He Killed Them All Page 20

  What corroborates this business about Pirro? You heard me cross-examine the Pennsylvania officer at the car search. I asked, “You know what? She didn’t break a nail in that search, did she? She didn’t really pop out into a sweat while you were searching the car?” [He said] no. She was there for a photo op. She was there in her limousine with her driver to get on television. One of the officers actually testified she was in TV makeup. She is there at the extradition hearing in Pennsylvania to get on TV again. She even comes to Galveston to get on television. She has got no case. There’s no case pending, never has, never will be. That is what started this whole chain of events here, a woman getting on television for whatever reason she has to get on television, whatever drives those kind of people who are media hungry to get on television, to get into the newspapers, and to cause this whole thing to start, to drive Bob Durst out of New York, to drive him into hiding, to drive him to not wanting to be Robert Durst, to want to be someone else, to be the person that you have seen in court.

  [The prosecution is] married to the position that he did it as a part of a cool, calculated, well-planned, orchestrated event. Now you believe that, you know, we can sell you a bridge in New York. [The murder] just happened that way. Now, it is tragic and Bob has expressed regret for it. He said, “If I just hadn’t left the gun in the apartment, then none of that would’ve happened.”

  If Ms. Pirro had kept her mouth shut, none of this would have happened.

  The hate that came from Ramsey’s mouth in his final argument was not unfamiliar to me. Insecure people of his generation could be so uncomfortable with a younger woman in a position of power that they were reduced to criticism of the lowest kind. His moral compass is clearly lacking an arrow.

  I laughed with pure incredulity while watching this on Court TV. For any judge to allow that bile to be heard by the jury was an outrage.

  What does “popping a sweat” conjure up in your mind? Maybe a woman having sex?

  How about “breaking a nail”? Maybe a woman doesn’t have a brain, she’s just out there trying to look pretty?

  My alleged TV makeup? Are you kidding? When I showed up in Pennsylvania, I was scrub-faced. But even if I had had on an inch of makeup, what did that have to do with Morris Black’s murder?

  And the “limousine” comment. Since when is a government Tahoe a limousine? The L-word was code for a rich woman riding around on her high horse. Come on! Virtually every DA has an unmarked police car.

  Ramsey’s whole speech was sexist and offensive. A man calling for a woman to “keep her mouth shut,” to be mute like Dorothy Ciner, or silenced like Kathie and Susan Berman? It was hate speech. No judge I know would have ever allowed that.

  And it was irrelevant! What did my arrival in Galveston in October or in Pennsylvania in December have to do with Durst’s “righteous shooting,” as Ramsey loved to say, in September?

  The trial was a charade! It was upside-down justice.

  I remember thinking at the time: The jury will never buy that.

  But they did.

  They bought it all. They believed the unsupported, unproven story that the dream team of DeGuerin, Ramsey, and Lewis spooled out for them.

  Many judges are consumed by the idea that they don’t want any of their cases to be reversed. They fret about wrongful convictions, especially in the DNA era. Insecure and inadequate judges don’t worry about wrongful acquittals. To preserve their records and prevent reversals, they’d rather bend over backward in favor of the defendant, even facilitate a murderer going free, than seek truth and justice in their courtrooms.

  Lady Justice was turned on her head in Galveston. She wasn’t only wearing a blindfold. She was in chains.

  THE JURY.

  Dear God.

  Those eight women and four men were an egg carton full of stupid.

  After deliberating for twenty-six hours over five days, they decided unanimously that Durst murdered Black in self-defense because he was afraid of me. The defense story was tailor-made for gun-loving, stand-your-ground Texans. Durst said he found Black trespassing in his apartment. By all means, shoot the bastard.

  Unbelievable.

  The jurors gave a press conference after the acquittal. In a room packed with reporters, one juror, Deborah Warren, a surgical technician who worked at a hospital delivering babies, admitted that the deliberations gave her agita. “People cried. People fussed and argued. We had paper all around the room. My stomach is still knotted up.” The jury voted a few times before reaching their unanimous decision. “The prosecutors did the best that they could with what they had. We did the best that we could with what we had,” Warren said. “I wouldn’t ask him to escort my daughter to her senior prom. [But] Durst isn’t the only crazy person in Galveston.”

