weeks. And so you know, and then her manager,
Speaker 6: a quasi manager, because he was just a guy she
Speaker 6: met in an apartment she lived in previously and he
Speaker 6: would handle some things for her, so she called him
Speaker 6: her manager. Actually broke into the house, and that's a
Speaker 6: matter of record. People the police interviewed him, got a
Speaker 6: search warrant for his house. Search wereran't for his office,
Speaker 6: but they didn't get it for several months. Actually broke
Speaker 6: into her house because she owed him money and he wanted,
Speaker 6: he said, wanted to look at her bank statements. He
Speaker 6: didn't volunteer this. Some neighbors saw after the police left
Speaker 6: the scene of the crime several hours later, he waited
Speaker 6: and once they were gone, then he he broke into
Speaker 6: a window and went through some things. He said he
Speaker 6: removed what he returned what was removed, but we'll never
Speaker 6: know for sure. Nile Brenner so and I can say
Speaker 6: his name because he was a named person of interest
Speaker 6: for a while. They let that go. He was very
Speaker 6: angry with Susan. He was angry at the funeral. Friends
Speaker 6: said he was very upset. So there you go. You've
Speaker 6: got two. And then they I think he had an alibi.
Speaker 6: I don't remember what it was. And they missed a
Speaker 6: lot of opportunities because they didn't get to the crime scene.
Speaker 6: Can tell you the as far as the murder scene goes,
Speaker 6: they didn't even do a fiber no fiber analysis, no
Speaker 6: picking up of anything off the floor other than a
Speaker 6: single bullet nine milimeter shellcasing they didn't do. They did
Speaker 6: do some fingerprinting, but there was a palm print that
Speaker 6: nobody knows if they ever got that, you know, but
Speaker 6: they didn't do any fiber analysis or picking anything up,
Speaker 6: which I think was a major mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no hair in fiber. There was no scraping
Speaker 3: of fingernails for dem what whoever? You said? There was
Speaker 3: no rape kit, But then again, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: would just question that if there was no evidence indicating
Speaker 3: warranting that that's not so unusual.
Speaker 6: Well, her body was soothed, and her legs were her
Speaker 6: legs were apart, she was wearing sweats, but her body
Speaker 6: was turned over. She died, I mean she They know
Speaker 6: how she died and how she fell and ishes shot
Speaker 6: in the back of the head and her body was
Speaker 6: turned over and so and I've got a copy of
Speaker 6: the death certificate, and I've gone through the whole thing
Speaker 6: and all the the coroner's report, which I wasn't given,
Speaker 6: but I sat in the corner's office and a public
Speaker 6: information officer read it to me line by line as
Speaker 6: I took notes because he couldn't give it to me.
Speaker 6: So just some odd circumstances. It was a poor It
Speaker 6: was a poor investigation. But like I said, they even
Speaker 6: outwardly said the mob probably did it. And this Christmas,
Speaker 6: everybody wanted to go home. And that was that. They
Speaker 6: only stayed for a few hours plus as her friends
Speaker 6: were learning about it one by one because she didn't
Speaker 6: show up at a party and they all started calling
Speaker 6: each other. They showed up at the crime scene. They
Speaker 6: were allowed to go inside the house. So it was
Speaker 6: like the O. J. Simpson, you know and Nicole Brown
Speaker 6: crime scene almost where just everybody and their brother was
Speaker 6: walking all over the crime scene. Terrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they weren't. They didn't take fingerprints with the one.
Speaker 3: They did not, but I don't think they didn't.
Speaker 6: No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So there, yeah, they used to. Yes, wasn't it didn't
Speaker 3: It wasn't. It certainly wasn't a thorough investigation, as we'll
Speaker 3: find out as we proceed in the book, and another
Speaker 3: unit of the police LAPD take over the case and
Speaker 3: start looking at things. Let's a little bit a little
Speaker 3: bit later on. Now you say that the police don't
Speaker 3: say it's a mob hit. But they everyone looks at
Speaker 3: it as a professional hit. But what is their assessment
Speaker 3: of the crime scene, even though they didn't do too
Speaker 3: much crime scene analysis? I think you say that even
Speaker 3: didn't even send a specific CSI person there.
Speaker 6: But what is No, they were gonna they followed it
Speaker 6: up later and sentenced. They didn't even have the CSI
Speaker 6: team there, No, but they did follow it up later.
Speaker 6: But it was I mean, like the cousin said he
Speaker 6: was actually at the house and and the younger cousin,
Speaker 6: the son of the first cousin of her mother, and
Speaker 6: he said that there were chips, paint chips on the
Speaker 6: door jam that were on the floor where her body was,
Speaker 6: and was so flabbergasted that they hadn't picked those up.
