TX - Trial of Robert Durst in the murder of Morris Black

[Penelope]

I just read this fascinating article on CNN - the accompanying video where Former Texas Judge Susan Criss is interviewed is fascinating, and absolutely chilling. I can understand why Douglas Durst is afraid of his brother - but IMHO he should stop trying to protect the family name and share all the information he and his family knows about Robert with the authorities.
[h=1]Former Texas judge: Durst case brings out 'highest level of weirdness'[/h]
In the article, the judge talks about meeting Durst at a Texas mall in December 2005. Then, in June 2006 she found the severed head of a cat, with its 2 front legs attached, laying on the driveway in front of her house. She also talks about a series of pet dogs that Durst had over the years, all named "Igor," and all who died premature, unnatural deaths.

 

[TexMex]

Tonight at 6pm CST. On the ID channel (directtv ch 285)
Vanity Fair Confidential: The Robert Durst Story

 

[TexMex]

BK has some documents on her site

The search warrant for his 3 condos at 2520 Robinhood St. units 1405, 606 and 801

The Motion for Detention in Louisiana

Lots of info in the search warrants

 

[Penelope]

BK has some documents on her site

The search warrant for his 3 condos at 2520 Robinhood St. units 1405, 606 and 801

The Motion for Detention in Louisiana

Lots of info in the search warrants

Who is BK and how do I get to her site?

 

[ScarlettScarpetta]

Who is BK and how do I get to her site?

Beth Karas and you have to pay to join her site!

 

[TexMex]

Who is BK and how do I get to her site?

Karasoncrime

$5.99/month. Can pay month to month
I hope she covers this trial

The SW has lots of info given to Houston PD from LAPD and NO police

 

[TexMex]

I just read this fascinating article on CNN - the accompanying video where Former Texas Judge Susan Criss is interviewed is fascinating, and absolutely chilling. I can understand why Douglas Durst is afraid of his brother - but IMHO he should stop trying to protect the family name and share all the information he and his family knows about Robert with the authorities.
[h=1]Former Texas judge: Durst case brings out 'highest level of weirdness'[/h]
In the article, the judge talks about meeting Durst at a Texas mall in December 2005. Then, in June 2006 she found the severed head of a cat, with its 2 front legs attached, laying on the driveway in front of her house. She also talks about a series of pet dogs that Durst had over the years, all named "Igor," and all who died premature, unnatural deaths.

When he was in jail in PA there is a recording of Durst telling his wife 'I'd like to Igor Douglas"

 

[Penelope]

Really creepy, isn't it. As I stated in my earlier post, I am not surprised that RD's family members are terrified of him, especially the one brother. I have followed this case for many years - even briefly knew the wife of one of the brothers. The family is very close-lipped about RD.

 

[Steely Dan]

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hydrocephalus/basics/symptoms/con-20030706
The signs and symptoms of hydrocephalus vary generally by age of onset......
Older adults

Among adults 60 years of age and older, the more common signs and symptoms of hydrocephalus are:

Loss of bladder control or a frequent urge to urinate
Memory loss
Progressive loss of other thinking or reasoning skills
Difficulty walking, often described as a shuffling gait or the feeling of the feet being stuck
Poor coordination or balance
Slower than normal movements in general

Hydrocephalus is the reason I had skull surgery as a child. I didn't get shunted though. I never knew it could affect adults.

 

[atthelake]

I just read this fascinating article on CNN - the accompanying video where Former Texas Judge Susan Criss is interviewed is fascinating, and absolutely chilling. I can understand why Douglas Durst is afraid of his brother - but IMHO he should stop trying to protect the family name and share all the information he and his family knows about Robert with the authorities.
[h=1]Former Texas judge: Durst case brings out 'highest level of weirdness'[/h]
In the article, the judge talks about meeting Durst at a Texas mall in December 2005. Then, in June 2006 she found the severed head of a cat, with its 2 front legs attached, laying on the driveway in front of her house. She also talks about a series of pet dogs that Durst had over the years, all named "Igor," and all who died premature, unnatural deaths.

