He Killed Them All Read online

  I tried to speak with Robert’s sister, Wendy Durst Kreeger. She lived in Westchester County, right near me in Rye.

  Wendy and my then husband, Al, actually had a bit of a run-in. Al was building some spec houses across the street from hers, and she and her husband showed up at Al’s presentation before the Rye planning board. The Kreegers objected to various details about the project, the height of the houses, etc. They were able to temporarily stop construction. At one point, according to Al, either Wendy or her husband indicated that they were tripping him up because he was married to me. Al’s frustration was understandable, but he got his approvals in spite of the Kreegers’ efforts.

  Next on my list was Douglas Durst. The ruler of the kingdom.

  What did Douglas know about Kathie? What had deceased Seymour known? I’d wanted answers to those questions since 1999. In late 2003, I was emboldened by the acquittal to go to the source to find out.

  ANDREW JARECKI TRIED TO get answers from Douglas in 2013 while filming The Jinx. He called Douglas’s office repeatedly to request an interview. Douglas’s surrogates turned him down flat. In January 2015, a month before the series’ airdate, Douglas filed a petition against Jarecki in state supreme court to force him to disclose how he got sealed video depositions of Douglas from 2006.

  To say Douglas did not support The Jinx was putting it mildly.

  The petition stated, “Douglas Durst is worried The Jinx will be a violent broadside against the family name and history.”

  Understandable. He was right. He had to know that The Jinx was not only about Robert, but would also consider the Durst family’s involvement, if any, in a cover-up to protect Robert.

  Jarecki’s film explored the role of Robert’s family beginning with the time of Kathie’s disapperance. Jarecki located Ed Wright, whom Scoppetta hired to investigate Robert’s account of that Sunday night in January 1982.

  For those keeping score, this made a grand total of three simultaneous investigations: Struk’s, Gilberte’s, and Ed Wright’s.

  Until The Jinx, I had no idea that Wright had looked into the case. It was a shocker for me, a welcome one. More than ten years before the show aired, my office found the same inconsistencies Wright enumerated in his 1982 report titled, “Discrepancies in the recollections of various principals”—the flip-flopping doorman and the phone call Robert claimed to have made from various locations. What was most fascinating to me was not what Wright discovered since we’d unearthed the information, but that he’d been hired by Scoppetta to investigate his own client, clearly not a trustworthy character, when the body, assuming there was one, wasn’t even cold. And certainly one might conclude that the Dursts became aware of what Wright determined.

  Of course, Robert claimed Scoppetta was hired by his family to help find Kathie. This makes no sense. If this high-profile criminal defense attorney was hired to find Kathie, why didn’t he speak to the McCormack family, Kathie’s friends, students from medical school? Why was he investigating Robert?

  Did the Dursts have an inkling what Robert really was? Did they know?

  According to Wright in The Jinx, “When Kathie disappeared and her family members were pointing fingers, Robert’s father, who was, you know, a millionaire many times over, contacted [Scoppetta] to represent Robert. Nick contacted me to do some work and that’s what I did.”

  Detective Michael Struk was also in the dark about the secret investigation by Wright, an ex-cop, formerly with the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, on behalf of the Dursts. “When Wright was telling these people there was deception on the part of their son and brother, I would think that, behind the scenes, there was a great deal of alarm concerning this matter,” he told Jarecki. “The Durst family never offered to help us and never said, ‘Look, we have a private investigator on this. Anything he finds, he’ll share with you.’ They just further backed away.”

  What does that tell you?

  Although Robert lies like he breathes, he said in The Jinx that he had ten or a dozen meetings with Wright—and that five or six of those meetings were held with Douglas present.

  If what Robert claims is true, one could easily believe Douglas knew about the inconsistencies in Wright’s report in 1982 and also feared it would come out when HBO aired The Jinx in February 2015.

