0:00

The views and opinions expressed in this program

0:02

are those of the speakers and do not reflect the views

0:04

or positions of iHeartMedia. Murder

0:09

Holmes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

0:12

It is not a documentary.

0:14

It is a dramatic series which

0:16

is just Andrew Jureki saying.

0:18

Look at me.

0:19

I solved it, and then you took four years

0:21

to make yourself the hero of this story

0:24

that you did nothing for.

0:26

Anybody who's a fan of true crime TV

0:29

has heard of the Hot Mike bathroom confession

0:31

of Robert Durst, a wealthy real

0:33

estate heir, who was suspected of killing three

0:35

people. As he wandered into

0:38

our restroom, unaware that the mic clip to his

0:40

dress shirt was still on, he said, what

0:42

the hell did I do? Kill them all? Of course,

0:45

this all happened in the last episode of The

0:47

Jinks, an HBO documentary that

0:50

featured Durst and the lurid crimes

0:52

he had always managed to escape until

0:54

that moment. I was

0:56

the last person who thought I had become involved

0:58

in the Durst case. What was there

1:00

to say? After The Jinks covered it all and managed

1:02

to film one of the most gripping moments in documentary

1:05

history. Then a man

1:07

named Sarreb Kaufman reached out to

1:09

me and told me he wanted to tell me the real

1:11

story behind the Durst case. I

1:14

was intrigued and a little intimidated. He

1:17

was the son of one of Durst's victims, and

1:19

he had also been friends with Durst. He

1:21

had also played a central role in the documentary.

1:24

Why was he so angry now? And what facts

1:26

did he want to set straight? But

1:29

first, let's take a step back, because

1:31

there might be a few people who still haven't watched the

1:33

jinks. If

1:36

you find yourself cruising past the secluded

1:38

neighborhood of Benedict Canyon, just a

1:40

little to the south of Sherman Oaks, you

1:42

might easily miss the two bedroom home at fifteen

1:44

twenty seven Benedict Canyon Drive. It

1:47

lies behind a tall hedge now and

1:49

has been extensively remodeled, as

1:51

all murder homes tend to be. The

1:53

kitchen has been opened up. The witch shingles

1:56

that used to give the place a homie feel have long

1:58

since been removed, but it's

2:00

still not hard to find photographs online

2:02

of how it looked on December twenty fourth, two

2:04

thousand. The most important thing

2:06

seemed to be the desk in the living room, the

2:08

front of which was covered with photographs, and

2:10

so were the walls behind it, and you

2:13

get the feeling that this is the only place that

2:15

Susan Berman felt most at peace. In

2:17

the crime scene photograph taken inside fifteen

2:20

twenty seven Bendit Canyon Drive, the

2:22

writer's large white desk still seems

2:24

to hog all the attention. It

2:26

might take a second or two for you to notice the body

2:29

in the bedroom behind it. On

2:32

December twenty fourth, two thousand, a neighbor

2:34

of Susan Berman, a fifty five year old

2:36

writer who lived at fifteen twenty seven Bandic

2:38

Drive in Los Angeles, noticed

2:40

that the door of the two bedroom which shingled home she

2:43

was renting was open and one of her

2:45

fox terriers had gotten loose. He

2:47

called the police. She was found

2:49

face up on her bedroom floor and had

2:51

been shot execution style on the back

2:54

of the head with a nine millimeter handgun.

2:57

Berman was the daughter of one of the most feared

2:59

Jewish gangsters of his era, David Berman,

3:01

and some reporters fancifully suggested

3:04

that it might have been mob payback for a screenplay

3:06

she was working on, but whoever

3:08

had shot Susan Berman in the back of the head had

3:11

most likely been someone she was familiar with. There

3:13

were no signs of forced entry or a struggle.

3:19

Weeks after the murder, a note addressed to the Beverly

3:21

Hills Police was dropped in a mailbox.

3:24

Beverly was spelled wrong, the

3:26

message scrolled inside was written out in block

3:29

letters. Fifteen twenty

3:31

seven, Benedict Canyon Cadaver police

3:34

realized that whoever had dropped the note in the mailbox

3:37

was also the murderer. The

3:39

man who was eventually convicted of her murderer

3:42

would turn out to be one of her best friends, someone

3:44

she had been in college and remained close to right

3:47

up to her death. His name

3:49

was Robert Durst, and he was the oldest son

3:51

of one of the richest real estate investors in New

3:53

York City, Seymour Durst, and

3:55

by the time he went on trial for her murder in the

3:57

summer of twenty twenty one, he

4:00

was also suspected of having committed

4:02

two other murders. His wife,

4:04

Kathleen McCormick, had gone missing in nineteen

4:06

eighty two, and Durast had been a suspect

4:09

in her disappearance. He told

4:11

police they'd had a fight at their lakeside cottage

4:13

in Westchester, and that he then

4:15

dropped her off at the train station, where she boarded

4:18

a Metronouth train bound from Manhattan,

4:20

where she would spend the night at their Penouse apartment

4:22

on Riverside Drive. A

4:25

doorman allegedly saw, and the next

4:27

day, the dean of the medical school where Kathleen

4:29

was enrolled got a call from her saying

4:32

she was calling out sick. No

4:34

doorman, it would later be confirmed, had ever seen

4:36

her arrive that night, and the call

4:38

to the dean was long rumored to have been placed

4:41

by Susan Berman, Robert Durast's

4:43

good friend, to throw authorities off.

4:46

After all, if Kathleen could be placed in Manhattan,

4:49

it would deflect attention away from Durst and

4:51

the possibility that he could have murdered his wife

4:53

in their Westchester home. Years

4:55

later, it's haunting to picture the face of the

4:58

woman who makes that fake call on a Monday

5:00

morning, pretending to be a dead woman.

5:02

It's now believed that the woman was Susan Berman,

5:05

and if Susan Berman helped Robert Durris cover

5:08

his tracks that Monday morning by making the call.

5:10

Wouldn't she been aware that he had murdered his wife?

5:13

Would she have kept that information secret for

5:15

over twenty years until her own murder, and

5:18

would she have used that information to blackmail

5:21

him into giving her money.

5:23

These are questions that would grab anybody who watched

5:25

the Jinks, But for the people who

5:27

love Susan Berman, they crossed the line

5:29

into character assassination and

5:31

created a completely fictional version of

5:33

her. This is murder

5:36

Holmes on Matt Murnovich. In

5:55

twenty seventeen, Kathleen McCormick,

5:57

Robert Durres's first wife, was declared legally

5:59

dead as the district attorney

6:01

prepared charges against him. In two thousand,

6:04

Robert Durst went on the run, disguising

6:06

himself as a woman and traveling to Galveston,

6:09

Texas, where he lived under a pseudonym.

6:12

He might have escaped the attention of authorities

6:14

if the body parts of his neighbor, seventy one

6:16

year old Morris Black hadn't been found

6:18

floating in garbage bags in Galveston Bay.

6:21

He was charged with that murder in two thousand

6:23

and one, but acquitted, even though

6:25

he later admitted to lying under oath on the

6:27

stand. But if you're listening

6:30

to this episode, you're probably familiar with the Durst

6:32

case. The way he attempted

6:34

to disguise himself as a woman named Dorothy

6:36

as he fled to Galveston, wearing a dress

6:39

and shaving his eyebrows, how he jumped

6:41

bail after he was arrested for the Morris Black murder

6:43

case and was caught after shoplifting

6:46

a hogi at a Wegmans in Pennsylvania.

6:49

The Jinks, a documentary directed by

6:51

Andrew Dureki, was a sensation when

6:53

it debuted on HBO in twenty fifteen.

6:57

In the final episode, Durrist is confronted

6:59

by Jareki with the infamous cadaver

7:01

note and an envelope on which he

7:03

scrolled Susan Berman's address, misspelling

7:06

Beverly Hills the same way the

7:09

handwriting is identical. Durst

7:12

admits to Jareki that the handwriting is similar

7:15

and that the misspelling at Beverly is also identical,

7:17

but he denies that he wrote the cadaver note

7:20

and dropped it in a mailbox. And

7:22

then the interview ends. The

7:25

spotlights are turned off and Durst

7:28

meanders toward a restroom, unaware

7:30

that the microphone he's wearing hasn't been turned

7:33

off. Durst mumbles to himself,

7:35

furious at his own performance, and

7:37

then he apparently confesses to

7:40

all three murders. They

7:42

caught me. What the hell did I do?

