00:00:06
Hey weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. [Music] This is morbid. Morbid. Morbid. Morbid.
00:00:28
Morbid. There you go. It's kind of like morbid in Yeah. No, it's very much like in the morning in the morning. We woke
00:00:34
up so early this morning that you could tell me it was 11:00 a.m. right now and I'd be like, "Yeah, totally." Yeah,
00:00:38
absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we're doing some yoga in the morning. We're yog. We're yogis. Yeah, pretty much. I
00:00:46
felt like a yogi today cuz sometimes the instructor, like most of the time she does it with us, like so I can look at
00:00:52
her and be like, "What the [ __ ] are we doing?" But today, uh-uh. And I I mostly
00:00:56
knew what I was doing. Yeah, I mostly knew. Oh, I'm an honest girl. Sometimes I was like, "The [ __ ] where are we?"
00:01:03
Like, "Which warrior are we in?" Yeah, the warriors I have down. She We did a lizard. I said, "What?" Said, "What's a
00:01:10
lizard?" Said, "Lizard." Lizard feels great. And sometimes when we were like doing that like three dog thing, I was
00:01:16
still flowing down and then like everybody else was three dogging and I was still opening.
00:01:23
Three dog. I don't know. I like that. I like that a lot. It It feels good though. It feels good. Yeah,
00:01:30
I feel good. I feel like I'm getting stronger and it clears your mind. It does. Let you kind of zone out for a
00:01:36
little while. It's a great way to start the morning. Especially super early cuz we do it before even like anyone my kids
00:01:42
wake up. So, that's nice cuz it's like then I'm fully awake and ready to go by the time they come rolling down the
00:01:48
stairs. And you've like had some you time. Yeah. I think that's important as a mama. Oh, it is very very recommended
00:01:56
if you can get yourself up before your kids in the morning just to give yourself even if you don't have to do
00:02:01
anything productive. You can just sit Oh, yeah. If you want sit in the silence, I'd argue that's productive for
00:02:06
you. Watch a watch something on TV that you never get to watch because no one you don't get the TV. Like just even
00:02:14
having just that hour even just an hour before your kids wake up. I'm telling you, it makes a difference. Yeah. And if
00:02:21
you don't have kids, it's also just nice to have like to be the only one awake in
00:02:24
your house. Like the other morning, um I think you like overslept or something and I was like, "Oh, I'm not going with
00:02:30
her. I could have very much, but I said no." But I stayed up and I just read some of my book for like an hour, like 5
00:02:36
to 6. I just sat in my like dark living room with my like mood lighting and read. I was like, "Bitch, I love it."
00:02:44
Speaking of reading. Oh yeah. Speaking of reading, we're recording this um well ahead of time because you know life. But
00:02:53
uh so I by the time this comes out um I think we'll we'll have a whole new like ecosystem coming about by the time this
00:03:03
comes out. Absolutely. But I'm just kidding. But by the time this comes out, the paperback of the Butcher Game is
00:03:09
going to be out and available for pre-order. I'm excited. It will be out officially on August 12th, I believe.
00:03:16
But you can pre-order it now. Um, it's so early I don't have a link, but we'll try to throw one in the show notes. So,
00:03:23
the link is in the show notes right now. Check it. So, do it. Pre-order it. Everyone loves a paperback. The
00:03:32
paperback is nice. Yeah. You know, I only have the galley of the paperback. I want the Yeah. The fin deal. You need
00:03:39
the fin deal. I have the galley. I have the hard cover. Now I need the paperback. Now you need the paperback.
00:03:44
Paperback is good. You can throw it in your bag. Yeah, you can you can bend it if you want to. She might get mad at
00:03:50
you. I won't, you know, I won't get mad at you as long as you don't bend my copy
00:03:54
of it. Okay. Um, fair. Which is fine cuz I don't lend it out. So, I don't I never
00:03:58
lend out books. That's true. She doesn't. One time you gave me a book, but you made me essentially sign a
00:04:04
contract saying I wouldn't dog ear. It's not worth borrowing a book from you. I make it very not worth it. Really
00:04:12
quickly, I'm so excited. And I can't wait for the paperback to come out. Is there a date? You're like, really
00:04:17
quickly, forget this. No, I was like, wait, before I move on, let me let me fully acknowledge how excited I am.
00:04:24
No, I'm very excited. But is there a date? There is. So, it's already out for pre-order, but it's I
00:04:32
think it's going to be out officially August 12th. August 12th. I like that date. Yeah. 912. August. August is 8.
00:04:38
You [ __ ] idiot. August is right before fall. That's time, baby. Right before fall. We're getting there. Yeah.
00:04:45
August. It's so close to fall. August. Fall. I need I feel fall in my bones. No. Let us get through the summer first.
00:04:53
Okay. You know what I'm sick of? What are you sick of? I'm sick of anytime I every year I get to this exact spot and
00:05:00
I say, "I need fall." And you know what I hear from everybody? Let us get through summer. I'm not stopping you.
00:05:07
I'm not stopping a whole season from coming and going. I'm not putting some kind of magic into the air that makes it
00:05:15
stop. You are putting magic into the air, man. I won't fall. You know, you're manifesting. John does the same thing.
00:05:20
He's like, "Let us get through something." I'm like, "I'm letting you." Oh my god. Calm down, you crazy person.
00:05:27
Never, Mikey. What are these weird This is like weird things you're doing with your vocal
00:05:34
cords. It's like I'm scared. Cuz I'm mad. I'm scared. I'm mad. I'm not stopping. No, but you are
00:05:41
putting magic in the air. You're like manifesting that summer goes by fast and I don't want it to. Yeah. Too bad.
