LATIMES.COM FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2020B
CITY & STATE
More than 40 years ago, in
a tavern on the east side of
Manhattan, James McCor-
mack met his little sister’s
boyfriend.
Even then, Robert Durst
seemed odd, McCormack re-
called on the witness stand
Thursday. Intelligent, if dis-
engaged. A dry, almost cruel
sense of humor. “If someone
tripped,” McCormack said,
“he would laugh.”
Beginning with her child-
hood on Long Island and
ending with her disappear-
ance in 1982, McCormack led
the jury through the life of
his youngest sister, Kath-
leen, who married Durst in
1973 and vanished nine years
later. But in this murder tri-
al, McCormack’s sister is not
the victim.
Prosecutors are trying to
pull off a Russian doll set of a
case, nesting the murder of
Susan Berman, Durst’s
close friend and confidante,
within the disappearance of
Kathie Durst. They allege
that Durst killed his wife in
1982, then, years later, elimi-
nated the only person who
could tie him to the crime —
Berman.
Durst, 76, has never been
charged with his wife’s mur-
der. He has pleaded not
guilty in the death of
Berman, whose body was
found in her Benedict Can-
yon home on Dec. 24, 2000,
shot in the back of the head.
On Thursday, jurors in a
Los Angeles courtroom
heard from McCormack,
Kathie’s sister, Virginia
McKeon; and her nursing
school instructor and friend,
Marion Watlington.
Kathie grew up in a mid-
dle-class Long Island family,
her siblings said. Their fa-ther was a service repre-
sentative for a telephone
company, their mother a
homemaker.
All five of the McCormack
siblings worked in high
school; Kathie, the young-
est, took a job in a local den-
tist’s office.
After finishing high
school, she moved to Man-
hattan with a friend and
worked as a dental hygien-
ist. In the early 1970s, McCor-
mack learned she was seeing
Robert Durst.
Durst was 11 years her
senior, the scion of a family
that controlled some of
New York’s most coveted
real estate. His sister
seemed happy with him, Mc-
Cormack said, but by the
mid-1970s, their relationship
had grown strained. McCor-
mack learned later, he said,
that Durst forced his sister
to get an abortion “under
threat of a divorce.”
After that, McCormack
said, Kathie seemed to focus
on herself. She enrolled in
nursing school, with an eye
toward attending medical
school and becoming a pedi-
atrician. It was clear, he said,
that she had “grown past
Bob, intellectually and emo-
tionally,” and that he re-
acted by becoming “more
curt, more dismissive of her
points of view.”
One Christmas, he re-
called, Kathie was relaxing
on their mother’s couch af-
ter dinner, sipping a glass of
red wine. Durst wanted to
leave and insisted she get up.
When she didn’t, he grabbed
the top of her head and
yanked her to her feet in
front of her family, McCor-
mack testified. “It was so
spontaneous and unexpect-
ed,” he said.
Beginning in late 1980,
Watlington, who taught
Kathie at Western Connecti-
cut State University, said
she began fielding long, late-
night phone calls from
Kathie, calls that were “very
angry, upset, distraught.”
When they met in 1977,
Watlington was a brand new
instructor. Kathie was
among her first class of nurs-
ing students. She struck
Watlington, now a doctor in
Bermuda, as “head and
shoulders over the students
around her.” She was curi-
ous, confident and “efferves-
cent,” Watlington said.
But several years later,
when she started calling
Watlington late at night, her
tenor had changed. She
rambled and, on one occa-
sion, she sounded drunk,
Watlington said. She said
Durst was beating her, to the
point she had to be hospital-
ized, Watlington recalled.
She urged her to leave.
Kathie said she would, but
that she needed to gather
some paperwork before
seeking a divorce, Watling-
ton testified.
“If anything should hap-
pen to me,” she recalled
Kathie saying, “don’t let the
bastard get away with it.”
A few weeks later, Wat-
lington saw Kathie’s picture
in the New York Post. She
had vanished on Jan. 31, 1982.
Watlington dialed the hot-
line beneath the picture and
told a policeman what
Kathie had confided in her.
He was dismissive, Watling-
ton said, and hung up before
taking down her name or a
way to contact her.
McCormack, meanwhile,
was growing frustrated with
Michael Struk, the New York
Police Department detec-
tive tasked with investigat-
ing Kathie’s disappearance.
He called potter’s fields to
ask about unclaimed female
bodies, he testified, and hos-
pitals “from Massachusetts
to Pennsylvania” to inquire
about patients with am-
nesia.
Lead prosecutor John
Lewin finished by asking
McCormack if he had any
doubts his sister was dead.
