Westchester County District Attorney's Office

Report on the Investigation into the

Disappearance of Kathleen Durst

Miriam E . Rocah
District Attorney
Westchester County
Statement from District Attorney Rocah . .
. . . . bent upon me to mamtam public
As the District Attorney of Westchester County, it 1s mcum
. the ublic, where possible, is the
trust in the criminal justice system. I believe that sharing facts with p

i
. ort summarizes some of the
be st way to enhance public trust in our criminal justice system. This rep
. . . . K hleen Durst in order for the
facts gathered during the mvestigations into the disappearance of at
. . RO bert Durst since a public
public to be more fully informed about the basis for the charges agam st '

trial is no longer possible due to his recent death. It will also shed light on some of the reasons why

·it too k nearly 40 years to charge Robert Durst with her murder. In pa rt·ICU Jar ' our investi 00 ation

revealed some missed opportunities by law enforcement during the crucial early stages of the

investigation, which may have contributed to the delay in bringing justice in this case. This is not

about assigning blame, but rather looking at how we can better serve justice in future cases. This

report is not a comprehensive account of all of the information learned during the investigation and,

based on New York State Grand Jury secrecy laws, excludes certain information.

Introduction

In January 2021, the Westchester County District Attorney directed her newly created Cold

Case Bureau to investigate the previously unsolved disappearance of Kathleen Durst, which took

Place nearly 40 years ago. The resumption of this investigation included , am ong o th er t h"mgs, t he

review of police paperwork, information revealed during the production of th HBO d

e ocumentary
nd
about Durst titled "The Jim: The Life a Deaths of Robert Durst " ·t
, w1 ness interviews, and
information related to Durst's Los Angeles prosecution, includ,·ng .
testimony elicited during
proceedings related to his trial for the murder of Susan Berman.
 The Night of Kathleen Durst's Disappearance and Durst's Statements to Law Enforcement

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Kathleen Durst vanished on the night of January 31, 1982. She was first reported missing to

the New York City Police Department ("NYPD") by her husband, Robert Durst, on February 5,

1982, five days after she went missing. In that report, Durst claimed to investigators that he had

driven Kathleen from their South Salem home to a nearby train station in Katonah, where she

boarded a Manhattan bound train to return to their Riverside Drive apartment. Durst further

reported that he called her later from a South Salem payphone and confirmed that she had arrived at

the Riverside Drive apartment. Based on these statements, the NYPD focused its investigation in

Manhattan, driven by the information that she had vanished sometime after arriving at her Riverside

Drive residence the night of January 31, 1982. This focus was based largely on Robert Durst's

statements to police about his last contact with his wife. As set forth below, a number ofDurst's

statements to authorities regarding Kathleen's disappearance were contradicted even early on in the

investigation.

The Initial 1982 Investigation

The NYPD, with the assistance of the New York State Police ("NYSP"), interviewed

Kathleen's family, friends and associates as they investigated Kathleen's disappearance. These

interviews revealed inconsistencies between Durst's original statements about his wife's

disappearance and the statements of the individuals that were interviewed.

Evidence Contradicting Durst 's Initial Statements

First, contrary to Durst's contentions otherwise, interviews revealed that Kathleen and Durst

had been experiencing marital problems at the time of her disappearance, and there were allegations

that Durst committed acts of domestic violence against Kathleen. Specifically, one of the Dursts'

neighbors in the Riverside Drive apartment bu"ld" . t" aators that on one previous occasion,
1 mgto 1d mves lo '

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and knocked on the window to b

Kathleen had climbed from her balcony to the neighbor's balcony t

. • I then told the neighbor that Durst

let m. Kathleen, who the neighbor described as scared and hy stenca '
would shoot her. When confronted

i
had beaten her, that he had a gun, and that she was afraid that he
. ,, ed Jaw enforcement that there were
with this, Durst denied the incident. The neighbor also miorrn
. .
ot her mc1dents . which
m . Kathleen came to their apartment see k.mg protection from Durst.

. Kathi ee n to the train he stopped at the

Second, contrary to Durst's claim that after driving
home of h1s
. South Salem neighbors for drinks before returning
· to h.IS home next door, his neighbors

denied that Durst visited them that night.