Speaker 6: I mean, why were there paint chips? You know? Also
Speaker 6: the doorknob the front door, because obviously this is a
Speaker 6: big thing. She knew whoever came into her house because
Speaker 6: there was no forest entry. She had gone to the
Speaker 6: show that night to see Best of Show with a
Speaker 6: I think it was a screenwriter or somebody in the
Speaker 6: movie business. And that was about nine o'clock when she
Speaker 6: got home. So we know it was based upon how
Speaker 6: long her body had been there. From the corner's report,
Speaker 6: it happened sometime probably between nine and midnight, and then
Speaker 6: the neighbors were alerted the next morning. This is on
Speaker 6: the twenty second. They were alerted the next morning on
Speaker 6: the twenty third, by her dogs running around the neighborhood
Speaker 6: and barking. Somebody whoever did it, went out the back
Speaker 6: door and left the door open, but nobody did anything
Speaker 6: until December twenty fourth, the next morning, when one neighbor
Speaker 6: woke up and the dogs were still running around and
Speaker 6: decided to go investigate, and another neighbor on the other
Speaker 6: side had one of her dogs in their house and
Speaker 6: called police. Yeah, there was some sloppiness with the investigation
Speaker 6: right from the start, Keithstone Cops.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now, she has a neighbor I believe, named Ruth Bartnoff,
Speaker 3: and right after this, Ruth was a friend.
Speaker 6: Ruth was a friend of hers, not a neighbor, but
Speaker 6: they went synagogue together. She's a dear, dear person and
Speaker 6: she's a friend of mine on Facebook. Actually she's like
Speaker 6: ninety two I think.
Speaker 3: And she what was she told that the relationship was
Speaker 3: what did she think the relationship was with Niles Brenner.
Speaker 6: She she only met him more and it was at
Speaker 6: books signing here. Ruthy had lots of contact with Susan
Speaker 6: Sara during the holiday you know, uh Hanikah and that
Speaker 6: sort of thing. And she had a book signing at
Speaker 6: Venice Beach for I think one of her novels, and
Speaker 6: Luthy went and so did Nile and it was when
Speaker 6: she met him. He was kind of office. Susan talked
Speaker 6: about him to Ruth but not to other people. There
Speaker 6: are other other friends of hers didn't even know about him.
Speaker 6: What he would do was driver around. Susan was definitely
Speaker 6: afraid of bridges, anything that resembled the bridge, even if
Speaker 6: there was a little area on the right that dropped,
Speaker 6: you know, in a car, she was definitely afraid of that.
Speaker 6: And she didn't like to drive herself. So Nile would
Speaker 6: drive her to doctor appointments, that appointments, lunch appointments, and
Speaker 6: she kind of used him as as a driver that
Speaker 6: he Ruth at one point thought they were involved and
Speaker 6: asked and and Susan said, oh no, no, no, they
Speaker 6: never were, and they weren't. Susan hadn't had a boyfriend
Speaker 6: since her living boyfriend and his kids lived with her,
Speaker 6: and then she raised those two kids after one of
Speaker 6: them after they separated, as her own daughter, and she
Speaker 6: lived alone with her for about five years. She was
Speaker 6: not away his stepfather.
Speaker 3: Right now we were we have you spoke of Nile
Speaker 3: Brenner breaking into the home and he's saying to friends.
Speaker 3: I don't think he said the police, but I believe
Speaker 3: he said to friends that he was looking for evidence
Speaker 3: of money because she owed him money. And he said
Speaker 3: comments like at the funeral, like she sucked me.
Speaker 6: Dry and ideas they tired. Ever, Yeah, he hung up
Speaker 6: on me. I talked to him on the sunny, hung
Speaker 6: up on me twice, and I never wanted to talk
Speaker 6: about her again. That sort of thing, which is odd.
Speaker 3: Well, it's in line with the dialogue that he gives
Speaker 3: in the book, though, same kind of sort of attitude
Speaker 3: he talks about. What was interesting is he talks about
Speaker 3: he knew about and he mentioned to friends about the
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars that Robert Durst had loaned Susan burd
Speaker 3: and gave or or pardon me, Yeah, okay, so let's
Speaker 3: let's talk about let's talk about that money. Then let's
Speaker 3: talk about that money.
Speaker 6: Okay, Susan needed her car. When she got her advance
Speaker 6: for the book, she bought herself a convertible and soon
Speaker 6: after she moved after scratted advance. After the movie deal
Speaker 6: fell through, she moved from New York to La wanted
Speaker 6: to become a screenwriter. She was at the top of
Speaker 6: her game. She was for New York Magazine with uh
Speaker 6: Nicholas Pelagi or however you say, is a Pelagie Pelegi.
