In my book, Robert Durst must be one helluva lovable, charming guy who just happens to be cursed with a ghastly run of bad luck. I mean, people keep dropping dead and falling through trap doors all around the man, and rather than run to comfort him, everyone starts wagging their fingers at him and assuming he had something to do with it!
This demonizing trend started years ago, when the real estate scion was denied the chance to run his family’s business, leading to increased ill will with his brother, Douglas, not to mention an estrangement from the entire family, who want him put away and punished to the letter of the law. Can you believe the bastards?
And of course Robert Durst was just trying to live his life when his wife, Kathleen McCormack Durst, mysteriously disappeared back in 1982. At that time—when the Scarsdale-born titan was actually living separately and dating someone else—Kathleen vanished after fighting with him, reportedly having told people she was terrified of what he’d do in response to her wanting a divorce. But that doesn’t mean he killed her or anything, OK? “Jump to conclusions and you’ll have to walk right out of here” is what it says on my gingham throw pillow, thank you.
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And that was hardly the end of the man’s woes. When the case of Kathleen’s vanishing was reopened in 2000, Durst’s friend Susan Berman was his spokeswoman, regularly feeding the press his side of the story. But some feel Berman developed a more complicated knowledge of what had really gone on with Kathleen. And suddenly, Berman was no longer alive. But everyone needs to chill out about this crazy coincidence. First of all, it’s not as if Susan was missing like Kathleen—she was found, quite visibly, in her home, having received a lethal gunshot to the head. So we know exactly what happened to her—and no, that doesn’t mean Robert Durst had anything to do with it, FYI!
That same year, Durst tried to move on and pursue his lifestyle with dignity down in Galveston, Texas, reportedly pretending to be a woman—yes, a woman—who happened to be deaf and mute. This way, if people asked him dumb questions like, “Hey, did you kill two people?” he could just flash his boobies and say, “I can’t hear you!” But still, the angry conspiracy theories started flooding in, people swearing he should have been arrested for bad drag alone.
And suddenly he had some bloodstains in his apartment. In 2001, less than a year after Berman’s demise, Durst’s Galveston neighbor, a man named Morris Black, was furiously killed and hacked to bits. But that doesn’t mean Durst did it! No, wait, Durst admitted he did it. But he sensibly explained to a jury of dunces that it was merely an act of self-defense—Black was a very mean old man, advised Durst’s lawyer—and as for the fact that Durst had chopped up the corpse with a knife, two saws, and an ax, then thrown the parts into the bay, the lawyer explained that Durst has Asperger’s. Got it? People win Oscars for pretending to have things like Asperger’s. Shouldn’t someone who’s really suffering from it be forgiven some wacky lapses? As for the fact that Black’s head was never retrieved—that’s the part that would have shown for sure whether the man had been killed in self-defense—come on, does anyone really want to have an old severed head around? No! So Durst got off, the jurors screaming “Not guilty,” then no doubt running for their lives and triple-bolting their doors shut.
But Durst still wasn’t safe, as people kept painting the poor loner in a negative light. At one point, police said he was caught trying to shoplift a chicken sandwich, among other items, from a Pennsylvania market, and some folks had the nerve to point out that he had $500 in his pocket! Please—one can never be too thrifty. Besides, he was fingering a healthy choice, and even some Band-Aids, which can be extremely useful. In 2004, he was convicted of bond jumping and evidence tampering, and just last year, he was spotted urinating all over candy at a CVS—an “unfortunate medical mishap,” said Durst’s lawyer—and again, I’m sure he was just trying to make a statement about the toxicity of junk food. My hero!
And now, various legal dingbats are trying to stir the pot all over again. Stuff uncovered in HBO’s serial doc The Jinx seem to be part of the new buzz that led to Durst’s arrest in a New Orleans Marriott on Saturday. He had reportedly been wandering around and mumbling to himself that day, but that’s hardly illegal. And he wasn’t in any bad drag, so that couldn’t have been a problem (though the orange jumpsuit he wore to his Sunday morning arraignment was a bit much, I’d say). So what is the problem, people? Can’t you let the man rest, seeing as he’s gone through three traumatic deaths—plus he has Asperger’s.
But no! The LAPD had to go and whine, “As a result of investigative leads and additional evidence that has come to light in the past year, investigators have identified Robert Durst as the person responsible for Susan Berman’s death.” Ugh. So now they want to use actual evidence against this man? When will this madness stop?
The sensationalists even want to use the fact that in Sunday night’s finale of The Jinx, many believe Durst finally seemed to have confessed to all three crimes. Can you imagine the audacity of these people? “What the hell did I do?” Durst was seen muttering to himself in a supposedly telltale moment in the finale. “Killed them all, of course.” Everyone rushed to proclaim this an “A-ha!” moment, but for all we know, he had just stepped on three roaches or something. You know how squalid these cable shoots can be.
All right, fine, don’t let the madness stop. Don’t let him rest. Never let him rest. The truth is, the man seems to reek of such evil that his eyes look even deader than those three people to me. On the off chance that he’s the devil’s spawn and not just the unluckiest man who ever lived, lol, let’s hit him with the big ax of justice, right in the cranium.
