Durst Heads to Trial as Brother of Missing Wife Speaks Out

Robert Durst

Source: Orleans Parish Sheriff's Dept/Used with permission

With the jury now seated in the murder trial against Manhattan real estate heir Robert Durst for the death of his friend Susan Berman, Jim McCormack is speaking out about justice not only for Berman, but also for McCormack's sister, Kathie Durst.

Robert Durst has been a person of interest in the missing-person case of his first wife Kathleen “Kathie” Durst since her 1982 disappearance. Now, watching Durst stand trial in Los Angeles Superior Court for Berman's December 2000 murder has prompted mixed feelings for McCormack, whose sister has been presumed dead following an argument 37 years ago with Durst at their Westchester County cottage along Lake Truesdale.

"The relief is knowing that he's not still out there being financed by family, friends, and other enablers," McMcCormack said about the jailing of multimillionaire Durst. He noted that he takes solace that Durst is behind bars because he "obviously has issues. He is a sociopath, very calculating, very cold to humanity. He's a narcissist in the fact that the world revolves around him."

Susan Berman's and Kathie Durst's cases are forever tied, because, as investigators contend, Berman knew too much about Kathie's disappearance, and Durst, in turn, killed Berman, the daughter of Las Vegas mobster Davie Berman, to prevent her from talking.

That possible motive for Durst to stop Berman from talking came via a news release from then-District Attorney Jeanine Pirro's Westchester County office. The information was given exclusively to New York magazine. It stated that Westchester investigators had reopened the missing-person case and were planning to interview Berman about the disappearance of Kathie Durst. In turn, prosecutors contend, Durst worried that Berman would implicate him—a man she referred to as her best friend—and so he went to her Benedict Canyon home in Los Angeles just before Christmas 2000 and fatally shot Susan Berman in the back of her head.

It’s a circumstantial case, based on, in part, a letter sent anonymously to Beverly Hills police tipping them off that there was a body in Berman’s house, a note that Durst has since admitted to writing. Another piece of circumstantial evidence is the fact that Durst was in one of his homes in California at the time Berman was killed.

McCormack agrees with prosecutors for the motive in the case. "I think Susan knew Bob killed Kathie," he said in a telephone interview, “and that's why he killed her."

Time will tell whether a panel of jurors agree. The trial starts March 2, with the jury seated after a weeklong selection process in a trial that's expected to last into the summer.