Robert Durst’s death, months after he was indicted for murder, was announced by the lawyer who represented him during the trial
The disgraced multimillionaire real-estate heir and convicted murderer died at 78 in a California hospital of natural causes “associated with the litany of medical issues” that had previously been reported.
Durst died at the San Joaquin General Hospital, where he was being treated in the custody of California’s Department of Corrections, after suffering “difficulty breathing” and “difficulty communicating.”
“We understand that his death was due to natural causes associated with the litany of medical issues we had repeatedly reported to the court over the last couple of years,” Chip Lewis, who’d served as Durst’s lawyer, said in a statement.
Following Durst’s sentencing, he was hospitalized with Covid and placed on a ventilator, according to one of his other lawyers, Dick DeGuerin, who described him as looking “worse than I’ve ever seen him.”
The real estate heir was sentenced to life in prison in October for the murder of Susan Berman, who was found in December 2000 after being shot in the head at point blank range. Durst was accused of killing her to prevent her from telling the police what she knew about the 1982 disappearance of the millionaire’s first wife, Kathie McCormack Durst.
Durst was charged over the murder of Berman after he got caught on a hot mic in private confessing to the killing during a recording for the HBO Documentary ‘The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.’ While out of the room, the mic recorded him saying “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
At the time of his death, Durst was awaiting trial of the murder of his ex-wife after a grand jury indicted him on second-degree murder. Following the grand jury’s verdict, Lewis responded to a request for comment on behalf of his client by claiming the allegations were “fake news” and suggesting he’s “not sure [Durst] will make it” to the trial.
