- Real-estate tycoon
Robert Durst died in custody on Monday, his attorney said. - Durst was convicted of murder in September for the killing of Susan Berman in 2000.
Robert Durst, the heir to a real-estate fortune and convicted murderer, has died at age 78, his attorney confirmed to Insider on Monday.
Durst was taken to San Joaquin General Hospital in Stockton, California, for testing and went into cardiac arrest while there, The New York Times first reported. He could not be revived.
"We understand that his death is due to natural causes associated with the litany of medical issues we had repeatedly reported to the court over the last few years," Chip Lewis, Durst's attorney, told Insider in a written statement. Lewis said his office would not be making any further comments on Durst's death.
Durst had been on a ventilator after contracting COVID-19 within days of being sentenced to life in prison for killing his best friend, 55-year-old Susan Berman, in 2000. Dick DeGuerin, Durst's attorney, told NBC News that Durst "looked awful" and was "having difficulty breathing" and speaking when he contracted COVID-19.
Durst was convicted of Berman's murder in a Los Angeles court in September. Prosecutors said Durst shot Berman in his home in Beverly Hills in 2000, while Durst, who testified in his murder trial, denied having killed his friend.
"I did not kill Susan Berman. But if I had, I would lie about it," Durst said in court.
During the trial, prosecutors also alleged that Berman had helped Durst cover up the disappearance of his wife, Kathie McCormack Durst, in 1982.
HBO aired a documentary, "The Jinx," in 2015 that sought to solve the mystery of who was behind Berman's death, Kathie's disappearance, and the death of Durst's neighbor, Morris Black. In one scene, where Durst went to the bathroom and was seemingly unaware that his microphone was turned on, the real-estate heir could be heard saying, "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."
The state played that documentary clip for the jury during Durst's murder trial. Prosecutors alleged that Durst was involved in his wife's disappearance and the deaths of both Berman and Black, although Durst was on trial in connection with only Berman's death.
"Bob lived a sad, painful and tragic life," Durst's brother Douglas Durst told The Daily Beast in a statement. "We hope his death brings some closure to those he hurt."
Douglas Durst testified against his brother in his trial for the murder of Berman.
Durst was acquitted of Black's murder in 2003, after being arrested two years earlier when some of Black's body parts and belongings were found floating in Galveston Bay. Durst had been hiding from the police in Texas and posing as a mute woman when Black learned his real identity, prosecutors said.
Durst's attorneys argued that their client killed Black in self-defense. While Durst was acquitted of murder, he later pleaded guilty to skipping bail and to tampering with evidence for dismembering Black's body. He served three years in a Texas state prison as part of a plea deal and was paroled in 2005.
At the time of his death, Durst had been serving his life sentence for Berman's killing at the California Health Care Facility, a state prison in Stockton, California, for incarcerated people with long-term health conditions and acute mental-health needs.