Whoa :thud:

What an article that was... Can't imagine living day to day in fear as she has. Wonder if the juror she is talking about was the bald headed man. And some think #17 is bad.. this takes the :cupcake:

:couch:

:lurk:

A few years back, while Criss was campaigning for re-election and working the polls, a man approached her. Criss said it was a juror from the Durst trial, a man who had befriended the defendant, visited him in jail and dined with him at times. He must have seen a media report about the severed cat head.

"It seemed like he's inappropriately happy to be asking me this question -- 'Hey, did anything ever happen about that cat head at your house?'" Criss recalled.

"I'm thinking to myself: You son of a *****. I lied. I know the police weren't doing anything about it. I said, 'Oh yes, the police think they know who did. His demeanor changed and he couldn't get away fast enough."

ETA: The video has much more than the article FYI

 

[ScarlettScarpetta]

Whoa :thud:

What an article that was... Can't imagine living day to day in fear as she has. Wonder if the juror she is talking about was the bald headed man. And some think #17 is bad.. this takes the :cupcake:

:couch:

:lurk:

Sometimes, I have to wonder if some of these jurors vote not guilty because they have their own skeletons. I can not for the life of me figure out how they got it so wrong in Texas

 

[atthelake]

Sometimes, I have to wonder if some of these jurors vote not guilty because they have their own skeletons. I can not for the life of me figure out how they got it so wrong in Texas

Well, they do say a "jury of your peers" ullhair:

Criss said it was a juror from the Durst trial, a man who had befriended the defendant, visited him in jail and dined with him at times.

Just like the folks on the JAII site? :dunno:

 

[atthelake]

TexMex;11610582 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/n...-personal-papers-used-by-filmmakers.html?_r=0

Only hours before the conclusion of an HBO documentary about Mr. Durst and the murders last Sunday, a State Police investigator, Joseph Becerra, arrived at the home of Susan T. Giordano in Campbell Hall, N.Y., to seize a trove of Mr. Durst’s private papers stored there.

Ms. Giordano said Mr. Becerra told her that she could release the material to him or he would obtain a search warrant and return. Ms. Giordano said she decided to let him have the documents.

The authorities ultimately hauled away about 60 file boxes, Ms. Giordano said, including phone records, bills, family-trust documents, photographs, video depositions from a lawsuit he filed against his brother and transcripts from his 2003 murder trial in Texas, where he was found not guilty of murdering his neighbor.


“He didn’t do this,” said Ms. Giordano, who first met Mr. Durst through mutual friends about 30 years ago. “I’m such a strong believer in him. There’s probably some explanation. I don’t know what it is. I’m still waiting to hear from him.”

________________________

Mr. Durst’s respite at Ms. Giordano’s home provides a glimpse into his complicated life. In 2000, he married Debrah Lee Charatan, a New York real estate broker, but they have never lived together as husband and wife. Mr. Durst did share his fortune with Ms. Charatan, giving her about $20 million from a $65 million settlement of his claims on the family trust. He spent time occasionally with Ms. Giordano and her family. About three years ago, Ms. Giordano said, Ms. Charatan sent her Mr. Durst’s file boxes for safekeeping. The Houston police, acting at the behest of Los Angeles authorities, searched three apartments on Tuesday that Mr. Durst owns, all at the same address. According to public records, investigators found correspondence with Ms. Giordano, seven credit cards, court documents and two books about his missing wife’s case — “Without a Trace” and “A Deadly Secret.”


An eighth credit card was in the name of Stafford J. Demouchette July 15 Real Estate L.L.C.

:thinking: as have never heard the name Demouchette before? :thinking:

The file boxes taken from Ms. Giordano’s home contain the same materials mined by the producers of the HBO documentary, “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.”

So SHE gave the producers some materials for that show when they did the handwriting comparisons on "The Jinx" that we saw?

“I am convinced that there’s no reason I shouldn’t say anything I want to anyone I want,” Mr. Durst explained in a newspaper interview in February.

Mr. Durst’s only request was that they not bother Ms. Charatan. But in giving the filmmakers unrestricted access to the files, he also provided them with videotaped depositions of himself, Ms. Charatan and his brother Douglas Durst.

