opinion

Reisman: Even for a killer, Bobby Durst is creepy

In the pantheon of killer creeps, Robert Durst ranks among the creepiest.

Durst has never been convicted of murder, but he is a killer.

He copped to killing a guy named Morris Black in Galveston, Texas, and, in fact, chopped the body into bits and fed the pieces of bloody flesh to the fishes in the Gulf of Mexico, but a gullible jury bought the idea it was in self-defense. And so Durst walked.

We'll never forget the sheer, unadulterated creepiness of that episode. That's the one where Durst dressed up in a wig and a dress, used a stolen name and was arrested in Pennsylvania after shoplifting a sandwich.

One way or another, Durst, 71, has been connected with the deaths or presumed deaths of at least six people — including his wife, Kathie, who disappeared in 1982. That's six people and counting. Detectives in every state have been urged to re-examine their cold case files because who knows, maybe Bobby Durst had something to do with it. He is a usual suspect.

This is an old truth: Getting away with murder is quite possible in America if you're a multimillionaire with the means to hire whip-smart lawyers who know how to enlarge any shadow of doubt. When it comes to evading justice, Durst has O.J. beat by far.

But now, at long last, it looks like they finally got him — thanks to the HBO documentary series, "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst," which turned up some pretty damning handwriting evidence linking Durst to the execution-style murder of his close friend, Susan Berman. This came up in the final episode of the series, which wouldn't have happened without Durst's cooperation.

And then there was the dramatic piece de resistance.

Not realizing that his microphone was still on after an interview, Durst started talking to himself in the bathroom. By the way, Durst was infamous for mumbling, growling and saying weird stuff out loud when no one was around. It was part of his oddball repertoire.

"There it is," he said. "You're caught. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course." You know what? The little creep should've given himself a Miranda warning.

Durst was arrested in New Orleans on March 14, and ever since it's been all Durst, all the time.

Earlier this week I talked to Ellen Strauss, a Connecticut attorney, a friend and confidante of Kathie Durst who was convinced Bobby killed her and pressed investigators to keep after him. She was an on-camera source in "The Jinx" and was portrayed as a heroic voice in the wilderness in Matt Birkbeck's captivating 2002 book, "A Deadly Secret: The Strange Disappearance of Kathie Durst."

Strauss said that since the HBO series aired, she's gotten 300 media inquiries, both for TV and print.

"I'm just trying to catch my breath," she said. "I think I did 21 shows in three days. In one day, I was at CNN three times."

For all her work, Strauss could've been a detective. The stack of notes and documents she's collected over the years on Durst is more than five feet high, she figures.

She knew Susan Berman, but not well. "I thought she was very high-maintenance, arrogant, very gossipy," Strauss said.

Berman and Bobby were very close, like soul mates, except there was no romance between them.

Nobody knows for sure, but it's possible that Berman knew the fate of Kathie Durst. In any event, she acted as an unofficial spokesperson for Bobby after Kathie disappeared, telling the press how heartbroken he was.

When the case went cold, Berman dropped out of the news.

Almost 20 years passed before the case was reopened, thanks to the dogged detective work of state police Investigator Joseph Becerra, who concentrated his search for evidence at the Durst home in South Salem.

In November 2000, Strauss had collected information on Berman's whereabouts in California, urging then-Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro to find and question her.

"I knew she had information," Strauss said. "If they really wanted to open up the Kathie Durst case, that's who they had to talk to."

Only they didn't.

Strauss lays the blame on Pirro, who is now a Fox TV personality. "She basically said that the general public, meaning me, didn't know how the police work."

Less than a month later, Berman was found dead in her Beverly Hills home. She was shot in the head.

When she heard the news, Strauss said, "my knees buckled."

Strauss believes Bobby murdered Berman just to "mop up loose ends. I think he just wanted to be sure that she wouldn't say anything.

"You know two people can keep a secret if one is dead, as my grandmother used to say."

Email: preisman@lohud.com Twitter: @philreisman