  As that date approached, Douglas had to be furious, fearful, and frustrated. His refusal to participate hadn’t stopped the filmmakers. His petition against Jarecki and his high-powered lawyers didn’t slow this train. So, as I see it, Douglas decided to launch a preemptive strike. He sat for an interview with the New York Times to cast himself in a sympathetic light, just before January 1, 2015, before the series debut. Interestingly, instead of speaking to investigative journalist Charles Bagli, who had been reporting on the story for years, he talked to columnist Jim Dwyer.

  Why Jim Dwyer? Did he think he would have a better shot controlling the story and not being challenged? And why talk about his brother now? What changed? Why was the guy who was so unwilling to talk to law enforcement for decades suddenly so interested in sitting down with the New York Times?

  Along with sharing bizarre details about Robert—he kept a sharpened wrench in his desk at work; he routinely pissed in wastebaskets; he stole from the company payroll—Douglas told Dwyer, “Before the disappearance of my sister-in-law, Bob had a series of Alaskan malamutes, which is like a husky. He had seven of them, and they all died, mysteriously, of different things, within six months of owning them. All of them named Igor. We don’t know how they died, and what happened to the bodies. In retrospect, I now believe he was practicing killing and disposing of his wife with those dogs.” Wow. Did you just figure that out? How did it come to you? In a dream, revelation, or epiphany? Or was it when he heard that Robert told Debrah Lee in those Pennsylvania prison tapes that he wanted to “Igor Douglas”?

  As an animal lover, I was horrified by this. I love dogs and have had as many as five at a time. I raised two pigs. One lived to be eighteen years old. (RIP, Wilbur.) I’ve had lovebirds, turtles, gerbils. I wanted to get a goat. Since I couldn’t look them in the eye, I decided not to.

  As DA in 1997, I wanted to start an animal-cruelty unit when I investigated dogfighting and cockfights in Mount Vernon, and the illegal gambling that went along with those fights. I was told in no uncertain terms that my job as a prosecutor was to protect humans as victims, and not animals. In my research and my preparation for the presentation to the county, though, I found that pretty much every serial murderer began his career with the abuse and torture of an animal. When I heard that Durst might have killed his own dogs, it didn’t surprise me.

  Why didn’t Douglas inform the authorities about the Igors in 1982, or 2000, or 2001?

  Maybe he would have, but law enforcement didn’t even bother to speak to Robert’s family. Then again, nor did they offer to speak to police.

  People have asked over the years, if Seymour, Douglas, and/or Thomas Durst suspected or knew foul play might be involved in the disappearance of Robert’s wife in ’82, why weren’t they more involved with the investigation?

  From where Douglas sits now, I’m sure he wishes he had.

  At the time, Seymour was in a battle with Mayor Ed Koch for control of Times Square. The Dursts were pressing their influence hard to secure their place at the very heart of New York City. They and their attorneys appeared in front of planning boards and commissions. Not a good image to have a felon, a murderer, a wife-beater, as part of the Durst Organization.

  What’s more, Kathie Durst was doing some digging into the Durst Organization’s business practices herself. There was a scene in All Good Things that had “Karen” collect evidence of wrongdoings and send it in a package to the New York senator. The senator’s aide received the file and gave it to the senator. The senator instructed him to return it to “Sanford Marks,” saying it was a family matter.

  Recently, I spoke to Jim and Sharon McCormack, and they both had vivid memories of Kathie de
scribing a similar situation taking place right before she went missing.

  According to Jim, Kathie told him she’d collected information about a suspicious fire at a building owned by the Dursts. Someone died in the fire. Apparently, Kathie created a dossier about the fire and sent it to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. senator from New York. Kathie told Jim that her dossier was then returned to Seymour Durst by Moynihan’s office.

