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Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah is planning to take the case to a grand jury, according to multiple reports, 39-years after Kathleen McCormack Durst suspiciously disappeared near the Connecticut border.
According to News 12, which first reported the news, subpoenas are going out and a jury search could begin as soon as next week. Rocah’s office has not commented on the matter since the news broke.
The move comes after Kathie Durst’s family called for a criminal investigation after Durst was convicted for murdering his friend and alibi in California last month.
Berman was a friend of Durst's who prosecutors said helped him cover up his wife, Kathie's, disappearance in New York, in 1982, in the Northern Westchester hamlet of South Salem in the Town of Lewisboro.
Kathie’s body has never been recovered, and no one has ever been charged in the case.
“Not a single day goes by that we do not think about our beautiful, smart, and kind sister, Kathleen,” the family said after Durst was convicted in California. “Today, more than ever before, it is clear that she was murdered by Robert Durst in Westchester County, New York on Jan. 31, 1982.
“The McCormack family is still waiting for justice,” they said in a previous statement. “Kathie is still waiting for justice.”
Prosecutors in Los Angeles also alleged that Durst killed his wife in the Westchester home.
"The justice system in Los Angeles has finally served the Berman family. It is now time for Westchester to do the same for the McCormack family and charge Durst for the murder of his wife, Kathie, which occurred almost forty years ago,” the McCormack family continued.
“Westchester DA Rocah has assembled a team of cold-case prosecutors and investigators every bit the equal of those in Los Angeles. It is time for Westchester to finally do the right thing.”
Durst has maintained his story that he saw her board a train to New York City on Jan. 31, 1982, after they spent the weekend at the South Salem home. He said he spoke with Kathie when she arrived at the couple’s Manhattan penthouse and he later had cocktails with a neighbor.
Police have never found evidence that Kathie Durst ever boarded a train or arrived in New York, while Durst later admitted under cross-examination that he lied about the phone call and drinks.
Cases looking into Kathie Durst’s disappearance and her husband’s potential culpability have been reopened over the years, including once by Rocah and in 2000 by then-DA Jeanine Pirro.
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