Speaker 6: She was one of the writers with him at New
Speaker 6: York Magazine and top of her game. And she owned
Speaker 6: She bought a place on Beakman Beakman Place, she bought
Speaker 6: a condo, but she up and moved. Wanted to become
Speaker 6: a screenwriter in Hollywood. You know, it was downhill after that,
Speaker 6: and she took the money she had, plus she had
Speaker 6: some trust fund money. Over a period of years, she
Speaker 6: was given five four million dollars or something. That's from
Speaker 6: one of her cousins who lived with her, stayed in
Speaker 6: touch with her and was very good friends. That's Dave Berman,
Speaker 6: the her uncle, Chickie's son, and she actually moved in
Speaker 6: with them and was there during holidays and when school
Speaker 6: wasn't in she would be at their house. That's where
Speaker 6: she lived and he he said, she had all this
Speaker 6: money so she would get payments. Her last payment was
Speaker 6: when she was thirty years old, and that was then
Speaker 6: all the money from the mob and her father's interest
Speaker 6: in hotels and stuff ended that. She bought a place
Speaker 6: in Brentwood. She had a house in Brentwood. She took
Speaker 6: the last of the money when she was with Paul Kaufman.
Speaker 6: She lived with him with his children and put that
Speaker 6: into a play that he wanted to develop and put
Speaker 6: on the stage, and there was a lot of money
Speaker 6: going into that. That was the end of her money.
Speaker 6: And when they separated and moved out and Mila, the daughter,
Speaker 6: came with her. She actually moved into an apartment owned
Speaker 6: by a friend. It's how she met Niall. He lived
Speaker 6: down the street and they met while they were walking
Speaker 6: their dogs, and she lived there. The friend said, oh,
Speaker 6: you can live there till you get back on your feet.
Speaker 6: Five years later, Susan was still in that apartment and
Speaker 6: she had the victor and it was a very bad
Speaker 6: ending with that friend. She was a singer. I forget
Speaker 6: her name, it's in the book, but I think that
Speaker 6: indicates that Susan sort of felt entitled, you know. She
Speaker 6: did that, you know, for free, stayed there for free.
Speaker 6: So she at that point she was very very down
Speaker 6: on her luck, and then she wanted she had moved in.
Speaker 6: She had lived in the house that she died in
Speaker 6: years earlier. So when she was kicked out of that
Speaker 6: that apartment by the friend who she kind of overstayed
Speaker 6: her welcome, Susan did, she called the landlady de Baskin
Speaker 6: and moved back into the Beverly Hills house that she
Speaker 6: died in. She was always trying to get back. I mean,
Speaker 6: she had a good time there. It was she was
Speaker 6: high on her game when she first moved into that
Speaker 6: house and and and then moved then bought a Brentwood
Speaker 6: house instead moved out. So it's almost like she always
Speaker 6: tried to get something back, you know. So she called
Speaker 6: the landlady and moved back into that house. But it
Speaker 6: was all downhill from there. So Bobby Durst, she needed
Speaker 6: a car, and she got ahold of Bobby Durst, you know,
Speaker 6: her friend from college, and he gave her two separate
Speaker 6: payments of twenty five thousand dollars each. And that was
Speaker 6: what Nile was looking for to if she had any
Speaker 6: of that money left to repay him whatever it was
Speaker 6: he said she owed him.
Speaker 3: Now, when had Bobby Durst? According to do police interview him?
Speaker 3: And how do they interview him? Do they bring him in,
Speaker 3: do they talk to him?
Speaker 6: How do they They never interviewed him. They tried to
Speaker 6: interview him, never interviewed Bobby Durst, Susan. Susan told her
Speaker 6: cousin that Bobby was going to come down from Samfruis
Speaker 6: Scho because he had a couple of houses. He lived
Speaker 6: in New York, but he had a couple of houses
Speaker 6: in San Francisco. And at the time, though Susan didn't
Speaker 6: she couldn't find him because he was not in San Francisco.
Speaker 6: He was not in New York and we'll talk about
Speaker 6: where he was right but she couldn't find him. So
Speaker 6: she contacted the Durst organization to get ahold of him,
Speaker 6: and he immediately sent her a check. Said this isn't
Speaker 6: this is not alone. This is a gift, and she
Speaker 6: went and bought a car, paid went to court or
Speaker 6: her landlady took her to court, but she worked out
Speaker 6: a deal. She was going to have to move. This
Speaker 6: was November or so. She was killed in December. She
Speaker 6: was going to be able to live there until March,
Speaker 6: and the court allowed her to do that because she
Speaker 6: paid back rent. She had to pay up. So the
Speaker 6: money Bobby gave her was to pay back rent and
Speaker 6: play paid the next three months and when she was
Speaker 6: going to have to move.
