He Killed Them All Read online

• Dick DeGuerin’s rationalization. He said, “Do I think it’s unfair [that the rich are at an advantage defending themselves]? Well, this is a capitalist society. The people with money can drive a Cadillac. Those who don’t have as much money make do with a used car.” Translation: “For freeing a serial murderer, I can go buy myself a Cadillac.” No one is saying DeGuerin, Ramsey, and Lewis shouldn’t get paid for their work or that defendants are not entitled to a fair trial. My issue is they knowingly got a guy off for murder using smoke and mirrors and mythical characters, and they did it for only one reason: money. It didn’t look like DeGuerin and Ramsey felt a smidgen of regret on The Jinx. They were probably proud of themselves. They knew what they were doing the whole time. But the difference is, now everyone else does, too. We all know that they knew their defense wasn’t ringing true. Their egos are simply too inflated to get a perspective on the bigger picture of what that does to our society. Men like DeGuerin and Ramsey—and obviously Durst—think women are disposable. They can be battered. They can be disappeared. They don’t matter.

  • Ed Wright’s secret investigation. Until I watched The Jinx, I was unaware that Nick Scoppetta had hired Ed Wright, a criminal investigator for the New York Organized Crime Task Force, to look into Robert’s version of events on the night of Kathie’s disappearance. Wright interviewed the same witnesses as Detective Struk. Yet Struk and Wright drew far different conclusions about Robert’s veracity.

  Durst, reflecting on the hiring of Wright, clearly understood the importance of his being “able to get lots from police.” Durst knew that Wright knew police and police liked him. He was able to get information that theoretically was unavailable. Who thought what, who said what. If, as Durst alleges, the criminal lawyer was supposed to find Kathie, why would it be necessary to get investigators who could find out information that wouldn’t be available to anyone? Robert needed to know, and, according to him, the Durst family needed to know, if his lies could be unearthed.

  This was proof to me that members of the Durst family suspected Robert was involved from the beginning.

  Take it logically. If Robert alone worked with Scoppetta, why agree to hire Wright? Robert already knew his own story was bullshit. Hiring an investigator would just prove that. But if Seymour had doubts about Robert, he might want Scoppetta to hire an investigator secretly to confirm his suspicions. Certainly Wright did more than justify any suspicion that Robert was involved in Kathie’s disappearance. Then Wright left the case, and Scoppetta called Struk and informed him that Robert was represented by counsel. Makes perfect sense.

  • Andrew’s ambush of Douglas at the Children’s Rights charity event. Andrew came across in that scene exactly the way he is. Just a polite, decent fellow, trying to get all sides on the record. After his two-minute talk with Douglas, the camera stayed on Durst. If you look closely, you can see that Douglas is visibly sweating.

  • “California is a pretty big state.” Robert’s line when asked about his presence in California the week of Susan Berman’s murder. He smirked when he said it, and then had to wipe his mouth with his sleeve on both sides. He was literally salivating over how close to the edge he came that time and how great it was that he got away with it.

  • Sareb finds the “Beverley” letter in a box of Susan’s stuff. Shocking. It’s absolutely shocking that the LAPD didn’t go through those boxes of Susan Berman’s stuff back in 2000. She was a homicide victim. Why didn’t the police search her files after they received the cadaver note? They knew the whole thing rested on handwriting, but they ignored her saved paperwork and letters? It was shoddy police work. I can only assume they didn’t do a thorough search because Susan Berman was marginalized.

  In Westchester, we would have gone through every scrap. You can solve hard cases and get the evidence, but you have to dig deep.

  • Sareb’s realization. Upon finding the “Beverley” letter, he said, “It was clear enough that I might be dancing with the Devil.” Ya think?

  Sareb defended Durst for years, and convinced himself he wasn’t dancing with the Devil. He broke down on camera because he finally let himself see the truth that had been staring him in the face for thirteen years.

  I believe Sareb believed Durst. When he stumbled on the letter, he could have destroyed it, or gone to Robert with it—probably with a big payday. But he loved Susan and wanted her killer caught. Thank you, Sareb, for making the right decision.

