Robert Durst takes a stand to deny killing his Susan Berman

Former New York real estate heir Robert Durst testified at his first degree murder trial on Monday and categorically denied murdering his close friend Susan Berman more than two decades ago.

“No,” Durst replied in response to defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin’s direct question: “Did you kill Susan Berman?

When DeGuerin asked his client if he knew who murdered Berman in his Los Angeles home in December 2000, Durst again answered “no”.

Prosecutors say Durst, now 78, shot Berman in the style of an execution in order to prevent him from incriminating him in the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathie. Durst’s legal team said he found Berman’s body panicked and fled to Texas, sending a letter to the police that said “BODY” with his friend’s address.

The sick Durst struggled to hear both the clerk when he took the oath and DeGuerin as he asked questions, using a tablet that showed a live transcript to help him understand. He also struggled to hear the prosecution’s objections and the judge’s rulings. He spoke frequently after being told to stop.

Durst and Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas gangster, met in the late 1960s, while they were both studying at UCLA.

“We both had trust funds,” said Durst, who recalled that the two were linked by their wealth and tragic childhood. Both of Berman’s parents had died about a decade before she met Durst, while his mother jumped or fell from the roof of the family home in Scarsdale when he was just 7 years old. Durst added that despite the close friendship, he and Berman had never been lovers.

Durst, who suffers from bladder cancer and several other illnesses he has listed on the stand, wore the brown prison outfit he wore in court during the final weeks of the trial. His lawyers said he was unable to get up to put on a suit.

Prosecutors closed their case against Durst last week. They had been allowed to present evidence that Durst murdered both his first wife and his Texas neighbor Morris Black in 2001.

Kathie Durst’s body was never found, but she was declared legally dead. Durst has never been charged for his disappearance and has denied having anything to do with it.

A Texas jury acquitted Durst of Black’s murder in 2003. During this trial, Durst testified that he killed Black in self-defense after entering Durst’s house with a gun. Durst described the dismemberment and disposal of Black’s body at the stand and then pleaded guilty in December 2004 to two counts of bail and one count of tampering with evidence. He was released from prison in 2006.

The final chapter in Durt’s long legal saga began with the 2015 HBO documentary series “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” – the final scene of which showed Durst saying on a hot mic, “Killed them all, well. sure. “

Durst was arrested in Berman’s murder in March 2015, the day before the last episode of “The Jinx” aired. A search of his hotel room in New Orleans by FBI agents uncovered a .38 caliber revolver, a mask and more than $ 40,000 in cash. Durst pleaded guilty in April 2016 to being a felon in possession of a gun and was sentenced to 85 months in federal prison.

In 2016, Durst was extradited to California the following year and a Los Angeles judge ruled in 2018 that there was enough evidence for Durst to stand trial for first degree murder. However, the trial didn’t actually start until March 2020, when it was almost immediately suspended until May of this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With post wires