Victim said she had ‘inside story’ about a disappearance, witness testifies in Robert Durst murder case

Shortly before she was shot to death inside her Benedict Canyon home, Susan Berman told a close female friend she had the “inside story” about the disappearance of the wife of a male friend in New York with whom she was angry and disappointed, according to testimony Wednesday in the murder case of Robert Durst.

The witness, Robin Karr-Morse, said Berman never named the male friend she referred to. But prosecutors allege that Durst, a New York real estate tycoon, killed Berman in December 2000 to silence her for what she knew about the decades-earlier disappearance of his wife, Kathleen. He has pleaded not guilty.

Berman was a crime writer and a close confidante of Durst.

The eccentric millionaire, 74, is unlikely to stand trial before 2018, and the judge has allowed prosecutors and defense attorneys to gather early testimony from several older witnesses.

Karr-Morse testified that she met Berman as a teenager at a boarding school in Portland, Ore., where the girls bonded over being orphans. They stayed close through the years, the witness said, even as Berman’s life spiraled out of control.

The 72-year-old witness said that toward the end of her life, Berman was broke; Karr-Morse said she gave her friend around $1,000. The two spoke about once a month, the witness said, adding that Berman also mentioned that a “high-profile” friend of hers had sent her $15,000. (According to testimony at a hearing earlier this year, Berman said that Durst sent her checks for large sums of money before her death.)

Over time, Karr-Morse said, she and Berman had numerous conversations about a friend of Berman’s from New York whose wife had disappeared. The subject came up again during their last conversation in December 2000, the witness said. Berman seemed nervous and said someone was coming to talk to her about the topic, Karr-Morse said, adding that Berman said she was angry and disappointed in her male friend.

“She said, ‘I’m going to blow this case wide open,’ ” Karr-Morse said. “It was as if she had information…. She simply told me she had the inside story.”

The witness testified that she tried to steer the conversation to a different, happier subject, but she said Berman insisted on speaking vaguely about her male friend’s situation.

“What are you talking about?” Karr-Morse recalled asking.

“I’d tell you,” Berman responded, “but your life would be in danger.”

During cross-examination, the witness recalled a 2001 interview with Los Angeles police detectives a few months after Berman’s death, during which she discussed several of Berman’s acquaintances.

“Did you ever tell them anything about Susan Berman blowing the lid off a story?” asked defense attorney David Chesnoff.

“I don’t remember,” Karr-Morse answered.

A few moments later, a prosecutor conceded that during the 2001 interview, Karr-Morse had never mentioned Berman’s friend with the missing wife or how she planned to “blow” the case open.

On Tuesday, prosecutors questioned Berman’s next-door neighbor, Marvin Karp, eliciting testimony they may use to help establish a timeline of Berman’s slaying.

Karp, a retired doctor, said he often saw Berman playing in the backyard with her two dogs but never saw them running loose in the neighborhood. It would have been “dangerous” to do so, he said, as traffic often barreled down their street. So, the witness said he was surprised to find the dogs loose in his frontyard the morning of Saturday, Dec. 23, 2000. He was concerned about the dogs and considered going over to Berman’s home, but he decided against it when the dogs ran off.

Investigators know from airline records that Durst took a 10 p.m. flight from San Francisco to New York that evening. Berman’s body was found the next day. Prosecutors may argue that Berman wouldn’t leave her dogs loose and was already dead when Karp encountered them, giving Durst time to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

During cross-examination, Karp conceded that he didn’t remember any cars driving up to Berman’s home and hadn’t heard any unusual sounds the night before the dogs showed up at his front door.

Robert Curtis, retired assistant chief of the Beverly Hills Police Department, also testified Tuesday about a “very unusual” anonymous note he received on Dec. 27, 2000, which alerted police to a “cadaver” and included Berman’s address. Curtis said he could not recall any other instance of receiving a note about a dead body.

Some of the most damaging testimony against Durst came during a hearing this year, when Durst’s longtime friend Nick Chavin said that the real estate scion had once confessed to killing Berman, their mutual friend.

“I had to. It was her or me,” Durst said, according to Chavin. “I had no choice.”

Durst was arrested in connection with Berman’s slaying on March 14, 2015 — a day before the finale of a six-part HBO documentary, “The Jinx,” in which Durst mumbles, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

Some viewers interpreted the comment, which was captured on a hot microphone while Durst was in the bathroom, as a confession to the killings of Berman, his long-vanished wife and Morris Black, his neighbor in Galveston, Texas, where Durst was living off the grid and using an assumed identity as a mute woman.

Durst admitted killing Black and dismembering his body, but he argued at trial that the gun had accidentally fired while he was defending himself in a struggle. A jury acquitted him.

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

For more news from the Los Angeles County courts, follow me on Twitter: @marisagerber

UPDATES:

6:55 p.m.: This article was updated with additional testimony from the hearing.

This article was originally published at 3:35 p.m.