  You can say that again, lady.

  Just look in the mirror.

  The juror who seemed to be most terrified of “Jeanine Py-ro” was Joanne Gongora, the one singled out by name by the defense. This woman ran a consulting firm for nursing malpractice lawsuits. She knew just enough of the law to be truly dangerous. She said, “The burden is on the prosecution to show how the event happened, and we didn’t see that. It wasn’t proven. Based on the evidence presented to us, there was reasonable doubt. It was a big struggle for all of us.” She said then—and she’s been saying it ever since, on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show on The Jinx—that she related to Durst’s panicked reaction. “I could understand his panic. I could understand his life,” she said at the press conference.

  How could some middle-age, middle-income woman begin to understand Robert Durst’s life? How could she relate to him in any way, shape, or form?

  Another genius, a juror named Robbie Clarac, a business manager, told the press room that Robert Durst’s four days on the witness stand were taken with a pound of salt by the jury. They knew he was a liar, and yet they set him free. “We took Durst’s story completely out of the picture,” he said. “We took the evidence that was presented to us. We went on the facts that were presented to us. Based on the evidence, it wasn’t there. We could not convict him.”

  So let me get this straight. He knew Durst was lying on the stand. He knew he’d killed and chopped up Black. He knew he fled. And yet he couldn’t find him guilty. Nice reward!

  I needed a forklift to get my jaw off the floor.

  Once again, I could only cringe at the irony of this circus. The jurors who were so turned off by the media-thirsty creature Jeanine Py-ro proceeded to make the rounds on various TV shows, local and national, after the verdict. Deborah Warren, Joanne Gongora, and Chris Lovell are still doing it, and sticking with their stories despite everything we know now about Durst and his lawyers.

  Can’t you just imagine Joanne Gongora getting all gussied up, putting on her best red lipstick, pulling out her curlers, for her debut on the Today show? She told Matt Lauer, “The public can’t get over the shock and horror of the dismemberment. The charge we had to determine was how Morris Black died. Was it intentional or was it an act of self-defense? The dismemberment and the bond jumping all came later. It was the actual act of what occurred in the apartment . . . that one moment in time. And, so, based on the evidence that was presented to us, there was reasonable doubt.”

  There is no reasonable doubt that she and the other idiots of the jury were influenced by the judge, impressed by Durst’s wealth, and wowed by his defense.

  I previously mentioned that one juror, Warren, said that it seemed like the prosecution didn’t put in much effort. But the defense pulled out all the stops.

  Was she serious? Durst paid millions for all those bells and whistles and the full table of stuffed-shirt lawyers. Her tax dollars paid for Sistrunk and Bennett. Financially, the prosecution was outmatched. And she faulted them for it.

  To this day, I’m convinced that something untoward was going on. One juror in particular came under serious scrutiny. Chris Lovell appeared on The Jinx, grinning and recalling what must have been the most exciti
ng time in his entire life. I imagine the whole jury felt important to be a part of it. They were small people from a small town. They looked at Durst and DeGuerin and thought, These are rich, powerful, famous people. They’re paying attention to me. Making eye contact with me. They make me feel important and powerful, too. The jurors felt not just an allegiance—“We’re friends!”—but as if they owed the defense something. And they gave it to them.

  Lovell was smitten with Robert Durst. Warren told the press that the jury demonstrated (more theater!) different scenarios for how the gun went off. I would bet my eyes that Chris Lovell played Durst. When the trial ended, Lovell wasn’t ready to leave the circus. He just had to prolong his proximity to power and wealth.

  So he started visiting Durst in prison. He claimed it was to prove to himself that Durst was innocent. You’d think he could put his own mind to rest after, say, one or two visits. But he went back, for a third, fourth, and fifth time. He brought his wife to meet Durst in prison.

