Millionaire murder suspect Robert Durst is admitting he wrote the infamous "cadaver note" that's a key piece of evidence as his trial looms on charges he killed friend Susan Berman nearly 20 years ago.
In paperwork filed Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, his defense acknowledged Durst authored the letter that alerted Beverly Hills police to the location of Berman's dead body.
"The parties stipulate that defendant wrote the documents attached hereto as Exhibit 4, commonly referred to as the 'Cadaver Note,'" the filing obtained by the New York Daily News states.
"The defense has made a strategic decision to stipulate to this evidence," the filing states.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Durst's lead lawyer Dick DeGuerin said the filing doesn't change his client's position that he is wrongly accused of slaying Berman with a single bullet to the back of her head in December 2000.
"Bob Durst did not kill Susan Berman and does not know who did," DeGuerin told the Daily News on Tuesday, repeating his regular refrain.
"The filing speaks for itself. There are stipulations we've arrived at to simplify the trial," he said.
"I've never been quoted as denying or admitting it," he said, referring to Durst's authorship of the note.
The Christmas Eve filing was first reported by The New York Times.
Durst, 76, is charged with murdering Berman execution-style to keep her from telling authorities what she knew about his first wife Kathie Durst's 1982 disappearance in New York.
After Berman was killed, police received the anonymous letter letting them know a "cadaver" could be found at her address in Benedict Canyon.
The sender misspelled Beverly as "Beverley" and used distinct block lettering.
Prosecutors claim both the "Beverley" misspelling and block lettering match almost perfectly with a 1999 letter previously sent by Durst and uncovered by the HBO docuseries "The Jinx."
The filmmakers behind "The Jinx" confronted Durst about the match during the second to last episode in the series, but he denied writing the note.
DeGuerin declined to elaborate Tuesday on how Durst was able to send the note.
In prior paperwork fighting admission of the note as evidence, the defense argued it could have been written by anybody.
"What the note demonstrates is that the person who mailed it was aware that there was a body at the house, not that the individual murdered Susan Berman," they said.
Durst was arrested on the Berman murder warrant in New Orleans in March 2015, the day before the dramatic finale of "The Jinx."
Prosecutors claim he was attempting to flee to Cuba.
He's been in custody ever since for illegally carrying a .38-caliber revolver.
Reached by phone at his Texas residence just days before the arrest, Durst confessed he had been watching the HBO miniseries.
He claimed he was unfazed by the cadaver note revelation or Los Angeles prosecutors reopening the Berman investigation.
"I don't have a reaction," Durst flatly told the Daily News.