“Kathie is not with us, pe-
riod,” he replied.
And is there any doubt,
Lewin asked, whether his
sister was killed the day she
went missing?
“There’s no doubt in my
mind,” McCormack said,
“that she died on Jan. 31,
1982.”
Testimony continues
Monday.Witnesses say
Durst abused
his first wife
Kathleen Durst’s
brother and a friend
testify as prosecutors
aim to link her fate to
the Berman killing.
By Matthew OrmsethAfter a mostly dry start
to the year, March is shaping
up to be somewhat of a white
knight for Southern Califor-
nia’s rainy season.
A slow-moving storm
that sprinkled the region
with rain for a day earlier in
the week barreled back into
the area Thursday morning,
bringing heavy rain and a
slight chance of afternoon
thunderstorms.
The system’s final tour
through the area is expected
to bring up to 2 inches of rain
to the coasts and valleys and
up to 3 inches in the San Ga-
briel Mountains. Thunder-
storms also could produce
brief heavy downpours, hail
and waterspouts, said Joe
Sirard, a meteorologist with
the National Weather Serv-
ice in Oxnard.
“Any time we have this
kind of pattern, there’s a
possibility for some urban
flooding,” Sirard said.
“There’s also a potential for
some mud and debris flows
in recent burn areas.”
The National Weather
Service in San Diego issued
a flood advisory for Riv-
erside, San Diego and Or-
ange counties through
Thursday afternoon, warn-
ing of rainfall rates up to
three-tenths of an inch per
hour that could cause urban
and small stream flooding.
The weather service warned
that isolated thunderstorms
could produce up to half an
inch of rain per hour.
The wet weather comes
as more people are working
from home to help slow the
spread of the coronavirus.
Though the storm is ex-
pected to clear out Friday,
Sirard suggested not stow-
ing the umbrellas just yet.
A deep moisture layer lin-
gering over the region could
keep things damp through
Saturday. Longer-range
models show another slow-
moving storm creeping into
Southern California from
the north Sunday. That
chilly system has the poten-tial to bring several inches of
rain and drop snow levels to
4,000 feet, Sirard said.
The rain from that storm
could linger through
Wednesday, and another is
expected to move in next
Thursday, Sirard said. “It’s
almost like being in Seattle
at this point.”
Forecasters say the se-
ries of storms is just in time
to help the region rebound
from a parched January and
February, usually the state’s
wettest months.
A total of 0.04 of an inch of
rain fell in downtown Los
Angeles last month, placing
it in a tie with February 1899
for the 10th-driest February
on record. Downtown L.A.
also had its fourth-driest
combined January and Feb-
ruary on record after just
0.36 of an inch fell during the
first two months of 2020.
So far this month, down-
town L.A. has received 0.31 of
an inch of rain. Farther
north, in Santa Barbara,
precipitation totals have
reached 0.79 of an inch thismonth, more than the area
saw in January and Febru-
ary combined, weather serv-
ice data show.
“If the models pan out,
one could say this is kind of a
March miracle in terms of
rainfall,” Sirard said. “It has
the potential to vastly ex-
ceed what we saw in Febru-
ary. If that happens, it would
go a long way to making up
for a dry start to the year.”
Though weather experts
say it’s too early to call it a
“miracle March,” the rain
has helped bolster lacklus-
ter winter rain totals in sev-
eral areas. However, the re-
cent storms have not been
successful in keeping the
state out of drought condi-
tions.
A map released by the
U.S. Drought Monitor on
Thursday shows that 78% of
California is considered to
be in abnormally dry condi-
tions. More than 48% of the
state, including portions of
Los Angeles County, is in
moderate drought condi-
tions, the map shows.PEDESTRIANSon Hollywood Boulevard shield themselves from the rain. The storm’s final tour through the
area is expected to bring up to 2 inches to the coasts and valleys and 3 inches in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Dania MaxwellLos Angeles TimesRain spigot is staying open
Slow-moving storm returns to the region, bringing more wet weather
By Hannah Fry
Every time Wendy Gra-
nados called a Los Angeles
Police Department detec-
tive for an update, she would
receive the same response.
There were no leads in the
search for the person who
had killed her 38-year-old
sister, Kiesha Saravia, and
her unborn child in a South
L.A. hit-and-run in July.
She shouldn’t lose hope,
officers told her, but it could
take months or years to
solve a case. Eventually,
Granados began checking in
less frequently.
Then about two weeks
ago, while she was on the
freeway, a detective called.
They had arrested a 21-
year-old man who had con-
fessed to being the driver of
the vehicle.