00:05:47
That's why I said manifest. Listen, I like fall, too. All I want in my godamn life is to go and this is I'm a Disney
00:05:57
adult and I don't care. I'm going to say it out loud and I don't care. All I want
00:06:01
in my goddamn life is to go to [ __ ] Disney World for October. Like, I crave that so badly. So, I can't wait for
00:06:10
fall, but then every time fall comes around, it's [ __ ] hurricane season in Florida. In Florida, so I can't go. I
00:06:17
mean, I never want to leave New England during the fall and you don't refuse to.
00:06:22
I know. Um, we're just stating our wants now. So, there's that. So, that's my want. So, hurricane season actually
00:06:29
works in my favor. I'm under biting at her. I'm under biting this. Like, I'm not traveling
00:06:35
during that time. So, I want to so bad. I'm sorry. Maybe this year's the year. Maybe it's the year. Maybe 2025. Maybe.
00:06:44
I want to go and I want to like see like the um like it be like the pumpkin in the center and everything and get the
00:06:51
merch. Yeah. And the and the party. I want to go. I want that for you. Thank you. You know, thanks. You're welcome.
00:06:59
Thank you. Thank you. I had a moment. I won't I won't yell at you about that. That's good. You can't yell at me
00:07:06
anymore. You already yelled at me real big. Cuz I'm not stopping summer. I'm just going to talk about fall all
00:07:11
through summer. That's the That's the thing is the whole time we're all enjoying summer, you're saying fall. No.
00:07:18
Now, what did you say at the beginning of that sentence? The whole time that we're enjoying summer. You're still
00:07:24
enjoying summer. Enjoying. I can talk about fall and everybody can still enjoy their summer.
00:07:30
This woman. Godamn. This woman. We're gonna get in an actual fight again. We've been match recording too much
00:07:37
lately. Too many match recordings. People are like, "Are they going to break up?" No, we fine. Literally never.
00:07:45
We're not allowed. Fine. Um, but speaking of, you know, things that you don't uh No, I have nothing. I I don't
00:07:52
have a way to to segue. It has been too many past recordings because I've lost my ability to segue. I thought my coffee
00:08:02
almost came through my nose. No, I don't have anything. I don't have it. I thought it was going to You know how
00:08:06
sometimes when you don't have something to say? You just keep going. You You're like just talk and it'll form itself
00:08:12
sometimes. I tell you that's how I get through my everyday life. Not here though. That didn't work. It doesn't
00:08:17
always. Uh so I'll I'm just going to go right into it. What we're going to cover
00:08:21
today is the crimes of Robert Durst. Of course, not Fred Durst from Limb Biscuit. Different. Um we're talking
00:08:27
about break stuff. He does. He wants to break stuff. And uh but we're talking about the Jinx, of course. The of
00:08:34
course. Um there's if you've watched the uh documentary The Jinx, I highly recommend you do it. It's fascinating.
00:08:41
And the theme song Oh. Oh, the theme song is A+. Is it the Eels? Yeah, it is. Wow. Check me out. Impressive. Thank
00:08:50
you. Uh yeah, I immediately put it on a playlist when I watched it. But so good.
00:08:54
Um it's a really horrifying documentary. It's scary. It's upsetting, but it's fascinating. It's all that stuff. And
00:09:01
they caught that very infamous uh chitter chatter in the bathroom in the bathroom on his uh hot mic there.
00:09:08
And at one point, the way he says of course in that clip, he's like, "Of course." It's like a very specific way
00:09:15
he says it. And Ash says, "Of course like that." And I've noticed intentionally. Not intentionally. She
00:09:21
just That's how she she says. She'll be like, "Oh, like yeah, I'll drive. Of course." like she just says it. It just
00:09:28
like naturally happens. And every time she says it, I'm like, "Okay, Jinx." Like I can't I can't stop. So that
00:09:36
that's just in my brain right now. But of course, let's get to the very beginning because I think a lot of
00:09:41
people know the Jinx documentary. They know the name Robert Durst. They might know a little bit about it, but like
00:09:48
there's so this is a really scary case. It's involved. He's a very scary man. Yeah. Um he did a lot. So, we're going
00:09:56
to start with the murder of Morris Black, which is a very gruesome, very sad thing. Yeah. So, on the morning of
00:10:04
September 30th, 2011, David Aa set out for Galveastston Bay for just to, you know, just to go fishing with his kids.
00:10:12
He had um his 13-year-old son, James, and his 8-year-old daughter, Elise. Um they were really just like, it's this
00:10:18
isn't like a big thing. They were just going out to kind of like hang out together, lazily, fish. So they set
00:10:24
themselves up on the shoreline. They just put their lines in the water and just sat down and waited for fish to
00:10:28
bite. That's how it goes. That's how it goes. So somewhat bored with this whole thing though, the 13year-old James, uh,
00:10:35
he was like, I'm just going to wander down the beach a little bit because I'm just staring at a fishing pole right
00:10:40
now. And at 13, you don't want to do that probably. Um, so he goes down the rocky beach and he hears his father
00:10:46
calling him back because he was asking him to come help reel in some of the lines cuz [ __ ] got excited. chick got
00:10:52
excited when he left. That's what That's what always happens. You leave and the fish bite. Exactly. So, as James
00:10:58
wandered back to his father and sister, he saw something in the water and he saw
00:11:02
something floating and he was like, "Huh?" So, he just stared at it for a couple of seconds, kind of trying to
00:11:07
like reconcile what he was looking at. Yeah. And he said it was just like a pinkish blob, but he was like, but he
00:11:14
was weird. It was weird looking. It just didn't look like anything he had seen before. And then it dawned on him and he
00:11:19
said, "Oh, I'm pretty sure that's a piece of a human body." Oh. And he's 13. Like no kid should have to see that. So
00:11:27
James yelled to his father and he said, "There's a body over here." But David Aino was like, "Yeah, he's definitely
00:11:33
joking and he's probably trying to get his sister all freaked out. Like that's very 13-year-old boy to do." Uh, so
00:11:40
David dropped what he was doing and ran over to James and he was expecting to see, you know, maybe an animal in the
00:11:45
water or something like inanimate, just floating in the water, but it was not an
00:11:51
animal and it was not something inanimate. Um, David Aa had been a surgical nurse and so he was very
00:11:57
well-versed on the human body. What are the odds? And yeah, right. And he immediately knew what was floating in
00:12:04
the bay had definitely once been part of a human body. Specifically, it was the trunk portion of a man. Oh. But the
00:12:11
head, arms, and legs were missing, which must have been horrifying to see. Yeah.
