LOS ANGELES (CN) --- Accused murderer and real estate heir Robert Durst, 72, admitted Tuesday under cross-examination by Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John Lewin that he has no qualms about lying to get out of trouble, whether that’s to Lewin and his investigators or to the jury in his murder trial.
Durst claims he has been truthful during his five days of testimony thus far in his trial for the murder of his longtime friend Susan Berman in 2000, but that didn’t stop Lewin from hammering him on his past falsehoods. Lewin appeared to be driving home the point that Durst should not be trusted and would say anything that he felt may help him.
Durst revealed that his lawyers warned him prior to his initial interviews with Lewin to “tell the truth and nothing but the truth” but added that the “whole truth” part was up for interpretation — meaning Durst was instructed to avoid adding anything incriminatory when answering Lewin’s questions. He quickly clarified that his lawyers never instructed him to lie, but merely advised that he not volunteer additional information.
Lewin asked Durst point-blank whether he would admit under oath to killing Berman, if he had in-fact done so, to which Durst firmly answered “No.”
“If you’ve said you’ve taken an oath to tell the truth but you’ve also just told us that you would lie if you needed to,” Lewin asked, “can you tell me how that would not destroy your credibility?”
“Because what I’m saying is mostly the truth. There are certain things I would lie about, certain very important things,” Durst responded.
Lewin ran down a list of supposed lies already told by Durst, including his describing fond childhood memories of playing Frisbee and UNO with his family — neither of which had yet been invented at that time.
“Have you ever lied under oath before?” Lewin asked. “Yes,” Durst replied matter-of-factly.
Lewin also brought up a statement Durst made at the end of a documentary about his legal troubles called “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.” Unaware he was still being recorded, Durst can be heard speaking softly to himself in a bathroom, saying, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
“What I did not say out loud, or perhaps I said very softly, is: ‘They’ll all think I killed them all of course,’” Durst clarified from the witness stand.
He added that agreeing to provide material for the documentary was a “very, very, very big mistake.” Durst explained that he chose to do the project because he had grown tired of being a pariah in polite society after he was shunned by numerous condo associations across the country, as well as having the Los Angeles County Museum of Art decline his donation unless he agreed to make it anonymously.
Hailing from a prominent family of New York property developers, Durst is currently on trial for Berman’s 2000 murder in a Los Angeles suburb. Prosecutors allege Durst killed Berman because investigators had been questioning her regarding another possible murder connected to Durst: the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack, for which Durst was never charged.
According to Durst’s version of the events, he arrived at Berman’s home for a visit shortly after she was killed, and found her lying dead on the bedroom floor. At first Durst thought Berman had fainted or fallen, but soon noticed blood dripping from her head. Police learned of Berman’s death through a note that Durst initially denied writing, but now admits to authoring.
He claims he had no reason to kill Berman, saying he had known for years that investigators questioned her about him from time to time, but that he had long since stopped taking their inquiries seriously.
Prosecutors previously tried Durst in Texas for the murder of his neighbor Morris Black, who Durst admits to dismembering and dumping in Galveston Bay. Durst was acquitted in that case on the grounds of self-defense after successfully arguing that Black was shot in the head accidently while the two wrestled over a gun that Black was holding.
Police arrested Durst for Berman’s murder in 2015, and his trial began earlier this year before being postponed due to the pandemic. The prosecution will continue its cross-examination of Durst on Wednesday.
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