7:44

Killed them all? Of course, the

7:47

Jinx was a runaway success, both

7:49

critically and financially, but

7:51

it's the bathroom scene and durst Hot

7:53

mic confession that had everybody talking.

7:56

A few weeks later because of the confession and

7:59

stunning handwrite similarities, Durst

8:01

was arrested in New Orleans, but

8:04

there would never have been a bathroom confession

8:06

if Durst hadn't been confronted with the envelope

8:08

he'd addressed to Berman, and that

8:10

envelope with its misspelled Beverly

8:12

Hills had sat for years in a

8:14

box that her step son, Sarreb

8:17

Kaufman, now fifty years old, kept

8:19

in his room. This was

8:21

where he kept the possessions and documents

8:23

of Susan's that he couldn't bear to throw out

8:26

but could scarcely look at because he missed her

8:28

so much. He called it

8:30

his box of pain, and when he finally

8:32

rummaged through it after he met Andrew Jireki,

8:35

looking for any items that might be relevant to Robert

8:37

Durst. He realized, holding the envelope

8:40

that would finally corner Durst for good what

8:42

he was looking at, So did

8:44

Andrew Jureki. Jireki

8:47

took the envelope from Sarab Kaufman and

8:49

placed it in a safe deposit box until

8:51

he could interview Durst, knowing that

8:53

he had struck gold. On April

8:56

twenty second, the jinks I will premiere and

8:58

surely an audience of millions tune in

9:00

again. Why was Susan

9:02

Berman killed? Because she knew Durst had

9:04

murdered his wife and was covering for him for

9:06

twenty years, even after she moved to La

9:09

And when it was rumored that the lapd were going

9:11

to talk to her about Kathleen Durst's disappearance,

9:14

he felt it was a risk he couldn't take. He

9:16

flew out to California, drove down to

9:19

Los Angeles at fifteen twenty

9:21

seven Benedict Canyon Road. She was waiting

9:23

for him, excited to see a man

9:25

she had been close friends with for years. They

9:28

had so much catching up to do. Sir

9:30

eb Kaufman knows that home better than anyone.

9:33

In the days after the murder, pecking

9:35

away his stepmother's belongings as he sat

9:38

on her floor in a state of shock. He

9:40

even preserved a piece of her bloody hair and scalp

9:43

in case it could be used as evidence. Sarab

9:46

Kaufman, the stepson of Susan Berman, who

9:48

was responsible for solving her murder when he handed

9:50

Jareki that envelope, won't be watching.

9:53

He won't be watching, even though he was the person

9:55

who knew Susan Berman best. He

9:58

won't be watching even though Robert Durst consider him

10:00

a trusted friend and flew him to Galveston

10:02

when he was arrested for Morris Block's murder.

10:05

He won't be watching even though his late stepmother's

10:08

trial will be the focus point of Jinks two.

10:11

He won't be watching because he knows the real story

10:13

of Susan Berman's murder. He's

10:16

the son of the victim, the friend of the murderer,

10:18

the key to the most explosive documentary in

10:20

recent history. He reached

10:22

out to me to share his side of the story.

10:28

Well, my name is Sarab Kaufman. I'm

10:30

fifty years old.

10:32

Susan Berman was my mother, who were in

10:34

large part here to talk about and the

10:36

misinformation that has been spewed

10:39

for years.

10:40

Sarah first met Susan Berman in nineteen

10:42

eighty six when his father, an aspiring

10:44

screenwriter Paul Kaufman, began

10:46

a relationship with her. Sarah

10:49

wasn't exactly thrilled when he first met her.

10:51

My father was always the aspiring actor. Susan

10:54

had a career somewhat in writing and was

10:56

working on the adaptation of her book for film,

10:58

which never got made, but that evolved

11:01

into dating, and then we moved

11:03

into her home in nineteen

11:05

eighty nine, so that would have made us kind

11:07

of the family unit.

11:09

I was a pretty typical adolescent

11:11

boy.

11:12

I mean, by the time Susan entered my life,

11:14

this was like my father's fourth or

11:16

fifth relationship. When I

11:19

met Susan, to me, it was just like, oh God,

11:21

another girlfriend, Like I just don't

11:23

care anymore. But over the course

11:25

of the years that we lived together, I'd

11:28

ended up in a couple of legal entanglements

11:31

when I didn't do what I did do, but she was

11:33

there for me.

11:34

I liked her.

11:35

I hadn't quite come to my personal feelings

11:37

of our relationship. That didn't

11:40

really happen until after she lost everything

11:42

in nineteen ninety three.

11:44

Sereb and his sister Mela, moved in

11:46

with Susan in nineteen eighty nine, but

11:48

by nineteen ninety three she had lost everything

11:50

and it was in dire strates financially.

11:53

So between the time that we moved in in nineteen eighty

11:55

nine, my father had this idea for a

11:57

musical and she just went all

11:59

in. She mortgaged her home, but by

12:01

nineteen ninety three she had lost everything,

12:04

all of her money, and she was foreclosed on. So

12:06

in nineteen ninety three, I'm nineteen,

12:09

so it was just kind of like good luck, buddy. My

12:11

sister was seventeen. She still had another year

12:14

or two of high school, and Mela

12:17

didn't want to live with our father, which I understand.

12:19

She wanted to live with Susan, and Susan wanted

12:22

that too. Susan was committed to getting

12:24

Mela through high school and into a good college.

12:27

I had actually moved to San Francisco, and

12:29

Susan being Susan, she was always somebody who was reaching

12:31

out, wanted to stay in touch, and that's

12:33

when I really started to realize the

12:36

depth of my feelings and her feelings.

12:38

Because she wasn't going away. In

12:40

other words, she wasn't dropped.

12:42

Right, quite literally, because even like all

12:44

the other women, including my biological mother

12:46

in my father's life, that was kind of

12:48

how it went. The relationship's done, and

12:51

you know, I don't have to have anything to do with these kids.

12:53

And when Susan lost everything, I wouldn't

12:55

have even blamed her. I was like, I'm we're never

12:58

going to hear from her again. She's destituted, she's

13:00

broke. So it was nice just to have somebody

13:02

who was interested in caring.

13:04

And I mean this is also with the caveat that Susan

13:07

absolutely did have her difficult aspects

13:09

to her personality. She had some quirks, She

13:11

was a force of nature, incredibly

13:13

intelligent, incredibly funny. Susan

13:16

has been made out to be this sort

13:18

of grotesque person like you've

13:20

seen the Jinx, and I know nobody

13:22

saw all good things. But in all good things,

13:24

they've got her cocksucker this and cocksucker

13:27

that.

13:27

It's like she never spoke that way.

13:29

Maybe it was the financial pressure or the tension

13:32

that comes with trying to maintain a relationship

13:34

with two kids who were at times a handful

13:36

to deal with but eventually Susan

13:38

had a falling out with Cereb's sister Mela.

13:41

So that's when Susan moved into the Benedict

13:43

Canyon home, which is obviously where she would

13:45

end up being murdered years later, and that

13:48

was around nineteen ninety five, I

13:50

think ninety six.

13:51

Maybe why does this falling out matter

13:53

so much because in the heat of an argument,

13:56

both her a the worst insults they can

13:59

what's the worst thing that's Susan can hear that

14:01

she's not their real mother and

14:03

the worst that Mela can hear that she's not

14:05

her real daughter. Their relationship

14:07

never really recovers after that, but

14:10

it's finally done in by the movie itself,

14:12

and years later, when Mela takes the stand

14:14

at Robert Duras's murder trial, she tells

14:17

the courtroom that Susan Berman told her she

14:19

was Bob durast Alibi. In

14:21

other words, Susan Berman had always known he

14:24

had murdered his wife in nineteen eighty two.

14:26

According to Mela.

14:27

Susan was alone in the world.

14:29

You know, we were her children, So I think Susan

14:31

had a little bit of like losing her daughter. Mela

14:35

still retains a lot of anger towards

14:37

Susan and me, and I think it's misdirected.

14:39

But this also has to do with how the prosecution

14:42

crafted what people were going to hear,

14:45

and this is meant for the jury.

