He Killed Them All Read online

  Between 1995 and 2000, Debrah was the only person in New York who had a bead on him. She was, it seemed, the only person in the world he trusted—including Susan Berman.

  I said, “You know, his wife is missing. Susan Berman was murdered. And he chopped up a guy in Texas.”

  She said, “Yeah. I’m not afraid of him at all.”

  “What’d you do for Christmas?” I asked. Susan was killed on December 23.

  She said, “We don’t celebrate Christmas.”

  “What’d you do for Hanukkah?”

  “I don’t really remember.”

  I said, “What’d you do for New Year’s Eve?”

  “I was probably in the Hamptons. He was wherever.”

  “You don’t know where your husband spent New Year’s Eve, and you’d only been married for a few weeks?”

  She shrugged.

  “Where did you go on your honeymoon?”

  “We didn’t go on a honeymoon,” she replied.

  “Well, that’s weird,” I said. “It’s not like he didn’t have the money to afford it.”

  “Look,” she said. “I’m a businesswoman. I have a business to run. I have a lot of other things going on.”

  “Okay,” I said. She got me there. “So you get married, you don’t go on a honeymoon, you don’t spend Hanukkah or New Year’s together. Are you guys living together? Did you consummate the marriage?”

  Before she could answer that gruesome question, a man came into the room. He introduced himself. “Steve Rabinowitz. She’s represented by counsel. No more questions.” The receptionist must have called in the lawyer. It didn’t take him long to get there.

  With Rabinowitz there, the flash-your-badge routine wouldn’t work.

  I tried to schmooze Rabinowitz a little bit. He was a decent guy, a former Manhattan prosecutor. “She’s got nothing to hide. Why does she need a lawyer?” I asked. “Just talk to me. I just want to get some dates.”

  Nothing doing. Rabinowitz started making noises about asking us to leave.

  I could tell by Debrah’s voice that she was a smoker. I was a smoker then, too. I said, “Where can we have a cigarette?”

  Apparently, she was jonesing for one, and she took me out onto the fire escape to light up. The two of us—in our skirts and heels—climbed out the window. I tried to get more out of her. I asked again about their living situation and their intimate relationship, but she danced around the details. From her expressions, though, it was obvious that she wasn’t a real wife and theirs wasn’t a real marriage. She was a front, a beard.

  “Forget about Kathie and Susan,” I said. “At the very least, your husband chopped up a man. Police who saw the body believe it wasn’t the first time. You’re dealing with a very hardened person here. Aren’t you afraid of him?”

  She blew out smoke. “Absolutely not.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would you stay with Robert after what he’s done?”

  “You’re a stand-up woman,” she said. “You stood by your man.”

  It was one of those moments in time where you’re kind of depersonalized. You come out of yourself and you look down at these two women talking on the fire escape.

  She was equating my loyalty to Al, the father of my children, with her loyalty to Robert Durst?

  I said, “My husband never laid his hand on me or anybody else.” For the record, I stayed with Al because I believe in family. I’m old-fashioned that way. Al was a great father, a great provider, and a decent, wonderful man. There was a difference between an accountant’s screwup and dismembering a human.

  “Well, I’m not afraid of him and I’ll take him back.”

  I think she was comfortable talking to me and would have gone further. But by the time we finished our cigarettes, her lawyer had gotten paper. “She’s done talking,” he said.

  The conversation had reached an end, unless I could pull a fast one. “She’s a material witness in Galveston,” I replied. “We get one day with her or we charge her with hindering prosecution and send her to Texas.”

  “Spousal privilege.”

  Let me break into the story to explain what spousal privilege is. People think it means you can’t be forced to say anything bad about your husband. If he stole the cookies from the cookie jar, you wouldn’t be compelled to tell the judge you found him with chocolate on his fingers. No. Spousal immunity has to do with testimony. If Debrah actually saw Robert do something, she cannot deny it or rely on privilege to protect herself or him. What is protected: what he says to her about what he’s done.

  That’s why it’s called “testimonial immunity.”