00:12:17
So, he led his kids back to the car and immediately called the police and they arrived on the scene a few minutes
00:12:22
later. Now, the remains were move removed from the water. And while they were doing that, police and shore patrol
00:12:29
agents were fanning out across the beach looking for any additional evidence, any
00:12:33
more remains. And several hours into the search, long after the sun had gone down, investigators found about 80 ft
00:12:41
offshore, three garbage bags containing more of this victim's remains. Oh man. Um, a short time after that, more bags
00:12:48
were found down the shore, and those contain the rest of the man's remains. My goodness. According to the technician
00:12:54
who performed the autopsy, the remains were that of an elderly white man in his 70s. So sad. You make it to 70 years
00:13:01
old. That's how you go out. The cause of death was a 22 caliber gunshot wound to
00:13:05
the face. Uh all indications were that the dismemberment had occurred post postmortem. Okay. More interesting than
00:13:12
the remains themselves was that there was a lot of other stuff mixed in with these remains. There was a lot of pieces
00:13:19
of garbage. Basically cash register receipts for garbage bags, a droploth, a $6.99 bow saw. M um they also in the
00:13:28
bags they also found bloody towels, one flipflop, one shower shoe, a piece of tan fabric, like a bunch of blue plastic
00:13:37
cups, used paper towels, and a copy of USA Today from 2 days earlier. Huh. And the the address label was still on the
00:13:46
USA Today. Oh. When they scoured the shoreline, they also found a blue bed sheet and a pair of men's underwear.
00:13:52
Okay. So, a lot of stuff. That's a lot of stuff. So, investigators ran the victim's fingerprints and identified him
00:13:58
as 71-year-old Morris Black. Uh Morris Black was a resident of Galveastston. He did have a criminal record, but it was
00:14:05
just minor offenses. Yeah. Um people who knew him, they didn't have the kindest things to say about him. They called him
00:14:13
gruff. They called him short-tempered. He was very demanding. That kind of thing. They didn't call him like he was
00:14:19
this horrible monster. It was just like he was kind of like beered kind of like Yeah. short-tempered. Um, a Galveastston
00:14:26
business um, owner said of dealing with Morris Black, "No matter how busy we were, he would break in and demand that
00:14:33
I stop everything and see him." And Black's sister, Trudy, kind of gave a similar description. She said of her
00:14:40
brother, "If he had a disagreement, he'd go protest. He'd march in front of the building. He could make enemies." O, so
00:14:46
he had a little bit of a reputation. And so investigators were like, "All right,
00:14:50
there there's probably at least one person that might want have wanted to hurt him, right?" Uh but the more they
00:14:55
interviewed his neighbors and acquaintances, they realized that it wasn't that like he was like a bad guy
00:15:01
and it's not like they really didn't find they were like, I don't think he would have attracted a killer. He seems
00:15:06
like he's just kind of like a like a nuisance. Like he just kind of he rubs people the wrong way. He's not like
00:15:11
threatening people or like out in these streets making enemies and he's not it didn't seem like he was pissing people
00:15:16
off to the point of like you could have attracted somebody like that. You know what I mean? So when their interviews
00:15:22
with friends and acquaintances turned up nothing, investigators visited Morris Black's home and that was the address
00:15:29
that they had found on the USA Today copy. Um, when they arrived there, which it was a forplex on a quiet street, and
00:15:37
investigators took a look around the outside of the building just to look for anything basically, and inside one of
00:15:43
the trash cans, they found an empty black garbage bag that matched the bags um that Morris Black's remains were
00:15:49
discovered in. They also found the packaging for the drop cloth found with the body and a large amount of paper
00:15:56
towels that matched those found in the bags. And they found a bunch of other items that connected the apartment
00:16:01
building to the murder. Okay, so a search of the second trash can turned up even more evidence. I mean, it's crazy.
00:16:09
Including a 22 caliber pistol and a spent shell casing. Whoa. And a receipt for an eye exam addressed to one of the
00:16:16
residents, Robert Durst. Whose address was across the hall from Black's apartment. Okay. Now, according to the
00:16:24
landlord, Klaus Dilman, no one by the name of Durst, Robert Durst, lived in that building. He said, "No, the person
00:16:30
in the place across the street, the hall from Black, that there's a quote nice middle-aged lady named Dorothy S." Mhm.
