Robert Durst’s wife previously told her landlady she was afraid of her husband and asked if she could move into a separate apartment just a week before her disappearance – a court has heard.
Speaking at a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court Karen Minutello, testified that in 1982 she managed the New York complex where Robert and Kathleen Durst lived before her mysterious disappearance.
Ms Minutello said Kathleen Durst called her about a week before her disappearance and asked to rent her own unit because she didn’t want to live with her husband anymore.
‘She was hesitant, she didn’t just blurt out why. Then she did say she needed to get away from him,’ Minutello said.
‘She was afraid of him.’
A preliminary hearing begins Monday April 16, 2018, to determine if Durst will stand trial for murder of Susan Berman in 2000
Real estate heir Robert Durst appears in a Los Angeles Superior Court Airport Branch for a pretrial motions hearing in Los Angeles
Kathleen Durst has been missing for over 35 years after disappearing from her home in New York in 1982.
It is alleged Durst killed his college friend, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, because he believed she was going to tell police what she knew about Kathleen Durst’s death.
Robert Durst, 73, was arrested in New Orleans in 2015 and charged with killing Berman – who had acted as an informal spokeswoman for him, fielding constant media inquiries that followed Kathleen’s disappearance.
At an earlier hearing in Los Angeles, one of his oldest friends, Nick Chavin claimed Susan Berman had told him Durst was guilty of his wife’s murder.
‘Susan said to me, “Bob killed Kathie,”‘ Chavin testified.
Asked why he hadn’t told police of the admission earlier, Chavin said that Berman had insisted they protect Durst.
In a remarkable revelation, Chavin also claimed Durst had confessed his wife’s murder to him over dinner in 2014.
Durst has previously been the subject of a controversial HBO documentary ‘The Jink – The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst’
According to Chavin, when asked about Susan’s murder Durst said: ‘I had to. It was her or me. I had no choice.’
Robert Durst, a multimillionaire real estate tycoon, has never been charged with a crime related to his wife’s 1982 disappearance in New York.
He has also pleaded not guilty to Berman’s 2000 death at her Los Angeles house.
Berman told friends over the years that Durst acknowledged killing his wife and said she helped him cover his tracks. Prosecutors are hoping to use many of those hearsay statements at trial, which defense attorneys have vigorously challenged.
She also told one friend who testified at an earlier hearing that if anything happened to her, Durst would be the culprit.
Judge Mark Windham is set to rule on Tuesday over whether or not there is sufficient new evidence to take Durst to trial.