The Jinx
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
This article was originally published on February 23, 2015.
Weve republished it to coincide withThe Jinx Part 2.
This case was not investigated the way it should have been.
Investigators from Westchesters D.A.
office reinterviewed everyone who had been examined in the early 80s.
One of them went so far as to draw a map to Bermans door for the police.
They urged the cops, Go talk to Susan.
Susan had been a close friend of Bobs since they met at UCLA.
She later published a memoir calledEasy Street: The True Story of a Mob Family.
Perhaps you already sense that this is not going to end well.
Friends of Susans assert that she was drawn to Bob because he reminded her of her father.
We have a special friendship.
Durst himself remembers asking, Susan, I got a call from this reporter and this reporter.
Can you just handle it?
Susan was a writer, says one friend.
She was used to dealing with the press.
She took it upon herself to become his spokesperson.
As it turns out, part of that responsibility was feeding journalists a certain, very specific story.
This account benefits Bob.
It also came from him, via Susan.
In the first investigation, the cops apparently overlooked at least one if not both those facts.
Another adds, There were several people who said they saw Kathie when we know she was dead.
If someone called the dean of the med school pretending to be Kathie, odds are it was Susan.
Kathie had initiated divorce proceedings the Thursday before she went missing.She told Bob that she wanted out.
She got lawyered up and offered her husband a settlement.
He turned it down.
Durst replies, with emphasis if not with emotion, I dont know that shes dead …
The investigators now say that there is no evidence, credible evidence, that she ever left South Salem.
(How has the doorman been discredited?
We do not learn.)
On the Tuesday after Kathies disappearance, Durst HQ received a collect call from a laundromat in Ship Bottom.
Bob didnt make those calls.
Bob was not in Ship Bottom, says Durst, referring to himself in the third person.
Bob and Susan spoke on the phone; as he remembers it, she commiserated with him.
Soon after, she, too, was dead shot, execution-style, in her own home.
There was no sign of any kind of forced entry, say the cops.
Whoever killed her had probably been let in by Susan Berman.
But what seemed obvious to Jeanine Pirro back in New York was a non-issue to the LAPD.
Back of the head, say the police, helpfully.
Thats traditional in mob killings.
Not blackmail per se; they could simply imagine her making her position clear.
Jarecki asks, of course, did Durst have anything to do with the murder?
Durst replies, I had nothing to do with Susan Bermans death.
Was she maybe blackmailing him?
Was there anything Berman was going to tell the police that Durst couldnt stand the idea of her sharing?
According to Durst, no.
He does not seem shocked or upset by the question.
He called her friends on the West Coast.
He was trying to make allies in Susans camp, says one, who felt threatened by the conversation.
He missed the dinner.
Three episodes gone, three to go.
Should this be the show dubbedHow to Get Away With Murderinstead?