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Everybody thinks they’re a fucking genius because they watch Law & Order.

  Including Durst. I believe he married her to protect his assets and so she couldn’t say what she knew about Kathie, Susan, and Morris Black. The only thing she didn’t have to reveal was what he said to her. But they’d been pals for a long time. She must have seen something. If Debrah had any insight into what happened with Kathie or Susan based on what she’d seen, she could have been compelled to testify or plead the fifth.

  Steve Rabinowitz and I worked out a deal. He wanted “Queen for a Day” immunity. Nothing she said that day could be used to prosecute her.

  I agreed and went back and forth with my office, getting the paperwork done. It took about thirty minutes and a lot of faxing to get it together. Debrah agreed and signed the agreement. We all sat back down in her office and I said, “Okay, when was the last time you spoke with him?”

  Rabinowitz said, “Spousal privilege.”

  You could have blown me over with a feather.

  I said, “Prove it.” I wanted to see a marriage license before I took that on faith.

  Debrah produced the marriage certificate. It was legitimate. My team would get their hands on the durable power of attorney she and Durst signed that same day, too, also legit.

  I said, “Without saying what he told you, when’s the last time you spoke to him?”

  “A few days ago.”

  “Where did he call you from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Give me your phone numbers.” We would get the records and find out where he’d placed the call.

  We went over the details about the wedding. The rabbi’s assistant had been the only witness. No family, no friends. It had all the passion of a business meeting, which was what it was.

  I asked, “Do you have normal sex with your husband?” The consummation question. This time, she had to answer.

  “We’ve been together for a long time,” she said.

  Vague. I repeated the question.

  “We never really lived together, but we’ve been together for thirteen years.”

  I took a different tack. “Do you have a sister? Any good friends, really good friends? I have a really good friend, Connie Cappelli. She knows everything about me.” I hoped to get the name of someone else we could interview, or make her feel as if she could confide in me like a friend.

  She said, “My sister and I don’t talk.”

  “Well, isn’t there someone in your life who would know where you were? And whether he was with you? Or who might have said to you, ‘Why aren’t you with your husband at Hanukkah and New Year’s?’ Or didn’t you tell anyone about the marriage?”

  She said, “It really wasn’t anyone’s business.”

  Debrah Lee Charatan was in our sights, and I would not forget how she’d helped him get out of jail in Texas. I walked out of her office feeling that Debrah was a very hard woman. I hoped for her sake she was as tough as she needed to be to survive in Durst’s orbit.

  I believed then that Debrah Lee Charatan knew what Robert did to Kathie.

  I also believed that she didn’t care what had happened to Susan Berman.

  In fact, sources would say that the two women didn’t get along. I understood why the hippie California writer and the fashionable New York bro
ker weren’t the best of friends.

  But Susan had been very close to Robert once. Both Kathie and Susan died because Robert’s love turned on its head. Debrah Lee Charatan would be wise to remember that.

  He married her because he needed someone to watch and control his money if he got arrested for the murder he was already planning to commit in California. Whatever she got in return for protecting him was worth it to her. Susan Berman must have thought the same thing.

  If Debrah Lee Charatan were a vault, she’d be Fort Knox. Her secrets, and Robert’s, were safe.

  For the time being.

  NINE |

  | ROBERT DURST, FUGITIVE

  Durst or his mouthpieces once described my reopening of the investigation of Kathie’s disappearance as a “witch hunt.” After Durst jumped bail on October 16, 2001 (as he said in The Jinx, “Good-bye, $250,000. Good-bye, jail. I’m out!”), the witch hunt was upgraded to a nationwide manhunt. The dragnet was on.

  Durst had been on the run for the better part of a week before I even got down to Texas. If I had known of his arrest before bail was set, I would have warned the DA in Galveston of his enormous resources so he could ask the court to simply remand him.

  While all of us were in Galveston, Durst was actually holed up in a Residence Inn in Mobile, Alabama. The day he failed to show up for his arraignment, he rented a blood-red ’96 Chevy Corsica, paying in cash and using Morris Black’s driver’s license on the paperwork.

