Robert Durst

Robert Durst, left, sits in a courtroom during a pre-trial hearing in 2003 at the Galveston County Courthouse in Galveston, Texas. Durst is the subject of an HBO documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst," premiering Sunday at 8 p.m. on HBO. (AP File Photo)

(AP File Photo)

Millionaire Lehigh University graduate Robert Durst was wanted for murder in 2001 when he returned to Bethlehem to revisit his old haunts.

His time on the lam ended when he strolled into the Wegmans in Hanover Township, Northampton County, and tried to steal a hoagie, one Band-Aid and a newspaper. Durst had $500 in his pocket when he was arrested. The items he tried to steal cost less than $10.

The scion of a high-profile New York real estate family, Durst did not make his mark in skyscrapers like his father. Instead over the last 30 years, he has been a suspect in three murders, making headlines due to his bizarre behavior.

At 8 p.m. on Sunday, HBO will air the first installment of "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst," a six-episode documentary made with Durst's cooperation.

Shortly before the release of Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerlin's 2010 film "All Good Things," a loosely fictionalized account of Durst's life, Durst contacted Jarecki, according to the filmmaker. Durst asked to see the film, liked it and agreed to be interviewed.

The HBO series whittles down 25 hours of interviews with Durst, now 71. And it delves into court documents and includes interviews with more than 100 people. Smerling and Jarecki researched the film for a decade, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The filmmakers had so much material they decided to dole it out in six parts, hoping binge-watching TV viewers will like the episodic style. Many have been comparing it and recommending it for fans of the wildly popular true-crime podcast "Serial."

"The story is so operatic," Jarecki said in an interview with the Associated Press. "That's what's so fascinating to me -- seeing someone who is born to such privilege and years later is living in a $300-a-month rooming house in Galveston, Texas, disguised as a mute woman."

Viewers may question why Durst is putting himself out for public scrutiny. Jarecki told The Wall Street Journal he thinks Durst wanted to break his long silence and be seen as more than a tabloid caricature. Jarecki also speculated that he hungers for infamy.

"He gets off on the feeling of danger," Jarecki told The Journal. "I think he first called me because he wants that feeling again, of being on the run from the police, of being in trouble and maybe going to jail."

The Durst family did not cooperate with the documentary, although Durst's estranged brother Douglas Durst was interviewed by The New York Times. He told the newspaper he thinks the series is rooted in an unreliable source and that he fears his brother will kill him.

"Bob is incapable of telling the truth," Douglas Durst told the newspaper. "He is a true psychopath, beyond any emotions. That's why he does things, so he can experience the emotions that other people have vicariously. Because he has absolutely none of his own."

Douglas Durst has called into question whether his brother paid the filmmakers to make the series, which Jarecki strongly denies.

"As much as Doug Durst would like people to think we're making a propaganda piece, I think the reason that he's upset is because we're not," he said.

While Robert Durst has only been charged in one murder, and acquitted of those charges, a cloud of suspicion has followed him for the last three decades.

Durst's first wife Kathleen was 29 when she disappeared in 1982, shortly before she was to graduate from medical school. She spent the weekend at the family's lakeside cottage in South Salem, New York, before vanishing.

Durst told police the couple had planned a divorce and he had last seen her on the night of Jan. 31, 1982 leaving on a train bound for Manhattan. The case stagnated when Durst stopped cooperating with the missing-person investigation.

When the investigation was revived in 2000, Durst fled New York and moved to Galveston where he rented an apartment posing as a mute woman.

Police planned to interview Durst's longtime friend and Los Angeles writer Susan Berman about the case but then she was found murdered, execution-style, on Christmas Eve 2000. No one has been charged in her murder.

When Durst was arrested in Bethlehem, he was on the run after being charged with

Robert Durst is shown in his Nov. 30, 2001, booking photo after his arrest at the Wegman's in Hanover Township, Northampton County.

the Galveston, Texas, murder of his 71-year-old neighbor Morris Black. On Sept. 30, a young boy found a "decapitated and dismembered torso floating along a shore along the area of Galveston Bay," according to FBI records. Plastic garbage bags containing arms and legs were also recovered in the area.

A jury acquitted Durst of Black's murder after he testified he acted in self-defense during a fight over a gun, The Wall Street Journal reports. Durst claimed he panicked and sawed Black's body apart. Durst still served more than three years in jail on bail-jumping and other charges.

Jarecki promises by the end of the documentary series that viewers will be able to decide if Durst is guilty or innocent.

"I did come to a firm conclusion" about Durst's guilt or innocence, he said. "When you watch the six episodes, I think you'll get to the end and you'll know what happened."

Durst amassed his fortune through a trust fund set up by his father, the late Seymour Durst, who later removed Durst as successor, selecting his brother Douglas Durst. In 2006, Durst was awarded $65 million of his family fortune by settling a lawsuit with his brother, The New York Times reports.

Durst currently lives in Texas and owns a Harlem townhouse. He was arrested in Houston last summer and charged with urinating on a rack of candy in a pharmacy, according to The New York Times.

He was recently acquitted on charges of trespassing on Durst family property. Thirteen of Durst's relatives have protection orders against him, according to the Times.

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@express-times.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo. Find Bethlehem news on Facebook.