Comment

Comment by Brenda on October 24, 2011 at 10:58am

Robert Durst Raises Focus On Harlem
Article



smaller
Larger
By JOSH BARBANEL

Robert A. Durst, the eccentric scion of the Durst real-estate dynasty who has had trouble with the law, has purchased a 19th-century townhouse on Lenox Avenue in Harlem for $1.75 million, brokers say.

Enlarge Image

Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal
The Harlem townhouse bought by Robert Durst

It wasn't clear whether Mr. Durst plans to live in the 1888 house at 218 Lenox Ave. The 21-foot-wide house in the middle of the Mount Morris Park Historic District, has been divided into three apartments and a ground-floor beauty salon.

During one visit to the house before his purchase, Mr. Durst talked about turning one of the apartments into a duplex for himself, according to a broker familiar with the matter. But he also was said to be considering the property for its investment value.

"His broker said he was also looking for other investment properties on the commercial streets in Harlem," said Brian Phillips, a Prudential Douglas Elliman broker who represented the seller in the transaction.

Mr. Durst couldn't be reached for comment. His attorney, Steven I. Holm, didn't respond to requests for comment.


Associated Press
Robert Durst in 2003 photo

In recent years, Mr. Durst has lived in Texas, California and Florida, as well as in a rented apartment Harlem.

He is the older son of the late real-estate magnate Seymour Durst, and was passed over for leadership of the family business in the 1990s.

State Senator Bill Perkins, who represents the Harlem neighborhood that includes the newly purchased house, said that it was "up to the community" as to whether Mr. Durst would be welcomed as a good neighbor.

Mr. Durst received attention in some high-profile police cases. His first wife, Kathleen, a medical student, disappeared in mysterious circumstances in 1982. A fictional version of the case was the basis for the 2010 film "All Good Things."

In 2000, a Los Angeles writer and longtime friend of Mr. Durst's was the victim of an execution-style death.

Mr. Durst wasn't charged in either of the cases, which remain open, and he has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Durst admitted killing a 71-year-old neighbor in Texas in 2001 and dumping his dismembered body in Galveston Bay, but was acquitted of homicide charges after asserting he acted in self-defense.

Eventually, in a plea bargain, Mr. Durst pleaded guilty to two counts of bond jumping and one count of evidence tampering in the case. He was sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison.

Mr. Durst now is married to a New York real-estate broker, Debra Lee Charatan, who runs a commercial brokerage in New York.

Teresa Chavin, who works at Ms. Charatan's brokerage firm, represented Mr. Durst in connection with the purchase of the Harlem property. Neither Ms. Charatan nor Ms. Chavin replied to requests for comment.

In 2006, Mr. Durst agreed to sever his ties with the company, and received a settlement.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204002304576631430935...

Comment by Brenda on October 24, 2011 at 6:52am

Cops eye his wife’s ’82 vanish
By LEONARD GREENE
Last Updated: 12:41 AM, October 24, 2011
Posted: 12:41 AM, October 24, 2011




Nearly 30 years after Robert Durst’s first wife vanished, Westchester County prosecutors say they are still investigating her disappearance and likely murder.
“It remains an open case, as does every unsolved homicide,” said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the Westchester DA.

But friends and family of Kathleen Durst fear the case is as cold as her suspected killer’s heart.

Kathleen, a medical student, had complained to friends that Robert Durst had become increasingly possessive and violent.

She disappeared on Jan. 31, 1982, after meeting Durst for dinner at their lakeside cottage in South Salem.

Kathleen Durst
Kathleen’s best friend, Gilberte Najamy, was the last person to see her alive, and said she remains frustrated that the investigation has stalled.

Najamy said she is convinced that Durst knows more than he is telling.

“He’s willing to do anything to protect himself,” Najamy said. “That’s the Bobby I know.”
Najamy said Kathleen had been planning to leave Durst but wanted to become a doctor and save up some money first.

Kathleen, 29, disappeared just several months before she was to graduate from medical school.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cops_eye_his_wife_vanish_YV8NyJx...

Comment by Brenda on June 15, 2011 at 9:57pm

Happy Birthday Kathleen..

Comment by Brenda on March 11, 2011 at 11:15pm

Published: Friday, December 17, 2010

‘All Good Things’: True crime story has unfinished quality

 

When “The Social Network” opened, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg came out and claimed he didn’t mind the mixed portrait of him found in the movie. And in fact, it’s hard to see a downside for Zuckerberg in that film, even if other characters keep calling him a variation of the word “jerk.”

It’s difficult to imagine that the real-life character portrayed in “All Good Things” will be quite as sanguine, and yet The New York Times has reported his shrugging response to this film, a reaction that supports the movie’s portrait of him as a privileged sociopath.

 

This washed-out drama is based on the story of Robert Durst, a man from a wealthy New York family whose wife vanished in 1982. The case has not been solved, although Durst was convicted of a later bizarre crime (acquitted because of self-defense in a murder, he was jailed for evidence tampering after he chopped up the body).

