The upcoming trial, which could last as long as five months, is expected to refocus the media spotlight on the long, complicated story of Mr. Durst, once considered the heir apparent to a vast New York real estate empire. Already, NBC’s Dateline, ABC’s 20/20 and CNN Headline News are planning episodes.

The police in Los Angeles found Ms. Berman’s body in 2000 after neighbors notified them that her back door was ajar and her terriers were running free. There was no sign of forced entry. Nothing had been taken, and no fingerprints or DNA were found from the killer.

Prosecutors contend that Mr. Durst killed Ms. Berman because he feared that she was about to tell the authorities what she knew about the 1982 disappearance and murder of Mr. Durst’s first wife, Kathie McCormack Durst, in New York, five months before she would have graduated from medical school.

Ms. Berman, who friends say was fiercely loyal to Mr. Durst, was his spokeswoman and media adviser at the time. Prosecutors and witnesses say she also made a critical call while posing as Kathie Durst that redirected New York police detectives away from the actual crime scene and hobbled the investigation.

The “cadaver note” that arrived at the Beverly Hills police department became a key piece of evidence in Ms. Berman’s death. After clearing various suspects, the Los Angeles police got a court order in 2002 for handwriting samples from Mr. Durst to compare with the block lettering on the note.

By then, Mr. Durst was in jail in Galveston, Texas, charged with the killing and dismembering of Morris Black, a man who had lived across the hall from him. The two men became friendly after Mr. Durst left New York in 2000, when the authorities reopened the investigation into his wife’s disappearance.

Mr. Durst testified during the trial in 2003 that he and Mr. Black had struggled over Mr. Durst’s gun. As they fell to the floor, the gun went off, Mr. Durst said. He told the jury that he had resorted to dismemberment because he thought no one would believe it was self-defense. The jury acquitted him.