00:16:39
So, the landlord told detectives that S had lived in the apartment since 2000. Um, apparently, uh, they had moved in
00:16:46
about a month after Morris Black and the woman had never caused any problems. Okay. So, they were like, I don't know
00:16:51
what you're talking about. But Dilman did add that it wasn't S herself who had rented the apartment, but her
00:16:58
brother-in-law. Her brother-in-law had made all the arrangements over the phone because S had some kind of condition
00:17:04
with her larynx, so she could not speak. Okay. Um, in fact, they said he said in
00:17:09
the few times when Sinner and him had communicated at all, she had done so through handwritten notes. Okay. Um, and
00:17:16
finally Dilman said yes. He had met the brother-in-law once and had seen him on a few occasions and he'd never actually
00:17:22
seen the two of them together. Actually, weird. Strangely, like meaning Sinner and the brother-in-law. Strange. When
00:17:28
investigators searched Black and S's apartments, it was clear they'd found the crime scene. In both apartments,
00:17:35
there was blood on the walls and floors, as well as a blood trail leading across
00:17:39
the hall from one apartment to the other. Well, that'll tell you. Yep. In Sinner's apartment, detectives found a
00:17:45
4-in pairing knife and a pair of bloody boots. They also discovered blood outside the apartment building in the
00:17:52
parking lot. And one of the other tenants, Maria de De Hernandez, told detectives that on the night of Morris
00:17:58
Black's murder, she had seen a man loading black garbage bags into a silver Honda in the parking lot, and she didn't
00:18:04
recognize that man. That's terrifying. So, as crime scene technicians processed S's apartment, what they found painted a
00:18:12
very strange picture of who lived there. Although S had lived in the apartment for nearly a year, there was like very
00:18:18
little furniture hidden here. Um, there was a futon, a small table, and a television. The refrigerator was
00:18:24
completely empty, and the stove appeared as though it had never once been used. That's weird. It also looked as though
00:18:30
someone had gone out of their way to thoroughly scrub the floors. But when they pulled up the tile on the floor,
00:18:37
they found a large amount of blood had seeped through and soaked the boards underneath. Analysis of the blood would
00:18:44
prove that it was Morris Black's blood. Now, based on the statement from the neighbor, investigators ran a check for
00:18:51
any vehicles registered to S's address that matched the description of the silver Honda, and they learned that
00:18:58
Robert Durst had registered just such a vehicle there. H. When they showed Klaus
00:19:04
Dilman a photo of Durst, he acknowledged that he looked like the man he'd assumed
00:19:08
to be Sinner's brother-in-law. Imagine that. But more importantly, he also bore a pretty striking resemblance to Dorothy
00:19:16
Sinner herself. Strange. In fact, the more Dilman looked at the photo of Durst, the more he was like, "Oh, that
00:19:24
is actually him." Like, that is Robert Durst. Dorothy Center is Robert Durst. Wild. Can you imagine? Robert Dur had
00:19:31
lived there how many years? Um, did you say four? I think. Yeah, at least like he had moved in right after or Dorothy S
00:19:39
had moved in right after Morris Black. That's wild. Which is kind of crazy. The handful of
00:19:46
interactions Dilman had had with Dorothy Center had all been quite brief and really, like I said before, only through
00:19:53
notes. Yeah. So, it had never occurred to him that Sinner could have been anyone other than who she was saying she
00:19:58
was. Why would you pass that? Given what they'd found in the apartments and the information collected from witnesses, it
00:20:05
was clear to investigators that there was no Dorothy Center and the main suspect in the murder of Morris Black
00:20:10
was Robert Durst. Okay. Now, a few days later on October 9th, a patrol officer spotted the silver Honda and pulled the
00:20:17
driver over. When the officer asked for ID, the driver handed him a Holiday and Express hotel card with the name Jim
00:20:25
Truss. That is not identification, sir. Yeah, obviously this was not what the officer was asking for. So he was like,
00:20:30
"Hey, step out of the car." And he placed this man in custody. When the officer searched through the vehicle, he
00:20:37
found a bag of marijuana, a 9mm handgun, and a bow saw similar to the one purchased with the other items days
00:20:43
earlier. Not day-to-day travel items. Not day-to-day travel items. At first, investigators suspected this was the saw
00:20:50
used in the dismemberment. But when the autopsy was complete, the medical examiner actually confirmed that whoever
00:20:56
did the dismemberment had used a pairing knife to cut away the muscle, then used
00:21:00
a hacksaw to remove the limbs. Oh my. Now, this man that was arrested on the side of the road was Robert Durst.
00:21:07
That's crazy, right? That's wild. You didn't see that coming, did you? I known at all. The arrest of Robert Durst for
00:21:13
the murder of Morris Black came as a surprise to just about everyone. Particularly because Durst hardly looked
00:21:19
like the kind of man who was going to shoot another man in the face then dismember his body. No. But as
00:21:25
investigators started looking into his background, they discovered he was unlike anyone they had investigated
00:21:31
before. They were like, "Wow, we definitely did not know that this is what was lurking underneath." So, let's
00:21:37
talk about Robert Durst. Who the hell is this man? What is going on? He's lived a
00:21:41
thousand lives. None of them good. None of them good. Robert Allen Durst was born in Manhattan on April 12th,
00:21:49
1943. He was the oldest child of four children. His parents were Seymour Durst and Bernice Hurststein. I think Seymour
00:21:56
is a great name. That is a great name. Like his father before him, Seymour Durst was a wildly successful New York
00:22:03
real estate developer and partner at the Durst organization, which was a development firm recently valued at 8.1
00:22:10
billion. Casual. Very casual. Since being established in 1915 by Joseph Durst and his brothers, the Durst
00:22:18
organization has owned or built some of the most expensive and most recognizable
00:22:23
properties in New York City, including the Henry Miller Theater, the Bank of America Tower and the development of One
00:22:29
World Train Center. Damn. So, yeah. So, like Seymour, Robert's mother, Bernice, also came from New York, New York's
00:22:37
elite class, and filled her days with social activities. Queen, she was a lady who lunches. She did like charities,
00:22:44
lunchons, very Emily Gilmore. Yes. Bernice and Seymour married in 1940. And in the 10
00:22:50
years after that, she gave birth to the couple's four children, Robert, Douglas,
00:22:55
Wendy, and Thomas. Now, tragically, on November 9th, 1950, Bernice fell to her death from the roof of the family home
00:23:03
in what was later deemed an accident by the coroner. According to the press, Bernice had gone out on the roof for
00:23:10
unknown reasons and someone called police and fire department to rescue her. But as the firefighter was climbing
00:23:16
the ladder to reach her, Bernice insisted she could get back inside on her own, but slipped on wet leaves and
00:23:23
fell to the driveway below, which is horrifying. Yeah, that's really sad. Seymour told investigators that his wife
00:23:29
had been in treatment for asthma and had taken a sedative that morning, and later
00:23:33
that day, she had seemed confused and unlike herself. The family consulted a physician who recommended Bernice stay
00:23:39
in bed to rest. But later that afternoon, she climbed out the window onto the roof in her bathrobe. Oh man.