Third, according to the cleaning woman who worked at the Durst South Salem home, when

police visited the home shortly after Durst reported Kathleen missing, she showed the police what

she described as a small amount of blood on the dishwasher. The cleaning woman also recalled telling

police that she noticed a wood panel askew in the dining room, as well as the presence of grimy

fingerprints in that area. She also recalled telling police that Durst instructed her to dispose of many

of Kathleen's belongings soon after her disappearance. 1

Additional Evidence

In the days immediately following Kathleen's disappearance, a worker at another of the

h
Dursts' apartments, located at 12 East 86' Street in Manhattan, encountered a clogged trash

compactor at the building. Inside, she found a number of personal items, including medical books

marked with Kathleen Durst's name. Ka thleen was in her final year of medical school at the time,

and was set to graduate that spring. The worker shared her findings with Kathleen's sister, who in

, Although there are no reports from the i 98~ in:::~ga1ion that docu_ment these observations, when interviewed in
2000, the cleaning woman told police about er rvat,ons and indicated that she made the same report to the police
in 1982.

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 tum shared them with police, since Kath leen' s family did not believe that there was any rational

/ reason why Kathleen would have disposed of the materials herself.

Kathleen' s family and friends also reported finding notes, believed to be in Robert Durst's

handwriting, in the garbage at the South Salem home shortly after Kathleen's disappearance. One

note appeared to be Durst's itinerary for the week after Kathleen disappeared. Another note

(hereinafter, the "Dig Note") contained the following words: "town dump, bridge, dig, boat, other,

shovel, car or truck rental." These notes were also shared with the NYPD.

Despite the evidence that seemingly contradicted Durst' s version of events, the focus of the

investigation remained in New York City. This was in part because of (I) statements made by

individuals working in the Riverside Drive building the night of Kathleen's disappearance who

claimed to have seen her at the building, which appeared to corroborate the statements made by Durst

that she traveled into the city that night; and (2) a phone call that was placed to Kathleen's Bronx

medical school the day after she was last seen, wherein she purportedly notified them of her intended

absence. As detailed below, these two pieces of evidence did not withstand further investigative

scrutiny. At the time, investigators were also subjected to statements by Durst's close friend and

unofficial spokesperson, Susan Berman, who was a well-known author, which characterized Kathleen

in an unflattering light and suggested that Kathleen voluntarily ran off with another man. After the

Manhattan-centric investigation failed to locate Kathleen or her body, the investigation went cold.

NYSP and WCDAO Investigation - 1999 to 2005

In 1999, after receiving a tip from a person who had been arrested on an unrelated case and

who claimed to know the location of Kathleen's body, NYSP Investigator Joseph Becerra examined

the NYSP file and a number ofNYPD reports related to the investigation of Kathleen's disappearance.

While that tip did not lead to any credible evidence, it did cause Investigator Becerra to begin another

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• . . . . ators from the Westchester Count
mvestigat1on mto Kathleen's disappearance, assisted by InveStlg 1

Di strict Attorney's Office ("WCDAO"). Most importantly, Inv. Becerra re-interviewed many of the
.
witnesses who had been interviewed around the time of Kath1een ,s disappearance. He determined

that the information gathered in I 982, which had led the Pol 1.ce to focus the investigation in

Manhattan, was not credible or reliable. Specifically, with ~espect to the Riverside Drive building

emp Ioyees: (I) one worker reported to Inv. Becerra that he had been mis
· taken about seeino
0 Kathleen

the night she disappeared; (2) another clarified that he thought he had seen someone wearing

Kathleen's coat, but could not say whether it was Kathleen; and (3) the elevator operator who was

working when Kathleen purportedly returned to her Riverside Drive residence told Inv. Becerra that

Kathleen had not, in fact, returned that night. Further, with respect to the call that Kathleen

purportedly made to her medical school, there was no evidence that the person who identified herself

as Kathleen in the call to the medical school dean the day after her disappearance was actually

Kathleen Durst and not someone pretending to be her as part of a ruse . As discussed below,

subsequent evidence was developed that the call was not, in fact, placed by Kathleen.