  I’m not faulting Sareb. He didn’t do anything wrong. He took the money from Robert and visited him in prison and defended him because that was what he needed to do, financially and emotionally, in order to survive. I hope he’s in a good place, and I wish him well.

  | EPISODE SIX: WHAT THE HELL DID I DO?

  • Watching my reaction to the two Beverleys. Seeing it for the first time on TV was just as satisfying as holding it in my hand. It’s like the feeling you get when you hear “guilty” at the prosecutor’s table. It’s not happiness, or pride. It’s not another notch in your belt. As the DA, I would walk into the felony trial bureau and ask ADAs where we were on cases. It was always personal with me. Every prosecution was personal. And that’s the problem—people don’t take crime personally enough. Someone lost everything because some dirtbag decided to end his or her life. The trial bureau was our battle station. It’s where we went to war. That Beverley letter brought back those feelings, the passion and the fight.

  I said, “Oh, Jesus!” when recognition kicked in. It was a bit like a prayer, an acknowledgment of the tragedy of Susan losing her life.

  Then, fired up again, I said, “Son of a bitch!” That was my celebration, like, “You piece of garbage! You can’t get away anymore! Damn you!”

  • Chip Lewis reacting to the two Beverleys. The expression on his face was priceless. I thought he might pass out on camera. He paused for a few beats and looked like a guy who had an actual conscience for a second there, like he might express regret, or apologize for going too far. He’d helped a serial killer go free. He was, literally, the Devil’s advocate. But, alas, no. He muttered, “I don’t know about handwriting to be anything other than dangerous. I see similarities. I see differences.”

  • The hot-mic admission. Well, I described that sensational moment in Chapter One of this book. It was amazing, shocking, fascinating. Andrew played him perfectly. He said, “Did you write the cadaver letter?”

  Durst said, “No.”

  Jarecki said, “You wrote this but you didn’t write this.” He showed him the two Beverleys side by side. “Can you tell me which one you didn’t write?” I couldn’t wait for the answer.

  Durst said, “No.” Completely defeated. He knew he was cooked.

  Immediately after this episode aired, I did a Fox News special. Defense attorney Chip Lewis, to his credit, called in for a quick phone interview. I asked him what he thought of the bathroom hot-mic admission. He said, “I was a bit underwhelmed. The lead-up and the buildup . . . honestly, you and I are flamboyant people who speak their minds. [It would] lead you to say things under your breath that you probably didn’t mean. L.A. County has a case and we’ll address those facts in the courtroom.” More defense-speak. “We’re eager to get to Los Angeles and hear if there’s any new evidence but the mutterings in the bathroom.”

  As if that wasn’t enough.

  WHAT AMAZES ME, LOOKING back, is that Jarecki and Smerling had been able to keep the admission under wraps since the taping two years ago. They claimed that they didn’t know they had it until around nine months before airing. An assistant chanced upon the tapes, and history was made.

  In the aftermath of the last two episodes of The Jinx, a lot of armchair pundits questioned the ethics of not turning over such explosive evidence to police sooner. As I’ve said before, Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling were not obligated to tell anyone anything. We do not have Good Samaritan laws in New York or in the United States. Other countries have Good Samaritan laws. We don’t. The only mandatory reporting laws are those requirin
g that child abuse be reported. No law requires people to inform other people they’re solving a crime, let alone reporting one, that’s relevant to them, or might relieve them of their sadness. In our society, chances are, if you inform someone of something you think he or she has a right to know and you’re wrong, you’ll get sued.

  When Jarecki and Smerling located the letter, they got excellent legal advice. In their capacity as journalists, they could sit on the letter until they confronted Durst with it. They took such pains to film the “chain of custody” of that envelope, with Marc on the phone with an upset Sareb, then Marc in Sareb’s apartment, opening the box and seeing the letter. Then you see Andrew at the bank, putting the letter in a safety deposit box. They secured the evidence.