Speaker 3: This was just a gift.
Speaker 6: Gift, and some say it was a gift because when
Speaker 6: Durst wife disappeared, Susan was the spokesperson and everybody said
Speaker 6: she knew more about the disappearance of of dir'st wife,
Speaker 6: Kathy uh Durst. Then she let was led, led people
Speaker 6: to believe, and so people the police in New York
Speaker 6: wanted to reinterview Susan and about the Durst case because
Speaker 6: the Kathy Durst case, because they reopened the investigation, and
Speaker 6: some say it spooked Bobby and that he was giving
Speaker 6: her the money to kind of pay her off for
Speaker 6: her silence, And they didn't get the interviewer, but they
Speaker 6: very publicly announced it in in the New York magazine
Speaker 6: that they were reopening it and looking to interview Susan
Speaker 6: and had been in contact with her, and a couple
Speaker 6: of weeks later she was dead.
Speaker 3: Well, that's very interesting. And the thing is is.
Speaker 6: That it's called circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, according to friends, Susan spoke about
Speaker 3: Durst and his culpability in that disappearance, didn't.
Speaker 6: He, Yes, she was more than one, she was study. Yes,
Speaker 6: she was starting to talk about it, that there was
Speaker 6: more to it, and that some say that she was
Speaker 6: going to blow the lid off of something. She was
Speaker 6: upset with Bobby Durst because he had married someone and
Speaker 6: he had the family of Kathy Durst had her pronounced
Speaker 6: dead years later. I mean she died, she's missing since
Speaker 6: eighty one, but they she was declared dead, No nobody, no, nothing,
Speaker 6: not heard from since. So that freed up Bobby Durst
Speaker 6: to get married, and he married this woman he had
Speaker 6: known for years and years. Susan was he wasn't calling
Speaker 6: her and talking to her. She was anymore. She was
Speaker 6: no longer his confidant, and some say that she's very
Speaker 6: disappointed in that and was upset with him and was
Speaker 6: talking about this information. She knew about the disappearance of
Speaker 6: Kathy Durst, which he's never been charged with murder, but
Speaker 6: he's certainly been his suspect and her disappearance.
Speaker 3: Now with police, they really have these three suspects, like
Speaker 3: you write in the book, they well, okay, persons of
Speaker 3: the interest, Yeah, because they said they have no they
Speaker 3: have no viable suspect, but they really don't do much
Speaker 3: of an investigation given all of the information. You really
Speaker 3: do have three people of interest that can't possibly have
Speaker 3: done it, because.
Speaker 6: Indeed, I mean indeed to me, they they you know,
Speaker 6: they never interviewed her again. They talked to her on
Speaker 6: the phone. And I don't know if her age had
Speaker 6: something to do with it, but the landlady who actually
Speaker 6: she was going to kill her, and then there was
Speaker 6: that cadaver note and whoever spilled her, well, whoever killed her,
Speaker 6: whoever killed her, because it was postmarked before her body
Speaker 6: was found, because her body wasn't found for two days,
Speaker 6: so it was postmarked on on you know, the next day,
Speaker 6: which was a Saturday. It was postmarked on the Saturday,
Speaker 6: the day before her body was found, that there's a
Speaker 6: cadaver at SO and so addressed her address and it
Speaker 6: was mailed to the Beverly Hills Police. Yeah, Beverly and
Speaker 6: So that but but l A p D. I don't
Speaker 6: know what the border is but her that stretch of
Speaker 6: even though it's within the Beverly Hills city and they
Speaker 6: do have a pd L a p D had the
Speaker 6: jurisdiction of that canyon, Benedette Canyon, and so it was
Speaker 6: an LAPD case, not Beverly Hills. So it was mailed
Speaker 6: to police that was handed over to homicide and this
Speaker 6: cadaver there's a cadaver or all in capital letters. And
Speaker 6: they even wanted to check typewriters at at Durst at
Speaker 6: now Brenner's house to see our printers to see, you
Speaker 6: know what matched, and and handwriting they wanted it was
Speaker 6: it was handwritten as well, and they wanted handwriting samples
Speaker 6: from from Robert Durst, which his attorney refused him to
Speaker 6: do so they so they got Nile's handwriting from the
Speaker 6: guest book at the funeral, and they were hoping Durst
Speaker 6: would go and they were going to get his handwriting
Speaker 6: as well because Nile was acting oddly. They were looking
Speaker 6: at him at the same time. But Durst was an
Speaker 6: immediate and immediate suspect because he didn't go to the
Speaker 6: There were three memorials funeral, two memorials and one was
Speaker 6: at the writer's guild where she was a member. One
Speaker 6: was the service at the mausoleum where her body is
Speaker 6: is in the mausoleum and the place, and then there
Speaker 6: was a funeral at the synagogue. He didn't go to
Speaker 6: any of them, but he offered to pay for them,
Speaker 6: and one of her cousins declined and didn't let him
Speaker 6: do it. So odd odd stuff.
