Robert Durst, the notorious millionaire real-estate inheritor convicted final month within the 2000 homicide of shut good friend Susan Berman, was sentenced to life in jail with out the potential for parole right this moment. Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom Decide Mark E. Windham learn the sentence on the Airport Courthouse right this moment.
Durst, 78, whose look in HBO’s six-part documentary sequence The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst reignited curiosity within the case, sat slumped in a wheelchair within the courtroom because the judgment was handed down. At one level, each of his representatives appeared to have a look at him with concern.
The defendant, unshaven and masks slipping down his face, seemed much more gaunt than typical, his respiratory seeming to extend because the continuing marched towards its conclusion.
The protection made a movement for a brand new trial right this moment. It beforehand contended that there was “inadequate proof to help the conviction past an inexpensive doubt, and the decision was opposite to the proof and the regulation.” It cited the shortage of forensic proof. The prosecution contended that such proof was “a pink herring,” and never essential to convict.
Waldman dismissed the protection movement saying, amongst different issues, that Durst confessed to the killing. That alone, he stated, is proof sufficient. He was additionally incredulous at Durst’s rationalization of his admission. He discovered, consequently, “overwhelming proof of guilt.”
It was Durst’s personal off-camera admission of “What the hell did I do?…Killed ’em all, in fact” within the March 2015 sequence finale of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning The Jinx that noticed the lengthy suspected assassin apprehended once more by regulation enforcement. Arrested by the FBI on March 14 of that 12 months on behalf of then L.A. County D.A. Jackie Lacey’s workplace and on what gave the impression to be new proof, Durst was extradited to the West Coast in fall 2015 to face California justice.
He was convicted of first-degree homicide on Sept. 17 of this 12 months. The jury additionally discovered true the particular circumstance allegations of homicide whereas mendacity in wait and homicide of a witness. It likewise discovered true allegations that Durst personally used and discharged a firearm throughout the fee of the crime.
Durst has by no means come clear about whether or not he murdered his spouse Kathie McCormack Durst within the early Nineteen Eighties, which was the topic of the 2010 movie All Good Issues, starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. Although he was acquitted on self-defense in 2003, Durst has beforehand admitted to killing his Galveston, Texas rooming home neighbor Morris Black in 2001.
The Los Angeles Occasions reported earlier this month that the Westchester County District Legal professional’s Workplace in New York could be convening a grand jury inside a number of weeks involving the disappearance of Kathie Durst, and that the household’s lawyer, Robert Abrams, obtained an electronic mail notifying them that her members of the family won’t be permitted to talk at Durst’s Los Angeles sentencing.
Durst has lengthy been estranged from his actual estate-rich household, which is thought for possession of a sequence of New York Metropolis skyscrapers together with an funding within the World Commerce Middle. He break up with the household when his youthful brother was positioned answerable for the household enterprise, resulting in a drawn-out authorized battle and in the end reached a settlement during which the household reportedly paid him $60 million to $65 million.
Metropolis Information Service contributed to this report.