Cross-dressing millionaire Robert Durst tried to contact the family of Morris Black, the man he has admitted killing, Durst’s lawyer said yesterday.
Attorney Dick DeGuerin made the disclosure during a Galveston, Texas, hearing at which he sought to extend a gag order from the criminal case to a civil suit filed by Black’s family.
“There will be evidence during the [criminal trial] that Mr. Durst tried to contact Mr. Black’s family,” the lawyer said.
DeGuerin said he could not comment further because of the gag order – which was issued in December – and it could not be learned whether Durst tried to contact Black’s family before or after the murder.
Durst, 58, the heir to a Manhattan real-estate fortune, has admitted killing the 71-year-old Black, his next-door neighbor in Galveston,
But he claims he did it accidentally while defending himself from an attack.
Durst did not say anything about dismembering Black’s torso and limbs, which washed up on the shores of Galveston Bay on Sept. 30.
An autopsy revealed that the victim had received a bad beating and was in the early stages of a heart attack when he died.
Though Judge Susan Criss did not rule on DeGuerin’s request to extend the gag order, lawyers for all parties agreed they would do so informally.
DeGuerin also said he was not opposed to a prosecution request to send samples of Durst’s handwriting to Los Angeles police who are investing the murder of his longtime friend Susan Berman.
But the lawyer said he wanted to see the handwriting the samples would be compared to in return. The judge did not rule on the issue.
The LAPD wants the sample to compare it to the handwriting in a terse note saying there was a “cadaver” in Berman’s apartment.
(NY Post)
The Life and Crimes of Robert Durst 