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In October, Durst was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for allegedly killing friend Susan Berman, who was found dead inside her Beverly Hills home in Los Angeles.
It was alleged that Berman helped Durst cover up the disappearance of his wife, Kathie, in Northern Westchester County in 1982, in the hamlet of South Salem in the Town of Lewisboro, and he killed her out of fear she would speak out about the murder.
One of Durst’s lawyers confirmed his death, telling news outlets that his death “was due to natural causes” due to the many medical issues that plagued him toward the end of his life.
Durst’s health had been fleeting in recent years, culminating in his being placed on a ventilator late in 2021 after testing positive for COVID-19 while he fought bladder cancer while in prison.
The events surrounding his wife’s disappearance and a multistage manhunt that led to Durst’s arrest were chronicled in the 2015 HBO documentary “The Jinx,” which unearthed new evidence and concluded with Durst seemingly confessing on a hot mic to the crimes that were depicted.
Born on April 12, 1943, to real estate tycoon Seymour Durst and his wife, Bernice Herstein, Durst grew up in the village of Scarsdale in Westchester with his three younger siblings, Douglas, Tommy, and Wendy.
He graduated in 1965 from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, miles away from the town where he would later be captured as a fugitive for murder. After earning his bachelor’s degree in economics, Robert briefly enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of California before going to work for the family business, The Durst Organization.
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