Speaker 3: Now, you you were talking about jurisdiction, and initially, yes,
Speaker 3: they would have taken this to robbery homicide and so
Speaker 3: rob had.
Speaker 6: To pick up the pieces afterwards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, So what did they do, what did they
Speaker 3: attempt to do and what are the things that they
Speaker 3: do that the other people didn't do? In terms of investigation.
Speaker 6: They sent a CSI team out to the house which
Speaker 6: it had just walked over. I mean, you know, some
Speaker 6: friends cleaned the floor, they'd already cleaned the floor where
Speaker 6: her blood was. They there was I guess black fingerprints,
Speaker 6: powder all over, because that's how they used to do
Speaker 6: it then instead of like the tape and stuff they
Speaker 6: do now and dust the way they do differently. And
Speaker 6: they interviewed niall. It took them a while to get him.
Speaker 6: They interviewed him at length, got a got a search warrant,
Speaker 6: and in order to get a search warrant, you've got
Speaker 6: to have some probable cause, Durst. They went through his
Speaker 6: attorney in Texas and Dick de Garin, who's a very
Speaker 6: nice man. I know him from a trial here in
Speaker 6: Las Vegas, and I had easy access to him, and
Speaker 6: he told me Bobby had an alibi. But he didn't
Speaker 6: give them access to Bobby. You know, Bobby was going
Speaker 6: to call him, he was going to the way. They
Speaker 6: did talk to him. They called him from the service
Speaker 6: and said where are you and he said, I'm not coming.
Speaker 6: So they talked to him, but they didn't interview him.
Speaker 6: So my question is in the alibi was that? And
Speaker 6: I would talk to Dick Garan on the phone the phone,
Speaker 6: it was almost like a Nancy Grave bombshell. He said,
Speaker 6: Bobby has an alibi. He was in the air on
Speaker 6: a plane from San Francisco to New York when Susan
Speaker 6: was killed. No, he was actually And I said what
Speaker 6: day and he said Sunday morning. I said, oh, no,
Speaker 6: that wasn't the day she was killed. That was the
Speaker 6: day her body was found. So that was from Friday
Speaker 6: night to Sunday morning. So he clearly placed Bobby in
Speaker 6: San Francisco area a day and a half before a murder.
Speaker 6: And as you know, I mean San Francisco is like
Speaker 6: a four hour driver so to Los Angeles and an
Speaker 6: hour flight. Let's talk about you.
Speaker 3: Talk about alibi. One thing that we skipped over is
Speaker 3: that Susan Berman was a little more crucial than apparently
Speaker 3: telling her friends that Bobby Durst told her that he
Speaker 3: did it, but also that she said that she was
Speaker 3: his alibi.
Speaker 6: Well, what she did was she his wife was a
Speaker 6: medical student and they lived in New York, not in
Speaker 6: the city, but they had an apartment in Manhattan. So
Speaker 6: she was going to go and spend the night in
Speaker 6: Manhattan and where she would stay for several days during
Speaker 6: the week while she went to school. But she disappeared
Speaker 6: that night from a friend's house and was never seen again.
Speaker 6: And Bobby had called all angry with Kathy for not
Speaker 6: coming home, and so she left immediately to go home
Speaker 6: and was going to catch a train to Manhattan. So Susan,
Speaker 6: everybody believes, made a phone call to the school, to
Speaker 6: the dean of the school to call in sick. Well,
Speaker 6: who when you're in college calls in sick and even
Speaker 6: the dean at the school said at the time it
Speaker 6: was so odd because college students don't call in sick,
Speaker 6: and especially to a dean. It was almost like they
Speaker 6: were trying to place Kathy in Manhattan the next day
Speaker 6: rather than the night before. So Susan gave that was
Speaker 6: the alibi, really, because she was seen that morning supposedly
Speaker 6: and had made a phone call that morning, so she
Speaker 6: was alive and Durst was at their South Salem home,
Speaker 6: So how could he have done it? And Susan had
Speaker 6: told and people had always clutched him that was probably
Speaker 6: Susan and police thought that to New York police sought it,
Speaker 6: so they wanted to reinterview her about it, and who
Speaker 6: knows that Susan told them, but it clearly was publicized
Speaker 6: in the media that they were looking to talk to
Speaker 6: her again. And it was a very you know, blowing
Speaker 6: the lid on that and spilling the beans that they
Speaker 6: wanted to talk to her. It was really, you know,
Speaker 6: if he's the one who did it, that was a
Speaker 6: fatal mistake on the part of the police department because
Speaker 6: it got it killed. If if he you know, if
Speaker 6: he missed one of the scenarios possibilities.