  Over the course of the next five weeks, Durst went on an exhausting road trip.

  Tips flowed in from all over. A former neighbor spotted Durst in Northern California. A landlord in New Orleans called police to say that “Diane Winn,” the mute woman he’d been renting to, might have been Durst in another wig. Cody went to New Orleans and confirmed that Winn was in fact Durst. Robert cleaned out that apartment—one of his many—well before Cody got to it. He left behind some old utility bills; a VHS of Vanished, the ABC show about Kathie’s disappearance; Diane Winn’s wig (which was partially burned); and the silver medallion and key chain with David Berman’s name engraved in them that was bequeathed to him by Susan and given to him by Sareb. He discarded Susan Berman’s most treasured possession like garbage. That’s how much he cared about his best friend’s memory.

  I have to give Robert Durst credit for his ability to disappear himself. I underestimated his talent for staying off the radar screen. It would come out eventually that he’d rented apartments in New Orleans; Miami; San Francisco; Dallas; Ridgefield, Connecticut; and Belmont, New York. He lived well in some places, and in squalor in others—even in the same town. He stayed at the luxury San Luis Resort in Galveston when he wasn’t at the flophouse on Avenue K.

  The guy likes to keep his options open.

  He eluded the FBI for forty-five days. But then, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, his cheapness got the best of him. Ironically, the day Durst was arrested he was featured on America’s Most Wanted. The show had flown Cody to Washington, D.C., for a live broadcast and tip line. Durst was arrested while Cody was on the air.

  Ro buzzed that Clem and John had some Durst news. Walking in, John said, “You won’t believe this.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Durst got arrested in Pennsylvania for stealing a sandwich.”

  Before I could make a declarative statement, John said, “I got odds, Boss. What’s it going to be today? ‘Fuckin A’ or ‘son of a bitch’?”

  He and Clem grinned at me, waiting for me to respond.

  “MOTHERFUCKER!” I screamed. “You both lose.”

  I told Ro to call James and tell him to get ready to take me to Pennsylvania. (And, no, I did not select him as my driver so that I could say “Home, James.”)

  The next day, the team—investigator O’Donnell, troopers Becerra and Chimento, and forensic investigator Thomas Martin—headed west to Pennsylvania. It took three hours to get there.

  Along the way, we got more details by phone about what happened and how the fugitive who eluded an FBI dragnet for six weeks was brought down.

  On November 30, 2001, a week after Thanksgiving, Durst went into a Wegmans supermarket in Bethlehem. He looked like any other disheveled old man in a windbreaker and sneakers, but kind of weird, with a shaved head and eyebrows. He took a few Band-Aids out of a box, put some in his pocket, unwrapped one, and stuck it under his nose, Hitler-mustache style. He grabbed a newspaper and selected a chicken salad sandwich on a roll. He concealed the sandwich in the newspaper. Then he shuffled out of the store without paying. Total boosted merchandise: $9.18.

  Store security guard Kay Millimaci stopped him in the parking lot. She asked for ID and Robert said he had identification in his glove box and that he would go to his vehicle and get it. Instinct warned her not to go to the car with Durst, and to bring him back to the store to wait for the police. Good call. Later, when the car was searched, a loaded .38 was found in the glove box. Cody is certain that, had Millimaci gone to the car with Robert, he would have tried to shoot his way out of there.

  Dean Brenner, the arresting officer, showed up and asked Durst some questions.

  Brenner: “Why did you steal the sandwich?”

  Durst: “I don’t know. I’m an asshole.” Finally Durst speaks the truth.

  Brenner: “Where are you from?”

  Durst: “New York.”

  Brenner: “Why are you in the Lehigh Valley?”

  Durst: “I’m visiting my daughter at Lehigh University.”

  Of course, Robert did not have a daughter. It was just another of his lies.