14:46

So really what they wanted Mela.

14:48

Up there to do was to say this

14:50

thing about Susan is apparently

14:53

having admitted that she was Bob's alibi.

14:56

Susan used to talk about the mystery of her

14:58

rich friend's wife that had gone missing. Susan

15:00

had a ton of stories, but this was

15:02

a story that she used to kind of engage

15:05

us, and it would be repeated and I

15:07

would hear tell it to other people, and it was always sort

15:09

of said the same way, and I think it's very relevant to

15:11

tell everybody the most

15:13

common version.

15:14

At first, it was like we didn't even have names.

15:16

It wasn't like we knew Robert Durst or Kathy

15:18

or anything like that. It was, you know, I've got this rich

15:20

friend. You know, his family owns like half of Manhattan,

15:23

and yeah, his wife went missing. And

15:25

then she would give us the you know, some of the

15:27

details, you know, she said, like in the aftermath,

15:29

she became his unofficial spokesperson.

15:33

She would deal with the press or things like that,

15:35

but that you know, Kathy had a drug problem.

15:38

We heard that she might have gotten involved

15:40

in a drug deal gone wrong or something like that.

15:42

She also said that he'd put her on the train, that

15:45

it seems like she did get to Manhattan because

15:47

there was a call to her school that

15:49

she was being sick. She was also seen by

15:51

two building employees

15:54

like.

15:54

The next day.

15:55

This was all to kind of get us interested

15:58

and see if we could solve the mystery.

16:00

We like to think of ourselves as you know, junior

16:03

detectives.

16:03

Sherlock comes. Oh, I could figure it out. We

16:05

all have that. So that was sort of what

16:07

she was feeding into.

16:09

As they listened to Sarab I'm picturing Susan

16:11

Berman at a dinner table almost teasing

16:13

them with this information. Writers

16:16

are the worst blobbers in the world. I mean, they

16:18

can't keep anything to themselves, and Susan

16:20

was in many ways a crime writer. The

16:23

disappearance of Kathleen Durist would have been the best

16:25

material that ever dropped into her lap. The

16:27

question is, of course, how much did

16:29

she really know?

16:31

At least for me and I remember this, she

16:33

didn't think Bob had anything to do with it, but maybe

16:35

somebody in his family. And she was alluding to Seymour,

16:38

Bob's father. He disapproved

16:40

of the marriage. I didn't like Kathy. I

16:42

mean, there wasn't anything kind of specific, but that

16:45

somebody in the family might have had something to do with this. Oh,

16:47

and she told us this that Kathy

16:49

had like maybe gotten some documents. It

16:51

was unclear to us, And I don't think Susan even knew

16:53

what was in the documents, but she had gotten

16:55

documents that could be damning or something like.

16:57

That towards the Durist corporation.

17:00

Yeah.

17:00

And so after her murder, somebody

17:03

broke into their houses, the two

17:05

friends that had these documents, and stole the

17:07

documents. Now Bob had nothing

17:09

to do with this, So somebody.

17:11

In the Dirts fam.

17:11

We know that they hired private detectives, lawyers,

17:14

if nothing else, for their own interests.

17:17

You know that they don't want a family member, you

17:20

know, in the news, you know, certainly not in jail.

17:22

Yeah, And they had a small army of investigators

17:25

and bodyguards.

17:26

Right on at least one occasion

17:29

that I can recall, Mel and I are

17:31

in the car with Susan and We're having this conversation,

17:34

and Susan asked us both like what do we think?

17:36

And mel and I both kind of said, well,

17:38

I was probably the husband. And I

17:40

just remember Susan kind of like out of the side of her mouth,

17:42

just kind of going smart kids, like just kind of

17:45

you know, like that's the closest I can ever come to her,

17:48

sort of in our presence, admitting anything.

17:50

But even according to Mela, she still left

17:52

it as a cliffhanger. So I

17:54

don't understand how Susan could admit

17:57

to you that she was Bob's alibi, and

17:59

somehow I'll still leave it as a did he didn't

18:01

he?

18:02

You know, kind of a story.

18:05

Let me ask a direct question, whether Susan

18:07

is aware that Robert Dursays has

18:09

murdered Kathy. Did you believe that to be true?

18:11

Or you just don't know what I do

18:14

know?

18:14

And I never I mean, and forgive the phrasing,

18:16

I don't know how else to say this, but I

18:19

never had a problem with Susan

18:21

knowing or Bob admitting it to her, and that seems

18:23

definitive. Bob does seem

18:26

to have told her at some point

18:28

afterwards.

18:29

Yes, I am the one that killed Kathy.

18:32

Whether his first call was to Susan

18:34

so that she would to ask her to call

18:37

the school to pretend to be Kathy, that's

18:39

where I go.

18:40

I'm not so sure. Maybe you know it's

18:43

heartbreaking.

18:43

I don't like to think of Susan or anybody

18:46

I love her caring about doing something that causes

18:48

harm to other people. But I also

18:50

understand Susan's place. She loved

18:53

Bob. Susan never realized that her

18:55

feelings for Bob were never reciprocated.

18:57

She felt it was mutual. But

19:00

Susan definitely loved Bob, thought of him as

19:02

a brother. So if

19:04

Bob called her and asked her

19:06

to do it, I can say I

19:09

get her reasoning like a parent

19:11

might do for a child, or somebody might do for a loved

19:13

one, that I don't want to see their life ruined

19:15

over what might have been an accident. And if

19:18

he asked her and she chose to do it,

19:21

it was an act of love and support for

19:23

somebody.

19:24

Great.

19:24

It must have been tough for you to watch. Some of you

19:26

were involved in the documentary, But then it must have been tough

19:28

for you to watch. I think I think that.

19:30

Oh, you have no idea.

19:33

It's insinuated that she might

19:35

have blackmailed him, and that never

19:37

happened, you know, in other words, I want some money,

19:39

and you know, and you know why I want money

19:41

that kind of thing.

19:43

There was no extortion and there was

19:45

no manipulation, and there was no hush

19:47

money. What did happen

19:50

was, like I said, Susan lost everything in nineteen

19:52

ninety three. Over the next you know, almost

19:54

a decade, she is borrowing from friends

19:56

just to kind of get by. And I don't know if

19:58

you saw it, and I have it I can share with you. But she had

20:00

a you know, she kept a list who lent her

20:02

money? Who do I have to pay back? Bob

20:05

is on there with the amount fifty thousand dollars.

20:07

So you're not extorting somebody and saying, oh

20:09

well, I got to return this extortion money someday.

20:12

She wasn't a freeloader either. She was a hard working

20:14

like she had some as you pointed out, she had some

20:16

success as a writer.

20:17

Not only was she not a freeloader, she was incredibly

20:20

generous, both financially and emotionally.

20:22

She was with everyone.

20:24

But I find it moving that you became so attached

20:26

to her and so close to her, and yet

20:29

you know, these distances between your

20:32

father and your sister. It's moving

20:34

to me that the relationship that the strongest

20:36

is with.

20:36

Her, you know, yeah, you know, And that's sort

20:38

of what surprised me too, Like, I mean, I felt a kinship

20:41

with her. Early on, I always felt

20:43

alone in my own family. I felt

20:45

like an orphan. It was, you know, really

20:47

bad. But so when I met Susan,

20:49

I felt a connection with her solitude,

20:51

like she was an orphan. Yeah, she was orphaned

20:54

by the time she was thirteen, So her lack

20:56

of family, I felt that sort of same thing.

20:58

But also, like I mean, I was her only fan.

21:00

It's striking the two very vulnerable people

21:03

not only managed to form a bond, but to trust

21:05

each other and to injury each other's

21:07

mood swings and the jinks.

21:09

Despite how much of a role Susan Burman plays

21:11

in it, she is a continuing mystery,

21:14

finally remembered by a few friends cobbled

21:16

together for the documentary. Mostly,

21:19

it's one image that the filmmaker continually

21:21

uses, a faded photo of Susan

21:23

Burman broadly smiling, her arms thrown

21:25

around the shoulders of a coolly indifferent

21:27

looking Robert Durst, one of his arms

21:29

loosely encircling her waist. As

21:32

I talked to Sarah for the first time, she starts

21:34

to come into focus.

