HBO Subject Robert Durst Arrested in Cold Case Murder of California Friend

Westchester native Robert Durst, whose strange tale is the subject of an HBO documentary, has been arrested for one of the two suspicious deaths linked to his name.

• SEE: HBO Runs ‘Harrowing Con Man Doc’ about Westchester’s Robert Durst

Robert Durst, the real-estate heir who killed and cut up a neighbor in Texas in 2001 and is suspected of murdering his wife in 1982 in Bedford, has been arrested in connection with the execution-style death of a friend in California in 2000.

Susan Berman died as New York State Police and Westchester County officials sought to question her about the disappearance of Durst’s wife, Kathie.

She was found Christmas Eve 2000 dead from a single gunshot to the head. Police said there was no sign of forced entry.

According to the LA Times, information in last week’s episode of the documentary presented new evidence, and officials acted. He was arrested yesterday in New Orleans.

Reporter Jon Bandler of The Journal News, who has covered the strange story of Robert Durst for years, noted in his article on the documentary that Durst admits lying to police about his wife’s disappearance from their weekend lakefront home in South Salem.

Though her family has long insisted that Durst murdered her, he was never charged.

In the one death he has stood trial for so far, he cited self-defense (successfully—he was acquitted) as his reason for shooting elderly Morris Black, cutting him into pieces and throwing the body parts into Galveston Bay. Before that trial, he jumped bail, touching off a national manhunt that ended when he was caught shoplifting a sandwich (he had $520 in his pocket and $37,000 in the car, as well as Black’s driver’s license).

Durst was again in court in 2014—in Texas where he took a plea deal after he urinated on a counterful of candy bars and a cash register while picking up a prescription at a CVS, and in New York City—where he was acquitted of trespassing at his estranged relatives’ residences and the judge vacated the orders of protection they had against him.

Durst’s lawyer, Chip Lewis, told ABC News after the 72-year-old’s arrest that they would waive the extradition process and fight the charges in court in Los Angeles.

The final installment of the HBO documentary airs tonight.

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