Speaker 3: There was talk of his lawyer presenting offering a handwritten sample,
Speaker 3: and then there was an analysis that seemed to be
Speaker 3: the verdict was inconclusive. Now the police are slowly investigating
Speaker 3: but not really making any headway. But after about ten
Speaker 3: months after this, something happens involving Bobby Durst and that
Speaker 3: heightens police interest in him. Tell us what happens.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Susan couldn't get a hold of him when she
Speaker 6: was looking for him to borrow money. Little did she
Speaker 6: know he was living as a in disguise as a
Speaker 6: mute woman couldn't speak, in Galveston Bay in a CD
Speaker 6: three hundred dollars apartment, and with his neighbor was a
Speaker 6: man by the name of Morris Black, and he had
Speaker 6: an argument with Morris. Black said Morris came into his
Speaker 6: apartment started brandishing a gun and Bobby took it from
Speaker 6: him and shot him. And then Bobby chopped up Saw
Speaker 6: up with a chainsaw and and and some sort of
Speaker 6: a knife saw handsaw, both chainsaw and hacks I believe,
Speaker 6: chopped him up, put him in paper in plastic bags,
Speaker 6: and dumped his remains in Galveston Bay. And a man
Speaker 6: and his son, twelve year old son found the torso
Speaker 6: floating up. How horrible for that little boy. And Bobby
Speaker 6: durst apartment was just loaded with blood and in the meantime
Speaker 6: he fled. He was gone like a bat out of hell.
Speaker 6: So Susan didn't know that that's where he was when
Speaker 6: she couldn't find him. So he's he's on the lamb
Speaker 6: at that point. So l A p D. He is like, great,
Speaker 6: you know, will now that he's in custody. Once he's
Speaker 6: in custody, because there was a warrant for his arrest,
Speaker 6: and they got him in Pennsylvania finally stealing a sandwich.
Speaker 6: He had thirty five thousand dollars in kash or something
Speaker 6: with him and he stole a sandwich from a drug store.
Speaker 6: And guess what was in the trunk of his car
Speaker 6: a nine million handgun same caliber as Susan was killed.
Speaker 6: And Galveston Bay, which you know is a teeny tiny town.
Speaker 6: I don't think they're forensics is all are all that great.
Speaker 6: They did some testing and said it was inconclusive, and
Speaker 6: I think LAPDS should have sent it to Quantico or
Speaker 6: something for the FDI to test that they didn't retest
Speaker 6: that gun in the bullet to see if they matched.
Speaker 6: I think that was a critical and that could still
Speaker 6: be done. I think that was critical. So Bobby became
Speaker 6: an immediate suspect because you know, he became an immediate
Speaker 6: suspect because here he was accused of murder and then
Speaker 6: he went to trial. He said it was self defense
Speaker 6: and he was acquitted a murder. Wow. Fascinating.
Speaker 3: No, yes, now in terms of him being investigated for
Speaker 3: the connection with Susan, do police make any headway at all?
Speaker 6: Well, right now, the FBI, and this is just you know,
Speaker 6: several months old, the FBI because there is a woman
Speaker 6: in a young a teenager eighteen seventeen year old girl
Speaker 6: missing in San Francisco, and so Eureka San Francisco Police
Speaker 6: and then a former Eureka Copp who went to work
Speaker 6: for San Francisco PD got a search warn't because there
Speaker 6: was a they call it mister Petahad that there was
Speaker 6: a prostitute who saw the girl get in a car
Speaker 6: with an older man driving a car that Bobby Durst
Speaker 6: had been seen in and I did him in a
Speaker 6: photo lineup. That's the man I saw. And they called
Speaker 6: the drawing mister Potato head and she said it was
Speaker 6: Robert Durst. And because they showed pictures of Bobby Durst
Speaker 6: along with some others and as she picked him out.