00:23:46
Despite the official report of an accidental death, there are many reporters and New York socialites who
00:23:51
believe Bernice had been profoundly depressed and had possibly intentionally ended her life. Oh, that's really sad.
00:23:57
Now, this is people speculating that. Yeah, of course. Obviously, we do not know that. Now, following Bernice's very
00:24:04
unexpected death, the Durst children understandably struggled to adjust to life without their mother. I can't
00:24:10
imagine. Particularly 7-year-old Robert. Oh, so little. He claimed to have witnessed the fall. Oh, Seymour
00:24:19
responded to the loss of his wife by just retreating into himself and becoming very consumed with his work,
00:24:24
which you can't when you got four little ones to take care of. When he was at home, he would often just disappear into
00:24:30
his study and bury himself in books in order to just avoid all of it, avoid all the feelings, everything. The new
00:24:36
reality in the Durst meant that the children were for the most part now being raised by nannies and other
00:24:42
domestic workers. Yeah. Which is like a big change for them. Yeah. Your mom's there one day and then gone the next.
00:24:48
So, and now you're being raised by like people who aren't your parents. Yeah. Now, as he grew older, Robert Durst
00:24:54
developed a quiet and mostly shy personality. He performed pretty, you know, adequate in school. He had a few
00:25:01
friends. His life was pretty unremarkable, like nothing crazy. Um, which honestly that's pretty remarkable
00:25:08
in and of itself for someone who came from such wealth and privilege. The fact that it was just kind of a chill life,
00:25:13
like a pretty casual existence. That said, he seemed to de develop some quirks that people who knew him found a
00:25:21
little unusual. He is. That's one way to describe this man's is quirky. Very quirky. According to his childhood
00:25:27
friend, Julie Bombgold, she said, quote, "He spoke with a draw. Long pauses punctuated his speech as if he were
00:25:35
struggling to spit out the words." Now, and he does have a different way of speaking for sure. Uh despite being
00:25:42
strongly introverted, Robert tried to fit in and was a member of many clubs, including the camera club, the Spanish
00:25:49
club, and being a member of the junior varsity soccer team, trying to just like be one with everybody. After graduating
00:25:56
from high school, Robert went on to study business and economics at um Lehi University and intended to go into real
00:26:03
estate, like the business, with his father. Things changed though once Robert joined the anti-war movement that
00:26:09
was growing on college campuses across the country. While many young people became activists during this period,
00:26:15
Robert's decision to participate didn't really sit well with his dad. Um, his dad insisted his son take his life and
00:26:22
responsibilities more seriously. But by then, Robert had become fully involved in the counterculture movement and
00:26:29
wasn't interested in whatever his father was trying to tell him what to say. Yeah. Now this shift in his priorities
00:26:34
during this period definitely was a major change. This marked a major change in his personality too. Okay. Most of
00:26:42
his life he lived up to his father's expectations and incredibly high standards. But now that he was away from
00:26:48
Seymour Durst, he began developing his own identity. And much of that identity was going to be rooted in opposition.
00:26:55
Hm. Uh, he told a reporter, "When I was growing up, it was the days of long hair
00:26:59
and marijuana. In terms of announcing that you were going into the family business, that was extremely
00:27:04
uncool." Instead, he completed his studies at Lehi and enrolled in graduate studies at UCLA, where many of the
00:27:11
counterculture ideas and philosophies were being born. Yeah. Now, it was at UCLA that Durst met one of the more
00:27:17
important influences in his later life, 21-year-old Susan B. Despite their attraction to one another, Robert and
00:27:25
Susan never became a couple. Instead, they've just got they formed a very tight close friendship, right? They
00:27:32
bonded over their almost unique personal histories. Basically, uh like Robert, Susan came from a prominent and wealthy
00:27:40
but pretty troubled family. But unlike Robert, Susan's father's wealth had come from questionable means. Oh. In 1947,
00:27:48
the mob affiliated David Berman took over the Flamingo Hotel after its previous owner, Bugsy Seagull, was shot
00:27:56
to death by an unknown gunman in his Beverly Hills home. I heard a Bugsy. So, uh, yeah, that's high up [ __ ] Yeah,
00:28:02
that's some [ __ ] So, Robert and Susan would remain close until her death in 2000, but it turned out that graduate
00:28:09
school wasn't exactly where Durst wanted to be. Uh after completing a portion of
00:28:14
his program, he dropped out of UCLA in 1969 and went back to the East Coast, but he still wasn't interested in
00:28:21
joining the family business. Instead, he I mean, by now he's fully immersed in the counterculture lifestyle. So, he
00:28:28
moved to Mil Mbury that's in Vermont. And he opened a health food store. So, he went fully the other Vermont plus
00:28:35
health food store equals Robert. Yeah. Also, my youngest calls Vermont Re. And I love it and I every time I see it I
00:28:44
think Vermont I hope I hope she never grows out of that. Now the thing is he's it's for this it looks like he's like
00:28:51
totally you know rebelling against the idea of the family business. He's going to Vermont. He's opening up a health
00:28:57
food store. It was entirely bankrolled by his father of course. So it's like he's it's not like he's going to say of
00:29:03
course. Yeah. Of course. Now as far as Seymour Durst was concerned the store was a waste of time. But at least Robert
00:29:10
was directing his energies towards business and was moving in a more what he considered to be respectful
00:29:15
direction. Okay. The store which was called All Good Things. I love that. I would go there. Right. Who wouldn't try
00:29:23
a store called All Good Things. Yeah. It reminds me of the Stephen King book Needful Things. Yeah. Um but it's not
00:29:29
the same. Uh so the store all good things was opened in a Durststone building and as a condition of giving
00:29:36
his son the money uh Robert had to be responsible for the property which included acting as a landlord to the
00:29:42
building's one tenant Kathy McCormack. Mhm. Now Robert first met Kathy in late 1971 when she moved in and pointed out a
00:29:50
number of things that needed repairing and he was immediately taken by her. Like immediately he said strongwoman
00:29:58
knows what she wants. Robert wasted no time asking her for a date. And after going out just two times, he asked her
00:30:04
to move into his house and she agreed and moved in in January 1972. He said, "This is great because I love you and
00:30:11
because I won't have to fix those things. I won't have to fix the shit." So, while Robert and Cathy's
00:30:15
relationship was going well, things at the store were not. Oh. Uh, at the same time, Seymour Durst had began
00:30:23
encouraging his son to close up the store and return home to join the family business. If nothing else, Robert would
00:30:29
be able to make much better money, which would allow him to support Cathy and Seymour hoped their family to come.