  Recently, I spoke to a sheriff’s investigator in Galveston, Randy Burrows, who monitored Durst’s visitations in jail. “Lovell’s visits started right after the acquittal in 2003,” he said. “When Judge Criss got wind of Lovell’s visits (from a bailiff and a corrections officer), she brought it to our attention and expressed her concern. We opened an investigation into whether money exchanged hands,” said Randy. “During those visits, Durst and Lovell sat face to face with a panel of glass between them. They spoke through a speaker, and we recorded those conversations. It was obvious to me that Chris was trying to become friends and attach himself to Durst to get some money out of it. Durst picked up on that and was very careful how he talked to Chris. Their conversations reminded me of a younger child trying to become friends with an older child.”

  Lovell kissed Robert’s ass. “He was flattering to Durst. Buttering him up,” said Randy. “He admired his wealth and asked questions about how he obtained it.”

  Was Lovell not paying attention for the six weeks of the trial? Durst was born rich. He obtained nothing on his own.

  Back to Randy. “Durst was apprehensive. He was willing to talk to Chris, but he didn’t give up anything.”

  A month or so after his flurry of prison visits, as Randy recalled, “Durst was renting a house in [nearby] League City. I was told that an alarm went off at the house. Durst was in jail, and obviously not there. Police responded to the alarm and they found Chris Lovell. He was living there. He might have been working on the property.”

  I also heard from a source that the Lovells vacationed with Durst in Mexico.

  While the investigation never resulted in any charges against Lovell, as far as I’m concerned, that man should’ve been locked up in a cell right next to his idol.

  AFTER THE ACQUITTAL, I really felt for the prosecutors. DA Sistrunk told the press he was “disappointed and dismayed.” Joel Bennett and Sistrunk did a masterful job with the investigation, nailing down every painstaking detail about the murder, the dismemberment, the flight. They were eloquent and decisive in their arguments. But in that kangaroo court, they were too logical to get traction. One only has to read the trial transcripts to see what they were up against.

  They also lacked the one piece of evidence that would have truly been a slam dunk for the DA: the head.

  Cody’s theory about the head: Sergeant Gary Jones secured Durst’s car when he was arrested in Galveston. Cody Cazalas took possession of Durst. In the car, along with serial killer gear—false IDs, two .38 guns, a black zipper bag, latex gloves, live ammo, rope, a box cutter, a wood-handled knife, scissors, a drop cloth, earplugs (the dismemberment sawing noise must have irritated him)—detectives found cash, weed, and a receipt from a New Orleans dry cleaner, dated one day earlier. Cody called the dry cleaner and was told Durst’s item was still there. So Cody jumped in the car with Detective Jason Chide and drove forthwith to New Orleans, six hours each way.

  Knowing he couldn’t get there before the dry cleaner closed, he called Vernon Geberth, a legendary homicide investigator from the NYPD, author of Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures and Forensic Techniques, the bible on most detectives’ desks, and a lecturer to cops all over, and asked if he knew anyone in New Orleans. He did. His cousin was a lieutenant with the NOPD who went to retrieve Durst’s item, a comforter. Unfortunately, it’d already been cleaned, making it too late for forensics.

  The blanket had been brought to the dry cleaner with a big red stain.

  In that route from Galveston to New Orleans, Cody and Jason Chide drove on bridges over the bayou. Cody believes Durst dumped the head in a bayou. The son of a bitch knew the head would give him away, so he fed it to the gators.

  Durst is so cheap, he was not about to throw the comforter into the swamp with the head. He took it to be dry cleaned, and kept the receipt. Just like the glasses he put a deposit on. And the Laundromat in Ship Bottom. Why didn’t he just throw stuff away?

  Upon his return to Galveston from New Orleans, Durst stayed at the Holiday Inn in room 208. A subsequent search of the room found a prescription for Viagra for Robert, a green canvas bag, a green shaving cream kit, and, of course, green pens.

  I got a lot of requests from the media to comment on the verdict. I gave all outlets the same statement: “The Texas jury has spoken. We accept the verdict. It does not affect our investigation into the disappearance of Kathleen Durst.”

