Murder suspect Robert Durst is sued for US$100m by wife’s family over 1982 disappearance

Relatives of embattled New York real estate scion Robert Durst’s missing first wife have filed a US$100 million lawsuit against him in New York, arguing he violated their right to bury her.

When Kathleen Durst, 29, initially disappeared from the couple’s suburban New York home in 1982, her husband told investigators that he dropped her off at the train station to take a train to the city, then spoke with her by phone once she arrived.

He denied having anything to do with her disappearance. She was pronounced dead in 1988, although her body was never found.

The lawsuit filed Monday stems from Durst’s comments during the HBO documentary The Jinx, which aired in the spring.

The documentary addressed not only his wife’s disappearance, but also Durst’s later acquittal in the dismemberment of a neighbour in Galveston, Texas. The documentary also discussed the execution-style shooting of Durst’s friend Susan Berman in her Los Angeles home in 2000.

The documentary led Los Angeles investigators to reopen the Berman case, issue a warrant for Durst’s arrest on a murder charge and — after he disappeared from his Houston condo — hunt him down in New Orleans in March.

“Durst admitted to killing Kathleen and others” in the documentary, Monday’s lawsuit alleges. “In a chilling confession caught on tape, Durst says, ‘There it is. … You’re caught. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course’.”