Speaker 6: So they got a search warrant for Robert Durst's bank
Speaker 6: records and there are receipts from him being in Los
Speaker 6: Angeles at the time of Susan's murder. So the receipts,
Speaker 6: I'm told by two sources up in the LAPD I'm sorry,
Speaker 6: San Francisco area, and one is named in the book,
Speaker 6: the officer that the receipts that they got from a
Speaker 6: search weren't from Bobby Durst's bank records, which I don't
Speaker 6: know why the LAPD didn't get that, and they handed
Speaker 6: them over to the LAPD. So it's now a kidnapping
Speaker 6: case because the girl up there is in kidnapping. Therefore
Speaker 6: it's a federal case. They're now the Fed's FBI agent
Speaker 6: in Los Angeles is working with the LAPD and the
Speaker 6: Susan Berman case based upon the fact that they can
Speaker 6: place Durst in LA and they're working the case in
Speaker 6: San Francisco as well. Those things take time, you know,
Speaker 6: so who knows what will come from it because it's
Speaker 6: kind of a task force right now. But they I
Speaker 6: was told that the investigation is of Robert Durst, not
Speaker 6: just of the cases, but it's an investigation of Robert Durst.
Speaker 6: So whatever else they've got, I don't know. Fascinating right.
Speaker 3: Yes. You write in the book though that when they
Speaker 3: had him for the murder of his neighbor, seventy year
Speaker 3: old seventy one years black, Yeah, that they had the
Speaker 3: syndrome of well, now that we have him for a
Speaker 3: major murder and he's going to be locked the way anyway,
Speaker 3: please please explain what you were told by.
Speaker 6: He pulled out by insider. Yeah, by an insider as
Speaker 6: well as a detective on the case told me that, yes,
Speaker 6: as long as they have him in two interviews, as
Speaker 6: long as they have him, you know, for murder, well
Speaker 6: then he's gone, you know. So whether it's specifically for
Speaker 6: Susan and then lo and behold. He got acquitted. He
Speaker 6: did because he was on the lamb and he fled.
Speaker 6: He did serve three years in prison for for evading
Speaker 6: an arrest warrant, so he did serve time. He's been
Speaker 6: out for a while. He was spotted in Las Vegas too,
Speaker 6: which is a little creepy for me, since that's whole Yeah,
Speaker 6: but he why what what he was doing here? He's
Speaker 6: got a place in in in Harlem, my house to condo,
Speaker 6: and his family gave him six billion dollars.
Speaker 3: I believe it.
Speaker 6: Was to never have anything to do with the Durst
Speaker 6: organization again. And so he's just kind of on his own,
Speaker 6: but with lots of money and he in his life.
Speaker 3: Now you talk about the tough times, the up and
Speaker 3: down that everybody had. Susan had, but also Robert Durst had.
Speaker 3: From your research, was the time that he gave the
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars a time of that he was flush
Speaker 3: with money or does it make have some credence with that?
Speaker 3: This was money that he felt was necessary to keep
Speaker 3: her mouth shut after he heard reports.
Speaker 6: He's stripping in money. He's stripping and he comes from
Speaker 6: the Durst organization. He worked for the Dirt organization. I
Speaker 6: think they built half of Manhattan money. He's filthy rich
Speaker 6: and then they paid him. He was living on trust
Speaker 6: and whatever else that they give people who are in
Speaker 6: wealthy families, and I mean money was he could have
Speaker 6: whatever he wanted anytime he wanted, had a couple of
Speaker 6: houses and San franciscally had a heal in New York.
Speaker 6: Money was never an issue for Bobby, so it was
Speaker 6: like giving her five dollars. To give her fifty thousand
Speaker 6: was like giving her five. Now later when there was
Speaker 6: a falling out with the family, because they at first
Speaker 6: protected him, and they I was told that the Durst organization,
Speaker 6: when when the LAPD started calling and trying to talk
Speaker 6: to Bobby Durst, that the LAPD and the District Attorney's
Speaker 6: office we've research received very stern letters from the Dirst
Speaker 6: organization to basically leave him alone. And I don't know
Speaker 6: if that had anything to do with it, but I
Speaker 6: know that the one detective, the lead detective, took the
Speaker 6: case to the DA's office twice and was turned down.
Speaker 6: Uncircumstantial evidence. I mean, there is less evidence in the O. J.
Speaker 6: Simpson trial that the LAPD or that the LA District
Speaker 6: Attorney prosecuted then it was in this there's lots of
Speaker 6: circumstantial evidence and especially now hard evidence, direct evidence based
Speaker 6: upon his bank records that placed him in Los Angeles,
Speaker 6: which is you know, so, I don't know, maybe they're there,
Speaker 6: maybe something will come event.