  It killed me to say it, but it’s what I believed. You respect the jury’s verdict. Right or wrong, you don’t have to agree with it but that is our system.

  I would say that anytime a case was lost, even in my office.

  Unlike DA Sistrunk, I wouldn’t describe my feelings after the acquittal as dismayed or disappointed. I was angry and disgusted and troubled by what this miscarriage meant for our judicial system as a whole. The Durst verdict came on the heels of the sensational trial of O. J. Simpson, another wealthy wife-beater who got away with it. Everyone was saying, “What’s going on with the criminal-justice system?” If you had money and power, you could buy your freedom, even for murder.

  After O.J., I remembered walking into the trial bureau and asking my ADAs, “So what’s going on in court today?” There was nothing better than hanging out with the ADAs and chiefs. I would rather be running an investigation or in a courtroom any day of the week than in my office.

  One ADA said, “Boss, you are not going to believe it. I’m on a robbery case, picking a jury. And this woman says, ‘I won’t convict anyone without DNA evidence.’ ” That was the legacy of the O. J. Simpson trial. In the robbery case, the defendant stuck a gun in someone’s face, said, “Give me your money.” The woman identified him in a lineup. Now we need DNA, too? What DNA should we produce?

  The justice system was going backward.

  Our job in law enforcement was to fight that trend. We had to level the playing field. It was about what my mother taught me growing up, shopping for the blind, washing the hair of the infirm, caring for the sick, and protecting the vulnerable. We had to seek justice with passion and objectivity. And we couldn’t give up after a setback.

  The criminal-justice system is wrongly named. It should be called the victim’s-justice system. We fight on behalf of the person who never chose to be a part of the system in the first place. The person who was going along in his or her life, never expecting a trauma. We serve the family of the victim. A criminal made the decision to victimize. So why does the accused have all the constitutional rights, not the victim? Why are we so concerned with how to treat the criminal when it’s completely legal and encouraged to disparage the victim?

  Morris Black was labeled a violent, cantankerous terrorist.

  Kathie Durst was called a drug addict, a slut, a drunk.

  In untold thousands of other cases, the victim’s skirt was too short, or she was mouthing off, or she “asked for it.”

  Kathie Durst’s case represented everything that was wrong with the criminal-justice system. The victim cam
e from a humble background. The criminal used his family’s wealth and influence to sweep her disappearance under the rug. This young, professional woman with everything to live for fell off the side of the earth. Those in positions of power didn’t lift a finger to protect the powerless. They circled the wagons and protected their own, so that Durst could kill and kill again.

  If justice had been served in 1982, Susan Berman and Morris Black would not have been killed.

  So, no, I wasn’t discouraged by the verdict. I was motivated by it.

  ELEVEN |

  | DOUGLAS DURST, THE DEVIL’S BROTHER

  The acquittal was a blow. But we didn’t give up the fight.

  We had low-keyed our investigation during the Galveston trial because of the gag order and because we expected Durst to be convicted. Putting Durst behind bars for the murder of Morris Black for the rest of his life would be a win even if we didn’t get all the answers we wanted. Of course, I would have loved to indict him in New York, but the dots weren’t yet connected. We weren’t there yet. We didn’t have much more than they had in 1982, other than an additional twenty-one years of witnesses’ memories fading, lost opportunities, and minus one central witness. And no, I’m not saying that they couldn’t have gone further in ’82. I am saying that they didn’t go further, they didn’t follow up, they didn’t re-create the crime scene, didn’t interview essential witnesses.

  So I put the investigation back on the front burner and started pushing for cooperation from the Durst family. I reached out to Thomas, the younger brother, the one who told the McCormacks “this meeting is over” back in ’82. He lived in California in 2003, and we talked by phone.

  The conversation was short but cooperative. I said to him, “This guy’s dangerous. Do you understand that? Whether my case convinces you or not, there are a lot of dead bodies in this guy’s wake.” He wasn’t too forthcoming with information about Kathie’s disappearance and how his family handled it at the time. But I definitely impressed upon him that he’d better watch his back. Thomas hired bodyguards for himself and his family.