  Two weeks before her disappearance, Kathie went to a baby shower for Sharon McCormack, who was pregnant with her daughter Elizabeth. Sharon told me that during the shower “Kathie was carrying on, very emotional, and said repeatedly, ‘I’m petrified of Seymour and Bobby. I think they’re going to kill me. If anything happens to me, look into Seymour and Bobby.’ ” She had a few glasses of red wine at the shower, but Sharon said Kathie was not drunk. “Just very emotional. She was very scared of her husband’s father and her husband. There were sixty people at the shower, and everyone was concerned.” Kathie wound up spending the night with Jim and Sharon. “We said to her, ‘Leave Bobby. Just walk away.’ But Kathie thought she had all this information and she was going to use it. She told us, ‘Bobby and I have been married for nine years. I deserve more than he’s offering.’ She was a feisty woman and she was not going to just walk away. She wanted more.”

  Sharon remembers Kathie as a classy, beautiful, and generous person who planned her and Jim’s rehearsal dinner before their wedding and sent her flowers to the hospital when Elizabeth was born (one week before Kathie disappeared). Kathie always thought of others. Sharon told me a story I’d never heard before. “When Kathie was a nurse, she led the campaign to get rid of nurses’ caps,” she said. “They were always falling down or distracting her. So she waged a campaign to end the requirement and it worked. No more caps.”

  This gutsy, fearless New York Irishwoman was willing to wage another battle with the Dursts. She was one tough woman.

  IN 2003, I’D BEEN obsessed with the Kathleen Durst case for four years. In all that time, I’d never had a single conversation with Robert. If I couldn’t get to my prime suspect, though, I might be able to get something out of Douglas. It’d been twenty-two years since his sister-in-law vanished. He’d never once, not even after the murders of Susan Berman and Morris Black, talked about Kathie publicly (or privately, apparently). Maybe his conscience was starting to crack? It was worth a try to find out.

  My primary objective was to get as much information as I could. Robert Durst worked in the organization until ’94, twelve years after Kathie’s disappearance. Maybe Robert Durst said something or did something incriminating that Douglas hadn’t recognized as incriminating at the time. I hoped to find out.

  My second objective was to tell Douglas to his face, “Robert is a dangerous guy. He’s a serial killer.” I’d said the same thing to Thomas, and to Debrah Lee Charatan during our cigarette break on the fire escape in 2001. I was even more worried about Debrah. She hadn’t grown up with Robert. She didn’t know the essence of this murderer the way Douglas had to.

  My third objective was to satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to look this man in the eye and see what he was made of. I’d been convinced for years that he helped his brother cover up Kathie’s murder, if not in action, in gross inaction. Would sitting across the table from him give me any indication if I was right? What would it be like to break bread with the Devil’s brother?

  I put in a call to Douglas’s office and requested a face-to-face. His lawyer called back with the date for a meeting—with the lawyer himself.

  Uh, no.

  “I want to talk to Douglas Durst,” I said when I called back.

  “What is this regarding?”

  “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, his brother is the target of several investigations and I would like to speak to Douglas Durst about them.”

  Douglas, I was told, didn’t want to see me. But, if I so desired, I could send the lawyer my list of questions and he’d . . .

  “I’m not going to ask questions through you. I need to see him. I need to talk with him.”

  We went back and forth for a week. It started to look as if this meeting wouldn’t happen at all. And then I pulled out the big guns and told the lawyer, “We can do this a nice way or we can bring your client into the courthouse. Sometimes, the press sees people they recognize coming in. I don’t know how they find out to be there at the right time . . . So, he can come in voluntarily or we can put him in front of the grand jury and force him to testify under oath. What works for you?”

  The next day, Roseanne came into the office and said, “Douglas Durst on the phone for you.”

  That was fast. I picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

  He said, “This is Douglas Durst. I understand you want to talk to me.” His voice was soft but clear. No gravelly muttering and odd inflections like his brother’s.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’d rather not come to your office.”

  Understandable. “Okay. Where do you want to meet? Someplace quiet.” I was willing to accommodate the guy because I was the one who needed something from him.

  A few hours later, he called back with a date and a time, but not a place. “I’ll let you know where to go on the day of.”

