LOS ANGELES _ New York real estate scion Robert Durst is scheduled to appear Monday in a Los Angeles courtroom, where prosecutors will continue laying out evidence they say proves he killed his best friend nearly 20 years ago.
Durst, 75, is accused of shooting Susan Berman, an author and the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, in the back of the head inside her Benedict Canyon home a few days before Christmas in 2000. Prosecutors contend that he killed Berman, 55, his close friend since their time as students at UCLA, to keep her from telling police what she knew about his wife's disappearance decades earlier.
His first wife, Kathleen, disappeared in 1982. Her body has never been recovered, but many of her family members, as well as prosecutors, say they believe Durst murdered her. At a hearing last year, Berman's longtime friend Nick Chavin testified that she once told him that Durst _ their mutual friend _ had admitted to killing Kathleen.
The mogul, who has denied killing either woman, was arrested at a New Orleans hotel in connection with Berman's slaying on March 14, 2015, the day before the finale of a six-part HBO documentary about his life aired. In the final episode of the series, "The Jinx," Durst is caught muttering to himself on a hot microphone during a bathroom break _ "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course," he says.
Some viewers interpreted the mumbled comment to be a stunning admission to three slayings: Those of Berman, Kathleen, and Morris Black, a neighbor in Galveston, Texas, who Durst admitted to killing and dismembering in 2001.
During a murder trial in Texas, Durst's lawyers _ some of whom are representing him again in the Los Angeles case _ argued that the real estate mogul shot Black in self-defense while trying to defend himself in a struggle and was in a traumatized state when he chopped up the body. Durst was acquitted.
His lead attorney, Dick DeGuerin, has said he believes his client was unjustly arrested in connection with Berman's slaying because of hype surrounding "The Jinx."
"It's not based on facts," he said, "it's based on ratings."
Monday's scheduled court proceeding, which will probably stretch into next week, is a continuation of a preliminary hearing from earlier in the year. Prosecutors plan to gather testimony from several witnesses, including a reporter who covered Durst in the past and one of Kathleen's medical school classmates, Dr. Peter Halperin. Prosecutors may try to use the doctor's testimony to suggest that Kathleen lived in fear for weeks before her disappearance.
During an interview with authorities in 2016, Halperin said that Kathleen called him in the weeks before she vanished, saying she was upset by her husband's "erratic and violent" behavior, according to a transcript of the interview filed by prosecutors. Kathleen's voice shook during the call, the doctor said, and she told him she was "very frightened" of her husband. She sounded petrified, Halperin noted, adding that he asked her if she wanted to come and stay with him and his wife that night. She declined the offer, he said.
During the first part of Durst's preliminary hearing in April, Kathleen's medical school mentor also testified that during a conversation in 1981 she told him she lived in fear of her husband, whom she said had a "homicidal side."
The judge handling the case will ultimately determine whether he believes there's enough evidence for Durst to stand trial for Berman's slaying.
