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Robert Durst, Subject of HBO Documentary on Unsolved Killings, Is Arrested
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/nyregion/robert-durst-subject-of-hbo-documentary-on-unsolved-killings-is-arrested.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=0Robert A. Durst, the scion of a New York real estate family, was arrested on Saturday in New Orleans on a warrant from Los Angeles County, according to the police.
For years, questions have swirled around Mr. Durst about the unsolved killing of a close friend and confidante in Los Angeles 15 years ago, and about his first wife’s disappearance in 1982 and the shooting and dismemberment of a Texas neighbor in 2001.
HBO has been airing a documentary about Mr. Durst, and the final episode is scheduled to be shown Sunday night.
The details of the warrant were not released on Sunday morning. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the warrant was issued by the Los Angeles Police Department. Officials did not immediately return calls for comment.
(end snip)
45 replies
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...enough people believe it. Kinda like that Drew Peterson - sociopathic, ex-cop (but, I repeat myself) scum. 
Such deference.
Cher
as each episode is 45" long. That's about the actual content that you get on an hour-length show.
Cher
I wonder why this guy Robert Durst would agree to 20 hours of interviews with the director?Maybe hubris. Or maybe attempting to deceive in the hopes of keeping people off his trail?
I thought Jeanine Piro had the best answer to that question, the question everyone is asking. She said that she believed Durst enjoyed "pushing the envelope."
If you think about it, it makes sense. After all, the guy has no career, no nothing in his life, really. He's reportedly only mildly autistic, so he can still find a way to get into relationships, although as you heard him talk about them in this documentary, you can see that ultimately, it's all about Bobby Durst and no one else. For example, he complained about having to visit his mother-in-law, a woman he characterized as being a "Yankee Magazine" reader. He then went on to complain that she, therefore, liked to talk about things like canning, something he wasn't interested in. C'mon, you can't indulge your mother-in-law in a discussion about something she enjoys? On a visit you probably make only once or twice a year? What kind of person are you, anyway?
Answer: narcissist.
Piro continued, saying that the reason he agreed to the documentary was that he enjoyed the thrill of being able to elude the law. She summarized that "now the envelope may push him back." I presume that is a reference to the ending of the next trial, when the judge opens the envelope with the jury's findings.
Another possibility might be that she was referring to the two envelopes he addressed that had "Beverley" mispelled. Yes, indeed, those two envelopes pushed him back.
In regard to your other question: This guy admitted to killing & chopping up the body of a neighbor, and was acquitted by a jury. Whoa! Like how the heck did he get an acquittal?
He got the acquittal through a clever defense strategy that was once used by Clarence Darrow, the famed attorney who represented Eugene V. Debs. In this particular case and strategy, though, Darrow represented Loeb/Leopold. This strategy recognizes the contribution to the proceedings that the jury will want to make. If the defendant goes into the case saying yeah, I did it, but do me a favor and let me have life instead of the chair, the jury will get very little satisfaction in that. There will be no feeling of having contributed, and after all, those jurors are there at no small sacrifice to their personal lives, time, etc.
So instead, what the clever attorney will do in a case like this is go in saying yeah, I did it--but there were extenuating circumstances. Such circumstances are always something like abuse, or some other such thing. In this case, the extenuating circumstance was a fight over a gun. This allows the jury the feeling of having deliberated and issuing what they see as a just decision.
Re this strategy, it is also currently being used by the attorney in the Boston bombing trial that is going on now.
Cher
I thought Jeanine Piro had the best answer to that question, the question everyone is asking. She said that she believed Durst enjoyed "pushing the envelope."
If you think about it, it makes sense. After all, the guy has no career, no nothing in his life, really. He's reportedly only mildly autistic, so he can still find a way to get into relationships, although as you heard him talk about them in this documentary, you can see that ultimately, it's all about Bobby Durst and no one else. For example, he complained about having to visit his mother-in-law, a woman he characterized as being a "Yankee Magazine" reader. He then went on to complain that she, therefore, liked to talk about things like canning, something he wasn't interested in. C'mon, you can't indulge your mother-in-law in a discussion about something she enjoys? On a visit you probably make only once or twice a year? What kind of person are you, anyway?
Answer: narcissist.
Piro continued, saying that the reason he agreed to the documentary was that he enjoyed the thrill of being able to elude the law. She summarized that "now the envelope may push him back." I presume that is a reference to the ending of the next trial, when the judge opens the envelope with the jury's findings.
Another possibility might be that she was referring to the two envelopes he addressed that had "Beverley" mispelled. Yes, indeed, those two envelopes pushed him back.
In regard to your other question: This guy admitted to killing & chopping up the body of a neighbor, and was acquitted by a jury. Whoa! Like how the heck did he get an acquittal?
He got the acquittal through a clever defense strategy that was once used by Clarence Darrow, the famed attorney who represented Eugene V. Debs. In this particular case and strategy, though, Darrow represented Loeb/Leopold. This strategy recognizes the contribution to the proceedings that the jury will want to make. If the defendant goes into the case saying yeah, I did it, but do me a favor and let me have life instead of the chair, the jury will get very little satisfaction in that. There will be no feeling of having contributed, and after all, those jurors are there at no small sacrifice to their personal lives, time, etc.
So instead, what the clever attorney will do in a case like this is go in saying yeah, I did it--but there were extenuating circumstances. Such circumstances are always something like abuse, or some other such thing. In this case, the extenuating circumstance was a fight over a gun. This allows the jury the feeling of having deliberated and issuing what they see as a just decision.
Re this strategy, it is also currently being used by the attorney in the Boston bombing trial that is going on now.
Cher
They are going to blame it on the brother, saying he was a Svengali who had the younger brother under his spell.
I love your point about wanting to talk. I think that's an important component of it.
Wish I could stay and talk about this case more: I'm totally enthralled with it, being a true crime addict, and I can't wait until Wed., when HBO runs the last episode again!
But I have to go make dinner. Hmmm, maybe I can find a podcast about this to listen to while I make tomato sauce, ya' think?
Cher