  By keeping quiet, they were protecting themselves from being agents of law enforcement during the second interview with their subject. If they’d turned it in, consistent with law enforcement, and then confronted him, they would have been required to inform Durst of his right to remain silent. It would have opened the door for Durst to accuse them of entrapment. They eliminated all that by keeping the letter to themselves.

  We should be grateful they didn’t turn it in, or there would have been no bathroom admission at all.

  What about their journalistic integrity? These guys are moviemakers, investigative reporters. It’s their right not to reveal their sources. They could have sat on the evidence for all time. But, instead, they shared it on their documentary, for maximum creative and journalistic impact.

  Some might have a problem with that. I don’t.

  If you’re not working at the behest of or in cooperation with law enforcement—and the filmmakers were clearly not—you are not legally obliged to share evidence with anyone, in your capacity as a documentarian.

  Jarecki told the New York Times that L.A. authorities knew about the evidence well in advance of the screening. When Robert was arrested for trespassing at the Durst home on West Forty-Third Street in 2013, the FBI was looking at Robert for the murder of Susan Berman.

  Why would the FBI pick up that case after all this time?

  Don’t assume for one minute that the LAPD or the FBI heard about the letter and the bathroom admission at the same time as the rest of the world.

  I’d guess that law enforcement knew about the evidence since 2014. Sometime between filming that scene with Durst in 2013 and The Jinx airing in January 2015, they informed L.A. they were sitting on a powder keg. Law enforcement quietly reopened the investigation into the Berman murder, started watching Durst, and got their ducks in a row for an indictment. The pace picked up when The Jinx debuted and Durst set the wheels in motion to flee again.

  I don’t give a crap when they turned over the evidence. I’m just glad that they found it in the first place.

  Now, as for my legal opinion about whether the second Beverley letter and the bathroom tape will be admissible in court:

  The hot-mic stuff? Absolutely.

  Durst was not in custody when he made this admission.

  He was not being interrogated.

  He knew he had a mic on.

  Every time he was interviewed, he signed a waiver.

  He voluntarily agreed to engage in videotaped discussions with the producer and director.

  Durst is no dummy. He knew he was wearing a mic in the john. It was clipped to his clothes! He could have seen it in the mirror if he washed his hands. If he hadn’t been reminded about being recorded with a mic on in a previous chapter, by his own attorney, one might argue that there was an expectation of privacy in the bathroom, if he were actually urinating. But he had been reminded, and from the recording, it didn’t sound like he was actually using the john.

  It’s another “pushing the envelope” moment, another opportunity to see how close to the edge he could dance. I believe it’s a spontaneous statement, he blurts out an admission of guilt. After the reality of seeing the handwriting on the wall—or, in this case, on the envelope—Durst’s devious, calculating mind knew it was over.

  To me, the only gray area is whether “killed them all” referred to just Kathie, Susan, and Morris, or to more people we don’t know about.

  As for the admissibility of the second Beverley letter, you bet it is.

  Jarecki and Smerling were extra careful to protect the chain of custody. Jarecki not only preserved the evidentiary value of the envelope, but he has also protected himself. By filming it all, he’s covered from claims of tampering. Jarecki’s not a dummy, either. He does his homework. Capturing the Friedmans, his previous documentary about the flaws of the judicial system, also included original witness interviews and the discovery of evidence.

  Anyone who complains about how the evidence was gathered and when it should or shouldn’t have come to light should sit down and shut up.

  You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, “The Jinx cracked the case” out of one side of your mouth, and say, “Shame on them for not turning over the evidence sooner” out of the other.

  The McCormacks had been suffering for thirty-three years before they heard Durst’s admission. I can tell you, as someone who was in the room with Jim and his wife, they were glad to hear it at all. Sure, they would probably have liked to know two years earlier. But it wasn’t up to them. Jarecki and Smerling deserved to have their brilliant surprise ending. And, man, did they get it.

  I told the media, “They did, in eight years, what law enforcement in three states couldn’t do in thirty.” Kudos. Jarecki and Smerling and their team nailed the bastard.