21:35

I would be in a good mood and we'd be having fun

21:38

and talking and chatting about any number

21:40

of things. And it really that's when

21:42

it dawned on me. I was like, no, I fucking

21:44

love her. And it probably was like around

21:46

nineteen ninety six, ninety five, ninety

21:49

six that I was like, you know, you're my

21:51

mother.

21:52

We'll be back after a short break. We're

22:03

back with Murder Homes. Our

22:06

conversation turns to the documentary and

22:08

how Sarab feels about it.

22:10

It is not a documentary.

22:12

It is a dramatic series,

22:14

which is just Andrew Jareki

22:16

saying, look at me. It is ridiculous what

22:19

Andrew Jareki did. The movie that he

22:21

made is a flop. Nobody goes to see it.

22:23

He loses twenty million dollars on this film.

22:26

The film is just the fictionalized

22:28

version of the predominant theory.

22:30

Sarab is referring to the fictional film inspired

22:32

by Durst called All Good Things That

22:35

Jareki did before The Jinks, starring

22:37

Ryan Gosling. In the film,

22:39

the actress Lily Robb portrays a character

22:41

based on Susan and In the film, the

22:43

character extorts Durs to try to get money

22:45

from him because she was down and out financially.

22:48

According to Sarah, Jareki's mind had

22:50

already been made up before he even started his research

22:52

for The Jinks. This is the subject

22:55

that really ticks off Sarah the most because

22:57

if there's one thing he's sure of, it's that Susan Berman

22:59

wasn't that type of person. What do

23:01

you think of Andrew Jareki.

23:03

I'll just use Andrew Jareki's words

23:05

to me.

23:06

Andrew Jareki feels like

23:08

he knows Bob because they were raised

23:11

in the same neighborhood. Andrew Jureki

23:13

knows that I am displeased with him. I've literally said

23:15

to his face, fuck you and fuck the

23:18

Jinks. So I've got no problem saying

23:20

that it's not that they're

23:22

lying to you, but it

23:24

is in no way, shape or form

23:27

the sequence of events as they happened. What

23:30

he does in The Jinks is basically

23:33

he goes out of his way to make sure that there's nothing

23:35

said or heard that would contradict

23:38

the predominant theory that

23:41

things that I have said repeatedly, like there was

23:43

no extortion.

23:44

But what about the rumor that circulated that the LAPD

23:47

was looking to interview her in late October

23:49

two thousand after his wife's case

23:51

was reopened.

23:52

Around October twenty second of

23:55

two thousand, Bomb claims that

23:57

Susan called him before he got the call from

23:59

the Jurist Organization PR person that

24:02

told him that Kathy's case had been reopened.

24:04

But Bob claims that Susan called him

24:07

before that happened, and this is a lie,

24:09

like because nobody ever contacted her. He

24:12

claims that he told her go

24:14

ahead, like what am I going to do? Say no, go ahead

24:16

and do it. And when Susan makes this call,

24:18

Bob is under the impression Susan has

24:20

been contacted and is going to

24:23

talk to the police. He

24:25

does nothing. What

24:27

he does do is he gives Deborah Sheridan

24:30

power of attorney because he's now freaked out,

24:32

Hey, they're looking into Kathy's case again. I

24:34

might need some help. He's been dating Deborah

24:36

Sheridan for years. He gives her power

24:38

of attorney For.

24:39

Those who are less familiar with the story, Deborah

24:41

Sheraton is an attorney that later became

24:44

Dur's second wife.

24:45

We now cut to November fifth.

24:47

November fifth, the date that Sarab is referring

24:49

to. Susan writes Durst a letter, and

24:52

this is where he says things get a little fishy.

24:54

She writes this letter, which is basically just saying,

24:56

like, you know, life kind of sucks. I'm broke,

24:58

but you know, I've got these things in the mix. I'm working

25:01

on this show, that show. I sent you this script.

25:03

One thing that she never says, like, oh, by the way, I'm not going

25:06

to talk to the police. Oh by the way, you

25:08

know, it was great talking to you the other day,

25:10

Like she's pretty clear that they haven't talked

25:12

in a long time. She says something about she

25:14

had sent him a copy of a script that she

25:16

was working on, not like thanks for the notes

25:19

or anything like that. Just you know, so there's nothing.

25:21

So this is November fifth, and what the prosecution

25:24

would have you believe is this was a manipulation.

25:26

You've got to read between the lines. She's

25:28

letting you know, Bob, this is her subtle manipulation.

25:31

You better send me money or uh uh.

25:34

But so what does Bob do now she's on the cusp

25:36

of talking to the police. She's written the letter in November

25:38

fifth, Let's say it takes a couple of days to

25:40

get We're talking two three weeks by the time

25:42

she's sent this letter or he's received it. As

25:45

far as he's aware, she's already talked to the police.

25:48

And what does he do with this letter? He sends

25:50

her twenty five thousand dollars.

25:52

But many people have come to believe, after seeing the

25:54

Jinks, that the twenty five thousand sent to Susan

25:56

Berman was meant to buy her continued

25:58

silence about the murder of Durris wife Kathleen

26:00

McCormick after twenty years. Sarah

26:03

believes the timeline of that request for money

26:05

by Susan and her intent is crucial

26:08

and has been completely misrepresented by Andrew

26:10

Jureki.

26:11

So he sends it and we know she gets

26:13

it around I think the ninth

26:15

of November, and she doesn't even cash it until like the

26:17

twenty first of November. And

26:20

she even writes on the back of it something

26:22

like I love you, Bob, thank you so much. I'll pay you back

26:24

every penny. So again, not extortion,

26:27

not hush money, has nothing to do with anything.

26:30

And for somebody who's so worried about her speaking,

26:33

yeah, he's really taken his time. I mean,

26:35

we know that he sent it around November ninth. What

26:38

we also know, and this is relevant for another

26:40

reason, is that he dumped

26:42

his cell phone November fourteenth,

26:44

and that's when he goes to Galveston and he rents the apartment

26:47

in galveson November fifteenth. One

26:49

of the things, like they brought up the phone records where they show

26:51

Susan was trying to get a hold of him.

26:53

They show her phone records.

26:54

She does not possess his cell phone number,

26:57

so that's how close they were. She cannot get

26:59

a hold of Bob, have no direct

27:01

contact. Yes, he sent her this money,

27:04

but they are not having any kind of conversation.

27:07

And at this point, as far as I'm aware, Susan

27:09

doesn't even know that the case has been

27:11

reopened. November fifteenth,

27:13

he's in Galveston. He's now pretending to be

27:15

this mute woman Dorothy Seiner. The

27:17

only thing that happens between November

27:20

fifteenth, when he gets the apartment

27:23

in Galveston and when he murders her

27:25

December twenty second, twenty third, which again that's

27:28

literally two months. He's waited two

27:30

months, and he's under the impression

27:32

already she's going to according to him, she's

27:34

going to talk to the police. The only thing

27:36

that happened in the middle of that is

27:38

Deborah Charitan went from being his power

27:40

of attorney to being married to

27:42

him December eleventh of

27:45

two thousand. So what

27:48

I think happened was when he

27:50

married her under the feeling of

27:52

protective like my spouse can't testify

27:54

against me. Essentially, he's already using her obviously

27:57

for that reason he divulges.

28:00

We also already know from other people that

28:03

Susan and Deborah had met and

28:05

neither one of them liked each other. Susan hated

28:07

her and told everybody, including

28:09

Bob, that she's after your money. That's the only

28:11

thing that happened, and I think within that,

28:14

Deborah Sheridan got into his head

28:16

and said, you cannot trust Susan Burmant

28:19

and Bob just kind of said, better

28:22

safe than sorry.

28:24

You hear that on the jailhouse calls. I

28:27

believe in Pennsylvania where she's kind of wearing

28:29

the pants. It seems kind of like in the calls where

28:31

she's like, don't be.

28:32

If you paid attention or saw it.

28:33

There's one call they keep it vague,

28:35

but basically he planned to kill Douglas.

28:38

Sarah was referring to Douglas Durst, his younger

28:40

brother, and she knew.

28:41

She goes, remember when I knew. I told you, I

28:43

knew you were going to do that thing.

28:45

And he's, oh, yes, yes, yes, I really

28:47

screwed that up, you know, Like she

28:50

literally Susan has been made out to be this

28:52

co conspirator, but she was

28:54

not a co conspirator.

