Robert Durst, the multimillionaire son of a real estate mogul , seemed to have given police grounds to re-arrest him this week after he said in a “hot-mic” moment, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
Durst was arrested in New Orleans on a first-degree murder warrant issued by the Los Angeles Police Department earlier this week after evidence emerged about the comments he had made on the sets of an HBO documentary about his life called “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.”
Apparently Durst, who was linked to the murder of his friend Susan Berman more than 14 years ago, and also to shooting and dismembering a neighbour around that time, had unknowingly left his microphone on while using the bathroom in between filming and made the incriminating statement moments before the show closed.
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In 1982, Durst’s wife Kathleen disappeared after spending a weekend at the couple’s country home in New York State, following which Durst was imprisoned several times for unrelated crimes.
While he maintained his innocence all throughout, his unwitting confessional this week may have fuelled the investigations against him.
Durst’s attorney, Chip Lewis, was quoted as saying that “Nothing has changed,” however, and some challenged the suggestion that the HBO recording would be admissible in court.
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Conspiracy theories in the wake of his arrest suggested that the documentary’s director, Andrew Jarecki, had timed Durst’s arrest as a “publicity stunt” for the last episode, especially after Mr. Jarecki “all but promised TV critics and reporters that the ‘The Jinx’ would end with a satisfying conclusion.”