  They landed the one-two punch of evidence and that should be able to keep him behind bars for the rest of his pathetic life, alone with not one of the benefits that wealth provided him, with nothing to plan for, scheme for, and hopefully, no pens with green ink. No, I take that back. Lots of pens with green ink to remind him of all the money had had and blew.

  FOURTEEN |

  | CRAZY IS MY COMFORT ZONE

  On March 14, 2015, one day before The Jinx finale aired on HBO, Robert Durst was arrested in New Orleans. The FBI tracked him to Louisiana, to the JW Marriott Hotel on Canal Street, with a warrant for his arrest in the murder of Susan Berman in Los Angeles in December 2000. It took them fifteen years to indict him, and two days to find him.

  Durst went on the lam, again, on March 12, leaving his apartment in Houston unlocked and ditching his cell phone. Agents got a bead on him when he used a pay phone (the guy is addicted to pay phones) to check his voicemail. When they got to the JW Marriott, they asked the concierge if Robert Durst had checked in. No? How about James Klosty? Emilio Vignoni? Diane Winn? Everett Ward?

  Hilariously, they were running through Durst’s aliases when guess who walked through the lobby on his way back from dinner at NOLA, Emeril Lagasse’s restaurant in the French Quarter? I would have doubled over laughing to see Robert’s face when the FBI arrested him in the lobby, right under the arched entryway.

  A search of his room yielded classic Durst booty: pot (five ounces, enough to last him at least a few days), a .38 caliber handgun, forty-four thousand dollars in cash, a passport, fake IDs, a map of Florida and Cuba, and, bizarrely, a latex mask. It was spy stuff. When you put it over the head, it changed the surface of your face to make you unrecognizable. They also found a UPS tracking number for a package that, when it was found later in New York, contained another $117,000 and a pair of sneakers.

  If that didn’t say “run,” I don’t know what did.

  Regarding the UPS package, my first thought was, of course, Debrah Lee Charatan. She was his usual cash supplier. But the FBI tracked the package to another mysterious woman: Susan (another Susan, number three in this crazy story) Giordano of Campbell Hall, New York. She claimed to be a “longtime friend” of Robert’s. For the life of me, I can’t understand why any human, let alone any woman, would want to be his friend. She admitted to the FBI that she mailed the package on March 12, several days after the two Beverleys revelation on The Jinx. When the police searched G
iordano’s house, they found boxes of Durst’s personal papers in her cellar. It was her house where Jarecki and Smerling had been during the sixth-episode party. She claimed that none other than Debrah Lee Charatan had shipped Durst’s boxes to her!

  Debrah handing the Durst baton to Susan Giordano? Why was there always another woman waiting in the wings? What is wrong with these people?

  After the FBI arrested him, Durst was thrown in jail and then moved to the hospital wing due to his various illnesses. Hydrocephalus. Esophageal cancer. I wondered if his diseases were real, or if they were another trick. If they turned out to be real, would I feel pity for this sick old man who was being locked up?

  You should know my answer by now.

  Whatever he experiences in that hellhole is better than what Kathie Durst, Susan Berman, and Morris Black got.

  As the DA, I had followed him to Texas and Pennsylvania. On April 6, I flew down to Louisiana to cover Durst’s preliminary hearing, this time as a correspondent for Fox News. I’d done several segments on the case during the run of The Jinx. My audience was itching to see Durst punished for his crimes. Me, too. And, if I were lucky, I’d get a good seat.

  The charges were illegal concealment of a gun and possession of firearms with a controlled substance. The issue at hand for his hearing was whether he was a flight risk.

  What in this man’s history pointed to his not being a flight risk?

  He’d run from Galveston, forfeiting $300,000 in bail.

  Obviously, he was planning to disappear to Cuba with his fake passport, cash, mask . . . and sneakers.

  But the system is the system. You have to go through due process.

  I like to respect protocol, so I called the New Orleans DA’s office before I went south as a courtesy and had a conversation with Chris Bowman, the chief assistant. I asked him whether there was a separate press entrance to the courthouse. I’d covered Casey Anthony, George Zimmerman, and Drew Peterson, and had gotten used to the media’s sometimes preferential access.