28:57

We'll be back after a short break. We're

29:09

back with murder homes. As

29:12

I talked to Sarah, I'm beginning to think of all the critical

29:15

information that the Jinks left out. I

29:17

asked Sarah if he directly confronted Jureki

29:19

about this.

29:21

I've had conversations with him because

29:23

of my outrage of like I told

29:25

you this stuff, Like where is it? He claims

29:27

that he was protecting me.

29:29

What is one of the biggest things that he gets

29:31

wrong? Is it the extortion?

29:33

Yeah, that there was no extortion, that

29:36

the money is irrelevant, and

29:38

also her father's hit like the fact that he titles

29:40

the episode that is about her the gangster's

29:43

daughter. I mean, you know what you're

29:45

doing when you title something. You're not letting this person

29:47

be a whole person for one thing, You're

29:49

defining them.

29:50

You know, she is the gangster's daughter.

29:52

So if you know nothing about her, what

29:54

images come to your mind. They decided

29:57

on the narrative ahead of time. She

29:59

did get money, but they always said she

30:01

got fifty thousand dollars right before she died.

30:03

First of all, it wasn't fifty thousand right before she

30:05

dies. It's a couple of years apart.

30:08

It's also not hush money. I mean, even if you think

30:10

about it in a logical sense, like

30:12

even if it is fifty thousand dollars, extortion,

30:15

hush money, whatever, that's

30:17

not extortion hush money for covering

30:19

up a murder with Bob's wealth, and anything

30:22

that I said that contradicted it was I'm

30:24

either lying or I'm covering for Bob.

30:26

And I wasn't defending Bob.

30:28

I was sticking to the facts, the things

30:30

that I was literally there. In

30:32

nineteen eighty nine, when Susan decided

30:34

she was going to ask Bob directly

30:37

for money because she was that broke. That's

30:39

in like March of nineteen ninety nine is when he sends

30:41

this check for twenty five thousand and to

30:43

this day, that's part of what doesn't make sense

30:46

to me. If Susan made the call pretending

30:48

to be Kathy because Bob asked her

30:50

to do it, she stays silent

30:52

for twenty years. She does not

30:54

extort him. She literally is not. That's

30:57

what I still wonder about. That's what still haunts

30:59

me is what triggered him because

31:01

it wasn't Susan. Then we jumped

31:03

to like within the next year,

31:06

Galveston happens.

31:07

Sarah is talking about the murder and dismemberment

31:10

of Morris Black and Galveston, the first

31:12

murder of the Robert Durst is charged with.

31:14

But then when Galveston happened, I was like, it must

31:16

be him. But the problem was there

31:18

was no proof, literally

31:20

nothing. We still didn't even know about

31:22

the cadaver note. At that point he

31:24

went on the run, so I thought we were never even going to see him

31:27

again. Hear from him again, cut to about

31:29

a month. A couple months later, he's

31:31

arrested. Finally, he's extra guided to

31:33

Galveston, and I'm amazed,

31:35

but he reaches out to me and

31:38

I, you know, I have no choice.

31:40

He wants me to come and visit.

31:41

I'm like, yes, of course, I'll come

31:43

and visit you, like I want to know, like if he if

31:45

I can figure out anything.

31:47

So Sarah visits Robert Durst and the Galveston

31:50

jail, and he's blown away when Durst immediately

31:52

starts talking about his dismemberment of Morris

31:54

Black, as if it were some pain in the ass

31:56

home renovation project he'd had to sweat

31:58

through.

31:59

When I go to the jail, it's god,

32:02

it was so weird.

32:03

Basically, like I get into the station, I'm

32:06

finally seated. Bob comes in

32:08

and you know, he had shaved his head but just of like now

32:10

his eyebrows were back, and he

32:12

pretty much dominated the conversation what he wanted

32:15

to tell me and all this other stuff. And then there

32:17

was like this sort of lull and pauseitive and

32:19

it might have been like an hour into it,

32:21

and I go, well, you know, Bob, like you don't have to

32:23

tell me, but like what happened here? And

32:26

he just came out with it,

32:29

and it was you know, like I knew the guy

32:31

we you know, shot guns. I

32:33

gave him a key to my place, you know,

32:35

and he described like a couple of bottles of Jack

32:37

Daniels and a bunch of weed, and you

32:39

know, it's hard tough to it's a

32:42

tough job and you know, a couple of days.

32:44

That's what the way he described the

32:46

event of doing it. But we also know there

32:49

was no jack found. Like he did it

32:51

pretty sober. Also, I'm dealing with a

32:54

tremendous amount of anxiety and paranoia because I

32:56

was the closest person to Susan at

32:58

the time of her death, and my inability

33:01

to know the reason for why she was

33:03

murdered made me also

33:05

feel very under the gun. My

33:08

phone was being tapped back at that time.

33:11

I didn't know if it was Bob, the Jurist organization, the

33:13

cops, somebody like. But my paranoia

33:15

was I mean, I was in a

33:18

state of hypervigilance. I mean

33:20

pretty much from the time Susan was murdered until

33:22

the day Bob was arrested. At the end

33:24

of our first visit, one of the

33:26

things that he just blurted out

33:28

was like he goes, you know, is

33:30

there anything I can do? For you, Like it's

33:33

not much I got, but I've got money. Is there anything I could

33:35

do for you? And I was like, well, you know, I'm still dealing with Susan's

33:37

debt, you know, because also Susan tried so hard

33:39

not to. I was like, I feel bad asking, but

33:41

you know I could use some help too, Like you know, would

33:44

that be too much? Twenty five thousand and

33:46

God, I wish I had asked for more, but

33:49

he had, but he so he had Debora

33:51

Chridan send me a check and I got it like a week

33:53

later. I mean, it didn't get me out

33:55

of my own debt, but it was definitely helpful. And

33:57

anything I got from him really was more of

33:59

just like a side effect. He uses

34:01

money in this way, like that's what we've sort of seen.

34:04

But I was never after him for

34:07

any money. I tell you right now, you want to give

34:09

me one hundred thousand dollars, I'll take it. This

34:11

is I don't care if you're Bob, I don't care if you're anybody

34:13

like you. If you want to give me money, this has

34:15

nothing to do is It's not you're not buying my

34:17

loyalty.

34:18

I want to come to Jireki. Obviously

34:21

you were crucial in, as you said, solving

34:23

the case because you discover

34:25

the envelope that has the same handwriting as

34:28

the cadaver.

34:28

Note. The bane of my existence is that freaking

34:31

envelope.

34:32

After Susan's murder, Sarah and his cousin

34:34

Ralph ended up being left the estate. They

34:37

began pecking away her belongings in boxes.

34:40

There was nothing she was like I said, she was broke, but

34:42

you know, I kept everything in boxes.

34:44

But it wasn't like fine tooth coming.

34:45

It was like, Okay, here's kitchen stuff, here's clothes,

34:48

here's this. I intended to go through

34:50

them one day and you

34:52

know, see if there was anything relevant the

34:54

problem I had. It was too painful, like it

34:56

was just a reminder of her murder. So

34:58

I kept these boxes with me wherever I moved.

35:01

I want to say two thousand and eight

35:04

ish started going through her letters

35:06

and I found the envelope.

35:07

The envelope Sereb was referring to was the

35:09

ones sent by Durist in March of nineteen ninety

35:12

nine that contained the first twenty five thousand

35:14

dollars check to help Susan financially.

35:17

The envelope has the same misspelled address

35:19

Beverly as the cadaver note the murderer

35:21

dropped in a mailbox addressed to the LAPD.

35:24

It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was

35:26

like, holy fucking shit. It was the

35:29

block letters, the extra e. It's

35:31

a letter an envelope from Bob, and

35:33

I just didn't know what to do. It's

35:36

been seven eight years since Susan's murder.

35:38

Nothing has come. We now have law

35:41

enforcement from three states, LA, New

35:43

York and Texas who would get

35:45

help from the FBI, and

35:48

none of them can solve anything.

35:50

They can't pin anything on Bob

35:52

at all. I had a fear

35:54

and anxiety that Bob was receiving

35:57

help. This kind of goes again to like the

35:59

potential involve of the Durst organization.

36:01

Like I, you know, I tend to tilt at windmills,

36:04

and you know I'm going up against.

