GALVESTON, Texas - Following a six-week flight from authorities and nearly two years in jail, a cross-dressing New York real estate heir is going before a jury to face charges that he killed and dismembered a neighbor.
Opening statements in Robert Durst's murder trial were scheduled for Monday.
Durst, 60, is accused of killing his 71-year-old neighbor, Morris Black, then dismembering the body and throwing it into Galveston Bay in September 2001.
Durst, who lived in Galveston as a mute woman, was arrested after parts of Black's body washed ashore. He posted $300,000 bond, then fled. Six weeks later, he was arrested trying to shoplift a $5.99 sandwich and bandages from a grocery store near Bethlehem, Pa. He had $500 in his pocket.
Durst has pleaded innocent by reason of self-defense and accident. If convicted, Durst could face from five to 99 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
A gag order has prevented any of the trial participants from commenting on the case.
Before opening statements, the prosecution and defense plan to discuss 36 hours of recorded telephone calls Durst made from a Pennsylvania prison after his shoplifting arrest. The question is what portion of the recordings could be introduced into evidence.
Opening statements were delayed last week to give attorneys time to review the recordings, which were only received last week by prosecutors.
Galveston authorities didn't discover Durst's true identity until he jumped bail in Texas. They also learned he was wanted for questioning in the unsolved disappearance of his former wife, Kathleen, 21 years ago in New York and the unsolved Christmas Eve 2000 shooting death of a friend in Los Angeles, who was set to be questioned about his missing wife.
Durst is the son of New York skyscraper tycoon Seymour Durst.
People sure are getting touchy these days. Kill and dismember even one neighbor anymore and they're throwing the book at you. Where's the tolerance for this alternative lifestyle, hmm? That's what I want to know...
I don't understand what cross-dressing has to do with the murder. This puts a bad name on cross-dressers.
I recently met an ny trooper who was instrumental in reopening the investigation into the "disappearance" of Durst's first wife. Evidently Durst is tied to several murders and perhaps a couple of disappearances of young women in CA. He is evil. When he was busted for shoplifting they got a warrant to search his car. Inside was several pounds of pot, $30000 and a map planning out the root to this trooper's house. Pretty scary.
From todays NY Post / Author: Cyndee Adams
http://www.nypost.com/gossip/cindy.htm A interview with Durst's wife
September 22, 2003 -- IN New York, where she's a top commercial real-estate broker, she uses her maiden name, Debrah Charatan. In Galveston, where her husband's on trial for murder and dismemberment, she's known as Robert Durst's wife.
Attractive, ultra-slim, tightly wired. Talk to her on the phone when she's home and she'll be rinsing a dish at the same time. Sit with her in the back of a car and she'll be opening mail at the same time.
She's done the overnighter round-trip New York-Galveston run every three weeks for 20 months since real-estate heir Durst's arrest. Today's opening day of a trial that may take months.
Her suitcases contain a stack of daily newspapers, a dozen magazines, playing cards, books like the almanac, puzzles, quizzes, staples, office work, cell phone, chargers, computer.
She nervous? "Yes. A little. I've never been through something like this before. I don't know what to expect," she says.
Her eyes tear up. "I'm exhausted but I can't desert him. I won't. I have to be there for him. We're together 15 years, and he hasn't a lot of friends.
"Look, I'm not ashamed that I married him. I'm glad. I was alone . . . alone . . . all alone . . . totally alone in the world when we met. My business had gone downhill. My life was in shreds. I was in a custody battle for my son. My ex wanted to destroy me. I had nothing. I worried over everything. This man was good to me. While I was going through this terrible time and my problems were so overwhelming, Bob wasn't afraid of it. What endeared me was he'd take my son to the movies, the zoo, he'd spend time with him. He'd buy my son clothes when I had no money.
"Now I'm all he has. But I'll never forget he's the one person in my whole life who was there for me when nobody else was. I owe him."
Today the wheel has turned. Durst is in trouble and Charatan is very together. I've seen her in a crowded event when her cell goes off. Bob. On his allowable phone calls from prison. Makes no difference who's around, where it is, what she's doing, Debrah Charatan Durst takes that call. Patiently, gently, she tells him about the evening, what we're having for dinner.
Durst's prison phone conversations, including those with Charatan, have been taped, and now they've become an issue in the case. The trial was supposed to start Thursday, but now it isn't set to start until the judge decides what to do today.
Prosecutors want them in evidence. The defense doesn't. Charatan said she couldn't discuss the tapes. Self-control isn't a problem for her.
The nails are uncolored, the face free of makeup, not even the insides show. Nothing is out of control where this lady's concerned. Relative to the parts of her life in which she has control, it's total. Up daily at 5 a.m., a cup of decaf, a 6-mile run. In her office by 8. Flying to Galveston, she allowed herself one sticky honeybun. ("I always make the same flight. I know the menu. I wait for that one breakfast bun.")
By age 5, she knew to take care of herself. "My parents were Holocaust survivors. Their family couldn't save them, so I knew mine could never help me. My father had one leg. My mother was an orphan. She married him because he's the only man who asked. You don't necessarily choose a mate with one leg. They tolerated one another. There wasn't lots of love."
The fact is Charatan has lost everything she ever loved. Her father's gone. Her mother's estranged. Her beloved dog, Sam, died. Her first husband beat her in a bitter divorce. She lost her only child in an ugly custody fight.
She says: "My father was a butcher from Poland. My family spoke Yiddish, not English. My first husband, a lawyer, was a doctor's son. They were educated. They were Americans. I was going to college at night. I thought I was moving up in the world. I was nobody who wanted to be somebody. When my business began to earn money, he began to hate me. To get even, he turned my kid against me."
BACK to the man in the cell in Galveston County Jail.
"We married in 2000. I bought myself an East Side co-op while he kept his own apartment, and we shared the house I paid for in the Hamptons. I didn't need his money or his help anymore. My business was doing well. I didn't want to get married. I had no reason to. I wasn't after that. But Bob wanted to marry me.
"Bob didn't live a rich life. Didn't spend on himself. I'm the one who'd buy him things. But he was always good to me. He'd send me flowers every week. From prison, he had a teddy bear with a hospital gown on it sent to me when I was operated on.
"He worries about me. Saturdays, when my visits go a little longer, he sometimes throws me out. He wants me to make my plane back. He doesn't want me to stress."
The hideous Durst stories we've read do not seem to jibe with this man she knows.
"This isn't the man I know. The man I know is very funny. With dry humor. A man I had common interests with. We talked real estate, we shared friends, we traveled. We had two bicycles. We biked together.
"I ran the marathon in '95. The man I know was so proud that he took the subway and met me every 3 miles. Runners don't stop to talk. It's just ‘hi,' a kiss, then ‘bye,' but you know what that means when you're running 27 miles?
"Now I send him cards and pictures every day so he'll get mail. He says, ‘I don't know what I'd do without you.' He totally trusts me. He gives me jobs because many things he can't handle under his circumstances and no matter how busy or what I'm going through, I do them."
Behind dark glasses to hide the tears, Debrah Charatan said: "Look, if this ends up that he goes away, everyone who's around him now will also go away. There'll only be one person standing. I'll be the only one left. And don't think he doesn't know that.
"I can't just tell him, ‘Bye now.' I'm loyal. I am not going to let him down."
© CINDY ADAMS 2003