“I was just driving and
crying,” Granados said. “I
told myself, ‘gracias a Dios.’
And then I was like, ‘Oh, my
God, he’s so young.’”
The arrest reflects the
challenging and tedious
work that goes into solving
hit-and-run collisions. Many
leave few clues to go on, and
families can wait for long pe-
riods of time while officers
work to identify the sus-
pects. The crashes often oc-
cur late at night with no wit-
nesses, and video footage
showing a car flash by may
be too grainy to decipher a li-
cense plate.
Fatal hit-and-runs have
been on the upswing city-
wide, climbing from 52 in
2017 to 62 in 2019. In the
LAPD’s South Bureau, an
area that last year ac-
counted for about 40% of
L.A.’s fatal hit-and-runs, of-
ficers are focused on spread-
ing awareness that stopping
to render aid can save lives
and encouraging witnesses
to share information that
can help solve these crimes.
Of the bureau’s 25 fatal
hit-and-runs last year, offi-
cials have made arrests in 10.
“We’re pushing hard on
really getting the word
out ... if they see something,
then say something,” said
South Traffic Division Capt.
Jon Pinto, who held a news
conference Thursday in
the Broadway-Manchester
neighborhood where the col-
lision had occurred to an-
nounce the arrest of the
suspect.
Saravia grew up in South
L.A. and was the mother of
five children — the oldest
now 15 and the youngest 6.
She had worked as a secre-
tary at her brother’s truck-
ing business.She was outgoing and
had an optimistic person-
ality, Granados said. She
often cooked aguachile, a
Mexican shellfish dish, and
would invite her siblings
over for barbecues in her
frontyard.
“There’s a lot of people
who wait to barbecue on the
weekends — she wasn’t that
type of person,” Granados
said.
About 10 p.m. July 26,
Saravia was headed home
with her boyfriend and one
of her children after a Target
shopping run to buy baby
jumpers and mittens. She
was struck while crossing
117th Street by a vehicle trav-
eling north on Main Street.
Saravia was taken to a hos-
pital, where her baby was de-
livered via C-section. She
and the newborn died of
their injuries.
From the onset, Det.
Michael Flannery and hispartners had few leads to
find the driver. There was no
video of the collision, which
occurred just before a free-
way overpass. The only wit-
nesses were two family
members who could recall
only seeing a light-colored
car.
Flannery knocked on
doors in the neighborhood
and collected video from
businesses and residences
up and down the street. He
spent hundreds of hours
tracking cars, scouring the
footage for anything that
looked suspicious, such as a
driver speeding or swerving.
“Sometimes you’re
watching the cameras, and
after you do this for a while
you see something out of the
ordinary,” he said. “We
didn’t see anything.”
The public’s help can be
key to solving hit-and-run
cases. In 2019, the LAPD re-
ceived 109 hit-and-run-related tips through Crime
Stoppers, an anonymous tip
service that offers rewards
to people who provide infor-
mation leading to arrests.
Six hit-and-run tips led to
arrests.
Police depend on the
news media’s help to publi-
cize these cases. But a colli-
sion might not make the
news if there’s something
more newsworthy happen-
ing, officials said.
The break in the Saravia
case came last month, when
the LAPD was passed a lead
from a tipster who had
watched a news conference
the department held after
the fatal collision. On Feb. 27,
police arrested South L.A.
resident Cristian Mendoza
Orellana, 21, on suspicion of
a felony hit-and-run. Prose-
cutors have charged Orel-
lana, who is being held on
$4-million bail, with two
counts of second-degree
murder.
Flannery said he sus-
pected that Orellana, who
had been driving with
friends, was under the influ-
ence of nitrous oxide, a drug
also known as “laughing
gas.”
Though the arrest
brought relief to Saravia’s
family, it also reopened
wounds they’ve been trying
to heal. At the time of her
death, Saravia was a week
away from the due date for
her sixth child, whom she
had planned to name Lyiah.
Her five children, who used
to all live with her, now reside
with their respective fathers.
Every Friday — the day
that the crash occurred —
brings Saravia’s mother,
Maria Graciela Saravia,
painful memories of her
daughter’s death.
“My daughter is resting
in peace, but even though
they have the person who
did it, they’re not going to
bring her back,” she said.Arrest in hit-and-run case is a rare result
RONALD GRANADOS, whose sister Kiesha Saravia was killed by a hit-and-run
driver in July, speaks to Telemundo on Thursday near the site of the collision.Gabriella Angotti-JonesLos Angeles TimesDriver is charged with
killing woman and her
unborn child. Many
cases go unsolved.
By Leila Miller