00:30:36
Perhaps he was swayed by the money or the thought of an easier life. But Robert finally caved and went in with
00:30:43
his father's demands and he and Kathy returned to New York in early 1973. And a few months later on April 12th, Robert
00:30:50
and Kathy were married. Nice. Now, initially, Robert and Kathy moved in with Robert's brother, Douglas, and his
00:30:57
wife, and their newly built home in uh in Katona, which is about 60 miles outside the city. Uh the house was
00:31:04
massive. It was spacious, definitely more than enough room for four people, but Kathy quickly started feeling
00:31:10
uncomfortable there. According to one of her college friends, the home was more than adequate, but she just hadn't
00:31:15
expected things to be so tense, she said. M um apparently uh Eleanor Schwank said the two brothers fought, bickered,
00:31:23
and constantly needled each other. So that weird. And after Kathy made her feelings known about this whole thing,
00:31:30
the couple moved out of the house and into the Durst organization's most expensive apartment, which was a
00:31:35
penthouse on River Riverside Drive, and it had panoramic views of the Hudson River. Can you imagine? It's amazing.
00:31:44
So, now that they've moved, they're much happier in their new apartment than they
00:31:48
had been living outside the city. I mean, it's a penthouse, honey. It's a penthouse. And Robert and Kathy settled
00:31:54
into their new lives. She was a nursing student and he was a real estate developer at the time. Yes. A friend
00:32:01
Gilberta Namie said, "They were earthy, downright regular people. I thought he was a caring, loving husband. I know
00:32:08
Kathy was in love with him." That may have been true, but it didn't take very long for the uh shimmer and shine of
00:32:14
their marriage to wear off a little bit. For Kathy, the idea of marrying someone
00:32:18
from an incredibly wealthy family was exciting. Hell yeah. It not only meant that she could finally have, you know,
00:32:24
all the things she ever dreamed of having as a child growing up in a middle-ass home, but it also meant that
00:32:29
she was rubbing elbows with famous and very influential people. That's fun. What she hadn't counted on was Robert
00:32:36
being so modest in how he lived. not fun. Uh or that all those famous and influential people would be more
00:32:43
interested in him than they were in her. That's tough. Yeah. But most of all, Kathy didn't love how much time Robert
00:32:50
spent with Susan Berman, who moved to New York. Yeah. And she who moved to New York in the mid70s to work for US
00:32:56
magazine. Okay. Oh, very cool. Yeah. With much more free time on her hands than she'd had before, Kathy enrolled in
00:33:03
medical school and started making friends of her own. Wait, good for her. Good for her. Also, that's funny that
00:33:09
Susan worked for US magazine. Wasn't that the magazine that they found at the crime scene in the beginning of this
00:33:13
whole tale? Was it US magazine? I think it was. I think you said US Weekly. I think you're
00:33:18
right. That's weird. Yeah, that is just like a weird coincidence. That is very strange, right? Sorry. Yeah. I was No, I
00:33:24
was like, "Oh, wow." Had to veer off there. But by the end of the 1980s, the once happy couple were now leading lives
00:33:30
that appeared to be going in very different directions. Yeah. Robert wanted things to stay exactly as they
00:33:36
had been with Kathy always being available to him whenever he wanted. That's not realistic. Kathy, on the
00:33:41
other hand, complained that, quote, "They were living well below their means, and she aspired for more." Also,
00:33:48
Robert's jealousy and his possessiveness had become like pretty intolerable, which I totally I like you can only take
00:33:55
so much of that. Yeah. He wanted to be the most important person in his wife's life, often at the expense of all her
00:34:02
other relationships. like that just can't singular focus that can't last. Yeah. Kathy's brother Jim said, "At
00:34:08
first I liked Bob." Yeah. But then as the years went by, he said that he seemed not just uninterested in being a
00:34:16
part of Cathy's family, but also pretty resentful of having to see or even acknowledge them at all, which is a big
00:34:23
problem. Yeah, that's that's big red flags right there. Yeah. Finally, by late 1980, Robert and Cathy's marriage
00:34:29
had just started falling apart. And a few months later, she hired a divorce lawyer and confided to several of her
00:34:35
friends that Robert had been physically abusive towards her. Oh. Throughout 1981, Kathy started working with her
00:34:42
lawyer to file divorce paperwork and continued working to finish medical school at the same time, which
00:34:49
by the end of the year, she was just a few months from earning that degree. Then in January 1982, Kathy Durst
00:34:56
disappeared without a trace. She was a months away from earning a medical degree. Oh, that's awful. On the morning
00:35:03
of January 30th, 1982, Robert and Kathy drove from Manhattan to Trudale Lake in South Salem, where they were planning to
00:35:10
spend the weekend at their vacation home. By then, the marriage was definitely in tatters. And Robert had
00:35:16
hoped that maybe they were still able to save things if they, you know, took some
00:35:20
time to work on it, got away from what he saw as their problems, from the chaos, the the constant social
00:35:27
stimulation of the city. I mean, at this point, you're looking at it and you're like, I don't know if you really could
00:35:33
have rebounded from what was going on here. Once you've become physically abusive, there's really no moving off.
