that Durst now admits he was at the crime scene,
something he had denied for nearly 20 years. Ac-
cording to DeGuerin, Durst was to meet Berman,
55, at her home in Benedict Canyon for a holiday
celebration on Dec. 23, 2000. “When Bob showed
up and found her dead,” DeGuerin said in opening
statements, “he panicked.”ItÕs not the first time Durst has been in a courtroom
charged with murder, and not the first time de-
fense attorney DeGuerin has urged a jury to find
him innocent. In 2003 Durst was acquitted of the
murder of his Galveston neighbor Morris Black,
71, after testifying he’d fatally
shot Black in self-defense,
then dismembered him and
disposed of his body parts in
trash bags. Now prosecutors
say that murder—and Ber-
man’s—are both connected to
the disappearance of Durst’s
first wife, Kathleen “Kathie”
Durst, 29, who was last seen
alive on Jan. 31, 1982. (Durst
is not charged with Kath-
ie’s death, and her body has never been found.)
“When Bob Durst killed Kathie, he killed Susan
and Morris as well, because once that happened,
once he did that, there was no turning back,” Los
Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John
Lewin told jurors. “Bob Durst is a person who is
going to protect Bob Durst.”
The oldest son of a New York real estate mogul,
Durst met Berman in 1965 in graduate school at
the University of California, Los Angeles. Ber-
man, the only child of reputed Mob boss David
Berman, bonded with the socially awkward
Durst, forging a friendship so close it was he who
walked her down the aisle when she got married.
“She always referred to him as ‘my friend Bob-
by Durst,’ ” says her friend Rosenberg. “She was
a great friend, brilliantly smart. A very astute
judge of character, but like many smart people,
she made some big mistakes.”
Authorities say those mistakes cost her her life.
They allege that Durst killed Kathie when she tried
to divorce him and that Berman helped him cover it
up, giving him a false alibi by impersonating Kathie
in a phone call to give police the impression Kathie
was still alive. In 2000, when New York authorities
reopened the investigation into Kathie’s disappear-
ance, they planned to interview Berman about
what she knew as a friend of the couple’s. “Though
[Durst] told her, ‘Go talk to them,’ ” prosecutor
Lewin said, “he also decided to kill her.”ÔHEÕS RUN
AWAY ALL
HIS LIFE.
BOB DOESNÕT
MAKE GOOD
DECISIONSÕ
—DICK
DEGUERIN,
DEFENSE
ATTORNEYDays after Susan BermanÕs body was
found, an anonymous note (right) with
the word ÒcadaverÓ on it was received by
the Beverly Hills Police Department,
postmarked Dec. 23. Prosecutors (above,
in court) say her killer sent it. While Durst
long insisted he was not even in the
L.A. area at the time, his attorney now
says Durst found BermanÕs body and
wrote the note to alert police to her
murder, too afraid to report it himself.Shocking New
RevelationsPolice found Berman’s body a little after noon
on Dec. 24, after a neighbor called 911 because
Berman’s dogs were running around unattend-
ed. She had been shot at point-blank range in the
back of the head.
At the trial the jury will hear details of that crime
scene and testimony from Kathie’s family and Ber-
man’s friends, including Saturday Night Live alum
Laraine Newman, who is expected to say that Ber-
man had told her she provided an alibi for Durst
when Kathie disappeared. “I don’t understand her
relationship with Durst,” admits Berman’s pal, New
York author Dinitia Smith. But all who knew Ber-
man say she supported her friends fiercely. Says
Rosenberg: “She is not a person whose loyalty I
would ever doubt.” •LOVE & LOSS
Durst (with
Berman, center,
and wife Kathie)
has denied killing
either woman.
“He’s sociopathic,”
Kathie’s brother Jim
McCormack told
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