In an interview after the airing of the first of the six episodes of “The Jinx,” which featured the depositions, Mr. Durst acknowledged that Ms. Charatan had not come off well. “Poor Debbie,” he said.

Question: How could Durst be quoted about Charatan not coming off well if it was AFTER the airing? He was in jail then.

Could this guy possibly be terminal, and it's his last FU to everyone... that they'll know he's guilty but will never be convicted due to his health? And he thought he was going to go back to New York for trial, and not a trip after documentary (see below) :dunno:

Ms. Giordano cannot square the villain described by law enforcement with the man she knew. Mr. Durst had told her before his arrest that he was planning to come to New York after the documentary ended.

“He wasn’t going to Cuba,” Ms. Giordano said. “He had a whole new plan. The plan was, I’ll see you in New York.”

This has so many twists ..........

 

[TexMex]

Psycho killer Robert Durst enjoyed his final meal as a free man at celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse’s French Quarter restaurant — dining alone on rustic, garlic-crusted fish with no clue that the FBI would haul him off in handcuffs soon after he put his fork down.
“He was sitting at the bar and was really quiet,” a restaurant worker at NOLA said of the odd old man, who, unbeknownst to him, is implicated in a trio of deaths and disappearances.
“But he had this weird little smile on his face,” the worker recalled. “I thought to myself, this guy is either a scientist or a serial killer.”
It was 9 p.m. on Saturday, March 14, when the 71-year-old Durst walked into the self-described “casual and funky” restaurant on St. Louis Street.




http://nypost.com/2015/03/22/robert-durst-ate-final-meal-at-emerils-restaurant-before-bust/

 

[Omachka]

Oh thank you. What a strange thing to lie about. Maybe he's conflating a dream with reality. Was there easy access to the roof?

I don't think he's conflating anything. He is just lying. He would like everyone to feel very sorry for him so he can continue to get away with murder. "I'm too screwed up to be responsible for my actions and this is why"

 

[TexMex]

TexMex;11610582 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/n...-personal-papers-used-by-filmmakers.html?_r=0

Only hours before the conclusion of an HBO documentary about Mr. Durst and the murders last Sunday, a State Police investigator, Joseph Becerra, arrived at the home of Susan T. Giordano in Campbell Hall, N.Y., to seize a trove of Mr. Durst’s private papers stored there.

Ms. Giordano said Mr. Becerra told her that she could release the material to him or he would obtain a search warrant and return. Ms. Giordano said she decided to let him have the documents.

The authorities ultimately hauled away about 60 file boxes, Ms. Giordano said, including phone records, bills, family-trust documents, photographs, video depositions from a lawsuit he filed against his brother and transcripts from his 2003 murder trial in Texas, where he was found not guilty of murdering his neighbor.


“He didn’t do this,” said Ms. Giordano, who first met Mr. Durst through mutual friends about 30 years ago. “I’m such a strong believer in him. There’s probably some explanation. I don’t know what it is. I’m still waiting to hear from him.”

________________________



:thinking: as have never heard the name Demouchette before? :thinking:



So SHE gave the producers some materials for that show when they did the handwriting comparisons on "The Jinx" that we saw?



Could this guy possibly be terminal, and it's his last FU to everyone... that they'll know he's guilty but will never be convicted due to his health? :dunno:

This has so many twists ..........

That may be. He may know he's dying and wanted the attention, to get his story out and thumb his nose at everyone.

The handwriting in The Jinx was from the note to the BH police in 2000 and from a letter Durst wrote to Berman in 1999. Bermans stepson provided the letter. Strange to me that I would think the police knew handwriting was an issue, yet the stepson never thought to show the letter to LE?

Didn't he admit Durst paid for his college after Berman was killed? Around $200K?

 

[TexMex]

TexMex;11610582 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/n...-personal-papers-used-by-filmmakers.html?_r=0

Only hours before the conclusion of an HBO documentary about Mr. Durst and the murders last Sunday, a State Police investigator, Joseph Becerra, arrived at the home of Susan T. Giordano in Campbell Hall, N.Y., to seize a trove of Mr. Durst’s private papers stored there.

Ms. Giordano said Mr. Becerra told her that she could release the material to him or he would obtain a search warrant and return. Ms. Giordano said she decided to let him have the documents.

