Most American defense lawyers would advise against a defendant to testify in their own murder trial. The fifth amendment of the constitution guarantees the right not to incriminate oneself in a process. Previous crimes are also often hidden by silence. For Robert Durst, one of the most enigmatic defendants in recent American legal history, the usual warnings don't seem to matter. The 78-year-old son of the late New York real estate investor Seymour Durst, who has to answer in a California court for the murder of his former girlfriend Susan Berman, is talkative to chatty in court.
When Durst was pushed into the courtroom in Inglewood, Los Angeles, in his wheelchair on Wednesday, he shared a jury's experience with past drug excesses, violence and his marriage to Kathleen McCormack. The medical student disappeared in early 1982 under circumstances that have not yet been clarified and was later pronounced dead. According to prosecutors, McCormack's disappearance is linked to the murder of Berman. As the prosecution outlined in the opening statement, Durst is said to have killed his former classmate Berman in her home on Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles in late 2000 with a shot in the head. The journalist and daughter of the Ukrainian-American mafioso David Berman allegedly threatened to hand over evidence to the prosecutor that exposed Durst as the murderer of his wife.
"That was the last time I saw her"
Durst, on the other hand, painted the picture of a happy marriage, even if it was overshadowed by arguments.
The defendant admitted on Wednesday that the twenty-nine-year-old had mandated a divorce lawyer before her disappearance, surprised him.
After a few days together in a weekend house near New York, he brought "Kathie" to the train on January 31, 1982.
"That was the last time that I saw her," he now protested in court.
In 2003, Durst was charged with the murder of his neighbor Morris Black in Texas. The New Yorker admitted to having shot the seaman while fighting over a pistol. Though Durst described how he dismembered Black's body and dumped it in the Gulf of Mexico, the jury acquitted him at the time. His defense attorney Dick DeGuerin had repeatedly referred to the defendant's alleged Asperger's Syndrome.
The fact that the billionaire heir is now back on trial almost 40 years after McCormack's disappearance and more than 20 years after Berman's murder is due to his urge for validity. After the premiere of the film drama "All Good Things", the plot of which was based on Durst's life story, in 2010 he himself contacted director Andrew Jarecki. When the filmmaker shot the documentary "The Jinx" about the murder allegations a few years later, Durst agreed to do interviews in front of the camera. While filming “The Jinx” in 2015, he accidentally left a microphone on his body on and when he went to the toilet he said “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course, ”whispered.
In order to prevent further careless statements by his client, Durst's lawyer, DeGuerin, repeatedly urged the murder trial to be postponed after the indictment six years ago with a view to his health. The seventy-eight year old allegedly suffered from bladder cancer and urinary tract infections but was declared fit to take legal action. Meanwhile, there is heated debate about the reason for Durst's willingness to provide information. Observers do not rule out that his defense attorney relies on the jury's empathy for a defendant in a wheelchair. Others suspect that the lawyer relies on his client's talent for flowery narratives. DeGuerin also took Durst to the stand in 2003 in the Black Cause - and convinced the jury to acquit the accused despite the bloodbath of the killed sailor.The coming weeks will show whether the strategy will work again.