As part of the new investigation, on January 6, 2000, NYSP searched the South Salem home,

which had been since remodeled and was no longer owned by Durst. The Dursts' cleaning woman

accompanied NYSP during this search, and pointed out the wood panel that she reported as being

askew in the days just after Kathleen' s disappearance. NYSP discovered a secret compartment behind

the wood panel but no evidence was recovered inside the compartment. Nor was a .
' ny new evidence
discovered in other parts of the home or in the lake on which the home borders Th .
· e existence of the
new NYSP investigation was reported in the media in October 2000, and shortly th ft
erea er, Robert
Durst fled to Galveston, Texas, where he disguised himself as a mute woman.

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 As a part of the investigation, Inv. Becerra interviewed Robert Durst' s family and friends, and

he planned to interview Susan Berman. However, before Inv. Becerra could speak with Berman, she

was murdered in her Los Angeles home on or about December 23, 2000. Evidence shows that after

the investigation was reopened and prior to her murder, Robert Durst sent Berman two checks with

the value of $25,000 each.

According to the investigation into Bennan's murder, there were no signs of forced entry, and

nothing appeared to have been stolen from her home. Around the time Bennan's body was

discovered, the Beverly Hills Police Department received a note in the mail. The address on the

envelope had the word Beverly misspelled as "Beverley," a fact that would become relevant later in

the investigation, as discussed below. The note within the envelope contained Bennan' s address and

the word "cadaver" (hereinafter, the "Cadaver Note").

Shortly after Berman's murder, Inv. Becerra and a WCDAO Investigator flew to Los Angeles

where they met with the LAPD, and interviewed some of Susan Berman's friends and family. At

other times during the investigation, NYSP, WCDAO investigators, and other law enforcement

officers conducted additional interviews with Berman's friends and family. During these interviews,

Susan's friends said that Susan told them that she helped Robert Durst after his wife disappeared by

pretending to be Kathleen during a phone call that Berman placed to Kathleen's medical school saying

that she would be absent. Additionally, a mutual friend of both Berman and Durst also told law

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enforcement that Susan told the friend that Durst confessed to Berman that he killed Kathleen.

On or about September 28, 2001 , Robert Durst's. Galveston neighbor, Morris Black, was

murdered, and his dismembered torso was found in garbage bags floating in Galveston Bay. Evidence

led police to Durst, who was arrested and charged with Black's murder. Durst posted bail and fled.

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According to another witness, Berman said that Durst d . . fight with Kathleen and said that Kathleen
had an accident on the stairs. a rnitted to having a 1

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r
Seven weeks later, Durst was caught when he was arres ted for shoplifting from a Wegman's gr\)~

store in Pennsylvania. At the time of his arrest, he had a shaved head and eyebrows, and about $SQ()

in his pocket. Police executed a search warrant on Durst's ren;aI car' which he had rented in Morris

Black's name. During the search, officers recovered approx imately $37,000, two loaded handguns,

and some handwritten notes one of which contained the Con necticut work address of a friend of
'
Kathleen who had been vocal about her be I.1ef that Durst was responsible for Kathleen's
disappearance and death.

After his apprehension in Pennsylvania, Robert Durst was returned to Texas and held for trial.

During the trial, Durst testified that he killed Morris Black in self-defense. On November I I, 2003,

Durst was acquitted of murdering Black, but later pied guilty to bail jumping and evidence tampering,

and was sentenced to five years in prison. Durst was not charged in the death of Berman or Kathleen,
and the NYSP and the WCDAO investigation became dormant.

Interviews of Robert Durst bv Andrew Jarecki - 2010 to 2015

In 20 I 0, after Durst was released from prison and from parole, and after reading about the

soon-to-b, ,eleased sedpt,d movie based on his lifo titled, "All Good Things," Robert Du,st contacted

the film 's director, Andrew Jarecki, and asked to view the movie Jarecki arra d f, .
· nge or a private
viewing, a/le, which Doest contacted /a,ecki. Doest told Jarecki that h, liked th, way he was

portrayed in the movie and proposed that Jarecki interview him. Durst and J k' .
arec I Watched the movie
together, during which Durst provided commentary, which was recorded D t . .
· urs a1so part1c1pated in
three days of recorded interviews during which he made many ad"'· .
•ulSStons. Th d .
included: that he had a number of physical altercations with Kathleen i d' ese a missions
I
' nc u tng on the night she
disappeared; that he lied to police about calling and speaking to her at their R· . . ·
, tvers1de Dnve apartment;
and that he did not actually have drinks wi th his neighbors the night that sh d'
e tsappeared. Durst

- -- --
 continued to insist, however, that he did not kill Kathleen, and that he drove her to the Katonah train

station in Westchester County. He claimed his lies were intended to focus the search in Manhattan.

