By Caroline Anderson
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Robert Durst, the subject of an HBO documentary, “The Jinx,” will have to stand trial in the 2000 murder of his longtime friend, a judge ruled on Thursday after finding prosecutors had presented enough evidence for the case to move forward.
Durst, 75, was arrested in 2015 and charged with murder in the shooting death of his confidante Susan Berman.
Durst, the grandson of a wealthy New York real estate tycoon, has pleaded innocent to Berman’s murder. He will have a chance to again enter a plea at a second arraignment scheduled for Nov. 8.
Los Angeles Judge Mark Windham, at the conclusion of a nearly two-week preliminary hearing during which prosecutors presented evidence, said the real estate scion had incriminated himself through his own statements.
“I order defendant to be held to answer therefore without bail until date of his arraignment,” Windham said.
Berman, a 55-year-old writer, was found dead in Los Angeles at her home on Dec. 24, 2000, shortly after it was revealed police had reopened an investigation into the 1982 disappearance of Durst’s wife, Kathleen Durst.
Prosecutors say Durst killed Berman because she could implicate him in the murder of his wife, who vanished when the couple was living in New York City.
(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by James Dalgleish)