“All Good Things” introduces us to David Marks (the names are changed), played by Ryan Gosling. Although he has a slightly peculiar air, we might chalk that up to his reluctance to enter the real-estate business his father (Frank Langella) built, a business with a shady side.

 

Instead, David takes off and marries Katie (Kristen Dunst), who comes from the wrong side of the tracks. Their winsome dream of running an organic grocery in Vermont is doomed by the Marks family’s gravitational pull toward aristocracy and power.

 

Director Andrew Jarecki is best known for his documentary, “Capturing the Friedmans,” and that might explain why “All Good Things” meanders along for a while, the way a documentary can when it knows it’s going to get to its point eventually. This pays off in the details, like the way David’s father pointedly asks Katie’s mother to pay half the bill when the parents take their children out to a celebratory engagement lunch. He could afford to buy the restaurant they’re in, but that’s the kind of person he is.

 

Things begin to tighten when the Marks marriage turns sour, and then the big mystery takes center stage: What happened to Katie Marks?

 

Jarecki isn’t shy about offering certain scenarios, one of which paints Marks as the probable killer, aided by a friend (Lily Rabe), who lives to regret her involvement.

 

Things get really baroque toward the end, but oddly enough, the early reels are what you remember. The non-actory performance by Kirsten Dunst is impressive, as is her convincing interplay with Gosling (he’s always up for playing heels), convincing when they’re courting and when they’re fighting.

 

So, the movie has good things, but after a while it seems to be going in circles, and no definitive solution to the unsolved case is forthcoming. Maybe that’s why “All Good Things” feels like an unfinished draft, with a future update,

 

perhaps, tying together the loose ends.

“All Good Things” ½

A true-crime case (of the unsolved variety) comes to fitful life: A New York rich boy (Ryan Gosling) marries a blue-collar girl (Kirsten Dunst) in the hopes of escaping his family. But the gravitational pull is too strong, and murder is on the horizon. Good understated performances by the leads, but the film has an unfinished quality despite the weird true story.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20101217/ENT/712179980

Comment by Brenda on March 11, 2011 at 11:08pm

DNA might help solve Durst missing-person case

BY JONATHAN BANDLER • JBANDLER@LOHUD.COM • DECEMBER 4, 2010

 In late January 1981, Kathie Durst mailed a note to her brother and sister-in-law. A year later, the wife of real estate scion Robert Durst disappeared and has not been seen since.

Now after three decades, that letter, or specifically the envelope and stamp, could help investigators if Kathie Durst's remains are found.

Her brother, James McCormack, found the letter this summer when he and his wife were going through old boxes in their New Jersey home. It was nice to read it again, but McCormack was focused on the other items.

Only Kathie Durst would have licked that envelope and stamp, he figured. And if she licked them, maybe she left behind some DNA.

"It's as close as we can come to having something of her," McCormack said. "Every little thing helps. It's a way of tying things together (if a case is ever made)."

These were not things McCormack thought of in the months after his sister disappeared. He was most hopeful she would turn up alive. And DNA technology was not widely recognized then, so nobody in his family thought to save anything that might identify her down the road.

The letter and this week's release of the film "All Good Things", inspired by Robert Durst's bizarre, troubled life," make McCormack hopeful that there will be some break in his sister's case.

"Ultimately we want to resolve this so we can have some closure for the family and my sister," he said.

On Jan. 31, 1982, Kathie Durst was three months shy of graduating from medical school and stuck in a troubled marriage. She returned late that afternoon from a party in Connecticut to the couple's weekend retreat on Lake Truesdale in South Salem. Her husband claims he never saw her again after dropping her off.

The disappearance had languished as a New York Police Department missing-person case for years because Kathie Durst was believed to have been last seen the next morning at her Riverside Drive apartment building. Her husband didn't report her missing for four days and told police he had spoken by phone to her later that night.

But in 2000 state police Investigator Joseph Becerra got a tip that Kathie Durst was killed in the cottage. No definitive evidence was uncovered but when news broke that the investigation had been reopened, Robert Durst went into hiding, taking an apartment in Galveston, Texas.

Later that year, his best friend, Susan Berman, was fatally shot in her Los Angeles home, before Westchester County investigators had a chance to speak with her.

In 2001, Robert Durst was arrested in the murder of his neighbor, Morris Black, whose body parts were found floating in Galveston Bay. He claimed Black was killed accidentally when they struggled over a gun, and that he dismembered him in a panic. He was acquitted of murder, but served time for the dismemberment and gun possession.

Becerra is still on the Kathie Durst case, along with investigators from the Westchester District Attorney's Office, where a spokesman said it remained an "open investigation." Investigators recently picked up the letter, envelope and stamp from McCormack, and the items are now being tested at the county forensics lab.

If a DNA profile is obtained, the lab could have it entered into the national database to see if it matches any "Jane Doe" remains that have been found over the years.

Kathie Durst's friends and brother have been most vocal over the years of their suspicions of Robert Durst, speaking out on the abuse to which she was subjected, starting when her husband forced her to have an abortion.