  So it’s going to be like that? It felt like I was in The Godfather, like Clemenza is going to drive me to a secret location for a sit-down with Sonny.

  I called my driver James (O’Donnell, not Clemenza) and told him, “We have a 7:30 a.m. meeting.”

  “Where, Boss?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “In Manhattan?” he asked.

  “Probably.”

  In the morning, I got into the car, and Durst’s people finally sent an address on West Forty-Third Street. Neither James nor I recognized it. I assume it was a building the Durst Organization owned.

  James pulled to a stop at the curb. The door was unmarked. He said, “Boss, I don’t want you to go in there alone.” These guys were loyal to me and very concerned about me. When you’re the DA, you get death threats. I didn’t take them nearly as seriously as my security detail.

  “What’s he going to do? Kill me?” I said.

  But James insisted. He walked me in.

  The door opened into a restaurant, Le Madeleine. New York is full of places like this that only a select few even know about. The décor seemed very south-of-France, with grapevines hanging from the ceiling. The tables were covered with starched white tablecloths and silverware. It was nice. Clean. Eerily quiet.

  Except for James and me, the place was empty.

  What now? I thought.

  A waiter appeared and walked toward us. He nodded at James and said to me, “This way, ma’am.”

  He walked me over to a booth in the back. I took a seat. A few minutes later, Douglas Durst came into the restaurant and walked straight over to the booth.

  He was average height, maybe a bit shorter, but not as puny as Robert. He was average weight, maybe a little heavy. Short brown hair, sloppily cut. He was kind of nerdy. If I saw him on the street, I wouldn’t have been impressed. He was just kind of schleppy. Although he was, without a doubt, a master of the universe, he did not come across as one. I didn’t notice any family resemblance to Robert. But, then again, when I last saw Robert in a Pennsylvania courtroom, he wasn’t in a suit like Douglas. He was in an orange jumpsuit and shackles.

  Douglas sat down. The waiter took our orders. All I wanted was coffee. I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast. In fact, I couldn’t believe that I was sitting down with the Devil’s brother in a restaurant, albeit closed. Not quite what I was accustomed to when interviewing potential witnesses. I was polite but firm.

  I said, “You know we’re still investigating the Kathie Durst case. I have a couple of questions.”

  “Ask your questions,” he said.

  “What can you tell me about your brother?” I always started with a very general question.

  “My brother doesn’t work for the
company anymore,” he said, trying to distance himself from Robert. “He hasn’t for some time.”

  Really? Does he think I’m stupid? I thought. I went on.

  “What was his marriage to Kathie like?”

  “It was a long time ago and I don’t remember that much about it.” Again, distancing himself.

  Okay, I see where this is going . . .

  Then, he turned the tables and asked me a question. “What can you tell me about my brother?”

  I hadn’t anticipated that Douglas would come into this meeting with the same agenda that I did: to get as much information as possible. It was clear he’d agreed to do it so he could learn what I knew about the case, and about him, not so he could give me information to ease his guilty conscience or to solve the case.

  The conversation was circular in that way. It reminded me of my chat with Debrah Lee Charatan. All the people in Robert Durst’s life were cagey. I told him that I knew his brother was a very dangerous man.

  He asked, “What’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to find out from you. What can you tell me? Your brother Thomas is afraid of Robert. Are you afraid of him? Are you taking precautions for yourself and your family?”

  I knew already that Douglas had hired bodyguards after Robert went on the lam in 2001.

  (Comically, in The Jinx, when Robert was interviewed in prison as to why his brother had hired protection, he said, “Because he’s a pussy.” Douglas’s reply to that was quoted in several sources: “If that makes me a pussy, then I’m a pussy.” Okay, then.)

  In 2003, he didn’t strike me as a wimp. He was nonplussed by my warnings, and canny about what he said and expressed. He was the kind of guy who sat at a lot of negotiation tables and played a lot of poker. His strategy was to be soft-spoken and understated. Not macho at all. He showed strength with stealth.