Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles judge on Sunday postponed the murder trial of multimillionaire New York real estate heir Robert Durst for three weeks over fears of the transmission of the novel coronavirus.

Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham announced that the trial, which had been underway for six days and is expected to take five months, will stand adjourned until April 6.

On Friday, Windham had established a plan to have the 12 jurors and 12 alternates in the case use gallery seats to sit apart from one another in an effort to avoid virus transmission. But before the plan could be enacted, he decided to delay the proceedings instead.

DURST TRIAL: Los Angeles case was born in Scarsdale

The head judge in Los Angeles County has recommended that all trials in the county be delayed for 30 days where it is legally possible, and has ordered that no new jurors be summoned for the same period.

Durst, a 76-year-old Scarsdale native, is on trial for the killing of his friend Susan Berman in her home in December 2000. Prosecutors argued in opening statements that Durst shot Berman because she knew Durst had killed his wife, Kathie, who disappeared 38 years ago.

Durst has claimed that he took his wife to the Katonah train station on the night of Jan. 31, 1982, the night she went missing and never saw her again.

He has denied killing either woman, though his lawyers have acknowledged that he wrote a note directing police to Berman's body. They claimed in opening statements that Durst went to Berman's home, found her dead and ran off in a panic.

The long-awaited trial had been in the works for five years, since Durst's arrest in the case on the eve of the airing of the final episode of "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst."

The HBO documentary included interviews with Durst that helped lead to his being charged.