Texas Murder Suspect Free; Was Subject of L.A. Probe

The wealthy suspect in a Texas murder case who also has been named as a “person of interest” in the mysterious death of Benedict Canyon writer Susan Berman in December is out of jail, having made his $300,000 bail, police said.

Robert Durst, 58, was a longtime friend of Berman, the daughter of long-dead Las Vegas mob figure David Berman. Durst, the son of the late Seymour Durst, a powerful New York developer, was investigated but never charged in the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathleen, in New York.

Galveston, Texas, police say they arrested Durst on Tuesday after a trail of grisly clues led them to suspect him in the murder of his 71-year-old neighbor, Morris Black.

But before police knew that the middle-aged man they had picked up on a city street was a millionaire, and before they were flooded with inquiries about him from New York tabloids, Durst was out of jail.

The $300,000 bond set for his release is a little higher than what is typical for murder suspects in the Texas city, said Galveston Police Lt. Mike Putnal. Asked if Galveston County prosecutors knew that their suspect was a wealthy developer, Putnal said: “To be frank, I am pretty confident they did not.”

“We are hoping he shows up for the arraignment,” Putnal added.

A Texas lawyer who police said they believe represented Durst did not return phone calls seeking comment late Friday. According to wire reports, the lawyer, Mark Kelly, insists that his client is innocent.

Los Angeles police investigating the Berman case plan to meet with Galveston detectives early next week, according to Putnal and New York state authorities. New York state police, interested in Durst’s account of the 1982 disappearance of his wife, will also send investigators to the meeting, they said.

Police from all three agencies, “are definitely going to sit down and compare notes . . . to see if any of us have anything that might help the other,” Putnal said.

“California authorities will be joining us. . . . We will sit down together and see if any of the pieces of this puzzle fit together,” said Jeanine Pirro, district attorney in New York’s Westchester County.

Los Angeles Police Department officials confirmed that their investigators have contacted Galveston police, but as of Friday afternoon they said they could not confirm that any travel plans had been made.

LAPD detectives talked to Durst after Berman’s slaying, but later downplayed any possibility that he was connected to the case.

Berman, a creator of books and documentaries, was being sought for an interview by New York police in the Kathleen Durst case when she was found dead in her home Christmas Eve. She had been shot in the head. She and Durst knew each other from college, and acquaintances said they had kept in touch.

New York prosecutors have been interested in Durst since reopening the case of Kathleen Durst’s disappearance. “We have not ruled him in or ruled him out,” Pirro said.

His arrest in Galveston “stopped us in our tracks,” she said, adding that prosecutors had not even known he was in Texas.

Durst faces murder charges in the death of Black, whose dismembered body was found in Galveston Bay on Sept. 30.

A man fishing with his son came upon a floating torso, and divers then found Black’s limbs in plastic bags.

In one of the bags, detectives say, they also found a hardware store receipt and a newspaper with a delivery address on it. These led detectives to a long trail of clues, Putnal said.

The address took them to a small apartment building where they searched trash cans. They found, among other items, a .22-caliber handgun and spent casings, a box for plastic bags bearing a label from the same hardware store, and an eye doctor’s receipt bearing Durst’s name, Putnal said.

They searched the apartment building and found traces of blood in Black’s apartment, as well as what appeared to be a mopped trail of blood going into an adjacent apartment, where police found a 4-inch paring knife stained with blood, he said. Police allege that the second apartment was being used by Durst, although it was rented in someone else’s name. Durst was identified in a photo lineup by neighbors, Putnal said.

Neighbors also told police that they had seen him stuffing full garbage bags into his car Sunday, before Black’s body was recovered, wrapped in similar bags, he said.

When police located Durst on the street, “to us he was just another suspect,” Putnal added. “There was nothing about his demeanor, or the way he presented himself, or in the way he lived, to make us believe he was a multimillionaire.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.