Durst also admitted that shortly before Susan Berman was murdered, Berman told him that she had

been contacted by detectives regarding Kathleen's disappearance and that she intended to talk to them.

Durst denied writing the Cadaver Note, but opined that only the killer could have written it.
/
I After these interviews, Susan Berman's stepson gave Andrew Jarecki an envelope and letter

that Robert Durst had sent to Susan Berman over a year before she was murdered, which he had found

with Berman's possessions. The return address on the envelope was stamped with Robert Durst's

name and Manhattan business address. The envelope was addressed in block lettering that appeared

strikingly similar to the lettering on the Cadaver Note sent to the Beverly Hills Police Department

around the time of Berman's murder, and included the same misspelling of "Beverly" as "Beverley."

After receiving the envelope, Andrew Jarecki tried repeatedly to schedule another interview with

Robert Durst, with the intention of confronting him about these similarities. Durst avoided doing so

for some time, but eventually scheduled an interview for April 18, 2012. When questioned about the

two envelopes, Durst admitted that the writing was very similar, and the misspelling the same, and

while he conceded that he wrote the letter to Berman, he continued to deny that he wrote the Cadaver

Note. At the conclusion of the interview, Durst, still wearing his microphone, went to the restroom

where he was recorded talking to himself. Specifically, Durst said :

There it is. You' re caught. Well, that' s ... You're right, of course. But
you can' t imagine. They want to talk to him. That's good. I find them
very frightening, and I do not want to talk to them. I don't know. The
washe: .. . Well! don't know what you expected to get, bu: the ..._the
rest ot. .. I don t know what's in the house . Oh, I want this ... Killed
them all of course. I want to do something new. There's nothing new
abou: tha\ What _a disas:er. He was right. I was wrong. And the .
burping. I m having d1ft1culty with the question. What the hell did I
do?

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 t t !king to himself and stating
Years after the Jarecki interviews were completed , the audio of Durs a

"[t ]h ere 1t
. 1s.
. You're caught." was dtscovere
. d d unng . o f"The Jinx." The envelope and
. the production

letter Durst sent to Berman, and the bathroom audio record'mg, were turned over to Los Angeles

. . who subsequently obtained an arrest warrant for Durst for the murder of Susan Berman.
authorities,

Berman Murder Charges and Subsequent Trial

On March 14, 2015, the night before the final episode of The Jinx was to air, DurS t was

arrested in New Orleans for the murder of Susan Berman. In his possession police found a loaded

gun, over $40,000, a fake identification, and a latex mask capable of altering his appearance. Durst

pied guilty to felony weapon possession in Louisiana related to the loaded gun that he possessed, and

he was subsequently extradited to California in November of 2016.

Robert Durst was charged in California with murder in the first degree with special

circumstances. One of the "special circumstances" was that he killed Berman because she was a

witness to a crime, and to prevent her from cooperating with law enforcement about that crime. The

theory of the prosecution was that Durst killed Berman because she was a central witness in the

investigation of Kathleen's death; evidence showed that Durst made admissions to Berman that he

had killed Kathleen, and that Berman assisted Durst by calling Kathleen ' s medical school pretendino
C,
to be Kathleen in order to misdirect the police investigation.

During the trial, a witness testified that the witness met Durst for dinner and Durst said that

he wanted to talk about Susan and Kathleen. When the dinner ended, the witness realized that they

hadn't spoken about the women and, according to the testimony, the witness said to Durst, "you

wanted to ta lk a bou t S uSa n ' " and Durst replied, "I had to. It was her or me. I had no choi·ce." The

witness
. test1'fi1ed th a t Durst then began to walk away, at which time the witness said "You wanted to

. ,. an d D ur st continued to walk away without responding.

talk about Kathie

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 Robert Durst testified in his own defense at the Los Angeles trial. In that testimony, he

continued to deny killing Kathleen and repeated his story that he left her at the train station the night