00:35:37
There's really no rebounding off of that. Because again, like you said, Robert had become physically abusive at
00:35:43
this point. And Kathy had moved out and there was really not a lot between them beside like bitterness and resentment.
00:35:49
Yeah. And anger, which is makes sense. So like, what was this going to do? But the following day, Kathy knocked on the
00:35:56
door of their neighbor, Ruth Mayor, and asked if she could borrow a hat and a scarf because she had forgotten to bring
00:36:01
hers and she wanted to go for a walk. Yeah. Later, when asked about the specifics, Ruth couldn't recall whether
00:36:06
Kathy had mentioned if she planned to go for the walk by herself. She said as Kathy began walking away, she called out
00:36:13
to say she Ruth did. She called out and said she was having some friends that evening and suggested that Kathy stop
00:36:19
by, but Kathy had other plans. Okay. The last time Kathy Durst was seen alive was
00:36:24
that evening, January 31st. Um, it was at a dinner party thrown by her friend uh Gilbert Nimmy. Earlier in the even uh
00:36:33
afternoon, Kathy had called N Jimmy and said, "I have to get out of the house. Can I come over?" Oh, no. She arrived a
00:36:39
short time later and appeared very distraught. Um Nim said she was always nicely turned out. The things she wore
00:36:45
were always nice, but that afternoon she apparently showed up wearing red sweatpants and looked as though she
00:36:51
hadn't combed her hair in days. Oh, it was obvious she was in some sort of trouble. Yeah. Now towards the end of
00:36:56
Robert and Cathy's marriage, friends and family had definitely started to suspect
00:37:01
that things were really bad between this couple. But at that afternoon, Nimmy got
00:37:06
a much more detailed account of just how bad it was. It had started when she was
00:37:11
starting to go to medical school years earlier. Okay. A signal that, you know, to to Robert that she was becoming more
00:37:18
independent. Now, a real man in a like a real man, a real human, a real partner would think that's great. Yeah. And sing
00:37:27
your praises and sing your praises and encourage you. But no, Robert was like, "Me, you're not going to need me." The
00:37:33
abuse started gradually with first with just some like really biting remarks, you know what I mean? Like
00:37:39
discouragement, just like the verbal kind of stuff. Mhm. Then it elevated to threats of cutting off her tuition
00:37:47
payments, like you know, using the financial thing against her, like the the whole like this is my money kind of
00:37:54
[ __ ] which is like that's when it's already done. It's like not when you're married. The physical abuse soon
00:37:58
followed. At first, friends recalled Kathy occasionally mentioning and which like she just like mentioned that Robert
00:38:05
had slapped her. Oh. But I can't imagine one of my friends saying that casually.
00:38:10
No. and me not going to their house and taking care of that. But by 1981, the term slapped was hit with was um
00:38:19
replaced with hit, implying much greater force and aggression was happening. Yeah. In the last two years of their
00:38:26
marriage, the cruelty Robert directed at Kathy definitely got worse. He openly carried on affairs with other women.
00:38:33
What a pig. Including an affair with Mia Mia Pharaoh's sister, Prudence. Oh [ __ ]
00:38:38
and threw them in Cathy's face whenever he wanted to hurt her. That's Yeah. At the same time, his drinking and drug use
00:38:44
had increased, which only exacerbated his volatility. Yep. At one point, when Robert thought Kathy was having an
00:38:50
affair with a mutual friend, he violently assaulted the man, breaking a bone in his face and sending him to the
00:38:56
emergency room. Jesus Christ. But remember, he is carrying on affairs. Yeah. And that's totally okay. She can't
00:39:02
do anything about that, right? No. In early January, Kathy called a friend after a particularly bad fight she had
00:39:07
with Robert in which he had hit her multiple times. Her friend, Eleanor Schwank, insisted Kathy go to the
00:39:13
hospital in order to get the assault documented. If nothing else, you know, just to get it on the record. Yeah, it's
00:39:19
on paper. And Kathy finally took her friend's advice just a few weeks before her disappearance. The documentation of
00:39:26
the assault would have surely been included in the divorce proceedings. Oh, yep. and would have likely swayed things
00:39:35
in Cathy's favor. Yep. But that wasn't all Kathy had on her side, either. Just a few days before she disappeared, Kathy
00:39:42
told friends she had discovered some potentially embarrassing financial information related to Robert and the
00:39:48
Durst organization, and she had planned to send it to someone high up in the company. Oh, don't ever tell people
00:39:56
about that stuff. You got [ __ ] By no means is this like her fault. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying like
00:40:02
that's so scary. Yeah. Like that kind of information is scary. She was not specific about the details of the
00:40:08
information, but she heavily implied that whatever it was, it was going to be very damaging to Robert and the Durst
00:40:14
family. So, as Kathy talked to Nimmy that afternoon, their conversation was repeatedly interrupted by phone calls
00:40:22
from Robert. He screamed at his wife. He demanded she return to South Salem. And
00:40:27
the last time he called was a little past 700 p.m. and the couple argued for a few minutes before Kathy hung up. She
00:40:33
told Nim, "Bobby wants me home. He's really upset. Don't go home." So, she grabbed a few things she had with her
00:40:39
and walked to the door. But before she left, she turned to N. Jimmy and said, "If any something happens to me, check
00:40:45
it out. I'm afraid of what Bobby will do." My god. To think she literally said that. to think that there are so many
00:40:53
women who know what that feels like and that their partner, their person that they decided to marry and that like they
00:41:00
were so in love with at one point in time and felt like was so in love with them. Yep. To have that crumble and just
00:41:06
explode like that is so heartbreaking. And to say with full like your whole chest if something happens to me, look
00:41:13
into it cuz it's probably him. Like like to know that in your heart that like they are capable of that and that like
00:41:19