  Brenner explained that, since Robert was from out of state, he had to be brought down to the station to pay his fine. So he handcuffed him and searched him for weapons, finding $523 in his pocket. Brenner took Durst to the Colonial Regional Police Headquarters. Durst gave Brenner his Social Security number, a different one than he’d given to Millimaci at Wegmans. Brenner phoned in the info to Northampton County dispatch and, in moments, got a call back asking for verification. From the police report by Brenner: “Dispatch then told me that Robert Durst was wanted in Galveston, Texas, for murder. I asked him, ‘When was the last time you were in Texas?’ The color ran from his face and with a dead stare, he replied only, ‘I want a lawyer.’ ”

  Durst didn’t show much emotion, except when he got out of his chair and banged his head against the wall. Another smart move on his part.

  If I were on the lam, avoiding a murder warrant, and was arrested for stealing a sandwich, I’d probably bang my head against the wall, too.

  So why did Durst give his real name and number?

  He’d lived in five different states and routinely, comfortably, used dozens of aliases. But he just loved to scatter those bread crumbs.

  Pennsylvania police sealed the car and impounded it. Since it was a Texas case there would be no unsealing or execution of the search warrant until Cody and Lieutenant Walter Braun arrived from Texas. They did so on December 5. Both my office and the New York State Police offered to help process the evidence so the Texans wouldn’t have to bring cameras and search equipment. I remember the day—there were people all over, Pennsylvania cops, New York cops, Texas cops, the media. The media, however, were kept at bay and not allowed near the garage. Like everything else in this case, the anticipation was building. What might be in that red Corsica that was rented from Rent-A-Wreck in Alabama, using the license of a dead man? Everybody was ready for anything. It was a treasure trove of proof that Robert Durst was a devious, diabolical, dangerous man. Cody took one hundred photographs of evidence.

  Here is some of what was found:

  • Guns and ammo. Two .38 caliber revolvers and a box of bullets were in the glove compartment.

  • Pot. Robert Durst goes nowhere without his weed, putting peace-loving potheads to shame. He had a baggie with over two ounces and, as always, a few rolled joints.

  • Smokes. His ever-present Marlboro Lights.

  • Cash. Along with the $523 in his p
ocket, Durst had $36,800 in $100 bills—enough to buy five thousand chicken salad sandwiches!—in envelopes in the trunk. The police dog got a hit on the cash, a positive reaction for drugs.

  • A spiral notebook. He must have sat in that car, making his lists and scribbling his notes with his green pens for hours at a time. Some choice excerpts: “I live to eat. The other things are just to get thru the day.” Interesting, since Metamucil packets were found in Galveston, Citrucil in Pennsylvania, and also a note to buy syrup of ipecac (induces vomiting)—either this guy has some weird gastrointestinal problem or he was worried about his figure. More disturbing was the note written in green ink: “What DD is doing to me, puts me in the same place, as what Kathy did to me.” Putting aside the ominous threat to DD (Douglas), Robert misspelled his own wife’s nickname! It’s Kathie, not Kathy. But, as we know from “Beverley,” spelling wasn’t Robert’s forte. Or maybe he is dyslexic.

  • Green pens. As always, lots of them.

  • A calendar. It was a formatted page in the spiral notebook. He’d circled in green ink the dates November 11, 2000 (the day of the press leak), the 13th (when he called Susan Berman in California about the coverage), the 15th (when he rented the apartment on Avenue K as Dorothy Ciner’s friend), December 8, 2001 (three days before the wedding to Debrah; did he have a meeting with lawyers about power of attorney, perhaps?), the 23rd (the day Susan was murdered), and July 25 (the day ABC aired Vanished). All green-letter days, for sure.

  • Stolen IDs. He had Morris Black’s driver’s license and Medicare card, and a Fleet Bank Visa under the name Emilio Vignoni.

  • Real IDs. He had his own driver’s license, an American Express Platinum card, and a Bank of America Visa card with his real name.

  • Photos. Tons of them from childhood, shots of Kathie, wedding pictures, and—the best one—an awesome photo of Debrah Lee Charatan with big eighties hair. It must have been from around the time they met.

  • Hotel receipts and stationery. He kept all his receipts . . . for tax purposes? He kept random notes, many of them just scribbles.