(
she disappeared. He did concede, however, that he wrote and sent the Cadaver Note to the Beverly

Hills Police Department. Durst testified that he did so after he found Susan Berman's body after she

was murdered, but claimed that he was not the killer. He testified that he did not report finding the

body because he thought no one would believe that he did not kill her. Durst also testified about the

Dig Note found in the trash at the South Salem home just after Kathleen' s disappearance. Specifically,

he testified that it was a to-do list for a neighborhood high school student that he had hired to do odd

jobs around the South Salem house, and was not related to the disposal of a body. Durst's trial

testimony about what he did in the time period surrounding Kathleen's disappearance contained

several inconsistencies from his previous accounts. He also admitted that he perjured himself in the

Texas trial when he denied he was in Los Angeles at the time of Berman's murder.

On September 17, 2021, Durst was convicted of Susan Berman's murder with the special

circumstance of killing a witness to prevent them from cooperating with law enforcement. On

October 14, 2021 , he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Effect of the Trial Conviction

In addition to the admissions Durst made during the course of the trial, Durst's conviction was

legally significant for a potential criminal charge in Westchester County for Kathleen Durst's murder.

Specifically, because Durst was convicted of killing Berman as a witness to prevent her cooperation

with law enforcement, Berman' s statement that she was the person that called Kathleen's medical

school pretending to be Kathleen and Durst's statement that he had made to Berman about killing

Kathleen (as told through other witnesses) were now admissible in New York. Put another way, there

was now new, legally admissible evidence that Durst had admitted to Berman that he killed Kathleen

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 The Westchester Counh,
t
nforce111en · ,,
and that Berman assisted in Durst's misdirection of Jaw e b
. Town Court on Octo er 19, 202 1
. . th Lewisboro '
District Attorney's Office filed a felony complamt m e .
ber I 2021, a grand Jury returned
On Nove!!l '
charging Robert Durst with murder in the second degree.
h n filed the necessary paperwork to
an indictment charging him with that crime. The WCDAO t e
2022 Robert Durst died before he could
secure Durst's return to Westchester County. On January 1O, '
. . t filed against him.
be brought to Westchester County to face the md1ctmen 1

Conclusion
· · · l· · · · K hl D , d' ppearance was hampered by several factors
The m1t1a mvestlgatlon mto at een urst s 1sa

including: ( 1) an overreliance on the narrative provided by Durst, who was the laS t person to see

Kathleen; (2) an overreliance on the statements of Susan Berman, a successful author, who acted as

Durst's spokesperson, about Kathleen' s life style habits and likelihood to run away; (3) the

insufficient investigation into the statements made by the witnesses who had placed Kathleen in

Manhattan until Inv. Becerra did so almost 20 years later; and (4) a failure to thoroughly investigate

the phone call supposedly placed by Kathleen to her medical school, which was later discovered to

have been a ruse perpetrated by Susan Berman at Durst's request. All of this allowed the initial

investigation to be focused almost solely in Manhattan, resulting in missed opportunities to possibly

obtain physical evidence in Westchester County where she was actually last seen alive.

In short, it appears that the initial investigation suffered to some degree from "tunnel-

vision"- having a theory of a case, which is maintained even when there are red flags that should

cause those initial theories to be questioned. While the investigation understandably focused on

Manhattan initially, that should have changed as more facts came to light. While it is impossible to

know why this happened , we cannot ignore th e wealth, status and resources available to Durst, and

the credibility accorded to Susan Berman because of her status as a well-known author. This case

Ii
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)
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-
)

should serve as a stark remi·nder to investigators and prosecutors that the best approach initially is

. an open mm
always with · d and a broad brush, especially in hom1·c1·d e cases where physical
. .
evidence

r is so crucial. We must also remember th at cases involving domestic violence are often based in

deception and secrecy, where the details of what occurred cannot always be proven by evidence from

outside of the home, and as such, should be approached with that in mind.

Thanks to the dedication of investigators with NYSP, the WCDAO and ADAs from our Cold

Case Bureau, however, we were able to reach the point where we felt confident that we could prove

beyond a reasonable doubt that Robert Durst murdered Kathleen Durst in Westchester County. We

hope that the charges here send a powerful message that no one is above the law and that no victim's

case should be forgotten.

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