Durst Lawyer: Dismemberment Is Evidence of Innocence

He left 'hundreds of clues' after killing man in 2001
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 20, 2021 3:36 AM CDT
Durst Lawyer Argues Dismemberment Is Evidence of Innocence
In this still image taken from the Law&Crime Network pool video, real estate heir Robert Durst, left, watches as Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, right, presents a new round of opening statement.   (Law&Crime Network via AP, Pool)

The savage and sloppy manner in which Robert Durst dismembered a man he accidentally killed in Texas helps prove the New York real estate heir didn’t murder his best friend or kill his wife, his lawyer argued Wednesday. Durst's amateurish efforts to dispose of the body of Morris Black after fatally shooting him in Galveston in 2001 left a trail of evidence—unlike the clinical crime scene where Susan Berman's body was found or the absence of clues when his wife vanished, attorney Dick DeGuerin said. A garbage bag floating in Galveston Bay with one of Black's body parts contained a receipt with Durst's name on it, blood from the drifter was discovered in his car, and DNA of the man was found at the crime scene in the multimillionaire's $300-a-month apartment.

"There was clues everywhere. Hundreds of clues," DeGuerin told jurors in Los Angeles County Superior Court. "Significantly different from whoever killed Susan Berman. Significantly different from the disappearance without a trace of Kathie Durst." DeGuerin, who represented Durst in the Texas trial in which he was acquitted of murder after claiming he shot Black in self-defense, is aiming for a repeat in Los Angeles, where Durst is charged with murder in Berman's fatal shooting in 2000, the AP reports. The trial began in March 2020 but was adjourned after six days because of the pandemic. It resumed this week. On Tuesday, Deputy District Attorney John Lewin said the three killings are intertwined and Berman and Black were killed to help cover-up the killing of Durst's wife.

(More Robert Durst stories.)

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