The authorities ultimately hauled away about 60 file boxes, Ms. Giordano said, including phone records, bills, family-trust documents, photographs, video depositions from a lawsuit he filed against his brother and transcripts from his 2003 murder trial in Texas, where he was found not guilty of murdering his neighbor.


“He didn’t do this,” said Ms. Giordano, who first met Mr. Durst through mutual friends about 30 years ago. “I’m such a strong believer in him. There’s probably some explanation. I don’t know what it is. I’m still waiting to hear from him.”

________________________



:thinking: as have never heard the name Demouchette before? :thinking:



So SHE gave the producers some materials for that show when they did the handwriting comparisons on "The Jinx" that we saw?



Could this guy possibly be terminal, and it's his last FU to everyone... that they'll know he's guilty but will never be convicted due to his health? :dunno:

This has so many twists ..........

That may be. He may know he's dying and wanted the attention, to get his story out and thumb his nose at everyone.

The handwriting in The Jinx was from the note to the BH police in 2000 and from a letter Durst wrote to Berman in 1999. Bermans stepson provided the letter. Strange to me that I would think the police knew handwriting was an issue, yet the stepson never thought to show the letter to LE?

Didn't he admit Durst paid for his college after Berman was killed? Around $200K?

He wasn't in jail when episodes 1-5 aired

 

[atthelake]

That may be. He may know he's dying and wanted the attention, to get his story out and thumb his nose at everyone.

The handwriting in The Jinx was from the note to the BH police in 2000 and from a letter Durst wrote to Berman in 1999. Bermans stepson provided the letter. Strange to me that I would think the police knew handwriting was an issue, yet the stepson never thought to show the letter to LE?

Didn't he admit Durst paid for his college after Berman was killed? Around $200K?

I thought was interesting even from the first few episodes of Jinx that they were showing a "surveillance looking type" video of he and Durst smoking outside somewhere. :dunno:

iirc (note, my iirc's are more than 50% wrong :floorlaugh:.... ) that he WANTED $200k, but only got 20k or 25k per year for a few years? Others will correct me here :biggrin:

 

[Penelope]

That may be. He may know he's dying and wanted the attention, to get his story out and thumb his nose at everyone.

The handwriting in The Jinx was from the note to the BH police in 2000 and from a letter Durst wrote to Berman in 1999. Bermans stepson provided the letter. Strange to me that I would think the police knew handwriting was an issue, yet the stepson never thought to show the letter to LE?

Didn't he admit Durst paid for his college after Berman was killed? Around $200K?

This is my opinion… I am just speculating… but I think that most of this had to do with Durst's money. Everyone who held his secrets seems to be either terrified of what RD might do to them, or figured they would see if they could benefit from RD's skeletons and get some $$ from him. The stepson got his education paid for (blood money?). The stepson may truly have believed RD did not do it, and was happy to get the $$. His current wife got $20 million just to marry him. She is smart enough not to live with him and has so far stayed safe and alive. And to us sleuthers - this is just so mind-boggling and fascinating. It is obvious to me that the investigation into his first wife's death was a non-investigation. Whether it was because people were paid off by the Durst family, or you just had a detective who thought she ran away and did not care enough to investigate it properly - who knows. But it is fascinating.

 

[TexMex]

Info on the lawyers who will try the LA case

Though DeGuerin's courtroom demeanor might be described as folksy, T. Gerald Treece, a professor at Houston's South Texas School of Law, cautioned against thinking of him as a "good ol' boy."

"The folksy manner disguises a huge intellect and sharp wit for trial work," he said. "The government better have a case."

L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lewin, one of two prosecutors on the case, has forged a reputation as a skillful courtroom strategist who specializes in decades-old cold cases — ones that rely heavily on circumstantial evidence.

He prosecuted an Orange County engineer, who was sentenced in December to 26 years to life in prison, for the gruesome murder of his ex-girlfriend more than three decades earlier. During the trial, Lewin told jurors that Douglas Bradford had killed Lynne Knight with a homemade garrote — a weapon pieced together with chunks of a wooden mop handle and thick wire.

http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-durst-attorneys-20150322-story.html#page=1