36:06

You know, the Dirst organization.

36:08

I I am going up against law enforcement

36:10

and pretty much going you're all full of shit.

36:13

And so when I found this, I'm

36:15

alone. I've got no one to turn to, and I was stuck

36:17

with this dilemma. There was the it might not

36:19

match and even if it does. Is this enough?

36:22

I mean, it's circumstantial, it's strong circumstantial

36:24

evidence, but it's still circumstantial.

36:27

He's got flesh eating lawyers. Do I go

36:29

to the law enforcement I don't trust. That's

36:32

tough to do. Do I go to a journalist,

36:34

like which journalists? I mean, you're all you've all been

36:36

spending this lie, bullshit story that I know. Anyway,

36:39

I thought maybe I could go to a lawyer, you

36:41

know, and do that. But then I was stuck with the problem

36:43

of, well, what if it doesn't match. If

36:46

it doesn't match, that doesn't mean Bob didn't do it.

36:48

It just means it didn't match. And I might be exposing

36:50

myself because at this point I had developed a relationship

36:53

with him. Do I want to reveal my position,

36:55

my place in this right

36:58

now. I thought about it for several

37:00

days. I was just like, you know what, let me put

37:02

this away.

37:03

It's here that I hesitated for a moment. I

37:05

wanted to know why if he had evidence that

37:07

had just hit him like a ton of bricks, he hadn't

37:10

gone to the police.

37:11

I was in a constant state of extreme stress,

37:14

but I had to make Bob feel comfortable,

37:17

like I needed him to think I was comfortable

37:19

with him and always in his corner

37:21

and all that other stuff.

37:22

So if he found out that.

37:23

I thought anything other than, you know, I don't think

37:26

he killed Susan for whatever reason.

37:27

He could just come after me, like he could come at any

37:30

time, at any moment, for any reason.

37:31

As I listened to Sarah explain this, I

37:34

thought about the incredibly stressful position he must

37:36

have been in. Investigators in these three

37:38

separate cases had done nothing but screwed them

37:40

up. Of course, he might have had second thoughts before

37:42

giving them a piece of evidence and a risking

37:45

Durs's wrath. Durst wasn't

37:47

just a prison pen pal. He took Sarah

37:49

about to dinner employed him was entrenched

37:51

in his life, just as he had been in Susan's.

37:54

This was the beginning of our relationship. With

37:56

the cameras off, the lights off. He's

37:58

done with the trial.

38:00

Let me see if I can glean

38:02

anything, find anything else out. I always

38:04

wanted to know about real estate, so I had sort of this

38:06

general desire to learn anyway, but

38:08

Bob, with his history, that kind

38:10

of became another like, maybe that's something we can talk

38:12

about.

38:13

So you know, what is it like, let me go online.

38:15

I'll do like an online course and get my real estate

38:18

license and I can talk to him about real estate.

38:20

So I was trying to enlist him to invest

38:23

with me, like you know, hey, you're willing to give me money.

38:25

Everything that I was doing was really kind of just trying

38:27

to give myself the freedom and

38:30

position to do the investigation

38:32

that you know, nobody else was doing.

38:34

How many times would you meet him in person during this

38:36

time when you had possession of the envelope?

38:39

It was it was regular.

38:40

He started to enlist me, like, why don't you send me some listenings

38:43

I might invest in something.

38:44

Wasn't there a kind of like a cognitive

38:46

dissonance there that you would discover the envelope

38:49

but yet you were having dinner?

38:50

You know, no, because you have to understand, like,

38:52

I'm not dealing with the issue

38:55

of whether Bob did it or not. Really,

38:58

I'm dealing with the why did Bob do

39:00

it? Because she's threatening to go to the police

39:02

to divulge that she helped

39:05

cover up a murder that like

39:07

that was never gonna happen.

39:08

So I had this thing that I called my box of

39:10

pain. So it was kind of like maybe

39:13

something will come of this.

39:13

So I had handwriting samples from my father, handwriting

39:16

samples from her manager Nile, some horrible

39:19

letters that they had written.

39:20

But this is also where I put that envelope.

39:22

You call it the box of pain.

39:24

It's not a box I like to go to, like it's

39:26

the stuff about her murder. It's

39:28

somebody I know. It's somebody who betrayed

39:31

her, betrayed me. If it's my

39:33

father, how fucking horrible

39:35

is that going to feel? I was forced

39:37

to compartmentalize everything

39:40

in my life. But anyway, so I put

39:42

this envelope away, and I'm

39:44

just sort of getting on with trying to see if

39:46

I can get anything out of Bob, which, like I said, I

39:48

could never get him to talk about Susan,

39:51

and I actually forget about the envelope.

39:54

So cut to two thousand and nine, though

39:57

Bob finds out somebody's making a movie

39:59

about this stuff. Essentially

40:01

he knows I work in the industry. Can I get

40:03

him a script?

40:04

Sarah was talking about All Good Things,

40:06

the movie about Robert Durst that Andrew Jureki

40:09

directed. They came out before The Jinks.

40:11

In many ways, that movie a box office

40:13

failure is regurgitated in this documentary,

40:16

with all the fiction now presented as fact.

40:19

I think it's like April of two thousand and nine.

40:21

I send Bob the script and I've read it, and I give Bob

40:23

my impression. I go, Bob, look they say

40:25

you did everything in it, but look they actually

40:28

make your character come off kind of sympathetic, so,

40:30

you know, he said back then they've

40:33

contacted me, they want to do an interview, and

40:35

then we cut to twenty ten. He

40:37

decides to do it, and then

40:39

after he does it, he tells me. He doesn't

40:41

tell me anything about it. He just says, yeah, I did

40:43

it.

40:44

I liked them. He told me.

40:45

I liked Jareki, I like Smirling, and that

40:47

was kind of all I knew. Cut to like

40:51

May June twenty eleven, I

40:53

get a call on my phone. It's a number

40:55

I don't from New York, a number I don't know. It goes

40:57

to voicemail and it's Mark Smirling.

41:00

It's something like you might have heard of us or something like that.

41:01

And I immediately was like, oh, I know who these fuckers are because

41:03

I hated all good things because of the

41:05

way that they portrayed Susan, you know, I

41:08

mean, I was glad it was a flop. I'm like, that's not Susan,

41:10

That's not what happened. But Bob

41:13

likes them, He's done an interview. I'm trying

41:15

to find out did he say anything

41:17

about Susan that would be helpful for me in

41:20

everything that I know. Mark and I were

41:22

having a couple of conversations

41:24

over the course of a few months, and he was constantly.

41:27

You know, oh, we want to interview you.

41:28

This was meant to be bonus for their DVD sales,

41:31

so this is how they were going to try to make up for some of

41:33

their losses. But I'm also still doing

41:35

this dance because there's another part of me, which

41:37

is they've told this what I know to be a

41:39

relatively bullshit fictionalized version, and

41:42

they like Bob, and Bob likes them.

41:44

I'm like, is Bob footing the bill?

41:45

Like I don't know if I can divulge some of

41:47

my deepest, darkest things, Like I'm doing

41:49

this dance of like you know, who are

41:52

you? What are you trying to do? So

41:54

I just decide like, whatever, Okay,

41:57

let's do an interview. At least that'll kind of keep the relationship

41:59

open and going. So this

42:01

is the first time I've even met Andrew

42:03

Jareki, So I've only dealt with Mark Smirley. And by

42:06

the way, as far as I'm aware, Andrew Jareki

42:08

is like the talent, like he's not.

42:09

Really like he you know, yeah, he's the guy that will

42:12

ask.

42:12

The questions, but he's not really in it fucking

42:15

come to find out. No, they're like, you know, he's

42:17

the guy footing the bill, his daddy's I

42:20

forget what Henry Jareki or what, like, I

42:22

think they own an island or he's a governor of an

42:24

island. I've invited them into my home,

42:27

and you know, there are people that just kind of

42:29

act like they own the world. And Andrew Jareki is

42:31

one of them. Anyway, he twirls

42:33

in like he owns the fucking place. We sit

42:35

down and I go, oh, so yeah, Marc has said, like,

42:37

you've got like this incredible story on how you got involved

42:39

in all.

42:40

He goes, oh no, no.