potentially they could do that but that I don't know how to get out of this. Like that's awful. Holy [ __ ] That's
00:41:25
awful. In this her saying that this is the last time anyone other than Robert Durst saw Kathy Durst. Wow. 4 days later
00:41:33
on on February 4th, Robert Durst walked into the 20th precinct on West Street in
00:41:38
Manhattan and reported his wife missing. Four days later. To detective Michael Struck. The timing of Durst's report was
00:41:46
a little suspicious. Yeah. According according to Durst, he had last seen Kathy on Sunday night when he dropped
00:41:52
her off at the train station to return to Manhattan alone, which meant Robert had waited 4 days to report his wife
00:41:58
missing. Weird. Durst explained to Struck that it was not unusual for Kathy to work 3 or 4 days straight in clinical
00:42:05
training. So, ding ding ding. We're going to use her going to medical school against her even when she's gone. We're
00:42:11
going to be like, well, she's just so busy she'll be gone for 3 days. Yeah. No, that doesn't make any sense. Uh, so
00:42:17
but he said he so he hadn't thought of, you know, he hadn't thought she was missing until that day. Still, Struck
00:42:22
couldn't help but noticed that for a man whose wife had been missing for 4 days,
00:42:26
Robert didn't seem particularly shaken up or overly emotional about it. Yeah, cuz he doesn't very like
00:42:32
straightforward. Here's what's happening. So, for Detective Struck, the case only grew more and more curiouser
00:42:39
and curiouser in the days that followed. I like that you scratched your chin. I did. You guys couldn't see it, but I I
00:42:44
did the chin sound like I had a beard. That was great. In his early investigation of Cathy's disappearance,
00:42:50
Struck found two witnesses who claimed to have seen Kathy on February 1st, the day after Durst claimed to have dropped
00:42:56
her off at the train station. The superintendent and the doorman at the couple's Riverside Drive apartment. Hm.
00:43:02
Later that same day, someone identifying themselves as Kathy Durst called the associate dean's office at the medical
00:43:08
school to say she was terribly ill and wouldn't be making it in. So remember, we're talking he just said someday she's
00:43:15
in clinical training for like 3 days straight and I can't get a hold of her. Oops, she wasn't. So she definitely
00:43:20
wasn't. And also who was that that called, do you think? Exactly. That's what I wonder. And it's here that the
00:43:25
trail goes cold, though. at least in terms of law enforcement. For Robert Durst, things were only getting started.
00:43:32
By the time she'd gone missing, most of Cassy's friends and family were aware of
00:43:36
how bad the relationship was deteriorating. Yeah. And they a lot of them knew about the extent of Robert's
00:43:43
abuse. Mhm. That's why Robert's performance of the alarmed husband in the wake of her disappearance seemed so
00:43:51
fake. Disingenuous at best, and at worst it was coming off suspicious. Yeah. like
00:43:56
he was totally it was coming off the opposite of how he was trying to. The week after he reported her missing, the
00:44:01
New York press picked up on the story and everyone was clamoring to interview Robert Durst. In the meantime, he'd hire
00:44:08
hired a private detective to track down his wife, who he firmly believed was still alive. He told a reporter from the
00:44:14
New New York Post she was going to graduate medical school in 3 months. That's what makes me sure she's not
00:44:20
hanging out at somebody's house. Which, no, you wouldn't. You're just trying to embarrass her and like make her sound
00:44:28
like she runs away from you and yada yada. So, whatever concern Robert showed for his missing wife in public was all
00:44:35
but absent in private. So, it was very clearly an act. Yeah. When he spoke to her increasingly worried friends, he
00:44:42
didn't come off like he gave a [ __ ] at all. When Robert finally spoke to um to
00:44:46
Jimmy a few weeks later, he said, "By the way way, Gilbert, have you seen Kathy?"
00:44:52
And the tone was casual as though he was asking after an old friend he hadn't seen in a long time. Not his wife who
00:44:58
had mysteriously disappeared. Yeah. Remember we're talking a few weeks later he sees a friend and he's like, "Hey,
00:45:05
um, by the way, have you seen Kathy?" Like what? Like she's been missing for weeks. What is it like in passing? Like
00:45:12
you're you're talking about like oh like have you seen my Like that's so weird. Like have you seen that that coat that I
00:45:17
wore the other day? I can't find it. It's so [ __ ] strange. He creeps me out. So, he's just ask he's acting so
00:45:26
[ __ ] weird about this. Like so [ __ ] weird. And within a few months, he had retreated from the public
00:45:32
spotlight and never gave another interview or spoke publicly about Kathy again. He also stopped returning
00:45:38
Detective Struck's calls, which only made the investigator more suspicious. Yep. And in the few months that had
00:45:44
passed since she was initially reported missing, the supposed witness sightings from the doorman and the superintendent
00:45:50
proved less certain than they had been. When Struck reined them in the spring, both men confessed that they'd really
00:45:56
only seen her from the back and from a distance. So neither could be certain. Anyone in New York City, they couldn't
00:46:04
even be certain that it was Kathy Durst from the back at a distance is crazy to be like, "Oh yeah, I saw her the other
00:46:10
day." Yeah. Yikes. They I'm sure like speculation obviously, but I'm sure they were intimidated. Yeah. By somebody. By
00:46:18
somebody. And we're gonna end it there because we we're going to do two parts of this. The second part is going to
00:46:23
have even more strange stuff in it. Yeah. There's a lot to follow in this case, so I do think it's a good idea to
00:46:28
break it into two. Yeah. There's a lot of names. There's a lot of stuff going on. And there's a lot of a lot of jinxy
00:46:34
stuff going on. Yes. So, of course. Of course. And we'll get to that. Don't worry. We'll get to that, of course, get
00:46:40
to that whole thing you of course heard around the world. So, in the meantime, we hope you keep listening and we hope
00:46:47
you keep it weird, but not so weird that you don't throw an of course around. Of
00:46:54
course. Bye. [Music] [Music]