Speaker 3: Well, it's still a circumstantial case if you don't have
Speaker 3: a lot of the other ingredients, so it becomes it's
Speaker 3: still a difficult case with a smart criminal will say experienced.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, exactly, he's got the best time. You know,
Speaker 6: dicta garin is incredible. But they could do ballistics on
Speaker 6: that gun and the case scene again the bullet, but yeah,
Speaker 6: they just might.
Speaker 3: Because they might be hesitant going, you know, against all
Speaker 3: of their own sloppy work. So you know, his attorney
Speaker 3: could have a heyday with contaminated crime scene and lost
Speaker 3: opportunities and.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, it'd be as fascinating case to go to. Yeah,
Speaker 6: be assassinating to attendance, you know, if if it ever happens.
Speaker 6: But you know, I think d And and Nile are
Speaker 6: sort of interesting characters, don't you.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, this is amazing, chock full of characters that
Speaker 3: come to life and real story of affluence and again
Speaker 3: it's a sort of a roller coaster for some people. Again,
Speaker 3: like Susan went through the money and then was living
Speaker 3: a little a little more modestly, a little more I
Speaker 3: would say desperately, but certainly she was.
Speaker 6: Desperate at point yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So it's.
Speaker 6: Yeah, somewhat where yeah, from where she came from, and
Speaker 6: Susan didn't, you know. Ruth said that she asked her once,
Speaker 6: you know, why don't you get a job, and she
Speaker 6: said it's the only time they had a disagreement. Susan
Speaker 6: was very unhappy about, saying that she sort of felt entitled.
Speaker 6: You know who me, I don't need to work. I'm
Speaker 6: Susan Berman, you know kind of thing, which is sort
Speaker 6: of you know, she didn't you know, she was going
Speaker 6: to keep doing what she was doing rather than try
Speaker 6: to get a full time writing position somewhere. I mean,
Speaker 6: she's fifty five when she left, so she was very
Speaker 6: much working age well fifty five when she died.
Speaker 3: Rather certainly. Now I want to I want to thank
Speaker 3: you for this. I want to get people to if
Speaker 3: they're interested in contacting you, how do you You have
Speaker 3: a website.
Speaker 6: You have a website. They can always contact on Facebook website.
Speaker 6: They do answer emails, So they're welcome to come to
Speaker 6: my page on Facebook, Kathy Scott ten on Facebook and
Speaker 6: my Kathi Scott dot com and just hit the contact
Speaker 6: me and I'm happy to answer the questions or talk
Speaker 6: to them. And and the book is available on Amazon
Speaker 6: and and uh AuthorHouse dot com. It's also available on
Speaker 6: Kendall and on Barnes and Noble dot com.
Speaker 3: Right and you you, uh, this is number what in
Speaker 3: terms of true crime books you've written?
Speaker 6: This is five six tell us time, Yeah, my sixth
Speaker 6: true crime book. It's my ninth book.
Speaker 3: And just tell us a few of the other titles
Speaker 3: of true crime books for people.
Speaker 6: Listening pop Prince Oh, true crime books. The Millionaire's Wife,
Speaker 6: which was last year. I hit for Hire out of Manhattan,
Speaker 6: fascinating story. Saint Martin's Press published stat Murder Uh, Death
Speaker 6: in the Desert about the Ted Binion case. I wrote
Speaker 6: The Rough Guide to True Crime uh, and The Murder
Speaker 6: of Biggie Small, which is out of print. I am
Speaker 6: putting that back in print next year, so watch for
Speaker 6: that one. And of course my first book, The Killing
Speaker 6: of Tupac Shakur.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you've got heavy pedigree there, Kathy, thanks you
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Body hip hop a lot of wrap.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And then Franship Katrina. I spent for four months down
Speaker 6: in New Orleans and Mississippi following the hurricane and and
Speaker 6: with a photographer and wrote Opernsive Katrine about the rescue of.
Speaker 3: Animals Yeah, that's my chet heartbreaking. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's great. Well,
Speaker 3: I want to thank you very much Kathy for coming
Speaker 3: and talking about murder and Beverly Hills, and congratulations on
Speaker 3: this new updated version. It's reads like a brand new book.
Speaker 3: And the other book was great and this is this
Speaker 3: is just fabulous. So I want to thank you very
Speaker 3: much for coming on talking about that and hope now wonderful.
Speaker 6: It's not. Thank you so much, Town, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you Kathy, and hope to talk to you
Speaker 3: again real soon about another upcoming project that you have
Speaker 3: in the works, no doubt, and I wish you the
Speaker 3: best on this and continue success. So I want to
Speaker 3: thank you and have a good evening.
Speaker 6: My pleasure, byebye, good night.