42:40

Afterwards afterwards, I mean, I can tell he's

42:42

trying to get you know, the gotcha moments, and

42:45

I'm really irritated, like they think I

42:47

was duped by Bob.

42:48

That's not fucking what happened.

42:50

We finished the interview that's like eight

42:52

hours, and I go, so, Andrew, you

42:54

owe me a story, So how did you get involved?

42:56

And he just looks at me and goes, oh, we grew up in the same

42:59

neighborhood.

43:00

I was like, are you fucking kidding?

43:02

Like that's your big insight into the

43:04

psyche of Robert Durst. Like I've also

43:06

let them now look into all of Susan's boxes

43:09

except for my box of pain.

43:10

This is where all the pictures come from. Like this stuff.

43:12

I can't tell you how outraged I am at what they

43:15

did. Like every picture that you have basically

43:17

seen out there is a picture that came

43:19

from me that I did not give permission to

43:21

use, but apparently signing that release which

43:24

just gave them carte blanche to do it anyway

43:26

they want.

43:26

And again they what do they've used?

43:28

They use the picture of Bob at Susan's

43:30

wedding because people want for a long time

43:32

we're trying is oh she was in love with Bob, wanted to

43:34

have his baby. It's like no, but they're showing

43:37

this picture of them together in Susan's wedding dress

43:39

to reinforce the idea that Susan

43:42

was in love with Bob. You know, again,

43:44

the picture says a thousand words. The words that

43:46

a picture tells you can be absolutely misleading

43:48

depending on how it's framed or how it's edited

43:51

compared to other things. One of the things

43:53

that they apparently had to do was we

43:55

actually do have to compensate you, like we have to give

43:57

you at.

43:57

Least a dollar to do it.

43:59

And I literally looked Andrew go, you

44:01

know, I'll tell everybody who gave me a dollar.

44:03

I don't care, you know, I just want

44:05

to solve this case kind of a thing. He literally

44:07

pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket

44:10

and throws a dollar at me on

44:12

the desk. So anyway, he

44:15

leaves and they we wrap

44:17

for the day. I told him, like, yes,

44:19

I do have one other box, like, I'll take a look

44:21

and see if anything's in there. Mark and Zach were

44:23

going to come back the next day and look at

44:25

the box. And this was such a fucked

44:28

up moment because, like I told

44:30

you, I had actually forgotten that it was in there. So

44:32

when I pulled the box out, I pulled

44:34

out like, oh, there's my you know, the letter from my dad.

44:36

Fuck that asshole, oh Nile.

44:39

And then I pulled out the envelope and at that

44:41

moment, I was like, what's this and

44:43

I just always from Bob to Susan, and

44:45

I looked at the date on the stamp,

44:48

and I was so focused on that because, like I said, everybody's

44:51

been saying fifty thousand right before she died

44:53

this whole time, and I was like, that

44:55

proves the date because it's March nineteen

44:57

ninety nine that I have been saying from the beginning.

45:00

At this point, I'm like, I can't wait for them

45:02

to get here. I want to shove this envelope

45:05

up their fucking ass. Don't

45:07

tell me it was fifty thousand right before she

45:09

died. It was twenty five here, this is when that This

45:12

must be the envelope that check came in. And

45:14

yes, she got twenty five thousand a little before she

45:16

died, but it's not relevant, blah blah. But so

45:18

I'm like excited. I'm sitting here like, oh

45:21

my god, this is gonna be good.

45:23

I just send them a text like you guys are definitely

45:26

gonna be here, right and you know, yeah,

45:28

yeah, we'll be there, and I don't

45:30

know what to do.

45:31

Like I said, everything leading up to this is

45:34

I don't know who these people are and I

45:36

have to make a decision do I trust them

45:39

or not. So at this point, I

45:41

know they have a copy of the cadaver note, but

45:43

like again, I don't know if they're working with Bob.

45:45

I don't know if they are truly independent. I don't know if

45:47

they're just gonna snatch it out of my hand and run. This

45:50

is why it's not a documentary. Like, as

45:52

I recall the way you see that scene

45:54

kind of going up, it's like it's mark outside of my

45:56

front door, like on a phone call, going

45:59

yeah, sir, We're like going over to serbs

46:01

and something. And

46:03

then like the next scene is kind

46:05

of me showing them the envelope. But I

46:08

remember the first words out of his mouth

46:10

or you poor duped kid, And

46:12

my response was like you have no idea.

46:14

But I was saying, you guys are full

46:16

of shit, like you have no idea what has transpired

46:18

over the last decade, because

46:21

they believe that Bob duped

46:23

me, and it's like Bob never had that ability.

46:26

It was just we couldn't prove it. That's

46:28

the moment. And Mark asked to take it. I say,

46:30

no fucking way, if you want

46:32

to bring the cadaver note over, like,

46:35

this is not leaving my possession.

46:37

But the filmmakers, Andrew Juiki and Mark

46:39

Smirling convinced Srub to give them

46:41

the envelope and as soon as they have it in

46:43

their hands, they don't give it back.

46:46

The way that Mark handled it was

46:48

just grotesque because

46:50

I really tried to, like, you know, I wasn't like

46:52

give me, you know, angry or anything. I was just like, we sat at

46:54

dinner and I said, look, guys, you can record

46:56

me if you want not whatever, I don't care, that's

46:58

fine. And I was just like, but you have to give

47:00

me the envelope back. And Mark was like, oh well

47:03

wait, wait, wait wait wait. Mark was being adamant

47:05

about not giving it back, and he said and he

47:07

said possessions nine tenths of the law, which

47:09

I was just like, are you fucking kidding me?

47:10

You did not just say that to me.

47:12

But here's the other thing to remember when watching the

47:14

Jinks that everything seems to

47:17

move quickly after Jareki gets his pause on

47:19

Cereb's envelope, In the Jinks,

47:21

we see him putting it in a safe deposit

47:23

box, underlining what a vital piece of evidence

47:25

it is. The ugly truth. It

47:28

takes Jareki years to confront Durst with

47:30

the incriminating envelope, years

47:32

in which traumatized family members, the three

47:34

victims are trying to get closure, and

47:37

of course Jareki is happy to take credit

47:39

for this pivotal moment.

47:40

The Trusty isn't how it happened. And then

47:43

when they're showing the Jinks itself, they make

47:45

it look like we found the envelope,

47:47

not even Sarah. We found the envelope.

47:50

And then shortly after that we sat down

47:52

with Bob and we got him to say nothing.

47:54

But you know, then the bathroom confessional, and

47:56

it's actually the reverse. That stuff

47:58

happened first, and then Jareki

48:01

spent the next you know, four years shooting

48:04

material that puts Andrew Jireki front

48:06

and center in everything, and it's

48:08

all theater.

48:09

There's another troubling aspect to Jareki taking

48:12

years to corner Duras with the incriminating envelope.

48:15

Any civil action by the victims that might have

48:17

started by presenting police with the envelope

48:19

is no longer a possibility. Why

48:22

you have two years to present a civil case in

48:24

the state of California, And as soon as Jareki

48:26

puts the envelope in a safe deposit box,

48:28

the clock is ticking.

48:30

Andrew and Mark were, you know, definitely talking about

48:32

well, you know, justice and you know, the criminal

48:34

first, and I was like, you know, I definitely was like, yeah,

48:36

I get that, and I'm definitely here for the justice,

48:39

and I don't want to make this seem about money,

48:41

so you know, like, yeah, let's get him. But we

48:43

knew that the statute was

48:46

technically from the envelope. From the moment

48:48

that we knew that it was Bob, the clock was running for about

48:50

two years.

48:50

That you have two years.

48:52

From that moment to bring a civil

48:54

case or you can't. And

48:56

so that four years that they took literally

48:59

stole those two years. And at

49:01

that point now the only way

49:03

that we ever have a chance to go after him

49:06

civilly is if we get the conviction,

49:08

which then takes, as we all know

49:11

now like another seven eight years,

49:14

you know, to just get to trial.

49:15

And Bob was ill back when.

49:17

This all happened with the envelope, so

49:20

we were always on will he even make

49:22

it to trial?

49:23

Like that was the aggravating part.

49:25

But then we make it and then we get the conviction, Like

49:28

I mean, I know, people like Lewin

49:30

and Garin and even Deborah Chriitan.

