In a court document filed Christmas Eve and reviewed by TheWrap, lawyers for Robert Durst acknowledged he authored a 2000 note that led Beverly Hills police to the body of Susan Berman. The real estate heir has long denied writing the tip-off note and has also denied killing Berman, a longtime friend that served as his spokesperson after the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack.
While being interviewed in 2015 for HBO’s “The Jinx,” Durst said the note was something “only the killer could have written.” The note, written on a single sheet of spiral notebook paper, simply said “cadaver” and included an address. The documentary had portrayed Berman as knowing too much information about McCormack’s disappearance.
Durst faces trial for Berman’s murder in February.
In response to the latest development, Durst’s lawyer Dick DeGuerin told TheWrap, “The stipulations speak for themselves. This doesn’t change the facts that Bob Durst did not kill Susan Berman and doesn’t know who did.”
“Durst was held to answer for murder with the special circumstances of witness killing and lying in wait by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark Windham,” the D.A.’s office said in a statement in 2018, adding that Durst also faces gun use allegations.
Durst is charged with murdering Berman on or about Dec. 23, 2000. Her body was discovered in her Benedict Canyon home on Christmas Eve. He was arrested in March 2015 by FBI agents in New Orleans.
Durst’s arrest came one day before the finale of HBO’s “The Jinx,” which chronicled Durst’s life and the death of three people close to him — McCormack, Berman and a neighbor in Galveston, Texas. He was not charged with the disappearance of McCormack and acquitted in the death of the neighbor.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.