49:32

They knew the law and

49:34

they knew Bob was always.

49:36

Going to die somewhere within the appellate process,

49:39

so there was never going to be any civil action

49:41

happening. No one's ever held to account

49:44

that the story, even at trial,

49:46

is completely full of shit. And

49:48

we got so we got no truth, no justice And

49:50

yeah, that is specifically from Mark

49:53

and Andrew running down our civil

49:55

clock.

49:55

How did it feel that this then became

49:57

a central reason for the sixth

50:00

sess of this documentary, right and

50:02

for and for his conviction.

50:03

It was incredibly infuriating because yes,

50:05

I solved it, that was the moment. But

50:08

the years that they stole you guys

50:10

washed over the fact that this was solved

50:13

four years ago. You know, by

50:15

the time this comes out, everybody was so a

50:17

gas as I was too about

50:20

the bathroom confessional, but

50:22

nobody even paid attention. And there

50:24

was one New York Times article that

50:27

was semi critical about like

50:29

did Andrew Jareki delay justice?

50:32

And even in the article they kind of end up

50:34

like kind of still praising him. They were

50:36

only talking about the time Andrew Jareki took

50:38

to go from when that bathroom

50:40

confessional happened to when the Jinxes

50:43

released and then Bob's eventual arrest.

50:45

That doesn't include the nearly

50:48

four years before.

50:49

That in which it was actually solved

50:51

by me, and then they did nothing

50:54

to even like not doft of the hat, not

50:56

like this is you know, hey, you need to talk to Sarah

50:58

now to after the autvelop happened. Andrew DIRECTI

51:01

came flying back and he asked me to

51:03

give him six months to button

51:05

up what they were doing at that time and then

51:07

we would go to law enforcement together. As

51:10

as frustrating as it was, I agreed,

51:12

like because this was a big moment, like this was a change

51:14

for all of us.

51:15

I was like, yes, let's all take a breath, let's.

51:17

You know, gather our thing, and yeah, like if we can get

51:19

like Bob doesn't know about this, if we can get him

51:21

to confess or something like, yeah, So I was on board

51:23

with that. After the Envelope, they're

51:26

literally going around trying to prove that

51:28

it was extortion, that it was fifty thousand right

51:30

before.

51:31

And by the way, I have.

51:31

A relationship with Bob this entire time,

51:34

even like the day that they my episode

51:37

aired with the Envelope, I got a

51:39

call from Bob the day after which

51:41

I just kind of had to dance around like it didn't

51:43

happen that way, Bob, I should sue like, don't

51:45

run kind of thing, you know, like

51:48

that, like that's how in the wind

51:50

they left me.

51:51

I want to ask you how you feel with the Jinks

51:53

two coming out, and because it particularly I'm assuming

51:56

this deals with with Susan's trial.

51:58

Well, you know, I don't know what's going to be in

52:00

it. I'm not going to watch it. I have no intention of watching

52:02

it. Obviously brings up a lot of stuff with me. It

52:05

would be heartbreaking if it was definitive Susan

52:07

made the call. But I stand by Even

52:09

if it's definitive Susan made the call, it

52:12

still doesn't make sense as to what triggers him

52:14

to murder her, Because again, if

52:16

she's that person that you can

52:18

call in the middle of the night say hey,

52:20

my wife is dead. I need you to pretend to be this person,

52:23

what is it that makes him because it wasn't, Susan.

52:26

I mean, the truth is Bob did it, like I mean, at

52:28

the end of the day, like kind of that's what the public

52:30

kind of wants to know, and he did do it. But for

52:32

the victims, for the families, like we want the truth,

52:34

I mean, we didn't get any justice. I mean the mccormicks,

52:36

they don't get to know where Cathy's body

52:39

is. They don't get to bury her. None of us got

52:41

to go after him civilly literally Robert Technically,

52:43

legally, Robert Durst is not guilty. You

52:45

know, he died in the appellate process. There

52:48

is no guilty charge on his record. As far as

52:50

the law is concerned. Robert Durst

52:52

did absolutely nothing. And it's disgusting.

52:55

They had every ability to inform

52:58

me to at least let me see and before the

53:00

public. And how about also the Jinks too, whatever

53:03

they if they've got some bombshell in there, don't

53:05

I deserve as a family member to know before

53:07

the general public. Don't the mccormicks deserve

53:10

to know before the general public. When

53:12

I see the Jinks suddenly pop on my screen,

53:15

it is a flood of everything that's happened over the last

53:17

twenty five years.

53:18

But also there's no bathroom confession without

53:20

you being involved with handing over the envelope.

53:23

It all flows through you, which

53:25

I find, you know, fascinating.

53:27

Yeah, Andrew Direkki was just this fucking lucky,

53:29

accidental tourist who you know, a

53:31

couple of hot mic moments which, by

53:33

the way, you didn't even know happened. You had

53:35

to have some intern or some guy like scrolling

53:38

through the audio that you didn't have the time to

53:40

do.

53:40

He does make himself very much part of the

53:42

story, especially towards the end and through the end of that

53:44

documentary.

53:45

I told him directly, like that thing that he says

53:47

of like there's a moment where he goes, you know, I'm conflicted

53:50

about Bob because I like him. I'm like, what the

53:52

fuck do you know about feeling conflicted?

53:54

You literally risk nothing, you sacrifice

53:57

something. I solved it, and then you took four

53:59

years to make you self the hero of this

54:01

story that you did nothing for.

54:06

After the Call of Sereb, I keep thinking about the

54:08

things he said about Durst, about

54:10

Jareki, but most of all about his stepmother.

54:13

There's an excitability about Syreb that's almost

54:15

infectious. I have a sense that he's someone

54:17

who's barely able to hold onto his emotions

54:19

after all these traumatic years. But

54:21

if your mother was killed by a man who then sent

54:24

for you, befriended you, all while being

54:26

filmed by documentary crew who put their own

54:28

interest first, do you think you might

54:30

approach every sunny day in Los Angeles as

54:32

if the bottom at any second might

54:34

fall out. At times,

54:36

Sarab does sound conflicted, as anyone

54:38

would after enduring one traumatic event after

54:41

another for years. Maybe

54:43

it's because he's still searching for closure after all

54:45

this time. But keep in mind

54:47

that if it wasn't for Sarreb, Durst isn't convicted

54:49

of Susan Burman's murder before he dies. And

54:52

if it weren't for Serreb handing over that envelope

54:55

to Andrew Jiureki, the jinx never gets

54:57

made. And this simple act

54:59

is handing over destroys his relationship

55:01

with his sister Mella. Not to mention

55:03

any civil action he might take against

55:05

the estate of the man who executed his mother,

55:08

No one, no one out there can envy the position

55:11

he was in, caught between a murderer

55:13

and a filmmaker and trying to defend the

55:15

character of Susan Berman all along. And

55:18

Susan Berman was his family, his only

55:20

family, and as Sarah said, he

55:23

fucking loved her. I keep

55:25

on coming back in my mind to that crime

55:27

scene photograph taken inside fifteen

55:29

twenty seven Benedict Canyon Drive. It's

55:32

broad daylight when the photograph is taken, but

55:34

on a small wooden table, a brass lamp

55:36

has been switched on, and you can see

55:39

it glowing faintly in the faded photograph. It

55:41

must have been getting dark when Susan leaned over

55:44

and turned it on, and maybe she had

55:46

begun to wonder if he'd show up at all. But

55:48

then she would have heard the sound of his car driving

55:50

up the short driveway, seen him turn off

55:52

the headlights, smiling at

55:54

her in that coolly indifferent way. As he walked

55:57

up to the front door. She would

55:59

have greeted him with open arms, hugged

56:01

him tighter than he liked, her fox terriers

56:03

leaping up at him, and then she would have

56:05

turned away from him, but only for a

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few seconds, to lead him inside.

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This is Murder Holmes. I'm Matt Morinovitch.

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Murder Holmes is created by an Executive

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producer by Matt Merinovich. Executive

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producers are Jennifer Bassett and Taylor Shakoine.

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Supervising producer is Carl katl

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Producer is Evan Tyre. Sound

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designed by Taylor Chicoine, Evan

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Tyre and Carl Katle. Special

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thanks to Ali Perry and Nikiatore.

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Murder Holmes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

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For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit

56:53

the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

56:56

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.